Marketing to Those Within: Arm-Twisting Tactics for Community Participation

Dawn Marie YankeelovPresident, ASPectx

dawny@aspectx.com6/17/02

Is There Participation Without Pain and Suffering?

Eliminate Community Killers– No participation– No focus in information

sharing– Unanswered questions– No experts with a

knowledgebase– No purpose for being

Tougher Crowds to Sell: Employees and Distribution Channels• In the last three years we have seen community

now serve:

– Technical Support

– Human resource departments

– Sales force automation

– Interdepartmental objectives

– Distribution channel partners

– Finance departments

Basics of Marketing: Crawl First,Then Walk

• Time-tested steps apply to community– Do your homework on what is needed

– Target known audiences

– Create “Experts Within”

– Train the Excited to Participate

– Depend on the Few to Execute

Vision Behind Marketing Goals: Knowledge-Sharing

• Requiring employees to be management-oriented for accountability

• Creating peer-to-peer knowledge exchanges

• Requiring instant response to satisfy client queries

• Real-time analysis of trends,

both internal and external

Awareness: Don’t Get Stung by Bad Choices

• 1. Know Your Community Superstars

• 2. Define Your Potential Constituents

• 3. Consider the Following Key Questions:– Do the number of identified targets match my goals?

– Can we quantify what audience segments we have?

– What are the breakouts in terms of demographics?

– What types of communication work best for these targets?

Target Marketing: The Buzz

• 1. Know Your Customers

• 2. Define Your Potential Customers

• 3. Consider the following key questions:– Do the number of identified targets match my goals?

– Can we quantify what “verticals” and/or horizontal plays we have?

– What are the breakouts in terms of demographics?

– What types of communication work best for these targets?

Hunt and Kill the Targets• Five market identification strategies:

– Geographic. Physical location of your publics– Demographic. Attributes such as age and sex– Psychographic. Lifestyle dimensions such as hobbies and

interests– Usage Rate. A small percentage of the population account

for a large percentage of sales– Benefits. Certain users want to achieve particular benefits.

Ex. Airline tickets– Strategic Internet Marketing, Tom Vassos

Spend the Money Where Needed

• Plan for Ongoing Marketing Expenditures

• Tactics Must Support Community Strategy

• Do a Budget and Measure the ROI

• Build in Training for Experts

• Where’s “Your Honey Pot”

for Arm-Twisting?

• Does it Hold Weight?

Sweet Success with Community: Case Study Examples

• Nestle

• Cisco

• Ace Hardware

• Wrigley

Primary Arm-Twisters

• Outreach: “Whatever you think you need for a rollout, increase it by 3 times.”

1. Target Awareness Groups through Emarketing

2. Send Regular Newsletters to Participants on Updates

3. Cull Excerpts from the Community to tease new members and/or do Special Events

4. Give Financial or Recognition Incentives

Nestle

• Corporate Fact:– A total workforce of approximately 224,541

people in some 479 factories worldwide.

– Nestlé is not only Switzerland's largest industrial company, but it is also the World's Largest Food Company.

Nestle Needed Community to Save Dollars

• Problem: Wasted Time Through Too Many International Conference Calls

• Solution: Chat with Akiva idea management products• Marketing: Incentive Approach for Community:

Acknowledgement of Cost Cutting in Employee Reviews through participation

• Corporate Facts:– A total workforce of approximately 224,541 people in some 479

factories worldwide. – Nestlé is not only Switzerland's largest industrial company, but it is

also the World's Largest Food Company.

Cisco

• Cisco Systems, Inc. is a worldwide leader in networking for the Internet. Cisco's Internet Protocol-based (IP) networking solutions are the foundation of the Internet and most corporate, education, and government networks around the world.

• Cisco focuses on using technology to solve its internal process requirements.

