Your customers are already talking about you, and the fact that you aren’t participating is your implicit endorsement of whatever it is that they are saying, reminds Dave Evans in ‘Social Media Marketing: An hour a day’ (www.sybex.com). The Social Web, as it expands and exerts itself over at least a portion of contemporary marketing, is driving interconnectedness to new levels, he observes.
“This is the fundamental learning: your customers, using the Social Web, can talk with each other about you and about your products, services, and brand. You can’t control it directly. Your messages are only present in these conversations if your customers choose to bring them there, or choose to bring you there.”
It’s a party to which you can get invited, the author cheers. “Marketers, ignore your invitation to participate in the conversation at your own peril: This is your chance to be part of it and to influence the outcome through your participation.”
Use the social media as a guidepost, a feedback loop, he advises. For, it is through this loop that you can learn where and how to influence the social conversations that are important to you. “The feedback loop that connects the post-purchase conversation back to the purchase funnel is the key to the application of social media.”
And, central to social media, as Evans explains, is the connection between operations and marketing, between promise and delivery, between the actual experience and the expectations set. To those who still wonder about the importance of social media, he cites this forceful finding from recent studies: That “of the estimated 3.5 billion word-or-mouth conversations that occur around the world each day, about 2.3 billion of them – roughly two out of three – make a reference to a brand, product, or service.”
Paced read with ready takeaways.
**
Abominable anchor
When Karan Thapar appears on TV, is it natural or is he acting? A frequently-asked question, not so much a compliment as ‘a simple but sure kick in the pants,’ concedes Thapar in a ten-year-old essay included in ‘More Salt Than Pepper’ (www.harpercollins.co.in). However, before answering the poser, he explores the two reasons behind the curiosity. “The first is to suggest that anchors are frauds; the second implies that fraudulence is what anchoring is essentially about.”
An answer may come from an innocent bystander, through his admonition of Thapar, thus: “You always quarrel with the people you interview. Are you naturally unlikeable or pretending?” To which the author defensively replies, “No,” trying hard to smile, and suggests that he is, ‘in fact, full of warmth’ despite his ‘rakshas features’.
Another answer, apparently kinder, sees anchors as suffering from a serious problem – that they have to sound as if they mean what they are asking. “So even when the question is patently silly the voice behind it is full of conviction and belief.” Smile and slink off, Thapar counsels anchors who are faced with such a snide comment!
Ideal breakfast study, on a leisurely weekend, when you can afford to miss the lunch.
**
Outlier wisdom
Among the many anecdotes that R. Gopalakrishnan narrates in the new and revised edition of ‘The Case of the Bonsai Manager’ (www.penguinbooksindia.com) is this one about OMO, a heavy-duty detergent powder brand launched in the mid-1970s.
“In Germany, the promise of this successful brand was presented on the packaging through the mnemonic of clothes knotted together. The advertising stated that this product could break through the most difficult stains in the most difficult places,” the author recounts. “You could see this for yourself by tying your dirty clothes into knots – the detergent would reach the tough spots inside the knot and do its cleaning job.”
In India, after the test launch in Goa, when ‘working the outlets,’ Gopalakrishnan felt good because retailers were saying nice things about the product, its sales and the customer perceptions. But a few outlier opinions from some retailers kept haunting him, especially the customer feedback that ‘unless the clothes are tied into knots before immersion into the detergent solution, the product would not clean!’
Startled, and yet unable to ignore the feedback as unrepresentative, he distilled an important lesson from the experience – that the outliers may give you the valuable benefit of diverse and independent views.
Precious collection of insights.
**
BookPeek.blogspot.com
