Best Marketing Practice : Cause Branding

Read my article on cause branding published in Adclubbombay site here : Cause Branding

Best Marketing Practice : Building a Brand Tribe

Read my article on building brand communities in the Ad Club Bombay website : Building brand tribes

Best Marketing Practice : Creating Consumer Centric Innovations

Read my article on consumer centric innovations in Adclub bombay Website : Creating consumer centric innovations

Best Marketing Practice : The Death of a Salesman

"Sir, I don't want to be in sales " :- This is a common statement made by most of the MBA students during the placement season. Sales Jobs are counted as the last desperate option by most of the management students. Recession or not, Sales Jobs were never in vogue.

That is one side of the story.

Yesterday I went to a new generation bank. Suddenly I was surrounded by a couple of staffs asking me whether I would be interested in starting an SIP. I said I need time to think about it but the staffs keep on pressurizing even stooping down to plain begging.

Sales Function is now passing through one of the worst phase since its evolution. Marketers are responsible for this downfall of one of the most critical functions of a company. Sales is the point where the company meets its customers. It is the ultimate moment of truth for any firm. But it is sad that this function has stooped down to a point of no return.

In office and public forums, complaints are galore about the high pressure selling tactics unprofessionally implemented by firms. Call center executives calling up prospects and just blurting out their sales talks without even seeking permission. Insurance Executives trying to sell products that consumer doesn't need. All these have created so much irritation among consumers that it is now difficult for a sales person to get even an appointment.

Consumers have become more offensive than defensive . Historically consumers hate being sold . Now they have taken up arms against the salesperson's high pressure sales appoach.

It is a truth that organizations cannot survive without Selling Function. It is also true that sometimes consumers have to be persuaded to buy products. Sales Managers have to realize that things are getting out of their hands.

It is time to go back to the basics.

Have you ever met a sales guy who have asked relevant questions before making his sales presentation ?
Have you ever met a sales person who refused to sell a product because he thinks it will not match your requirement ?

Have you ever met a sales person who suggest competitor's product because it suits you better ?

Have you ever sat through a sales talk and actually liked the talk?

These situations have become rare. Because firms doesn't have a plan for the customers. Sales professionals are too much bothered about numbers that they don't spent a time thinking about their customers. Understanding consumers is the last thing in the mind of the salespeople.
Just by changing the designation to Relationship Manager will not create relationships. It needs to be ingrained in the sales person's attitude and approach.

It all boils down to developing an ethical sales culture in organizations. It takes lot of courage to resist selling wrong products to wrong consumers. It takes lot of pain to think long term and suffer short term loss of sales. It takes lot of investment to create a customer and retain him compared to selling and forgetting .

The era of foot-in-the- door sales approach is over. Consumers have more information than the sales professionals. They are acutely aware of the positives and negatives of offers. Hence it is time we move to the real spirit of sales.

Let marketers take a vow not to mis-sell. Let us try understand the consumer and then offer solutions. Let the sales persons be given the courage of losing a sale and gaining a consumer. Let us view consumers as humans than sales figures.Let us first take permission and then sell.
Let the sales professional be evaluated on qualitative terms more than plain figures. Let the organizations have the courage to think beyong quarterly sales figures.

The ultimate success of sales function is where consumers call up the company to fix appoinment with the sales professionals. Can you ever dream of such a situation ?

Let us try to sell well and sell good.

Marketing Funda : REAPS Model

REAPS model of needs was proposed by Indian Brand Guru Jagdeep Kapoor of Samsika Marketing Consultants.

REAPS stands for
R - Rational Need
E - Emotional Need
A - Aspirational Need
P - Physical Need
S - Spiritual Need

REAPS Model may sound too simple and obvious . Nothing New about it - was my first impression when I read about it. But on contemplation, this simple model is of immense use for marketers.

What REAPS Model does is that it helps you to understand the various needs of a consumer and then the marketer will be able to rate the brand on these needs.The brand will also then be able to position itself on the most dominant need of the target market. A successful brand should be able to engage all these needs of the consumer.

