To round off this blog, for now, I would like to touch on something I have briefly mentioned earlier in the blog post “Your wallet is being eaten” – The results from an Ernst and Young survey showed, that mobile is viewed as the future’s most important growth driver. Let’s dig a little deeper on this subject.

The report “Score Your Mobile Marketing Maturity” takes us down the road to the world of mobile. As today’s consumers are always addressable and are able to connect everywhere through their mobiles, one should think that this is something all companies would embrace. However, the report showed that 34% of the respondents said their company had no plans to launch mobile marketing programs. Several obstacles could explain this reluctance to engage in mobile, including lack of organizational support, no best practices to lean on, or ambiguity on how to measure mobile. The report suggests scoring your organization’s mobile maturity. I believe that this can be a helpful tool, but I can’t help thinking of something else, that could be equally rewarding.

In general “Knowing your customers” has become a mantra, something you should strive towards. Tools as monitoring, social technographics and the consumer decision journey, are all telling us something about our customers. I wonder if a tool for assessing mobile usage patterns exists. The Forrester report states that “The bottom line is that as your customers’ mobile activity accelerates, so must your organization’s expertise”. I agree that this is true, however you could be more specific. What is meant by “mobile activity accelerates”? Can you score your customers’ mobile maturity?

I imagine that target customer groups can vary a lot in their mobile behavior. If you could assess customer mobile maturity and then compare it with your own score, you could get a more precise idea of where you should be or go. Why not stay ahead of the development? Strategically this comparison would be of great value – instead of wandering around in the world of mobile somewhat blindfolded, you would have a direction to go, a visible target to aim at. After all, it is your customers who you should walk with, so in a sense, they decide the direction.

According to the Forrester Groundswell framework the sequence of the 5 objectives is monitoring, talking, energizing, supporting and embracing. While the first three are usually a big enough challenge, I will now show you two examples of how companies can take it to the next level – embracing customers!

Starbucks went for it

Embracing includes integrating customers in the company’s world and using their help to design products and improve processes. Starbucks actually have a function on their website called “My Starbucks Idea”. It allows any fan to come up with ideas for improving the Starbucks business. Every idea that is submitted will be reviewed, and if it is a great idea it will be launched. To maintain trust and enthusiasm, each will have a symbol next to it signaling the status of the idea, whether it is being reviewed, already reviewed or if it has been launched. This way Starbucks can show customers that their requests aren’t going unheard, and every fan can follow their idea in the process. In addition fans can comment on all the ideas, creating a place to chat and brainstorm new ideas to help improve the business.

Mountain Dew went further !

“Mountain Dew put 100% of the power into the Flavor Nations to control the direction, marketing and branding of the respected flavors.”

They started something very unique called the Dewmocracy. It was a campaign empowering users to choose which of three new flavors that should become a permanent flavor in the Mountain Dew Family. What is really interesting though, is that Mountain Dew handed over the responsibility for choosing the three final flavors to users as well. They started out with seven experimental new flavors, and then selected 50 applicants who then were sent “test kits” of the seven flavors. They had to test the flavors and report their reactions to each flavor. The seven flavors were then narrowed down to the three most popular.

However, Mountain Dew went EVEN further.

The 50 applicants were divided into three different groups called Flavor Nations. These Flavor Nations were given the responsibility of everything about promoting their Flavor. They named it, designed it and even did all of the marketing!

The campaign turned out to be a huge success. Fans appreciated the fact that they could choose what they wanted the most. People would talk about which flavor they liked best, post it on their favorite social media network, and even blog about it. This helped Mountain Dew’s Dewmocracy campaign become viral, and a social media hit.

The Mountain Dew example is incredible in terms of embracing customers. Not only did they ask the customers for help in choosing and designing the next new product, they made customers work for them by giving them a sense of ownership over the product. What a strong connection, I bet their net promoter score went through the roof!

A precedent to McDonald’s successful “Our Food, Your Questions” campaign, actually exists though on in a slightly different form and on a smaller scale. The core idea however is the same – explaining and answering questions from customers about the process of how their food is made.

