Congratulate and Encourage

We may never know why consumer’s become loyalists and advocates of our brand. We may never know exactly what they want from our company. But we do know how to congratulate and encourage. With social media we have an opportunity to become an integral part of these advocates life. We should congratulate their personal successes and life events. We should encourage them to follow their dreams. With any given company, we are trying to create the best possible life for our customer (otherwise we wouldn’t be in business). So why don’t we congratulate and encourage that life all the time?

Marketing Ecosystem: Communication Path

Courtesy of Flickr - cmcgough

Today we’re going to look at the persona and how they communicate on a daily basis. Not necessarily how they might potentially communicate with us or our brand, but how they interact with the various stakeholders in their lives (e.g. co workers, friends, family, neighbors, bosses, people at church, etc.). With this information we will understand their communication styles, paths, and strategies…believe it or not, we all have communication strategies, whether intrinsic or extrinsic. At the end, we will take a snapshot of these communication paths to identify where our brand communications could fit into their lifestyle.

persona(l) touch.

We all have different ways we communicate in our lives. We also all have different ways we communicate with the different groups in our lives. I wrote a post about how social media is breaking down these barriers and concluded that we are one person with many different personalities. I mean, you wouldn’t talk to your grandmother the same way you would talk to your beer-drinking college buddies, would you? This is where the importance of communication paths come into play and understanding the various strategies of that path. Just remember…these paths are customized per person, customer, prospect, etc.

example.

Let’s look at John, our hypothetical persona for a moment. John is a mid-twenty something that is on a great career path, but struggling to let go of his once forgotten free-living college lifestyle. His relationships are changing everyday which changes his communication styles and paths. They are:

• He keeps close contact with his friends from college
• He is building stronger ties with his family
• He is getting more involved at church
• His work relationships are getting more involved
• He is getting more serious with his girlfriend and her family
• He tries to stay visible to his college acquaintances, professors, past employers, past coworkers, etc.
• He is beginning his civic duty life by getting involved with local charities and communities
• He has been networking traditional networking face to face and social networking online

As you can see, John has several stakeholder groups for his life. He is faced everyday with different communication activity, let alone all the advertising and marketing communication he is bombarded with on a daily basis. John wants the very best for his life and for the life of those around him. The best way to this is through these valuable relationships and what they bring, so John knows the importance of consistent communication and building value throughout the aforementioned stakeholder groups. John also has certain goals for his life, whether materialistic, holistic, spiritual or physical which he will pursue when given the opportunity.

communication paths.

To continue with John’s example, let’s look at the different communication paths John takes to keep building the aforementioned relationships. Let’s look at them one-by-one.

Close College Friends: in person, phone conversations, texting, social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc), email

Family: in person, phone conversations, some texting, some social media, email

People at Church: in person, some phone, some email

Work Relationships: in person, phone, email, very little social media

Girlfriend’s Family: in person

Past Acquaintances: Social media (LinkedIn), email, some phone

Civic relationships: In person, email, phone

Networking: In person, email, social media

what are we looking for?

Looking at the various communication strings and paths, we can identify where our brands communication strings overlap with John’s to better communicate on a personal level with him. We now know where he “is” in the communication sphere and how he interacts in that sphere. There is one thing to remember, when we do decide to begin communications with John, we can’t “sell” anything. We are only there to help John achieve his life goals, hopefully facilitated by our products or services. John, and only John, can make that decision.

when we do decide to begin communications with John, we can’t “sell” anything. We are only there to help John achieve his life goals, hopefully facilitated by our products or services. John, and only John, can make that decision.

conclusion.

Each and every one of us has our own unique communication structure in our lives. We communicate on various platforms to various stakeholder groups in our lives. In order to build an all-encompassing marketing ecosystem and begin to integrate our brands/products/services into the lifestyle of our customers, we need to know how these communication structures are built and how they are utilized by our persona individuals. Then, and only then, can we begin our communication to help our persona individuals achieve their life goals, facilitated by our products or services.

next up.

Coming up next we will look at some use case scenarios that will blow your mind. Talk about integrated marketing, we will look at communication path examples from start to finish and how they will branch off to create even more integrated communication paths.

Marketing Ecosystem: Communication Strings

Courtesy of Flickr - Ms. Abitibi

Recap…Over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been looking at research and information regarding building a foundation for a fully integrated, fully dynamic marketing ecosystem to integrate our brands into the lifestyles of our customers. We’ve looked into targeted goal setting, information gathering, and building customer personas. The next step is looking at the communication strings within our marketing ecosystem. The majority of these conversations will be:

• Customer-Company
• Customer-Customer
• Customer-Advertising
• Customer-Competition
• Company-Customer
• Advertising-Customer
• Competition-Customer

These conversations are happening right this very second about every aspect of your business. What we need to do is lasso all these communication strings and ensure that we are providing the correct communication platform and guiding our customers and prospects down the correct communication path. We can’t force a conversation or coerce your customer down the right funnel. We need to facilitate a communication platform that continually builds the relationship and eases their conversation towards the next step in their own, personal communication path.  First off, we need to look at how we communicate to our customers and prospects. There are two ways to do this.

view current marketing tactics.

We need to simply take a look at how we are going out and trying to start conversations with our prospects and customers. To find this we need to ask ourselves some questions.

• What message are we trying to portray?
• Where does that message position us in the market?
• How are our customers reacting to our marketing activities?
• If they do respond, where do they go next?

identify all communication strings/touchpoints.

Next we need to look internally and externally to identify all other communication strings and touchpoints. To look deeply internally and externally we have a few more questions to ask ourselves.

