Polle de Maagt for BDMA.

Why social media is the next step in direct marketing. And why it isn’t.

Hi. My name is Polle de Maagt and I am an independent digital / social media consultant based in Ghent, Belgium. I try to change companies to be more about acts and less about ads. Because I believe companies have a lot of unused potential. Because I believe that the most successful companies connect with their consumers. And because I believe it isn’t about remarkable talks, but about remarkable acts.

I look 16, but I’m actually 29.

Inspiration. Get your boost of energy. Sometimes you just need a boost of inspiration, a presentation of workshop to give your organization an energy boost and a fresh perspective on really connecting with consumers.

Coaching. Have someone to guide you. Need a training or workshop? Need someone on a regular basis to challenge you and sharpen your ideas and tactics?Or maybe you need help in developing campaign ideas?You might need someone with experience to bring best practices and jump in when you need it the most.

Strategy. A roadmap with impact. Implementing social media and really connecting with consumers isn’t easy. You need a strategy with business impact, comprehensive models and frameworks for guidance. And a roadmap to gradually implement it within your company, tailored to your needs.

This is what I do.

CREATE STUFF WORTH SHARING.Tom de Bruyne, Polle de Maagt and Astrid Groenewegen at Boondoggle

Amsterdam.

The essence of direct marketing and the importance of gradual engagement in it. And please allow me to show you a best practice, KLM’s experiment how happiness spreads.

Let’s talk about three things today.

From ads to acts, Nike changed the way people run.Most people run the same route every time.Instead of telling people to run differently, Nike constructed a smart mechanisms to stimulate people to do so. They launched the Nike City Graffiti Challenge that asked people to run graffiti-style running routes through the city. A bag of fries. A Kabouter Wesley. A skull. And in the process, people ran further and different routes.

CREATE ACTS, NOT ADS.Leo Burnett.

Persuasive storytelling and instant buying.Welzijnszorg in Belgium is an organization that aims to get rid of all poverty. It isn’t easy for them to raise funds via traditional channels. That’s why they turned to a new platform, iTunes, to actually sell the stories. And to offer the opportunity to directly donate, by buying one of the stories.

Isn’t she cute? Use your unused potential. How to make sure that families visit the Zoo instead of watching a DVD? Capitalize on the stuff you’re already doing, your unused potential. In the case of the Antwerp Zoo, their animals and employees. It brought them 300.000 extra visitors, a nomination for product of the year and the best thing … the number one carnival suit of that year.

Blurb’s nifty use of the Net Promoter Score.Online publishing platform Blurb goes the distance in stimulating people to talk about them. They measure how likely it is that you will recommend the product to friends. Even more, they use this information to tailor offerings.

MARKETING IS WAY TO IMPORTANT TO LEAVE TO THE MARKETING DEPARTMENT.

Steven van Belleghem.

The essence of direct marketing and the importance of gradual engagement in it. And please allow me to show you a best practice, KLM’s experiment how happiness spreads.

Let’s talk about three things today.

A lot of campaigns are designed to collect Facebook likes. To be able to tap into the consumer news feed, however, a consumer had to have a recent interaction with a brand.

Facebook forces gradual engagement.

Skittles’ smart and engaging triggers.Using great copy and teasing visuals Skittles engages thousands of consumers every single time they post a wallpost on Facebook. It creates a continuous stream of small but extremely pleasant interactions. One of their last posts had over 3000 interactions in less than 7 minutes.

Twitter forces gradual engagement.The average tweet lives 90 minutes. Especially with international-oriented accounts, you should develop a 24-hour content strategy.

Turkcell created a continuous interaction.To promote it’s mobile offering, Turkcell created a live twitter-based game. Based on twitter interactions, post-its would be removed, changed or added.

THE ONLY WAY TO TRULY BUILD A RELATIONSHIP IS THROUGH GRADUAL ENGAGEMENT.

Polle de Maagt.

The concept of gradual engagement.Consumers have both monetary and conversation value. Instead of bombarding them with messages, only targeting them in campaign season or approaching them as cash cows, engage them.

Campaigns vs programs in engagement.Campaigns have high reach and big impact, but are limited in time. Programs are continuous efforts to gradually engage consumers.

Maybe the best direct marketing campaign.Il Giglio d’Oro, a pretty simple bed & breakfast in Firenze turned every customer into an advocate by asking them to leave a review on Tripadvisor. It helped them to become the #1 bed & breakfast in Italy and #8 bed & breakfast in Europe.

The essence of direct marketing and the importance of gradual engagement in it. And please allow me to show you a best practice, KLM’s experiment how happiness spreads.

Let’s talk about three things today.

Over 32.000 KLM employees set out every day to enable a smooth transit of millions of passengers to over 160 destinations. They are committed to recognize the person behind every customer and provide them with a journey of inspiration.

Last year, KLM wanted to take this approach to social media. A simple briefing to their agency Boondoggle: “Do something with Foursquare”.

So this is what we did.

KLM proves it recognizes the person behind every customer.

An experiment how happiness spreads.How will little stories of personalized surprises travel the world? We set out to find out with KLM Surprise.

Managing expectations. It’s pretty basic: do more than people expect to stimulate word of mouth. However, be careful not to over-exceed expectations, that actually creates negative conversations.

So, what are the limitations of social CRM?On August 25th 2011, Karin sent a tweet about their friends going on honeymoon to Bali. KLM decided to surprise these happy newly weds on board of their flight. The bridal couple was brought a glas of champagne in special ‘wedding glases’ with sweet hearts.

The question for you guys: extremely cool or intrusive?

Creating momentum in the organization.Key in integrating social media is to build a ripple effect of small successful projects. It gives people in the organization time to adapt and learn. It give you time to build business cases and build support.First, have a look at the low-hanging fruits in your organization. Define small, manageable pilot projects with a very high chance of success. Define goals with intrinsic, learning and change management KPIs.

The essence of direct marketing and the importance of gradual engagement in it. And a best practice, KLM’s experiment how happiness spreads.

We talked about three things today.

Hi. My name is Polle de Maagt and I am an independent digital / social media consultant based in Ghent, Belgium.

Download the presentation atPolle.me/BDMA2011 www.polledemaagt.com@polledemaagtpolle@polledemaagt.com

Let’s keep in touch.