Many farmers across Canada have become aware of Twitter as a tool to bridge the gap between farm and table. They use it to connect with Canadians wanting to know more, about where the food comes from. One farmer answered questions on pesticide use, which can be seen as a parallel to McDonald’s asking questions about whether their food is real beef.  This farmer also invited a consumer to come and walk in his soybean field. This “behind the scenes” experience can be viewed as a parallel to the McDonald’s video on YouTube, taking you behind the scenes of a photo shoot of a burger.

Tweeting farmer

As there were misconceptions about the McDonald’s food and the process of making it, farmers have been suffering from this as well. One farmer says: “There’s that misconception that there are hormones everywhere throughout the milk, and of course that’s definitely not the case”. This farmer has been able to accommodate questions about this on Twitter and, to some extent, dispel the misconception.

As McDonald’s sought to change the consumer perception of the quality of their food to the better, the farmers’ mission was the same. One said: “I think the big thing is you want to make sure that people are comfortable with the processes that you’re doing on your farm (…) and knowing where your food comes from”.

As my example shows, it is not only the big corporations, who do great social media campaigns. Social media is a tool that everyone can leverage. Normally when discussing “monitoring”, most of the focus is on listening to consumers in the category. However, I see no reason why large companies shouldn’t be monitoring the initiatives of smaller companies as well. These could turn out to be a great source of inspiration.

Twitter can be used for many things, apparently also as a “mood meter”.

Cornell University researchers find most people worldwide have the same mood rhythms. They used a text-analysis program to analyze 509 million tweets and measure the “positive affect (enthusiasm, delight, activeness, alertness, etc.) or negative affect (distress, fear, anger, guilt, disgust, etc.) expressed by the text”.

The results showed that people tend to be more positive on weekends and early in the morning. Generally people’s mood slowly gets worse during the day. “Twitter moods and the rhythm of those moods are about the same in among the 2.4 million users in 84 different countries surveyed over a two-year period”.

This could potentially be very interesting information for marketers at companies. This essentially is an alternative way of monitoring. Why not use this information to pick the right time to engage with customers online? You could try to encourage conversation at times when people generally are in a good mood. For wider implications however, one might ask critical questions like “what about all the people who don’t use twitter?”. Can the results of the study be generalized to those people? Furthermore the tool is only analyzing the text in tweets, what about pictures, sound and videos? What role do these elements play? Lastly you may address the issue of the number of tweets during the day. What if you are in a really good mood in the evening, just before you go to bed, but don’t tweet about it?

Click on the picture above to read the article and watch the videos.

Even though the study is very interesting, and exemplifies how the role of social media is evolving, the results are in my opinion not yet ready to be utilized in a business environment without further research.

Maybe in the future, social media can provide information about consumers that we had never imagined.

After the hurricane Sandy hit New York last week, many photos circulated online. However, many of these photos were fake. They were retweeted on Twitter, shared on Facebook and liked on Instagram, in some cases tens of thousands of times. The photos are either old photos from other hurricanes, completely manipulated photos or old manipulated photos. One example is a photo of a shark swimming through the streets of New Jersey:

It turns out, that the shark has been “photoshopped” into the picture. This is just one out of many – for other photos, click here 

It can be very hard to determine whether photos are true or false. This is an example of how easy it has become to create false content, for example by using tools as Photoshop.

I think this problem becomes especially relevant, to techniques for encouraging users to create content, such as “Flipping the funnel”. This might be an effective way of encouraging conversations and user generated content, but it is also subject to one of the major disadvantages of UGC which my example illustrates – loss of control, people can create almost anything. Companies can’t control what content users create, and how they converse about the brand. Due to this lack of control, you can’t totally prevent untrue content to circulate. Some people advocating user generated content, seem to pay very little or no attention to how to deal with false content or even prevent it. I think you need to think about how to minimize motivation to create false content, and stimulate motivation to create truthful content. You could monitor and remove false content yourself, or even help customers filter out and report false content.

Now, the photo below is supposed to be the original photo. But is it true? – I really don’t know. The photo looks incredible and could just be another “photoshop production”.

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…what do YOU think?

