"What do you want your consumers to tell about you?" for Stad Antwerpen

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What it’s all about:

What do you want your consumers to tell about you? How your company benefits from creating stuff worth sharing.

Polle de Maagt for Stad Antwerpen

Hello. I am Polle de Maagt.

I create impact through

conversations at a pretty cool

company called InSites Consulting.

We work mostly because we’re

committed to take research

forward, but brands like

Ben&Jerry’s, Telenet, Danone and

Philips agreed to pay us for it.

Managing expectations … I only have 45 minutes. Don’t expect me to do magic. For

magic (or more on conversation management and stuff

worth sharing), send me an email at polle@insites.eu.

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It’s not about being on Facebook. Or Twitter. Yes, Twitter is huge. And Facebook even bigger. But they are both platforms, not end

goals. So it really is about if and how both can help you reach your end goal. Which is

most likely not about having a Facebook fan page and more about driving

conversations, customer retention, sales or brand value.

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It’s not about being a big brand. With big brands come big problems. Never look

for an excuse in just being a small company with

little budgets. When it comes to connecting with

consumers, real relationships work. And size, for

once, doesn’t matter.

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And it certainly isn’t about being the first mover in adopting new technology. Mobile, augmented reality, location

based services are all just awesome.

And yes, there is PR-value in being the

first Augmented Reality bakery in your

neighborhood. But is that really what

you want your consumers to talk

about?

Don’t get me wrong. Social media (and internet in general) have been amazing. We have some of the coolest things *ever* be built on top of this technology. Note: the following examples are all Belgian / Dutch examples, no fancy out-of-reach and over-budgetted American ones.

KLM commits random acts of kindness KLM surprised random passengers in their effort to discover how happiness spreads. More at http://polle.me/gJhpSI

Kay Mook earned the Antwerp Zoo 300K extra visitors “What if every Belgian felt a bit pregnant too” was the start of a campaign that almost made her product of the year 2009. More at http://polle.me/ccjSNL

Ben & Jerry’s crowdsources their new icecream flavors. Via an online platform with brand fans. More at http://polle.me/ISC-BJ Photo by jason.dsilva

But it really isn’t about technology. It is about driving meaningful conversations and connecting with your consumers. About creating stories worth sharing and experiences worth participating.

Customer retention is cheaper than acquisition. Really.

Happy customers drive retention and conversations. Are you really committed to make your customers happy?

Happiness is about managing expectations. Under-promise. Over-deliver. Do more than customers expect, but don’t over-do it.

Conversations drive business. What do you trust most? Peer reviews.

90% of conversations is done offline. Even these guys, the Belgian club of Young Online advertising Planners have a regular offline meetup. More at http://polle.me/i291Xz

Conversations are just a part of the consumer journey. Traditional advertising still works, past experience is really important and real interactions are the dealmakers/dealbreakers.

Conversations travel through (social) channels. Nike launched a local store in Amsterdam, but capitalized on it via Facebook and Twitter. Even better, users started using Hyves to spread the word.

Part of conversations is owned, rest is paid or earned. Strangers, customers and fans. Paid, owned and earned. Only part of the interactions are taking place on your own website.

There will always be new technologies, stories stick. Both Antwerp and your store are just full of stories. Don’t get distracted by technologies, focus on the stories and make them easy to spread.

450.000+

So, if it isn’t about technology and all about conversations ... What can YOU do about that?

Manage expectations. Under-promise. Over-deliver. Do more than customers expect.

Start with observing and listening. There are simple tools to observe what consumers are doing. Via search.twitter.com or more advanced tools. But what about customer emails?

What do you want your consumers to tell about you? Is it about how cool your advertising was? Do you want them to talk about deals? Or is it about something else?

Monetary value versus conversation value. What are your best customers? The ones that spend the most money or the ones that bring in the most new customers? Plan for both.

Give your customers something to talk about. Ambassadors just want to tell other, so help them! Choqoa support fans by giving them chocolate bars and highlighting them in their newsletter.

Use your ambassadors to promote your business. Think how you can make your customers talk about you.

Connect with your consumers and use them for reach. Think how you can make your customers talk about you.

Helping people helps. Exceeding customer expectations builds loyalty (81% repeats, 63% recommends) and falling below customer expectations erodes loyalty (5%/71%).

Create things worth sharing. Think about small things worth talking about.

Make it extra-easy to share or to subscribe. Make it easy to subscribe of share your content via twitter, Facebook or other social buttons. Example: http://polle.me/ij19j4

Measure. Measure views, clicks, but even more important: your return on investment. Extremely simple, but effective: the Net Promoter Score.

You can forget most of the silly things I said today. But please, remember these 3 things.

Conversations drive business. Companies that connect with their consumers perform better. So start the conversation.

1)

To drive conversations, exceed expectations and create stuff worth sharing. Don’t plan only for life time money value, but for life time conversation value.

2)

Start with observing, but start with simple ways to drive conversations. Start monitoring, start with pilots and learn while doing.

3)

Read the manual.

Seriously.

Read it.

I hope I was worth sharing.

Send me an email at polle@insites.eu

so I can help you remind of the 48

hours.

Find the presentation at

http://polle.me/antwerpen11