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Live the integrated experience where old meets new to become marketing and customer service excellence – Next edition: June 2011 – www.fusionmarketingexperience.com

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What is the purpose of marketing? I always like to answer that question, quoting what Jim Sterne once told me in an interview: the three objectives of marketing are reducing costs, improving revenues and increasing customer satisfaction.

In a way these three goals are one and the same: be profitable. Satisfied customers buy more and bring new customers with them. Reducing costs and improving revenues are clearly about profit.

The main question is what all the marketing tactics, channels and strategies we use, need in order to be successful. The answer is simple: relevance. If people find something relevant they will share, praise, use or buy it. I admit: relevance can mean a lot of things. However, it is always about the perceived value of people, regardless of their needs, personal preferences or desires.

It’s also about experiences. That can be valuable, funny, inspiring, seducing, nice, satisfying or simply cost-saving. They can also be bad. If they are, you will quickly know.

There is a reciprocal side to relevance: is it relevant to do this or that for our customers AND for us?

In the end, whatever we do in marketing is only successful if it serves a mutual purpose of relevance. Nurturing a lead is about offering the right content at the right moment: relevance. Conversion optimization is about improving the user experience. Relevance.

I can go on for hours, but it’s clear that, no matter how fragmented the marketing reality may be, it all boils down to what people do, need, think, feel and find…relevant.

The main challenge for marketers is to find out what that is and how they can satisfy it and do it better. Measured, data-driven and integrated.

That’s what this magazine is about. That’s what the Fusion Marketing Experience events are about. And that’s what we will bring you in the future, with our new Chief Editor, Trix Slock, the creative brain behind this first edition. She will be your guide through the next ones. And they will be relevant.

J-P De Clerck - @conversionation

Marketing Experience Magazine is the quarterly magazine of the Fusion Marketing Experience events, brought to you by Conversionation and the Social Marketing Forum. The magazine is free and globally distributed to marketing executives online, in PDF and via eBook readers. Printed copies are handed out at Fusion Marketing Experience events and are available on demand.

Publisher: J-P De ClerckFounder of Conversionation, online marketing consultant, B2B marketing specialist, content marketing evangelist and author. Twitter: @conversionationMail: info@conversionation.net

Editor in Chief: Trix SlockMedia and communication advisor, editor in chief of dmix magazine and Connect, Contact Center Magazine. Twitter: @trixslockMail: trix.slock@telenet.behttp://trixtheblog.wordpress.com/

Editor Northern America: Jim DucharmeFormer editor of various publications, online communications specialist and community manager of the Social Marketing Forum. Mail: jim@fusionmarketingexperience.com

Responsible sales & marketing: Rien van den BoschContent marketing, lead generation and publishing specialist. Mail: rien@fusionmarketingexperience.com

CONTRIBUTORS:Giedrius IvanauskasGiedrius Ivanauskas, is a researcher of social media and augmented reality. Twitter: @smcitizens

Jordie van RijnJordie is an independent email marketing consultant with his company emailMonday. You can follow him on Twitter: @jvanrijn

Andrew BonarAndrew is an email deliverability consultant and founder of EmailExpert.orgTwitter: @andrewbonar

PRODUCTION AND DESIGN:Trix The Company: Publisher of business journals and creative lab. Nouvelle Vague in print.

Fink: Co-creative thinker and technical assistance.

Print & Press: Profpress, www.profpress.be

Sponsoring opportunities sales@fusionmarketingexperience.com

Reprints or other questionsinfo@fusionmarketingexperience.com

For more information about the magazine and upcoming events please visit www.fusionmarketingexperience.com

Marketing Experience Magazine and the Fusion Marketing Experience are creations of Conversionation. Visit www.conversionation.net

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ROI and social media not an oxymoron

About the authorJ-P De Clerck is a 360 degrees interactive marketing consultant and serial blogger, specialized in the cross-fertilization of online channels and interactions. His areas of expertise include email marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, content marketing, web analytics and conversion optimization. He manages several blogs and online communities regarding various interactive marketing and media topics. Find him on Twitter on @conversionation.

Calculating the ROI of marketing activities is a priority for many marketing managers. Return on Marketing Investment (ROMI) is a way to forecast the return of future marketing expenditures. ROMI is also used to analyze and improve the return of running campaigns and marketing plans.