REAPS Model has its root in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs theory and other motivational theories but what has appealed to me is the simplicity and the practical nature of this model.
The task of the marketer is to understand the dominant need category to which the target segment belong and then create a product /communication for them.

Another important factor to understand is that a consumer will have multiple needs at a point of time. Hence while creating a product, the marketer has to make sure that the product appeal to all these need levels. Brands which have iconic status appeal to all these need levels of the consumer.

For example a brand like Apple, appeals to the rational needs through its product features, appeals to the emotional need of the consumers through its positioning, is aspirational because of the brand , appeals to the physical needs through design and connects to the consumer at a higher level of bonding with the consumer.
According to Wharton , Nokia is a brand which addressed all these needs successfully and hence was able to rule the Indian market . Read the article here : Wharton on REAPS

REAPS is a simple tool which can be used by marketers working on a new product design. The idea and the prototypes can be rated on these needs to see whether it makes sense to go ahead.This tool also helps marketer to periodically review their brand on these needs to see whether the brand is still relevant to consumer.

It is also encouraging to see proprietary models being developed by Indian marketers.
Kudos to Mr Jagdeep Kapoor.

As I See It : The Death of HR Function

Human Resources Development ( HR) was a glamorous function. A much sought after specialization in business schools (especially by girls) HR came into limelight with the Software Industry boom in India.

The HR function broke away from the Personnel and Industrial Relations Department ( P&IR) which was later relegated to dealing with Unions and Payrolls. HR became the focal point in organizations and took over the glamorous functions like recruitment,selection and training.

The software boom resulted in a huge demand for talent. Firms began to scout for the scarce talent and retaining talent became the major worry for the top management. Suddenly ,from a mere Staff Function, HR became a strategic function.

Management Gurus began to praise the importance of HR in a firms' strategy. HR professionals were touted to play a major role in the board. When Mohandas Pai of Infosys voluntarily remitted his CFO position to take up the role of Director - HR, everyone thought that HR has come off age.

Since money was not an issue, training was on overdrive. HR made training mandatory for all officials including Chairman and Managing Directors. Even thoughts about corporate universities began to shape up.

Stories began to spread about the lavish perks and mouth-watering work environments. Companies began to compete to build smartest workplaces.Employees were considered vital resources. Firms began to inventory human resources fearing that competitors will grab them. Sometimes employees in the bench exceeded those who are doing real work.

The traditional sector like manufacturing , FMCG and durables also faced issue of retaining talent because talent was moving towards sunrise industries that offered better packages.

Employees tried to take advantage of the talent crunch by transforming themselves into Job Hoppers.Commitment was out of fashion , No Shows became the order of the day.


Then......

Recession struck... Markets tumbled, customers stopped buying , panic spread and the dreaded word - Cost Cutting became the Manthra.

Suddenly there was a change in the HR lexicon.

Resource became Expense.
Human Resource became Human Cost - the focal point of Cost Cutting.

Talent Retention became Talent Rationalization.

Sitting on Bench Became Sitting Ducks

Training became a discretionary Expense.

HR became a dreaded function relegated to the difficult task of retrenching people and identifying weeds.

Now no one is talking about talents retention, training ,development.


It is sad that only very few organizations identified and understood the true nature of HR. They are still hiring, retaining and training their employees . For others , HR was just a fashion.

The problem was in numbers. Just like filling sales targets, HR began to fill in the numbers. Blinded by the growth, the Qualitative factors never made sense. The current scenario proves that the HR forecasting models needs to be redefined.

I still don't understand why a person should be recruited if they have no job to do ?

If training is considered to be the key to organizational development, why is that it is cut ?

If HR's job is to recruit the right person for the right job, why are people leaving just for a higher salary ?

When organizations grow in breakneck speed, opening offices at every district and recruiting people enmasse, is it the responsibility of HR to remind the company to go slow ?


