Cluetrain-a-Day 2009: Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on TV are kidding themselves
This post is part of a 95 post series discussing the 95 theses of the Cluetrain Manifesto as they relate to business in 2009. Read more about the series in the introduction post. And check out the rest of the series!
Note: This is a guest post from Stephen Smith, editor of Business Development in Context and a co-founder of the work.life.creativity forum. You can follow him on Twitter at @hdbbstephen.
Thesis #17: Companies that assume online markets are the same markets that used to watch their ads on TV are kidding themselves.
This thesis was true when it was written 10 years ago but for different reasons than it is today. The evolution of the marketspace is the biggest change in the worlds of (“big M”) Marketing and PR since the invention of television. The ubiquity of the internet generates the pre-condition for markets (read customers) to talk to each other for free. Once separated by geography, marketspaces are now connected in multiple ways in online communities.
Unsolicited feedback is the rule, not the exception
Corporations are still spending vast amounts of money on research, polling and “focus groups” but the thought-leaders are inviting their markets to provide this information, or better information, for free. On the other hand, as the “Motrin” and “The other white milk” episodes prove, companies can get vociferous and very public feedback whether they want it or not. (We will re-visit these social media firestorms again with Thesis #19)
The Social Media transformation continues
The marketspace is changing, the markets are changing, the customers have already changed. And changed again. Stay-at-home-moms used to be a special sort of target market, ripe for the broadly-cast TV advertising messages. They used to be bored and lonely. Today they represent a purchasing powerhouse that is one of the most interconnected groups in America. Social networking sites report that the SAHM groups are among the most active and most frequent users of the services. The SAHM groups, once isolated, are now spending a lot of time talking, sharing, and comparing information on every product and service available.
For more on this fascinating evolution, I recommend also reading a book by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, “Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies” . You can find out more about the book at the Groundswell blog. What Marketing Departments need to know
Here are the “secrets” to understanding the changes in marketspace:
1. Your market can now talk back, and to each other, in a way that was impossible during the TV era. 2. Your market is going to talk about your company, its products and services and policies, whether you like it or not – and you cannot control this discussion from the outside. 3. Your market wants a place to gather, to talk and ask questions and share answers. Give them that place or they will build their own.
As Alex wrote in Thesis #11:
…they trust each other WAY more than they trust your marketing department.
In my next post we will explore Thesis #18: how markets are now marketspaces, interconnected person-to-person virtual networks and the impact this has on Marketing.
It’s weird to comment on my own blog to another author, but heck, let’s give it a spin:
Stephen: Can you explain the difference between big M Marketing and little m marketing?
I would add:
People want to become partners of businesses. Not targets.
@Uwe, Interesting…I’m not sure I’d have made that correlation myself. “Partnership”, as I think of it, comes with a fair amount of baggage.
For instance, a partner doesn’t just provide input, but also assumes so liability. I can’t think of many companies I buy from whose liabilities I care to burden.
I agree 100% that people do NOT want to be targets of businesses, but partners isn’t the word I’d use to describe the desired relationship, either.
@Alex, @Uwe, I think “collaborator” is the word you’re looking for. People these days not only want to feel like they are part of the process, they actually want to be part of the process.
Sure, they’ll help you by writing reviews of your products or beta testing your site, but what they really want is to help you design the next product. They want to give you ideas for new features, new directions, new markets and what’s crazy is that they’re willing to do it for free.
Well not totally free. I think that there is slowly becoming a tacit agreement that you better acknowledge where these new things come from. But why wouldn’t you? What does it ultimately cost? And the feeling that that engenders in your users (in your collaborators) is worth more than any ad campaign.
@Jay Now we’re talking! Some of the “ROI” examples from this report are places where you can balance the costs: http://www.dangerouslyawesome.com/2009/01/25/cluetrain-in-action-online-community-roi-research-report/
I love this quote from that report: “Employees who belong to the community almost never ‘turn over’. They are consistently the best performers out in the stores.”
This is something a lot of companies forget when talking about community. Your employees are part of the community too. When you increase their ability to collaborate, internally and externally, they’ll be more engaged in their work. And like the quote says, this means lower turn-over and higher performance. All you need to do is give them a place to it and encourage them to participate. And what better place than where your customers already hang out?
Positive feedback loops FTW!