Social Media Forum “Launching New Offerings in a Social World”

Introductions

Anne Merkert

Jeff Thompson

Reena Kapoor

Agenda

Marketing Target Market Messaging & Demand Generation Competition Q&A

Marketing: Same Old, Same Old…

Product Price Place Promotion

Radically empowered consumers – way ahead of marketers!

Only 14% of CMOs globally have been in their jobs for over 3 years!

So What’s different?

“Rather than Product, Place, Price, and Promotion, we ought to be thinking in terms of Experience, Everyplace, Exchange, and Evangelism”

– Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman & CEO of OgilvyOne Worldwide at AdTech 2007

Advice to Marketers

Experience– Do your customer journey

Everywhere– Create an idea that doesn’t start with (just) traditional media

Exchange– Calculate the value of your customer

Evangelism– Bring passion to your brand – “The Big Ideal”

Still have to think about…

Target Market– Who, Where, How

Differentiation– Meaningful, Value, Competitive

Market Development, Distribution, Channel – Stage of Company

Demand Generation– Reach, Frequency, Monetization, ROI

Formulating a Social Strategy

Forrester’s POST Methodology from “Groundswell”– P is People

– O is objectives

– S is Strategy

– T is Technology

And another “S” needs to be considered….

TARGET MARKETS

Target Market Strategy: Overlaps!

Target Market Criteria

• Large, Growing numbers of users? • Willing, able to exchange Value? Monetize-able?

Large & Growing

• Real Need/Want? Anticipated? Articulated?• Desirable User (Social Media) Characteristics? Unmet Need

• Easily, cost-effectively, Reachable?• Via other Users, Influencers, “Amateurs”?• “Share of Attention”

Reachable

• Differentiate? All “E’s”? • Who is Competition? Substitutions good enough?Differentiation

• Resources, Assets to reach, convert, support?• Social Media impact, use & response?

Company Strength

MESSAGING & DEMAND GENERATION

Messaging: still have to think about . . .

Target Audience

Frame of Reference

Point of Difference

Value Proposition

Clearly relevant & appealing

Highly differentiated from competition

Credible

Elastic enough to support product expansion

Simple

Impact of Social Media on Messaging

Messaging is more conversational, less formal

Keeping it simple is even more important

You can research & test with immediate feedback

Marketing is not the only owner of messaging

Social Media Messaging Example

Demand Generation Design

1. Who is the target audience?

2. How do they want to be communicated with?

3. What offers are they expecting?

4. After they respond to the first activity and offer, what happens next?

5. What happens if they don’t respond?

6. How will our activities and offers help qualify prospects?

Target Market Persona

Segment Buyer Persona How does target customer shop for similar solutions?

HR:Training, Employee Communica-tions

HR manager or Internal Communications • Controls Internal

Communications content

• Multi-location employees

• Innovative internal communications program

• Internal content, Webex, GoTo Meeting• HR publications, websites, associations • PR & Employee communications publications, online forums• Webinars, HR conferences• Professional video production

•Corporate or dept budget

Tactics

Integrated Campaign

Awareness Preference Purchase

“Free” Content• PR• Thought leadership• Blogs• Social networking• Syndicate content• Enable UGC

Awareness, Leads, Brand • SEO• SEM• Banner ads

Company Blog and Landing

Pages

Leverage CRM for nurturing

Online events, video contestWoM or “Buzz”

Product Demo

Sign up for free version

Conversion to premium

COMPETITION

Social Media and Competitive Strategy

Key Steps in developing competitive strategy?

Social Media impact?

Social Media create differentiation?

Key Steps in Competitive Strategy

Identify the Competition

Competitive S W O T

Value Proposition Comparison

Expose, Define The “Space” You Will Own

Competitive Positioning

Identify the Competition – Big and Small

Online Video Providersand Hosting ServicesPresentation

Solutions

Web and Audio Conferencing Solutions

Your Solution:Online Multimedia Platform

Map Your Competitive Approach

Complete Competitive

SWOT

Decide what to “own”

Position for Differentiation

• Categories and Companies

• Strengths• Weaknesses• Opportunities• Threats

• Why did you pick this sub-segment to own?

• Why are you better?• Is you message

“echoing” the conversations?

• Competitor weaknesses

• Easy targets (active social media environments)

• Search for “confusion”

Social Media Impact on Competitive Strategy

Faster Feedback

Accelerated Marketing

User Experience as Differentiation

Faster Feedback Many more places to search for

opinions– Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Blogs

(comments)– Google: “company name” + “sucks”

On demand market research – Post questions, immediate feedback– Test ideas, positioning directly with

buyers

Direct view into buyer / competitor interactions

Ability to directly inquire about likes and dislikes

Accelerated Marketing

Ability to quickly change positioning Faster reaction to competitive moves Get a head start on new segments where

“discussion” is light or nonexistent

User Experience as Differentiation

Frequency of interaction with customers increases– Customer experience is expanded!

You can differentiate your company by ensuring positive interactions wherever possible

Lead the discussions (don’t just participate)– Force competitors to follow: “what are you doing about ABC…”

Q&A

THANK YOU!

reena@ConiferInc.com jeff@AventiGroup.com anne@AventiGroup.com

Next Event: Leveraging “Crowdsourcing”: NexGen Innovation & Marketing!– NorCal BMA Product Marketing & Management Roundtable– November 19th Thursday, Palo Alto, 8:30-10am– http://norcalbma.org