The current scenario is a painful lesson for the HR Function and it is a time to redefine the role of HR in organization. The principal role of HR should be to imbibe a culture in an organization that naturally attracts and retain the best talent irrespective of good times and bad times.

Otherwise HR will only be a king of good times.

End Note : I am not a HR professional or an expert in this function , hence I may be wrong in some of the observations. Please give your views as comments.

Marketing Funda : Above The Line & Below The Line

Above the Line ( ATL) and Below The Line ( BTL) are the two most commonly used terms in marketing. Both these refer to the nature of promotional activities done by companies.

The simple and most common definition for Above the Line promotions is that ATL refers to all promotional activities done by companies through mass media. In common parlance Advertising is the major ATL activity and all other form of promotions except direct marketing falls below the line.

There is another jargon Through The Line (TTL) which refers to the activities that try to integrate both ATL and BTL.

Both ATL and BTL jargons does not form a part of the core marketing concepts hence you will not find a clear academic definition in marketing text books ( esp. Kotler).

Above The Line and Below The Line terms are centered around the word " LINE". So it is essential to understand the meaning of the term LINE inorder to see the difference between the two jargons.

Interestingly the term LINE is hypothetical and there is no defined boundary that exists between ATL and BTL

According to Mr Michael John Baker ( The Marketing Book) , the term came into forefront in 1954 through the practice of Proctor and Gamble, where the advertising agencies were paid differently from those who undertook promotional activities other than advertising. Marketers began to delineate activities other than advertising as a separate marketing practice called Below the Line Promotion.

Below The Line promotions include sales promotions, consumer promotions, PR, events , point of purchase promotions and all those unconventional tools that marketers adopt. Direct Marketing how ever could not be fitted into both these jargons and hence is kept stand alone.

Frankly there is no need for such a hypothetical boundary and classifications like ATL and BTL. The current developments that are happening in the media space makes such jargons highly irrelevant. Because boundaries are blurring. Now we see consumer promotions heavily advertised in mass media. Events are highly publicized using advertising, so the LINE is actually non-existant.

For example a viral video in Youtube which is watched by millions of netizens can be theoretically put as a BTL but it is reaching even more people than the traditional media like TV and print. The recent ZooZoo campaign of Vodafone cannot be bracketted along ATL and BTL because the campaign has already become viral with many blogs writing about it. The campaign was designed to be viral.

Marketing Funda : Branding a Commodity

My article on branding a commodity in Adclubbombay.com. Read it here

Marketing Funda : Creating Brand Experience

My article on Creating brand Experience published in Adclubbombay.com : Read it here

Marketing Funda : The art of story telling

My article on the Art of Story Telling published in Adclubbombay.com : Read it here

Marketing Funda : The Difficult Task of Differentiation

My article on Differentiation published in Adclubbombay.com : Read it here

Marketing Funda : Logic of brand extensions

My article on logic of brand extensions published in adclubbombay.com : read it here

Guru Speak : Advertising During Recession by Lakshmipathy Bhat

Marketing Practice is happy to present a guest post from an Advertising professional par Excellence- Mr Lakshmipathy Bhat. Mr Bhat is currently Vice President at DraftFCB+Ulka Advertising, Bangalore. Mr Bhat has over 17 years experience in various marketing functions. He has worked on BAT, P&G,GSK among others

An ardent lover of Advertising, Mr Bhat is a prolific blogger and runs a blog at lbhat.com

In this post, Mr Bhat talks about advertising strategies that should be adopted during difficult times like recession.

Advertising during recession

It is not unusual to find companies who regard advertising as a wasteful, unnecessary expenditure. The belief is that as long as you have a great product, people will buy. Even with companies who place a great emphasis on advertising, the urge to cut the advertising expenditure is huge, especially during recessionary times.

