Why Copying Poster Child Campaign Like Old Spice Will Hurt Your Social Media Strategy?

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The Old Spice campaign became the poster child for social media and selling to The Mobile Consumer. Yet, after the initial word of mouth marketing explosion, when you look at the Old Spice engagement after the campaign there is a huge let down.

I went and looked at Old Spice after some conversations I had regarding South African brands that have bought into the Social / Mobile idea. They initially embraced the idea, hoping for some word of mouth marketing and then got quite badly burnt.

Burning Money On Poor Social Media

Many have spent a lot of money on building FaceBook pages, twitter profiles and so and got marginal returns on from these mobile / social strategies. And if there is one thing that marketers want to see is a return on the investment, or else they wind up in the dog box.

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Why Your Big Budget Advertising Is Doomed To Failure (Sorry)!

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The traditional media eco-system is going through a major metamorphosis. At first glance it would seem that this is largely driven by the changes of an evolving internet platform and mobile media — something where I think many marketers are taking huge strain just to manage the effects it is having on their brand and media strategies.

Changing Consumer Behaviour

Personally, I think this strain is more about the change in how our consumer are making decisions today. And I think this is the flaw where most media strategies fail.

There is no doubt that there is a symbiotic relationship between the evolving multimedia platforms and consumer behaviour. How consumers make decisions and what influences these decisions has  radically evolved from the first TV commercial and marketer’s ability to refine the advertising process.

Today, TV commercials do not have the credibility that they used to. As consumers, we no longer dogmatically believe what a brand says about itself to be true. Now we believe what other consumers say and we the ability to find information in different ways and validate what we want through a peer review system.

How Billions of Dollars Are Being Flushed Down The Toilet

All I have to do is go online validate if I am making the right choice about a product I want. Lets say its a new printer that I am about to buy. It looks like a good product and I know it has a good brand name.

What happens when I use my Blackberry, click through amazon to see what other people say and find 10 bad reviews? I replace the product with one that has good reviews.

For the brand that could mean millions of dollars of advertising investment and years of brand building down the tube. Ouch. And if your consumer believes that you are not being upfront and honest you will pay a severe price.

The Fragmented Media Eco-System

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Is your IT messing up your potential customer relationships?

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Don’t get me wrong. I love technology. I love what it brings to us and what it can do in our daily lives. But it scares me when the IT department is put in charge of a really important marketing tool. This is not good for customer relationships.

As part of our initiative to make technology and marketing work more effectively to build customer relationships, we have set up a new project Create a Website. Our point is simple.

The goal of your website is to focus on customer relationships — and either generate leads or convert sales. YOur website is not a technical coding project.

To get this right we use WordPress – a really powerful – and free content management system and the hosting we use. But this is the email I got the other day (bold added by me):

Morning Michael,

Firstly I must thank you for all the information you sent through.

I have come in today and spoken to my boss about the website the hosting and domain etc; too which she replied we already have all of that….

Our IT company has organized our host and our domain it was just a case of no one actually sat down to create the website.

I am rather upset about this as I was really excited about this project, now all the work that I have prepared for it is going to be emailed to our IT guys and they are going to do everything from them.

So once again Thank you for taking the time to prepare that information from me and I assure you if I ever need somebody for this reason I am saving your contact details and you will be the first I call!

Have a super day!

Missed customer relationship opportunity

Based on the ignorance of this boss a really important part of the marketing strategy has just gone down the loo. This company is a small business and they have just handed potentially their most vital marketing communication tool over to the IT department.

Here is what is going to happen from here on:

  • The IT will waste weeks sorted out a website from scratch trying to design a site
  • It will then site in cyber space –wasted
  • The boss will then be convinced that the web is a useless medium as there were no real results.
  • No customer relationships will be developed

And all because the site was left to the IT department – who have no idea of marketing, how to market a website  and how to build customer relationships. Ironically they may not even understand how to code a website.

So how do you set up a website to build customer relationships

When setting up a website the following questions should be looked at and reviewed:

  • How does our customer look for information?
  • What tools does our customer use to communicate with each other and others?
  • What is the point of the website: Is it a marketing site or an online brochure?
  • How do we market the site: Howe do we expect to get traffic?
  • How do we measure the effectiveness of the site?

When you are looking at the specific website details here is what I would review:

  • What open source technology can we use?
  • Is the code well designed so that Google likes it?
  • Is the code flexible and easy to use?
  • How much is it going to cost to make any changes?
  • How much can we manage in house versus outside?

The one customer relationship tool that is critical

When it comes to creating credibility and getting people to take there is one major consideration: Content.

Good compelling content is critical for a user. You need to design your content in the following way:

  • Your potential customer wants to come into your site and see a theme
  • The themed content must be relevant to what they are looking for
  • They must want to read it
  • Is it up to date
  • Is it focused on their needs rather than your own posturing (our directors are on the front page?)

The most important marketing strategy note:

The internet has caused a paradox for many marketers and how to build customer relationships. On the one side it has amplified the traditional broadcast approach. It has opened multiple means of communication for your customers.

It has also amplified your customer’s life. It has allowed them to talk to others, review things and learn about new subjects in a flash. Today they are happy to give their attention to brands that are relevant and are trustworthy.

To simply put up a website and hope that it is going to work is naive. And really hopeful. It will not work. And like all things that you demand in your business it should work. It should get results and make a difference.