Cisco Communities: Get People to Live in the System

• In 2000, community activity by department

• Targeted internal awareness groups

• Company developed an Internal Communities Business Organization (CBO)– Group gave advice on how to design, train, and

host appropriate level of community

– Used outside consultants to augment facilitation

Cisco CBO Process: Feedback Essential

• Uses a Teaser Approach to Build• Cisco wants to stimulate feedback for product development

and organization of workflow• Strategic marketing budget to each launch—legal

department, and marketing department were two of first 7 communities

• Oldest success story—Networking Professionals Group began in July 2000 (for external networking professionals)

• Used heavily polling, surveys, quizzing on products• Link Marketing: More than 100 links to get into NetPro

from the outside

On Driving Adoption

• “Adoption is different for every department. Developers know that there are changes everyday and that they need to keep up. Legal uses its communities to tap expert resources.”

• Advice: Develop Marketing Budget According to Need– Gil Ben Dov, Senior Manager of IT e-

communities, interview 2001

Talking to the Dealer

• Ace Hardware is one of the world’s largest wholesale hardware suppliers with an US dealer network of 300+ dealers.

Dealer Networks: Educate as an Employee

•Built Outreach through Traditional Approaches

•Newsletters

•Consolidated teaser-style management tips

•Holds Expert Online Seminar Series every 2 weeks

600 Percent Return on Investment

•Improved communication with its 300+ dealers

•Participants spend 1-4 hours a day in forums with other dealers to get quick research

Wrigley

• The Wrigley Company is the world's largest manufacturer of chewing gum and home to some of the best-known brands in the world, including Juicy Fruit, Doublemint, Big Red, and Wrigley's Spearmint gum.

Wrigley Sales Force Community

• Wished to thread together best practices in sales globally—October 2001

• Challenge: 2,000 to 3,000 people to bring together

• Hope: Bring to sales management into real-world, retail level understandings

• Focus: Connect salespeople globally to share viewpoints

• Vision: Ability to review progress in the organization desired

Background on the Community

In October 2001, The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company launched a strategic initiative to develop a Sales Web Center (SWC) to increase its sales force productivity and ultimately drive revenues for the company. The formal goals for the Sales Web Center included:

– Integrate the company’s U.S. sales force by sharing information through a central communication vehicle

– Streamline existing business processes and remove non value-added work

– Deliver actionable and targeted advertising, marketing, and product information to impact business results

– Increase sales as a result of increased productivity

The Prototype

Key to Success: Events to Draw More Participants

Event Importance

• “People tend to underestimate the value of online events to draw new community members and rejuvenate a community. Since Jan. 2002, Wrigley has seen events draw the best results to assist in pre-product launches.” Events are held monthly bringing marketing and sales people together.

• Participate.com, Joe Cothrel

Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. Sees Community As a Key to Winning

“We are very committed to our sales team and consider our sales and distribution capabilities among our key competitive advantages around the world. To the extent that we want to drive our business into the lead across various markets and channels, we need to outperform our competitors at the store level.

To accomplish this, we have not only increased the size of our sales organization, but we have provided them with the tools that are necessary to win, including increasing communication and collaboration capabilities through initiatives such as the U.S. Sales Web Center that was discussed in the presentation.”

-- Bill Wrigley Jr.

CEO, Wm. Wrigley Jr. Co. Annual Shareholders Meeting, April 19, 2002

Final Analysis on Marketing Tactics

• Difference of Group Target Matters– Small tightly knit communities (under 150)

• Marketing can be one-to-one—even phone calls to jump start

• Formal process and deliverables easy to distribute

• Project-oriented in objectives

Final Analysis on Marketing Tactics

• Difference of Group Target Matters– For Groups of 1,000+ and global “Outreach”

also known as target marketing is essential• Events work and can become self-sustaining for

community

• Recognition is important

• Corporate Strategy Sessions through community brings more community

The Bonus Question

• “Bonuses are being tied to participation, but generally community succeeds when it is voluntary, since, for example, quantifying a good answer in a forum is difficult.”

--Interviews with Participate.com & Akiva.com

WrapUp

• Look for ways to “Keep It Simple”• Look for ways to have “high touch” in marketing

– One-to-one efforts – Emarketing– Online Newsletter– Teaser Excerpts– Recognition incentives

• Be Dr. Freud: Analyze what works after three months

Aspectx

Competitive Intelligence *Marketing *Public Relations *Business Planning *Event Marketing

*Web ConsultingFor more information contact in the United States:

Dawn Marie Yankeelov, PresidentAspectx

Dawny@aspectx.comwww.aspectx.com