But it is a well known fact that advertising during recession is a smart thing, maybe even a mandatory thing to do. It’s virtues are well-established and oft-repeated perhaps from 1929, the time of the first Great Depression in the US. But human tendency is such that what seems practical and beneficial in the short term is usually chosen path. The long term benefits of sustaining advertising during tough times far outweigh the possible short term benefit of saving money.

What are the broad guidelines for advertising during recession? The general approach to advertising during recession and advice to marketing companies have been provided by several experts. So what I am going to outline below will not be startlingly new - just my views on the important guidelines:

1. Evaluate the role of your product in the consumer’s life

What might be right for a manufacturer of office furniture may not be relevant for a hair oil marketer. Every product fulfills a certain need in the consumer’s mind. The starting point could perhaps be to evaluate the role of the product. In an article titled ‘Yes, you can raise prices’, Geoff Colvin of Fortune Magazine illustrated the point about being able to even raise prices during recession through a simple 2x2 matrix. Where does your product fit in that kind of a matrix? Is it a necessity like a washing soap or light bulb? Or discretionary like a spa treatment? The answers may provide direction for your approach to pricing and advertising during recession. Of course, such a matrix may be interpreted differently in different markets. In India for example, is an airline brand a discretionary commodity or unique? Everyday purchases that can’t be done without need to stay top of mind. Unique ‘necessities’ are products where certain brands are irreplaceable in that category - it is usually about brands whose loyalty measures are high.

Another useful tool is The FCB Grid, developed by Richard Vaughn, a Senior Vice President of Foote, Cone and Belding Advertising. It shows how consumers approach each category and provides cues for advertising & media strategy for these brands.

For example, for brands in Quadrant 2 - the impact could be that the advertising execution has to be top class with emphasis on impact. Whereas for brands in Quadrant 3, the emphasis could be about repetition, memorability (jingle, perhaps) and so on.

2. Stretch the advertising rupee

Well, there is no reason why a lot of the stuff that is prescribed and done during the tough times is not practiced otherwise! Is every advertising effort meant to produce great ROI? Yes. Is it applicable only during tough times? Obviously not but this aspect is somehow stressed only now. Certain categories will find their incomes being hit - financial products, air travel, hotels, for example. They should research and invest in media that minimize wastage. It could be direct marketing, Online advertising that is measurable and so on. On television, evaluate if you really need that 40-sec commercial or can an equally impactful message be sent across in 30-sec?

3. Focus on changing behaviour, not just attitude

One of the perennial accusations about advertising is it’s fuzzy role in generating sales. Many see advertising as being limited to creating awareness and not really driving sales. The agency would argue that the sale did not happen for reasons beyond their control - pricing, distribution etc. Both valid. But it perhaps makes sense to engineer not just advertising but the entire marketing process to effect a change in behaviour during tough times. It’s not enough for the consumer to feel that XYZ airline is the best airline in terms of service. He must be motivated to make that booking and fly the airline. Perhaps this is more relevant for high value, high interest categories. But even for everyday impulse purchases, SKUs with lower price points could be an option. Advertising should work hand in hand to push the consumer into making a decision focusing on the reason-why he should consider the brand not just a generic message.

-------------------

Lakshmipathy Bhat

The views/opinions expressed here are the personal views of the author.

Consumer Insight : Customer Loyalty

This post is inspired by the article by Mr Prasad Sangemeshwaran in Brand Equity ( 09/09/09) titled "Goodbye Mr Loyalty". (Read it Here). I feel that the basic premise of the article is wrong.

The article starts with a very bold statement - " The Customer is Infidel" ( which is a nice attention grabbing technique). The author then went on to argue that the concept of customer loyalty is now a thing of past.

I feel that the author made an assumption that all marketers believe in customer loyalty. Customer Loyalty is a concept- an ideal state where the consumers keep coming back for your offering. Marketers know fully well that consumers will keep coming back for the offerings only if it satisfies the need continuously. Marketers are also aware that consumers are looking for new ways of fulfilling their desires.