• Where do our customers communicate, hang out, live their life? Are we there?
• How do our customers communicate with us if they have a problem or concern? Praise or satisfactory compliment?
• How do our employees communicate our company to their friends and family?
• How does the community interact with our company/brand/employees?

helpful link.

To get a great picture of all communication aspects of our company or how many touchpoints we may encounter, check out this great diagram put together by Mullen. It really encompasses all communication a company could have with their customers and prospects.

conclusion.

We live in a world of constant and robust communication. We need to be able to harness the power of real time information, relationship building and technology to encompass all communication strings and paths. Knowing where we talk and where our customers talk is only half the battle. Next, we need to understand our personas individual communication strings to build the foundation and framework of successful communication paths for them to travel. By incorporating all the possible communication touchpoints, we can devise use case scenarios to create these successful paths based on different responses and relationship levels.

thoughts.

What are your thoughts? What does your company do to track all communication touchpoints?

follow along.

This conversation is beginning to take on a whole new form. It may take awhile to get everything out, but wanted to invite you to follow along by simply searching #marketingecosystem in the search box. I am also going to start discussing on Twitter if you want to follow there as well. Thanks for playing along and participating!

IBD Brand - NBDA Independent Concept

This morning, waiting for me in my inbox, was the NBDA newsletter. The section about the NBDA Independent Concept Web Tools Store really caught my eye. I won’t go into detail, you can read the entire article here, but wanted to point out one comment that I found extremely interesting.

Yet the fact is that most successful bicycle retailers take a different path, carrying multiple brands representing a “best in category” focus, designed with the needs of customers first. These independent bicycle retailers are THE BRAND in their customers’ eyes. The products they carry are important, but secondary to strong local brand identity, personal relationships within a community, and the products and services that best serve their customers, their businesses and their values.

IBD vs OEM

The fact that the IBD is THE BRAND in the customers’ eyes is an essential argument in the battle of who owns the brand: The IBD or the OEM. I’ve discussed this in detail in the past during the Cycling Brand Relationship Series and have recently put it into presentation form for easier understanding.

CBRS: Independent Bike Dealers (IBD) – Social Branding Communication

Courtesy of Flickr - wallyg

Last Friday we discussed the Independent Bike Dealer (IBD) and what characteristics the different consumer segments use to define the IBD brand. As we’ve mentioned many times before in the CBRS, brands are now created in the mind of the consumer using a combination of the different brand characteristics. The IBD has the most characteristics that could be used to define its brand, which are:

Service
Culture/History
Racers/Racing Teams/Affiliations
Cyclist Generated Content
Bicycle Brands
Component/Partner Brands
Community Involvement
Cyclist Engagement
Mechanics

what they want.

The IBD has one of the hardest jobs in the cycling industry. Not only do they have to portray their own personal shop’s brand, but also need to portray the bicycle manufacturer brands and component and product brands they stock. The dynamic nature of this position creates a brand that is partially out of the hands of the IBD.

The communication strategy throughout the customer segments will still be very similar to the component manufacturer or bike manufacturer communication strategies. Throughout this strategy, IBD brands will need to communicate and discuss the different brand characteristics and allow the user to ‘pull’ the information needed to integrate the IBD brand into their own personal cycling lifestyle needs. To illustrate this type of communication strategy, let’s walk through the three identified customer segments for the IBD industry and how social strategies could facilitate this communication.

Cyclist:

The cyclist is the most important stakeholder in the IBD environment. However, cyclists will be the most dynamic segment to communicate with for the IBD. All aspects of the shop’s brand could be important to a different cyclist. However, the importance of each identified brand characteristic lies within the individual cyclist. Therefore each characteristic needs to be communicated in a way where the cyclist can pull information that is personally important to them as a cyclist.

Bicycle Manufacturer:

The IBD has a tremendous duty in the cycling industry. Being the contact with the end cyclist, bicycle manufacturers rely heavily on the cyclist feedback from the IBD for future innovation and product design. Having a solid, openly communicated relationship allows these partner companies to recognize this feedback and use accordingly. This level of communication will also identify how the brands work together and how they complement each other in the minds of these cyclists. The communication will show the benefits of the partnership and discuss how each brand will be affected in combination.

Component/Product Brands:

As with the bicycle manufacturer, the IBD plays a crucial role in innovation and product design by providing the component and product brands with valuable cyclist feedback. Having open communication between the IBD and the component/product brands would not only provide this valuable feedback, but also communicate the value of the partnership between brands and how they enhance the strength of the brands in the mind of the cyclist.

social media facilitation.

With the dynamic nature of the communication that surrounds the independent bike dealer environment; social media provides a powerful platform that creates the malleable brand needed to communicate with the individuals in the various customer segments. By educating cyclists on the brand characteristics that is important to them and empowering them to discuss and share within their social network, IBD brands would create the network of conversations needed to build the level of awareness, loyalty, advocacy, and evangelism needed to succeed in today’s environment. Identifying the perfect combination of blogs, wikis, social networking platforms, SEO, forums, etc., an IBD brand could build a foundation of support, evangelism, and communication that would ultimately create the passionate, cult-like following needed in the cycling industry. This trusting relationship would also give the cyclist the power to provide the feedback needed by the bicycling, component, and product manufacturers for future innovation and product design. With a open, social communication like this the IBD could easily disseminate this information to the appropriate brands.

In a previous series, The Orbea Chronicles, I identified and outlined an in depth strategy that illustrates this kind of social media facilitation. Feel free to revisit the communication strategy.

encouraged communication.

What are your thoughts? Why do you go to your favorite IBD? What could they do better to increase your level of engagement as a cyclist?