Social media in the era of customer advocacy

Move over influencers; advocates are more valuable to brands.  It’s a fact that customer advocacy bring more life and longer term value for a brand.  Here are some reasons why:

Influencers can be bought; but may not always deliver

Most influencers don’t really care about your brand.  They may find your product useful; but they are too busy being influencers – tweeting, blogging, and recording webinars to really care. They love getting free trials and new products before they hit the market; and very rarely will they say no to you or other brands when they are offered that new shiny object.

But how many times have you seeded a product to an influencer without any result?

Most influencers get pitched several times a day and all it does is feed their egos; so the time commitment of reaching out to them won’t always reap any positive benefit much less any business value to a brand. The key point to remember is that influencers are great for generating buzz; not so great for driving purchase decisions

The reality is that with many influencer programs, brands are just renting the conversation; and unfortunately the conversation isn’t always authentic. Influencer outreach programs do have some validity to a brand’s marketing initiatives, especially high tech brands. They just need to be done smart and strategically and it shouldn’t be the core focus

Advocates love your brand and tell others too

“If you love your customers, they will love you back and tell others about it.”

Here is the great thing about advocates. They love you even if you don’t give them the time of day. They are vocal, passionate and are not afraid to give your brand praise (on and off line).  And, while they may not have hundreds of Twitter followers or thousands of RSS subscribers, the conversation with them is always authentic. I would also argue that advocates outnumber influencers by a long shot. Can you imagine for a second what the impact would be if you paid just a little attention to your advocates? It’s not hard to do at all; and the great thing about it is that they don’t label themselves and are very easy to approach.  While influencers consider themselves influencers; advocates don’t really care. And, that makes your job so much easier.

Tapping into the emotional equity

There is definitely an emotional connection between a brand and its advocates.  It’s the reason why I only buy one kind of television.  It’s not out of habit, convenience or price either because the brand I love is quite expensive.  But I have an emotional connection to the brand, Sony. The connection can stem from just about anything – a previous brand experience, the value the product brings to someone’s life, its swagger or the product simply kicks ass.  When a brand actually becomes human and spends time nurturing their advocates; the emotional equity will grow exponentially. And that’s a hard bond to break.

Advocates affect the sales funnel

Marketers spend a lot of time and money trying to figure out what messages resonate with customers; and which channels have the greatest conversion rates. We are talking about millions in media spend that aims to drive marketing messages in each of the key sales or marketing funnel phases.  And smart marketers are also creating metrics models for each phase of the funnel to measure the effectiveness of these messages.

The sales funnel is evolving, especially as we think about advocacy.  In this model, customer advocacy is at the centre. It’s meant to illustrate the power of social media and how advocates aid and influence their micro communities down the sales funnel through authentic messages (or everyday conversation) between brands and consumers.

It’s circular in nature because as a brand invests and drives customer advocacy; they will, in turn, influence others at various phases of the purchase funnel; thus creating a cycle of influence and advocacy that the brand is facilitating.

IRISH LEAGUE OF CREDIT UNIONS LAUNCHES ‘WHATS LEFT’ DISPOSABLE INCOME TRACKER INDEX

Research Conducted by iReach Market Research

FIRST INDEX SHOWS 13% OF IRISH HOMES CANNOT MAKE ENDS MEET

83% of respondents who have little or no income left over after paying for essentials worry about how they will cope if unforeseen expenses arise

36% of those with little or no income left over each month do not see a future for themselves or their family in this country

45% of respondents state that they are unlikely to have money to save in the current economic climate.

(April 2011) The Irish League of Credit Unions has today announced the launch of a new disposable income tracker index. The ‘What’s Left’ Index will record how much disposable income Irish people have this year, where they are spending their money and the financial hardships they are facing. The 2011 results will be used as baseline measurements for the ‘What’s Left’ trackers over the coming years. The results of the 2011 trackers will be announced in April, July, October and December.

Speaking at the launch, ILCU CEO Kieron Brennan said: “It has become more and more apparent that many Irish families are seriously struggling in what are very difficult financial times. We have just seen an ECB rate increase last week which is likely to push families and individuals further into mortgage difficulties and arrears. This combined with increasing fuel costs, the introduction of the universal social charge and cuts in social welfare means that 2011 will be one of the most difficult years for the Irish population in terms of money management.

He continued: The aim of the ILCU ‘What’s Left’ tracker is to highlight the areas in which Irish people are experiencing financial difficulty, for example; the amount of disposable income left each month after essential bills are paid, capacity to save money each month, what families consider essential spending and to what extent people worry about their finances for the year ahead.

Highlights from the ‘What’s Left’ tracker was undertaken by iREACH Market Research on behalf of the Irish League of Credit Unions

The highlights from the first (April 2011) ILCU ‘What’s Left’ tracker found that, as expected, mortgage and rent are seen as the largest / most important bills for respondents (72%). This is followed by utilities (55%) and groceries (51%). Transport / car (26%), loan repayments (25%), credit cards (25%) and health insurance (24%) were all ranked at a similar level of importance.

Of all respondents: 21% of have between 1 – 5% of their income left over after they have paid essential bills. 6% state their income doesn’t even cover their essential bills while a further 7% state that they have nothing left after they have paid their essential bills to live on.