The moment you think that consumers are permanently loyal to your brand, you are in a state of marketing myopia. Marketing myopia is a condition where marketers become too narrowly focused on the product rather than the consumer & his need. Why Nokia is highly successful in India is its constant endeavour to bring in new products in tune with the changing consumer needs. Even in the case of Nokia, it missed out the " touchscreen" mania and even the " smartphone" trend. Marketers today are more aware about the impact of disruptive innovations which can create havoc in the market. Successful brands today are focusing not only in meeting consumer needs but also in shaping those needs.

It is also wrong to say that in the past consumers were more loyal to brands. The choice before consumers in yesteryear's were very less forcing them to stick to certain brands. That is not an indication of loyal behavior.

Having said that, there are brands which are able to create not only brand loyals but also raving fans. Brands like Harley, Apple,Google,McDonalds, Disney etc are considered iconic because of its ability to create communities and fans. But even these brands needs to keep running very hard to keep those consumers from switching.

If Customer is the King, how can you expect him to be loyal ?

Marketing Funda : Line Filling

Marketing Practice Reader Balaji asks a very pertinent question about the series of brand launches by Maruti Suzuki in the hatchback segment. He asks :

"

I want to know about New product development in automobile industry especially in Maruti.They are launching different small cars.Is it really makes a profit for them.Can you give the explantion with example.Introducing new car in the small car segment(Maruti) makes confusion among the customers that which car to buy /which is best?.Is really they are benefiting or just in order to compete with other company they are introducing the new product ? "

Maruti Suzuki is following the product line strategy of Line Filling. Line Filling is a strategy where the company introduces new products within the same( existing) price range.

Maruti Suzuki recently launched a series of brands in the hatchback segment. A look at the price ranges of hatchback brands of Maruti will give you a clear picture of Line Filling.

Maruti 800 - Rs 2,00,000 - Rs 2,12000

Maruti Alto - Rs 2,22,000 - Rs 2,70,000

Maruti Estilo - Rs 3,17,000 - Rs 3,98,000

Maruti Wagon R - Rs 3,18,000 - Rs 4,32,000

Maruti A Star - Rs 3,40,000 - Rs 4,12,000

Maruti Ritz - Rs 3,89,000 - Rs 5,10,000

Maruti Swift - Rs 4,06,000 - Rs 5,20,000

( All prices are Ex-Showroom Cochin)

Source : Marutisuzuki.com)

The overlap is diagrammatically represented below.

From the price ranges, it is evident that there is a significant overlap among various brands.The question is why Maruti chose to bring out products with similar price ranges. Another question is whether this overlap will create cannibalization among these brands.

There are several reasons for such a line filling strategy. According to Prof. Philip Kotler, firms adopt this strategy for

a. Incremental Profits

b.Satisfy Dealers who complain about lost sales because of missing items in the line

c.Utilize existing capacity

d.Try to become a full-line company

e.Try to plug holes to keep the competitors away. ( Source Marketing Management ,11 edition)

In the case of Maruti, more than one reasons prompt it to fill the line. Maruti Suzuki has tremendous brand equity in the Indian market. Hence having a full line catering to all segments of consumers offers tremendous advantage to the company.

There are customers (like me) who would like to buy a car from Maruti. Having various offerings at various price points keeps that customers happy and make them stick to the company. If I want to upgrade to a bigger car, I have a choice or a A star or a Wagon R or a Ritz or a Swift. In such a scenario, I may not go in to a competitor's product.

Another reason for Maruti's line filling is to keep out the competitors. The company is facing lot of competition in the hatchback segment. At the lower end Nano may give Alto and 800 a run for its money. Santro, i10 and Spark is giving tough competition for mid-range hatchbacks and products like Fabia, Palio,Punto,i20 are giving competition at the higher segment of the hatchback market. Hence to keep the market share intact , Maruti is keeping a full line of brands covering various price points.

