ILTA White Paper

Jnr 2010

Leveraging Social Mediafor High-Impact Marketing

rob robinsonApplied discovery

SlNewrn

Lern e Rles f Enemen

This article was frst published in ILTA’s January 2010 white paper titled

“Social Networking: Learn the Rules of Engagement”

and is reprinted here withpermission. For more inormation about ILTA, visit their website at www.iltanet.org.

n today

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sound-bite

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environment in whichproessional organizations compete or clientattention through a variety o communicationsconduits, it is increasingly important to considerand evaluate the potentially powerul benets o new social media tools. However, to properly leveragetheir benets, one must also understand that thesenew tools are just that –– tools. Social media toolsshould be used with a clear objective in mind and withthe consistent application o well-known but otenoverlooked communications principles. Furthermore,they will have the most marketing impact when usedin conjunction with other social and nonsocial mediacommunications tools.Communicators seeking to maximize the ecacyo social media tools should consider key areas thatinclude marketing ocus, behavioral infuence andcontact requency. These considerations can be appliedwithin a communications continuum using specic socialmedia tools to help communicators eectively close thedeal with current and potential customers. Social mediatools can bring new opportunity in this nal phase o the marketing process commonly reerred to as

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the lastthree eet,

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where personal contact with the customerturns opportunity into business.

MaRkEtiNg FocuS

Wikipedia denes

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Social Media

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as . . .

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media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalablepublishing techniques. Social media use Internet- and Web-based technologies to transorm broadcast mediamonologues (one to many) into social media dialogues(many to many). It supports the democratization o knowledge and inormation, transorming people romcontent consumers into content producers.

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From a practical point o view, social media leverage onlinetools and techniques to reach, inorm, engage, encourage andinfuence clients interactively.In order to truly optimize social media capabilities,communicators must clearly identiy and understand exactlywhat it is they are trying to achieve and ensure that theircommunication eorts are ocused on supporting theirobjectives. In the business arena, one o the best ways torame one

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s ocus is to view potential objectives in relation tomarketing and traditional marketing categories.According to the American Marketing Association,

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Marketingis the activity, set o institutions, and processes or creating,communicating, delivering, and exchanging oerings that havevalue or customers, clients, partners, and society at large.

”

This article was frst published in ILTA’s January 2010 white paper titled

“Social Networking: Learn the Rules of Engagement”

and is reprinted here withpermission. For more inormation about ILTA, visit their website at www.iltanet.org.

There are our key areas considered to be part o an overall marketing mix, oten reerred to as the

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4 P

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These are:

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Product (Service):

The product aspects o marketing deal with thespecications o the actual goods or services and howthese relate to the end user

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s needs and wants. The scopeo a product or service also generally includes supportingelements such as warranties, guarantees and support.

•

Pricig:

This reers to the process o setting a price or a product,including discounts. The price need not be monetary; it cansimply be what is exchanged or the product or services(

e.g.

, time, energy or attention). Methods o setting pricesoptimally are in the domain o pricing science.

•

Promotio:

Advertising and sales promotion include promotionaleducation, publicity and personal selling. Brandingreers to the various methods o promoting the product,brand or company.

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Placemet (Distriutio):

Placement reers to how the product gets to the customerincluding point-o-sale placement or retailing. This ourth

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”

hassometimes been called

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Place,

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reerring to the channel by whicha product or service is sold (

e.g.

, online vs. retail), the geographicregion or industry in which it is sold and to which segment(young adults, amilies, business people).The environment inwhich the product is sold can also aect sales.In addition, there is the overshadowing category o People. This category –– typically omitted rom traditionalmarketing category descriptions but certainly relevant inlight o the relationship component o social media –– playsan integral role in increasing the importance o marketingmessages developed around and ocused on the

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4 P

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To maximize the use o social media, it is necessaryto develop a ocused marketing message. Determiningwhich marketing category to leverage and developingcommunications to support that category should increasethe chance or success with social media. Delivering dynamiccommunication that will gain and maintain client infuence isessential or optimal use o social media tools.

Figure 1

How does one change and maintain change in customer behavior?*

* W.R. Robinson, Houston, TX, 1995.

