Recently, I realized that all of us are using the same terms, and most of the time we have different understanding and definitions. For example, take a look at the number of people claiming to be social media experts on Linkedin. There are digital strategists, gurus, ROI specialists, experts, you get the idea
Words are cheap, evidence is hard to get, facts even more so.
Same goes for terms like “strategy”, “measurement” and “consumer engagement”. These concepts are wrongly communicated or sold to clients without a proper definition behind it.
I am not sure whether we (industry consultants + agency) should open a dedicated digital wikipedia, but the more I think about it, the more it would make sense… Anyway, in the meantime, let me share with you some initial thoughts:
1) Social Media versus Engagement
Engagement is about listening. To engage is to learn about your audience, uncovering what they need and adapting your content based on their preferences. To me, it is like dating leading to marriage. At first, you start to research, you date, you discover more about each other, you try new things, you get married and then, the real hard work starts! Everyone who is married knows what I mean. It is not because you are married that you can relax and stop putting in effort to communicate. Same goes with Social Media or Engagement. You need to continue, your efforts to maintain the relationship and please your audience.
Therefore, a Social Media page or account like Facebook does not mean Engagement. Engagement is not about putting a page up, pushing a message to a customer (should it be on Social Media platform like Facebook) and bombarding customers with product information. In that case, the Social Media page is merely a website (and a bad website at that) without a true engagement.
2) IT solution versus CRM program
A CRM program is not about having a technical solution: a database, a points system, a list of offers or products. It only builds on it. Yes these are important and mandatory when building a CRM system but having a successful CRM program requires more than that. It requires a complete understanding of the audience, the business needs and brand objectives. Then, based on those parameters, you build the proper offer and a program that will match the customer needs with the business and the brand objectives. Understanding how to read a database, what data to extract and how to combine it with the proper approach (media type), context (when and how to communicate) are the basics of the CRM program. The buzz word now is a Social CRM program but it does not mean we should just build a database on top of a Facebook page.
3) Point system versus Loyalty
The same goes for a Loyalty approach. A loyalty program is not necessarily a CRM program or a points system. Point system rewards do not create loyal customers, it is only the ‘excuse’, the ‘carrot’ you might use as part of the tactics to generate extra sales. Loyalty is about building a long term relationship with your customers using multiple touch points. Loyalty is to ensure customers spend more time with the brand, buy more than non-loyal customers, speaks more about the brands than other customers and for the same offer, have a higher response rate.
4) Nominative versus Personalization , 1:1
Personalization is about selecting the right content, format, channel and way to deliver the message based on my profile. And “profile” is not only the standard demographic profile: age, gender, residence. These do not matter as much as it used to because we all have multiple personas based on what we are doing today. Am I on a holiday or a business trip? Watching TV or playing games online? Nowadays, we are actually moving towards true 1:1 with behavioral segmentation, meaning: What is my relationship with the brand? What product did I purchase or browse recently? How do I behave with the brand based on different context? Depending on all these factors, the marketing message, the type of offers, the creatives and the method of delivery are 100% then customized and delivered.
Therefore, addressing me by my name in eDMs or DMS with”Dear Gregory…” is winding up where it should, in the trash and junk email inboxes.
5) Multiple channels versus multichannel
A real multichannel campaign is not merely covering as many channels as we can, whether from mobile to TV, from Social Media to print. It is a coordinated approach from starting objectives to end goal, one that links all tactics into a customer journey where each tactic plays a dedicated role at a dedicated point to bring customers closer to the end goal of the campaign. It means that one creative direction, one message is shared across the campaign but adapted by pause and media type while focused on the same objectives. It means that every tactic plays a specific role in the campaign and is therefore specifically measured in that context.
The role of the website versus the role of a TV is vastly different, therefore the way to measure them and to define its targets should be measured specifically. At the end, a contact strategy and touchpoint mapping is provided to keep the entire approach consistent.
6) Data versus measurement
Measurement is about setting a standard and then checking to see how well you’ve done. This requires setting up objectives of the campaign, defining the type of KPIs to achieve and setting up a proper target to achieve. For example, Objective is to generate sales, then KPI is Dollar value and Value is $1M. That Target must follow the SMART traditional approach to ensure a proper achievement at the end of the campaign. In addition to it, dashboard, reports, tracking, setup of measurement, testing process are in place to ensure that the entire campaign measurement is relevant. Without setting the goal to be met and the units of measurement, you’re just creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of listing clicks from Facebook Insights or Google Analytics, we discussed recently (http://bit.ly/digital-measurement) or click here.
Words are definitely cheap, what they mean might be more complicated or sophisticated that what we might believe them to be.
Tags: 1to1, CRM, Definitions, Digital, engagement, Facebook, Marketing, measurement, Media, metrics, Multichannel, Personalization, Social media, social networking, strategy
Contagious Fanatic