When there are brands which has similar price points, it is natural that some sort of cannibalization will happen. When Ritz was launched, it definitely took away some customers of Swift. But Maruti can be happy that the customer has bought its product rather than that of its competitor.

Regarding the profits, Maruti is one of the lowest cost producer in the automobile industry. This low cost base enable the firm to make a profit irrespective of cannibalization.

One of the critical factor that a firm should consider while line filling is the Differentiation. There has to be a just-noticable difference between the offerings other wise consumers will get confused . In the case of Maruti brands, there is a clear differentiation either interms of design or performance between these brands.

Line Filling is the strategy adopted by Maruti Suzuki to retain its grip in the Indian market. But in the Indian Automobile industry , may be only Maruti can do it.

Marketing Funda : Articles on Marketing -1

Afaqs article on Sleepwell's ads http://tinyurl.com/yzdl56x nice read

How Strong is Your Business? Can You Pass the 3 to 6 Test?http://bit.ly/17ILuk II good read

Why the Wrong People Get Laid Off — And How to Prevent Ithttp://bit.ly/108nja II I have 2 make my job confusing!

Brand Positioning For A Better Night's Sleep http://bit.ly/KNVEB II

Family values help family owned business survive downturnhttp://tinyurl.com/yb44pjw

Understanding Product Management Role http://bit.ly/rrHJF II nice one on product management

Personal Kaizen: 15 Tips for your continuous improvementhttp://bit.ly/ouQmr II nice read on presentation skills

Shave more, get more, grow the core http://bit.ly/R76Qg II Gillette asking u to shave ur body.

Eight Questions to Assess Your Sales Organizationhttp://bit.ly/a5O8c II must read for sales pros

How Do Innovators Think? http://bit.ly/KDwCv II nice read

Management Consulting: Help or Hazard? http://bit.ly/19QGrD II hitting hard on consulting pros

The platform vs. the eyeballs http://bit.ly/19pjiz II excellent insights for marketers

Actively encouraging cannibalisation http://bit.ly/OCFOT II good read

Saturn’s Marketing Lesson Is One To Rememberhttp://bit.ly/4AhvqR important lesson for marketers

How to Deliver the Talk of Your Life http://bit.ly/NgJE8 II nice insights

A nice brand story of Zodiac http://tinyurl.com/bypx76

How to Pursue Your Passion: Understand the Essence of Your Passion http://bit.ly/2LQh9h nice read

My Best Innovation Advice? Be Promiscuous http://bit.ly/cFoww II nice read

Nike rides high even in recession http://adage.com/u/s3D9xb

Good communication skills outrank other core business competencies http://bit.ly/V6tCC

Marketing Funda : Articles on Marketing -2

Mont Blanc's first Television ad in India http://tinyurl.com/ox5szk II a story to tell..

Use a Human Sales Approach http://bit.ly/3xrSb7 II interesting read

How Corporate Responsibility Can Survive the Recessionhttp://bit.ly/38bpa7 II Nice read

The 7 Deadly Sins of Public Speaking http://bit.ly/2mmQJy II good read for students

Brand Perceptions, Slogans and the Mind http://bit.ly/2nRq7t II absolutely must read for marketers

Why Small Companies Are Better at Customer Servicehttp://bit.ly/D59x5 II sincere empathy & Commonsense..

Understanding business development http://bit.ly/PzeB1 II xcllent insights from Seth Godin

Creating The Brand Halo Effect http://bit.ly/4rmxZM II Must read for all marketers

Putting the Art of Leadership into Practice http://bit.ly/iyqxe

Where's Your Lean? http://bit.ly/4OJ8v excellent article on communication

Putting the Art of Leadership into Practice http://bit.ly/iyqxe nice insights

Creative Strategy Importance: Visual or Verbal? http://bit.ly/aWdVqII great funda

What gets measured must get done http://bit.ly/13J72H very true indeed

A case to spend money on advertising http://tinyurl.com/mc5q68from stanford

Branding lessons from Gillette http://tinyurl.com/klasud

Mastering The Multiple Brand Strategy http://bit.ly/Zslcp important lessons to be learned

