1.Camille Lauer, addressing traditional corporate responses in crisis-communications situations, stressed the need for executives to do more than merely try to keep ahead of evolving situations. Instead, she said, social media should be used to have in place the communities that can create firewalls between companies and disgruntled clients. | 2. Dave Cacioppo made one of the most salient points in the assembly’s discussion when he succinctly stated: “A lot of marketers shy away from the fact that, at the end of the day, we’d all like to make some money.”

Closing the Sale

Matt Anthony asked his colleagues how effective social media had proven to be in leading a customer to buy.

What David Cacioppo of emfluence Interactive Marketing finds interesting is that “a lot of marketers shy away from the fact that, at the end of the day, we’d all like to make some money.” He was referring here not to the agency, but to the client. His firm spends considerable time convincing its clients that “it’s OK to sell.” To be sure, engagement precedes sales, but Cacioppo added, “if these people are engaged with your brand, they like you and they want to buy from you.”

Todd Decker shared the experience of his firm’s university clients. What they have discovered is that a high percentage of searches on their site were vanity-driven, especially those to the honor roll pages. The prominent “Give” button on that site now accounts for some 25 percent of their annual donations.

“So narcissism brings a return?” asked Anthony wryly.

“Absolutely it does,” Decker replied.

“All the digital channels have to work together,” said Ramsey Mohsen. As he explained, the average Internet user will go from site to site—looking at products, prices, reviews, friends’ suggestions—before making a decision. “So it’s how do you appear in all those different places appropriately to convert the sale.”

Nicole Tremblay elaborated that the entire media footprint is now interconnected as is customer service. “So when people say. ‘I don’t have time to respond to that Facebook post,’” said Tremblay, “our response is, ‘Well, would your cashiers turn their back on a customer complaint when they’re in the middle of a transaction?’”

Closing a sale requires separate strategies for searchers based on their motives. As Ramsey Mohsen noted, “Your brand champions need to be celebrated, even if it’s just saying thank you for leaving a comment.” Conversion is obviously harder for those voicing negative sentiments. The task at hand for the marketer is to find opportunities to convert them into champions through customer service.

As Shelly Kramer pointed out, an engaged community of supporters will often rally to the defense of a given product or service when an antagonist enters their community, which is all the more reason to cultivate champions.

Bill White noted that in the case of Toyota last year, despite its reputation and its many champions, the company’s PR people could not get control of the stream of antagonism in the social media.

“I think that’s why it’s important to be out in front,” said Camille Lauer. “You can’t wait until the crisis erupts to have your community together.” She elaborated that in the social media era there is a critical difference between reputation and engagement.

“We’re in the age of transparency,” said Matt Anthony. “Some of us lived in an era when an 800 number is where disgruntled customer would voice his problems, but those days are well behind us, and now [the disgruntled] have the ability to tell their story far and wide.”


Mobile Technologies

America is roughly two years away from the point where Web use by way of smart phone will eclipse web use by way of a personal computer. This being so, Matt Anthony asked about mobile’s potential to dominate commercial transactions.

As Bill White explained, the biggest question mark right now is who will “own” the transaction. “We want to have an open network,” said White, “as opposed to the walled garden that other folks have.” Sprint is thus willing to partner with all relevant parties that can make this happen.

A discussion of transactions naturally segued into one of security. Sprint research shows a growing concern with privacy. People ask, said White, “What do you really know and what don’t you know about me, and how do you follow me?”

“I echo Bill’s comments,” said John Styers, “there’s an enormous amount of interest in this.”

If security is a challenge, Anthony asked, would those concerns impede mobile’s ascendancy as the dominant
transactional device?

Given our litigious society, Styers argued, security issues are inevitably going to slow down adoption. “We just have to be able to do this cautiously and do it correctly.”

Todd Decker disagreed. “I don’t think security will have any slowdown effect on adoption,” he countered, and he cited as example the failure of the litigation threat to impede the adoption of music online. Decker also noted that Facebook had also prospered despite the sacrifice of privacy that joining entails.

Gard Gibson, however, made the point that Facebook succeeded where MySpace failed by building adequate security into its exchanges.

Security is a huge issue for banks and related industries, Josh Rowland of Lead Bank noted. “What we get,” he lamented, “is a lot of fear and anxiety that stops anybody from thinking creatively about what has to happen.” This is a particular problem because technology raises expectations that people attain access to the information that they want when they want it.

Rowland talked of conferences that he attended where it became evident that although all the attendees used social media in their own lives, none of their banks did. “There’s a real disconnect,” he said. “One of the things we have to bear in mind is that this train has left the station.”

As Rob Sweeney observed, Web-based financial transactions pose a potential liability on the Sprint side because the company “owns the transport.” This is worrisome because in a litigious society plaintiffs go after those with deeper pockets. Still, Sweeney believes that the market will ultimately decide the future of mobile transactions.

“There is a generational reality, too,” Matt Anthony noted. As he sees it, the so-called “millennials” care more about instant gratification than they do brand loyalty. He wondered how the Royals, for example, were prepared to deal with this generational shift.

In terms of mobile, Mike Bucek responded, one can buy tickets right now. That much said, the Royals have not seen the widespread consumer demand for it—yet.

“I think the point is that mobile traffic is there,” said Scott Zalaznik. People are buying tickets. People are paying their Sprint bill right now, hundreds of thousands.”

As a final note, Zalaznik summarized perhaps the take-away message of the day: “Don’t confuse highly regulated security issues with the trend, namely that mobile-optimized Web sites are key to transactions.”

 

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
Return to Ingram's April 2011