M o t i v a t i o n t o C h a n g e

Behavior Over Time

Change Maintain

Change and Maintain Behavior Curve

EmotionsLogic

HighLowEarlyLate

Emotional Impetus StimulatesConsideration o Behavior ChangeAdditional Emotional Stimulus CanPrevent Change i Logic Not SucientLogic Translates Emotional StimulusInto a Decision or ChangeLogic Continues to Provide Basis orContinued ChangeDecision to Change Made(Example: Make a Purchase)

This article was frst published in ILTA’s January 2010 white paper titled

“Social Networking: Learn the Rules of Engagement”

and is reprinted here withpermission. For more inormation about ILTA, visit their website at www.iltanet.org.

BEhavioRaL iNFLuENcE

In order to infuence a customer, it is prudent to rst becomeamiliar with the components o customer behavior. There areboth emotional and logical elements to client decisions –– andthe impact o these elements changes over time.Figure 1 illustrates a predictable fow to customerdecisions that ollows this general sequence:

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Iitially a potetial customer is stimulated throughemotio to cosider a chage i ehavior.

This emotion, resulting rom a high motivation to considerchange, progresses toward the need to justiy the consideredchange with logic over time.

Example o Need or Emotional Stimulus: I am usinglegacy sotware or CRM, and my frm wishes to improveits client relationship processes. A new product lookspromising, and i I can implement a product that saves thefrm money, my employer will be impressed.

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At some poit durig the cosideratio o chage, thecustomer egis to have to justiy the emotioal desire orchage with a logical reaso or cosiderig the chage.

Example o Need or Logical Stimulus: I want to impressmy employer by providing cost savings, thereore Ineed to recognize and work through specifc return oninvestment examples.

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Oce oth the emotioal ad logical stimuli or chagehave ee preseted, the idividual eig ifueced(audiece) typically makes a decisio to chage ormaitai his or her ehavior.

Example o Behavioral Change: It seems I can help thefrm save money. The new product is compelling, and thereturn on investment numbers support its adoption, so Iam going to purchase the new product.

I, at this point, there is not a decision to change behavior,then the communicator

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s message (both emotional and logicalstimulus components) may need to be rened.

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Oce ehavior has ee chaged, the ext majorchallege is maitaiig the desired customer ehavior.

This can be accomplished by continuing to send messagesto the customer with logical reasons or maintaining his/her behavior along with ensuring that emotion-targetedmessaging is not neglected. This combination serves toprevent competitive emotional and logical messaging romgrabbing the attention o the customer and resulting in a non-desired change o behavior.

Example o Maintaining Behavioral Change: Thechange appears to be saving the frm money, and the return-on-investment case studies shared by thevendor seem to show that this is the best product touse to continue saving money.

In addition to ocusing one

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s message tothe appropriate marketing category and reningcommunications according to the emotional and logicalcomponents o infuence, the eectiveness o socialmedia tools may also be increased by understandinghow many contacts it takes to get that message throughto the client.

coNtact FREquENcy

In his widely read book,

Guerilla Marketing

, JayConrad Levinson shares that, rom a contactperspective, there is signiicant beneit in multiplecontacts with potential customers and a signiicantincrease in probability o a client being inluencedwhen contacted ive or more times.In applying this sales-centric call success probabilitymetric to the use o communications in general, andsocial media communications specically, it seemsreasonable to assert that one could maximize the use o social media tools by providing a ocused message withemotional and logical elements, and then deliveringthat message ve or more times to a customer in anunobtrusive manner. This non-intrusiveness is a key pointgiven the rapid dissemination and response capability o most social media tools.Once one understands the Change/MaintainBehavior Continuum (Figure 1) and the numbero contacts that may be required to infuencecustomers (Figure 2), consideration can be given tohow this knowledge can be applied with a variety o communications techniques.

coMMuNicatioNS coNtiNuuM

Traditionally, organizations have sought to infuenceusers through a combination o print and onlinematerials shared directly by sales team members inace-to-ace encounters. However, with the advent andacceptance o social media, organizations can nowmove a signicant portion o conventional ace-to-aceencounters to an online environment –– a movementthat can speed the sharing and collaboration betweeninfuencers and those being infuenced.In communicating with others, one

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s interactionsmay be classied as reaching, inorming, engaging,or encouraging (infuencing) others. Whether these