The Art of Giving Praise http://bit.ly/9HzIk lessons for professors and salesmen

How to Be Childlike http://bit.ly/QcLTF II inspiring

Time or money, which one rules consumer choiceshttp://tinyurl.com/l28jys excellent article from Wharton

Managing in an upturn, keep expectations lowhttp://tinyurl.com/lmsqth niceone

Future Group's Mythological Marketing http://bit.ly/isF0v II atlast some Indian originated management principles

How to Make Solving Problems Fun http://bit.ly/olkfh II nice read and practical too

Decoding Leadership http://bit.ly/OVzAS II simple insights

Excellent story on 3M , 6σ Vs creativity http://tinyurl.com/26ywre

Sub-Brands & Line Extensions http://bit.ly/9L2ZE II subbrands can create confusion if not clearly defined

How Lakme brand is trying to change itself http://tinyurl.com/r4bpjy

Nice article on Carnation auto owned by Jagdish Khattarhttp://tinyurl.com/qztb5u

Inside Procter & Gamble's New Values-Based Strategyhttp://bit.ly/3wgUJw II excellent article

Understanding Indian consumer http://tinyurl.com/qofyxl by Rama Bijapurkar

Double Branding's Disadvantage http://bit.ly/AXlXV Alries says singlebrands r stronger

Use Salesmanship to Energize Your Organization http://bit.ly/uhlRi II couldnt agree more

Salespeople: Don't Talk About Price on the First Datehttp://bit.ly/Ixv4u xcellent, but will it work?

How to Make Metaphorical Magic in Your Speechhttp://bit.ly/2cUXA1 excellent article on communication

Do Interesting Things http://bit.ly/xXADM This really inspired me

Get off my land! Leading vs. Poacher Brands (Part 1)http://bit.ly/UG3Yi funda

Category Builders vs. Category Killers http://bit.ly/icPKj excellent article from Alries

Citizen Sweety Blouse: Draupadi Cheer Haran http://bit.ly/tzSLEhilarious

Guru Speak by Gaurav Mishra : The Experience Ecosystem

Marketing Practice is extremely happy to present a guest post from one of India's foremost social media experts -Mr Gaurav Mishra. Gaurav needs no introduction to the blogging community. He authors a very popular blog at Gauravonomics.com. An IIM B alumnus, Gaurav is currently the CEO of a Social Business Strategy firm 20:20 Social. Gaurav was also a Yahoo! Fellow and taught Social Media at Georgetown University. On a personal note, Gaurav's thoughts on social media has always given me new insights as a marketer.

Gaurav Mishra in this post is talking about the new ecosystem created by the social media and its implication for marketers.

The Experience Ecosystem

It’s an accepted notion now that the brand is realized on the Social Web, in conversations between strangers, who then amplify, quash, or otherwise reshape each other’s opinion on the product or service, often based on first-hand experiences. These messages play off against marketing messages pushed by advertising agencies in the mind of the customer, and increasingly, customers are listening to their peers, instead of marketing messages.

The Social Web exposes any misalignment between implicit or explicit expectations set by the CMO in marketing messages and the actual experience delivered by the organization run by the COO. It is therefore critical that the CMO and COO be in absolute alignment, so that the organization (over-)delivers on what the brand has promised, leading to customer delight, loyalty and advocacy.

At the core of this approach is the idea that conversations are driven by experiences. If you want to drive positive conversations about your brands, you should start by creating an experience that is worth talking about.

The Experience Ecosystem provides the framework for creating talk-worthy experiences. It consists of all the touchpoints between the organization and the customer, including products, services and partners, sales and support channels and interactions, and the values for which the organization and its individual brands stand for.

Working within the Experience Ecosystem, the best way to create an experience worth talking about is to design it collaboratively, with customers, employees and partners. Social Applications for ideation, support and expertise-sharing enable such collaboration.