27% of respondents have just enough (10-20%) of their disposable income left over after they have paid for all their essentials while a further 20% have more than 20% left over which is enough to enjoy themselves.

Of those that work: 19% of respondents have between 6-10% of their income left over after they have paid for their essentials. It is estimated using CSO data (Q4 2010) that this cohort only have on average of €70.00 left over each month after paying for all their essential bills.

A further 20% of those who work state that they have a small amount of between 6% and 10% or an average of €200 of their income left

Changes from this time last year: 69% of respondents have found that their disposable income has decreased from this time last year reflecting changes to tax charges and increasing utility bills and transport costs. Just 12% believe that what they have left over after they have paid for essentials has increased since this time last year while 19% believe it has stayed the same.

Of those who have less than 5% of income left each month: 83% of respondents who worry about how they will cope if unforeseen expenses arise.

74% who have little or no income left after pay for essential bills fear that they will not be able to cope if there are any further changes made to social welfare / income tax

36% do not see a future for themselves or their family in this country

30% believe that with any further changes to the minimum wage they would be better off not working

Saving: 45% of respondents state that they are unlikely to have money to save in the current economic climate

52% of those with dependent children are unlikely to have money to save as opposed to 42% of those without children

Notes to Editor

About the Tracker Survey

The survey was conducted by Market Research Company iReach during the period of 24^th March to 1^st April using the iReach Consumer Decisions Research Panel which delivered 1,000 responses from adults in Ireland aged 18+ to 65+ and is nationally representative by Age, Region, Gender and Social Class. The results of the 2011 trackers will be announced in April, July, October and December

Estimates are based on CSO Earnings and Labour Costs Q4 2010 Preliminary Estimates which places average weekly earnings at €699.46

Your Brand and Social Media – Help or Hindrance

The Big Opportunity from Social Media: Understanding Consumers Online

Marketing professionals around the world are recognising that social media represents not only a way of communicating with customers but also a strategic data source for making decisions. Consumers are sharing a constant stream of opinions, emotions, and behaviours online, and this chatter represents valuable information about what they are thinking and feeling about your brand.

The social media universe is growing at an astonishing rate. According to the iReach/Carat Digital Pulse monthly media tracker, almost two-thirds of online Consumers in Ireland are now use social media.

1. Facebook reports that the average user creates 90 pieces of content each month.

2. As many as 80% of consumers report that they do online research before they purchase many products, from consumer goods to financial services.

With this volume of data available, those companies that can break through the noise to truly understand their consumers have unique opportunities to:

• Optimise their messaging, advertising, and packaging

• Identify “hot topics,” market trends, and unmet consumer needs

• Measure and monitor their social media brand, its drivers and inhibitors

Where Is Social Media Analysis Today?

To date, businesses have used social media data primarily to monitor the quantity of conversations about their brand (“buzz”) and to get a quick read on sentiment, that is, whether online posts are positive, negative, or neutral.

In order to realize the strategic value of social media data, businesses need answers to three key questions:

• Can sentiment be a useful measure to capture from social media?

• How accurate is the data analysis upon which sentiment data relies?

• What actionable information could we extract from social media other than sentiment?

Accurate Sentiment Analysis Reveals Social Brand Health Sentiment analysis focuses on analysing the content of online posts, determining whether they are positive, negative, or neutral, and aggregating the sentiments detected into a single generic score. Sentiment analysis can serve as a practical, cost-effective way to track general brand health over time, assuming you have a way to measure sentiment accurately.

What methods or tools do you use to analyse such data?

Engagement and Advocacy - 11 tips for 2011

As each one of us is a customer ourselves, we should understand customer experience management like the back of our hand. Yet, for many marketers customer experience seems a bit mysterious, and certainly has a myriad of definitions.  Customer experience and advocacy management is a dedication to serving customer needs from their perspective and research techniques can enhance how organisations react to changing levels of satisfaction and advocacy, where your customers promote or recommend your brand to those that detract from your brand through negative word of mouth.

In the first of a series of 3 articles in our monthly newsletters iReach propose that customer experience management must have the following 10 qualities in order to consistently win your customers (and prospects) heart to win a share of their wallet:

·         Perspective (the experience is defined entirely by the customer, not the brand).

·         Preventive (the customer gravitates toward the easiest and nicest brands that address customers’ needs).

·         Duration (encompasses the point from which customers become aware they have a need until they say that need is extinct).

·         Dynamic (the experience evolves with the customers’ context – the purpose and circumstances of their need, and overall experience reference points).

·         Choice (the experience is built on trust and mutual respect for brand; advocacy is more important than loyalty).

·         Multi-faceted (the experience is measured by functional and emotional (social and personal) judgments related to the customers’ expectations).

·         Operational (the experience is shaped by all the touch-points to an organisation’s processes, policies and culture, in addition to the physical product or service associated with the customer’s need).

·         Integrative (the experience is impacted by the degree of alignment among touch-points, technologies, channels, etc).

·         Anticipatory (the brand experience is on-going, where the present and future are equally or more important than the past).

·         Transparent (the customer sees through the brand’s motives and intentions, and favours genuine sincerity for the customer’s well-being).

·         Advocate (the customer is proactive about recommending the brand experience for friends and family generation positive word of mouth)

·         Next week we will explore the difference between customer experience and Advocacy and explore how to measure and enhance customer advocacy.