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To finish this of, there are also stories of problems the other way around, where companies pretend to be a user, and then create fake content such as positive reviews on their own products. This adds another layer of complexity to the debate about trust in UGC. Indeed it is a complex issue, and sometimes it is almost impossible to tell the loyals from the lyers.

One might think that due to the rise of social media and the increasing number of shoppers using mobile and tablet devices to access content, core elements of e-marketing such as email could become outdated.

From “The Purchase Path Of Online Buyers In 2012” I have picked out a couple of interesting results, that tell us otherwise.

One of the key take-aways is, that email matters most for repeat customers. It “is an extremely effective tactic for driving sales from repeat shoppers” – in fact 30% of transactions started with a click on an email from the retailer. Another key point is, that paid search matters most for new customers. They are much more influenced by paid search than repeat buyers – search was “the single most important tactic for new customers; 39% of transactions by new customers started with clicks from paid or organic search results”. The last key point, I would like to put forward, is that social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers. Less than 1% of transactions, for both new and repeat customers, could be traced back to social links. Nevertheless customers report that they enjoy seeing social network links and posts that are about specific products. The weak connection with actual influence on sales is mostly due to the fact, that these tactics are at the top of the customer decision funnel, furthest away from the purchase decision. Most likely these tactics require a longer measurement period than the 30-day period of this report.

What I get from this is that although social is important, it should not be overestimated and it should not neglect tools as search and email, that has a strong impact on sales. Most surprisingly email marketing is still very powerful, and email optimization along with search engine optimization deserve a lot focus.

The social networks did not kill the email marketing industry after all.

At least not yet!

A Saturday in September in a small quiet place in Denmark, a video is shot. It is a video shot in the dying minutes of a Danish second division football game. With an acrobatically bicycle kick the goalkeeper of Frem scores a dramatic equalizer in extra time. The video was put on YouTube, and you can watch it by clicking here or on the picture below:

Now, Denmark is a small country. The event itself, a low-level football game, is nothing spectacular and the clubs and players involved are not famous, not even in Denmark. Will this video go viral?

In this video Tom Ewing explains what constitutes online sharing and communication – in other words; viral potential. I decided to try to analyze the example using this framework called ComMotion™ Index.

According to the framework, emotional intensity is linked to sharing – the feeling of surprise in particular. The three factors tied closely to viral potential is emotional intensity, surprise and a bit of happiness. These three factors are all present in the video; it is emotional intense – the clock is ticking, they are behind, they desperately need that equalizing goal; it is surprising – suddenly the goalkeeper comes forward for the corner kick, he attempts a bicycle kick and scores a last-minute equalizer; it contains happiness – people go crazy and celebrate as if they had won the game.

My conclusion of this mini analysis is that the video has high viral potential. But in reality I would not predict it to spread outside of Denmark, because of its, in my opinion, limited relevance to people not involved with the clubs or players. Now, what happened?

The video lived up to its viral potential! The YouTube video spread throughout the world, and today this video can be found online at news sites in Denmark, England, Spain, New Zealand, Australia and Norway and has almost 3 million views on YouTube!

This example supports the framework mentioned, and that it can be worthwhile to think about what drives viral potential. Personally I am amazed that a video, so insignificant, can spread so far and quickly. It exemplifies the power of online sharing and communication and the use of social media such as YouTube.

However, to me it is not evident that things going viral equal improved performance for companies, e.g. increased sales, visits, awareness etc. The next question needed to be explored is therefore; what makes viral efficient and how do you measure it?

What was recently unknown to me has actually been on the market for a while. Google Wallet, released on September 19 2011, recently expanded support to all major credit and debit cards. Basically you use your mobile phone as your wallet. It is a payment tool that you can use not only online but offline as well!

Google Wallet

You can even keep track of offers at participating merchants with Google Offers:

Make Your Phone Your Wallet!

What we are witnessing here is converging technologies! If you think about it, you could actually just use your Smartphone or tablet for almost everything. You can connect to the internet, check your email, write notes and manage pictures and videos as on a laptop. You can listen to music like on your MP3-player and play games as well. It works as a camera, a GPS, a watch and even a flashlight. With the ever increasing amount of apps there are almost no limits and Smartphones and tablets are challenging many devices.  Now, it seems, your Smartphone is swallowing your wallet as well!