A collaboratively designed, talk-worthy Experience Ecosystem often results in the formation of communities of customers, partners, employees and even citizens. Community Platforms catalyze such communities and enable them to connect even more closely, ensuring deeper connections and even more widespread circulation of positive conversations.

Deconstructing the Experience Ecosystem

So, the obvious question arises: How do you collaboratively design an Experience Ecosystem that drives conversations and results in close-knit communities?

You start by listening. Your customers, partners, and employees are talking to each other about you, often in public, and their conversations include a treasure trove of feedback about your Experience Ecosystem, along with ideas to improve it. In short, they offer clear signals as to how they will take ownership for the experiences and conversations that will drive your brand.

However, listening is only the first step. You also need to respond to these people and participate in these conversations, not with the intent to direct them in one direction or another, but with the intent to engage them and learn more. Over time, as you track these conversation threads, you should seek ways to build profiles for the people who are participating in these conversations, and identify which conversations, and which people specifically, are the most valuable to you.

Some of these conversation threads will involve responding to and converting prospects who are considering your products or services. Other conversation threads will relate to supporting existing customers seeking an explanation or a solution. Still other conversation threads will be about customers, prospects, partners or employees giving you feedback on your Experience Ecosystem.

In each of these cases, you should use Social Applications -- small, distinct code objects that connect people, facilitate sharing, and enable coordinated experiences -- to tie these conversation threads with other similar conversation threads and leverage the power of collaboration. A prospect considering your offering may benefit from the reviews and experiences of other customers. An existing customer might find that other customers have already shared useful tips on how to solve common problems. Finally, customers can collaborate to find the best ideas to improve your products, services, and sales and support processes, or design entirely new ones.

Once you have collaboratively designed a talkworthy Experience Ecosystem, you should build Community Platforms to catalyze the formation of communities, and transform customers, partners and employees into evangelists.

The Toolkit is Still Evolving

The toolkit to create an integrated talkworthy Experience Ecosystem is still evolving, but it’s already possible to connect the various activities described above, as my colleague Dave Evans recently pointed out in his ClickZ column (http://clickz.com/3635116).

Social media monitoring tools like Radian6 (http://radian6.com) and Techrigy (http:// techrigy.com) already incorporate workstream elements. Not only that, Radian6 connects with Salesforce CRM and WebTrends Analytics, apart from Twitter.

CRM tool vendors are also expanding in both directions and introducing social media analytics and community features. Salesforce (http://salesforce.com) now has a full suite of community features including ideation, support and knowledge sharing in its Service Cloud suite (http:// salesforce.com/crm/customer-service-support) and even connects with Twitter and Facebook. Apart from the integration with Radian6, Salesforce also supports integration with the Lithium community platform and the Parature customer support suite (http://parature.com), amongst others.

At the other end, community platform vendors like Jive (http:// jivesoftware.com) and Lithium (http://lithium.com) are also aggressively introducing social media analytics and social CRM features.

In Summary

It’s more important than ever to create a talkworthy Experience Ecosystem and the tools to enable it are quickly coming together. Organizations that develop the end-to-end view described above will use these tools in an integrated manner and win on the Social Web, while those who implement disconnected solutions on an ad-hoc basis will struggle. Integration, then, is the key to winning on the Social Web.

(Gaurav Mishra (http://gauravonomics.com) is the CEO of Social Business Strategy firm 20:20 Social (http://2020social.com). Previously, Gaurav has held senior marketing roles at the Tata Group, taught social media at Georgetown as the 2008-09 Yahoo! Fellow, and co-founded Vote Report India (http://votereport.in). You can follow Gaurav on Twitter at @gauravonomics (http://twitter.com/gauravonomics) and download the 20:20 Social position paper on Social Business Strategy (http://2020social.com/social_business_strategy.pdf) for a structured methodology for building a talkworthy Experience Ecosystem.)