Will 1/4″ really do?
Give your customers the solution they need, rather than just the service they ask for.
A man walks into a hardware store and asks for a 1/4 inch drill bit…
The SERVICE PROVIDER salesman says to him: “No problem, here’s a 1/4 inch drill bit.”
Then charges him $2.99 and he’s on his way home.
The SOLUTIONS PROVIDER salesman says to him: “Sure thing. What are you doing?”
The man replies “I’m hanging a picture.”
The salesman asks “Really? How big is it?”
The man replies “It’s really big. Almost 4 feet across with a thick metal frame.”
“Oh, I see,” says the salesman. “And do you know what type of wall you’ll be drilling in to?”
“Plaster” replies the man.
The salesman thinks for a second, and says “You might want to consider a plaster anchor so you don’t damage your wall, and a little larger drill bit to accommodate the anchor. In fact, given the weight of the picture, you’ll also probably want wire instead of string to hold the picture up with an enforced hook, or maybe even two hooks.”
The man, now holding what he needs pays the $29.99 fee, and leaves the store happy.
The Solutions provider actually charged 10X the Services provider. However, as is often the case, the “Total Cost” of the SOLUTION was actually less than the cost of the SERVICE, since before the man was finished with the 1/4 inch drill bit he would have had to return to the store, and possibly even damaged his wall.
What kind of company do YOU want to be?
There’s a case to be made for providing solutions rather than services. In fact, in most cases when you take into account how something works when it’s finished, or the cost of doing something twice, or the time required to fix something that’s not quite right, or even just the price of a headache when something goes sideways, it’s easy to see how a “more expensive” SOLUTION could actually cost less than the less expensive SERVICE.
It’s the paradox of the three legged stool named price/quality/expertise.
And the communication that SOLUTION providers must master in order to educate clients about value and sell over the allure of low price.
Why Aren’t You Listening?
It is very dangerous to assume what your audience wants when it comes to marketing and the social web.
Yet, we continue to see the outpouring of content that appears to have no audience, or completely misses the space that audience occupies. How and why is this still happening? Sadly, it seems that companies are still relying on legacy marketing tactics that worked with specific marketing channels. They don’t realize that these practices won’t work with the new tools immediately available to them, AND that their “audience” is more savvy to the marketing messages that are being thrown their way.
Businesses can no longer plead ignorance to customer needs and wants. They have to start paying very close attention to customer behavior and communication patterns on the social web. This can only be done if they take the time to listen. Best practices of social media dictates that this be done, and it favors those who do this homework.
Why is listening so important?
- It provides insight into customer/audience behavior
- It gives you a solid indication of the strength of your brand
- You can get a better idea of what your competition is up to
- You gain marketing and consumer insights into your related business and industry sectors
- You can identify business opportunities to capitalize on
- It helps identify the types of content you need to share
- It helps you know where to share that content and how
Most important, listening is the starting point from where all your social media marketing efforts should stem from.
The companies and organizations that skip this step are easily recognized. They immediately claim profiles on the big social networks and begin populating their feeds with self promotion. More than likely they auto-populate their content so it really doesn’t matter what social network you choose to follow. The message will be the same everywhere. This goes on for about a month until all of a sudden, things go quiet. There is no activity and their social media efforts are ignored, if they weren’t already. Now they have to work twice as hard to re-position their brand and earn audience trust.
Okay, we drilled the point – you need to listen. How do you go about doing this?
- Build your Social Media Intelligence Dashboards. These act as hubs that collect all the helpful resources you come across during your listening. Use free tools like iGoogle or Netvibes to get started.
- If you are not already, get familiar with Google Alerts. These are daily or weekly alerts that can be set up on just about any subject and can be sent to your Gmail.
- Open an account on Hootsuite, Tweetdeck. or one of the many free Twitter dashboard tools.
- Start plugging in keywords of your competition, industry terms, related vendors, and organizations into Google and your Google Alerts. A good starting point are keywords identified for SEO efforts.
- Start subscribing to the RSS feeds of the blogs and articles from the above categories you find helpful. Assign these feeds to show in your iGoogle Dashboard.
- Start plugging in Twitter accounts of your competition, industry leaders, and related organizations into your Twitter Dashboards.
- Pay attention to Twitter hashtags and start adding them.
- Use bookmarking tools to archive helpful articles and resources you come across.
- If you are a team of one, good luck. If you do have a team of people, distribute listening assignments accordingly.
- Make sure you take the time to meet regularly and discuss what you have discovered. Make adjustments as necessary.
That’s about it. Okay, there is a heck of a lot more than just these ten steps, but they should get you started.
Listening can be a full time job. Depending on the size of the organization and business goals, you may find the need to staff resources for this social media component alone. Don’t believe us? Take a look at what Dell is doing. You probably don’t have to go to that extent, but it shows you how well Dell understands the importance of listening, and something called customer retention.