For marketers this development is an indication about the future and the customers of the future. No wonder Media CEO’s look to Smartphones and tablets for future digital growth. According to an article on eMarketer, a survey conducted by Ernst and Young showed that 100% of respondents cited mobile devices as the biggest drivers of growth in content consumption over the next three years.

Tablets and Smartphones actually beat social media when CEO’s were asked about what they thought will have the greatest effect on the media and entertainment industry in the next three years

Having a strategy for how to reach out and connect to customers through these mobile devices consequently becomes of greater importance. Back to the Google Wallet example, you can have your ad offered to users or have your offer sent out to users through the app Google Shopper. If the Google Wallet continues to grow it will be an attractive way to connect to customers. Imagine the first thing customers see when they open their wallet is your product and brand!

People all over the world are connecting with each other through social media. Companies are being told to utilize on this and integrate social media into their marketing strategies. As Brian Solis describes it “As you’ll no doubt read here over and over again, social media is important to your business. If you don’t engage on Twitter, Facebook, or Youtube, you’ll eventually go out of business. At least that’s what the experts will have you believe”.  What I refer to as “social media madness” is when companies, in fear of falling behind, try to connect with customers without any strategy or insight.  But why do I call this madness?

The keyword here is relevance. Simple exposure to ads and content on Facebook or YouTube doesn’t mean that customers will like you, buy your product or even be aware of your brand. The mind is selective, paying attention to the elements that are relevant to us in the sense that we are motivated to look for it in some way. The following YouTube video demonstrates this:

Selective Attention

Bombarding people with things not relevant to them is therefore “madness” and will not significantly increase your click through rates for your ads. Think about how many ads you see on Facebook every day. How many do you really notice or remember? According to my own experience it is close to zero.  Some people will say that it still has an unconscious effect just seeing them. Either way I agree with Brian Solis that you need to understand your customers and how they connect, discover and communicate. He talks about a new generation C, who are far more connected than everyone else. They are almost literally born with a Smartphone and a Facebook account. In order to effectively integrate social media in the marketing strategy, I believe companies need to understand what’s relevant to the customers. If they learn what’s relevant to them, companies can try to motivate customers and thereby gain their attention. It is not about being present in social media; it is about knowing where and when to be.

Now a days companies seem to be seeking volume and virality over strategy and purpose. My point is; Don’t get caught up with the shiny object “Social Media”, get the people, objectives and strategy right first. Exposure doesn’t equal meaningful associations!

I have never really thought about searching as an experience, until reading this article by Shari Thurow on Searchengineland.com. While reading I realized that a lot of the arguments in the article are true. For example; if I can’t find what I am looking for on Google, I tend to blame them, instead of thinking about my own role, or the specific website’s role in creating a good searcher experience. Search engine, searcher and website all have some kind of responsibility. When these three elements are aligned, I agree that it adds value. Surely, if you find what you are looking for as easy as possible, you are a happy searcher.

According to the post “20 Surprising Statistics about Online Search Behavior” by Timothy Lorang, 82.6% of internet users use search, search directly drove 25% of all online U.S. device purchases and the average online research to offline purchase conversion rate for auto parts is 85%. These facts are interesting because they support the importance of creating a good searcher experience. Not only can search drive online sales directly, it also has a big influence on offline purchases.

Does the successful companies excel at creating successful search experiences? Or are their customers good websearchers? That is hard to tell and there could easily be other reasonable explanations. One thing is sure though – it shows the potential power of creating a good search experience. No wonder businesses spend big chunks of their budgets on paid search such as Google Adwords. At the same time though, I agree with Mr. Lorang, that improving your organic search results page rankings will benefit you in the long term, while the paid search have more short term benefits. Because what happens if you run out of money or can’t afford to be on top of the search page? Again this supports the idea that you have to focus on, and align all of the three elements in creating a good searcher experience, not just focusing on for example paid search, even though it can get you immediate results.

Who knows? –  there might well be more than three elements in creating successful searcher experiences, that has to be explored.