5 Areas of Integration to go from Customer Conversation to Conversion

I've been thinking about the integration challenge with social media. Advertising, marketing, and public relations need to work together - and in this environment, they need to put the customer is the driver's seat. I'm sure you'll find reason to build on the analogy or help me rebuild it.

With social media, new marketing means taking a look at how you design and build your whole business. We said before that execution is key to results. How do you get all your marketing communications working together to deliver performance?

For starters you design a product or service the market wants - use research and feedback to gain insights both learning from the past and looking into the future. Believe it or not, even though you may be covering the same road, you want the customer experience to be very different in the end - to set yourself apart.

Just like a good Pininfarina design, you want to achieve beauty, elegance, and functionality with your marketing communications, so that you can convert content - the communications (I did not say messaging, did I?) fuel - into performance. Start by discovering or uncovering the people who need your services.

Since it is possible to take analogies too far - please don't take them for a ride, do allow them to test drive what they could experience in a normal day with you. The authentic impressions will help you convert them faster than showing a polished front with no backing.

So how do aspects of communications that are good at creative, at relationships and at sales work together? These five areas are examples of online tactic ideas, you can integrate off line activities as well - different demographics and buyers are more responsive in different media.

(1.) thought leadership

Content is the fuel of marketing and with the social Web it is more important than ever. Valuable content is the 95% of your online game when you've taken into consideration the 5% that search engine optimization (SEO) brings to the table.

Who says you can lead only with articles in the Harvard Business Review? Thought leadership is judged by the reader (your customers) the community (their peers) and the industry (your peers). So it equals valuable information and insights.

Give people ways to share your content. Use bookmarking widgets, email to a friend option, RSS feeds. Also use outposts with embed codes like SlideShare.

(2.) findability

This is not just SEO. It's being where your customers are and giving them a compelling reason to invest their time and attention with you. Not just reading your message, potentially kicking the tires on a product demo or checking out your service with you.

It's being in the right place at the right time to get them acquainted with the experience behind the brand.

Give people ways to find your content. Participate by bookmarking good content - yours and that of others - and commenting, adding ideas on Delicious and FriendFeed, for example.

(3.) listening

It's no secret that if marketing's fuel is content, its engine is sales. Listening occurs between fuel and performance. There are may tools available today to start a good listening program and online it is easier than ever to get to know those who are talking about you and help them talk with you.

In addition to the mechanics of tonality or sentiment, time frame, quality of mentions vs. competition, potential for response and by which department, reach of mention within each network (link backs, retweets, followers, web traffic, subscribers, etc.), you can take action within your listening program. This week we will take a deep dive on one way to do that.

Give people easy ways to talk with you. Enable comments and trackbacks on your blogs, implement chat boxes on your site.

(4.) responsiveness

We described before how being responsive increases your reputational index. Let's separate for a moment public display with responding. You don't need to look responsive (public display) to be responsive. In some cases, a personal email that communicates how you're going to fix the problem is in fact a much better option.

In some others, indeed showing true responsiveness by taking action will give you higher mileage. Make sure you do it for the right reasons, though.

Give people ways to know you're responding. Answer online and then follow up with details by email, for example.

(5.) service

This means leaning forward and having that interaction with your customers. Without this the rest is a house of cards carefully constructed but not believable. A very smart and practical business leader I talked with recently described it this way - lean forward, take the initiative, listen aggressively.

If you think about it, the one time when you have the opportunity to really appreciate your car make and model is when you take it in for service. Is the interaction going to cost you big time, or is maintenance an opportunity to deepen the relationship with the brand?

Give people an exceptional experience. Period. No matter where they contact you, lean forward and embrace the conversation. While you're at it, share with them the data you have about their purchases and transactions.

In social media, it's possible to integrate your marketing communications disciplines so they can help you with these five areas. We'll look more closely at how in a follow up post.

Today at Fast Company Expert blog we take a look at the importance of information sharing for customer sentiment - and good service.

What are your thoughts? Can you interpret your customers' dreams and design an experience like this beauty here? As a customer, I'm pretty sure you still find a way to make purchases when the experience you receive is worth it. Am I wrong?

[image of marketing-refurbished 2006 Ferrari 612 Kappa, special build by Pininfarina]

Comments

[Bill Free]

Good analogy, with all the "features" in the right places. Integrating communications is nothing new, but social media has given it new urgency and context.

I especially like the way you reframed thought leadership to "judged by the reader (your customers) the community (their peers) and the industry (your peers)."

One minor addition which, in my view, is appropriate to your metaphor: a high performance marketing communications program must combine beauty, functionality ... and reliability ;)

[Paula Dauncey]

Another great post Valeria. Makes me think about @VodafoneUK who I've had a complaint with recently. I emailled and I tweeted my complaints and unsurprisingly, they are being far more proactive via Twitter than they are via their own website. I understand that this is about reputation management for them, but it pleased me that at least they are taking notice and being responsive at least via one channel. Plenty more for them to do yet however.

[Daniel Sevitt]

I'm not always a fan of the overcooked metaphor, but I think you just managed to pull it off.

And happy birthday for yesterday!

[Sasha Kovaliov]

Valeria, first of all, happy birthday! :) Chris Brogan just pointed out that it was this Sunday.

After reading the post I couldn't but congratulate myself on doing everything well ;)

There is one more area, which you have covered in the post, but not that thoroughly as I think it should be:

6. Questions.
Don't think - ask! Sometimes brands assume they are doing right, when they actually don't. Asking your clients for evaluation, help or feedback is a great way to learn your weaknesses and improve your activities. This is a chance to see an interested client, the one who cares and is active enough to give.
You are not losing anything by asking, but you open up to your potential clients, as you show trust in their opinion.

So don't forget to ask, and assume less. As my psychology teacher in the states pointed out, assuming may lead to a tricky situations "ass u (and) me" ;)

[Liz]

I think that giving people easy ways to talk with you and giving them ways to know you're responding is very important. It's interactive. As Bob Garfield in his book Chaos Scenario (thechaosscenario.net) said, traditional media is dying and we are in a post-advertising age.

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Bill- good thought on reliability. Would that be better for the product or service?

@Paula - thank you for the example. Isn't it funny how all of a sudden a public request asks for greater accountability? Good thinking on taking those learnings back to the organization.

@Daniel - you must have been on Twitter :) I tried to keep the metaphor in check. Glad I pulled it off.

@Sasha - very kind of you, thank you. There is one caveat on questions. As customers we're not 100% reliable on what we respond. We're influenced by moods and by context - a lot. So while it's good to ask, it's also good to filter responses with experience and test them with your business model. Fair enough?

@Liz - providing options and ways to and realizing that people may not want to talk back, so not forcing the conversation is also important.

[Sasha]

@Valeria fair enough. In my work I encourage to be open to feedback, but you are right: filtering never went away :) Besides, by getting tons of negative you bound to check if everything is right.

Btw, it's Sasha ;)