The fundamentals of marketing haven’t really changed that much. You still have to always be attentive to who your audience is, and what they expect from you. What has changed, and continues to change, is the capability an audience has to vocalize and magnify their approval or disapproval of your marketing efforts they are exposed to. Customers are now playing with the same tools, and in some cases they may be better at using them then you.
So do them and yourself a favor, pay attention and listen.
It’s time for all digital branding and marketing agencies to take an honest look at Social Media.
Looking back over the last few years it is clear that many marketing agencies are still doing Social Media ineffectively not only for their clients, but for themselves as well. Social Media is still suffering from the “hot new thing” syndrome. Clients needs it, agencies say they can do it, but neither know why they are being social or how it plugs into the business side of things. This is dangerous, and we are witnessing the fall out when the client recognizes they are not seeing the ROI.
Moving into 2012, here are twelve things agencies need to take into serious consideration when it comes to their own social media services.
- More Listening and Less Talking – Agencies continue to overlook the #1 required first step of Social Media – listening. Not only is this detrimental to their own business, but they are also hurting clients by not providing them the first step in building an effective Social Media program. Listening is where it starts, and an agency who doesn’t show a client why this is important shouldn’t be surprised when that client decides to part ways.
- Effective Communication Through Content – Agencies need to show clients how to communicate with audience through content, and not market at them through social networks. Everyone can tweet, but building a true connection with people is where real value lies. This won’t happen without good content, and this is why listening is so important. It helps clients better understand what kind of content they should be providing.
- Provide Education and Not Just Training - Clients shouldn’t be paying agencies top dollar just to learn how to blog and update their social networks. Clients should want to better understand why they are doing the things recommended to them. Agencies who educate on the why, and not just the how, will be truly helping their clients while separating themselves from the competition.
- Practice What You Preach – Put yourself in your client’s shoes. Would you hire an agency who recommends providing effective content on a regular basis, building communication bridges with your audience, active listening of your competition and industry, and measuring results through calculable ROI when they themselves d0 none of this? Agencies need to be executing best practices they preach.
- Full Business Adoption – Does your agency demonstrate how Social Media works beyond marketing your brand? What about customer service, HR/recruiting, sales, internal communications, IT, technology/web development, and more? Agencies need to be aware of the increasing importance of encompassing Social Media with their clients multiple business touch points.
- Less Isolated Tactics and More Integrated Strategy – The last point leads to the whole discussion of strategy. Agencies who provide things like a Facebook or blogging strategy are just a few steps away from being snake oil salesmen. The available tools are tactics that are part of the overall strategy. Agencies better be able to put the moving pieces together, and complete a full Social Media road map for their clients.
- Be A Second or Third Pair of Eyes – One of the best ways to be successful in Social Media is to help. Clients may be overwhelmed with the strategy you provide. As an agency you need to help your client, and lead by example. Maybe you’ve been listening to your client’s competition and you have an idea for a great content piece. Share information you come across that relates to their business and demonstrate how you would share it on their social networks. Don’t just hand off the strategy to your client and walk away. Be part of the process. They will remember this and refer you when others ask who helped them with Social Media.
- Out = Robots. In = Being Human - As the social web matures, so do it’s users, and they will expect and demand authenticity from the sources they trust. Agencies who champion the auto-publication of content don’t understand Social Media. If this is the only method of content publication you believe in, be prepared to see less business.
- Stop Being Vague With Your Social Media Language - As David Meerman Scott said in his eBook, it’s time to stop talking Gobbledygook. Agencies owe it to themselves to limit their use of Social Media buzzwords like engagement, relationships, influence, buzz, and more. Using these words in a proposal only cheapens your credibility. Speak the language of your clients and show them how Social Media fits in their world.
- Connect All the Dots – If an agency is building Social Media for a client in siloed efforts, they will be in a lot of trouble when that client asks how all the parts fit together. Being able to provide a road map that connects the floating pieces is an essential agency deliverable.
- Increase the Value of Your Clients – Building a lot of Social Media activity for clients is easy, and too many agencies see activity as the end goal. Building your clients to be seen as helpful resources in their respected fields should be the main goal. Increasing the Social Media value for your clients creates longevity for not only their brand, but for yours as well.
- Making the ROI Happen - It’s one thing to talk about ROI and why it is important. It is another thing to show a client how their social media efforts are tied to business results. Even harder is showing the client how they can track this. Agencies better be able to tie in results for all the Social Media work they’re charging for. Clients will demand it, and if they aren’t, they should be.
Social Media as business component is maturing fast. As it becomes more of a necessity and less of an add on, it will be increasingly important that agencies mature their services along with it. So, what did we miss? If you work for an agency what would you add to this list?