On this basis decisions are made for future marketing activities, conclusions are drawn about past activities, and adjustments made to current actions. ROMI looks at financial results and forecasts, and is also used for analyzing intangible or non-monetary marketing activities.

ROMI is a model with which we can calculate the incremental (future) revenue and profit for each (additional) euro or dollar spent on marketing in percentages. One of the major stumbling blocks is the translation of all these different marketing objectives into financial data. Implementing ROMI also results in resistance from some marketers. A holistic vision of marketing and a “common language” are essential to succeed.

Using ROI is new to many marketers and it’s the role of management to convince them that adopting it in the end will benefit both them and their actions. One of the benefits is that it enables marketers to get their marketing programs approved faster. Implementing ROMI should not be an excuse to cut down on brand-related spending and avoid high-risk marketing investments. It is a matter of balance.

The need to answer the “why”

One of the domains where there has been a lot of discussion regarding ROI, is social media marketing. Olivier Blanchard, speaker at the first Fusion Marketing Experience, ends that in his book ‘Social Media ROI’, a topic he has been “defending” since the very beginning.

And it was very important that someone did. If executives don’t know the ROI of a social media program they will look at other marketing programs with a proven ROI. The people that decide on social media budgets want to know “why” and the answer is not “because everyone does it”. If you can’t define what ROI is, translate social media in P&L statements, percentages, business goals and metrics that can be used in the overall marketing strategy, you can’t sell social media to management.

But most of all, your social media marketing is doomed to ultimately fail. With Olivier’s book, there are no more excuses.

Europe shows the highest growth in social networking reach across regions

Social networking sites grew worldwide in 2010, fueled by growth in Europe, North America, and Latin America. By the end of the year, social networking monthly penetration in Europe reached 84.4 percent of all European internet users, representing a 10.9 percentage point gain – the highest of any global region. Social networking accounted for 22.8 percent of all page views in Europe in 2010, and approximately four out of every ten internet sessions included a visit to a social networking site.Source: ComScore 2010 Europe Digital Year in Review

The time spent online in Europe

Europeans spend the equivalent of one day a month online (24:20 hours) with the Netherlands (31:39 hours) and United Kingdom (30:38 hours) far exceeding this trend. Consumers in Italy (16:02 hours) and Austria (13:11 hours), spend nearly half as much time online as users in Holland and the UK. Austria’s low engagement is not surprising as it has the lowest penetration of Social Networking sites among all countries in Europe.Source: ComScore 2010 Europe Digital Year in Review

Marketing facts and figures“The Digital Landscape continues to evolve. The rise of social networking, fragmentation of channels and growing digital and mobile media consumption affects businesses. The marketer's toolkit to discover new and unique opportunities to engage with the consumer”.

The need for common business metrics in marketing

Econsultancy’s ‘SEO Trends: Issues and Opportunities’ report shows that the measurement and evaluation of the long-term effects of search engine optimization (SEO) improvements is the main challenge for marketers and agencies (62% of respondents). And it is certainly not the only analytics challenge. The second priority (57% of respondents) is the coordination and integration of SEO and business metrics. These challenges and priorities are also found in other forms of interactive and even offline marketing, including email marketing and social media marketing. Since more marketers are asked for the ROI of their marketing activities, it has become a must to communicate in a common language regarding metrics. The rise of the multi-channel consumer is also a cause for the rising need for a closed loop of data, metrics, CRM and various forms of interactive marketing. A single view on the customer is essential, as is a clear view on marketing ROI. Not surprising that 50% of the participants in the survey indicated that generating SEO metrics, which are significant for others in the company, is a priority as well.Source: Econsultancy“SEO Trends: Issues and Opportunities”

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About the authorJ-P De Clerck is a 360 degrees interactive marketing consultant and serial blogger, specialized in the cross-fertilization of online channels and interactions. His areas of expertise include email marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, content marketing, web analytics and conversion optimization. He manages several blogs and online communities regarding various interactive marketing and media topics. Find him on Twitter on @conversionation.

posted a complaint or negative review about a retailer during the holiday shopping season at the end of 2010, were contacted by the retailer concerned in the complaint.

� Of the 68% who were contacted, 34% deleted their original negative review.

� Another 33% posted a positive review after being contacted.

� 18% of the unhappy customers who were contacted, became loyal customers and purchased more.

Other interesting data:

� For half of the consumers, excellent customer service and/or prior positive experiences, influenced their decision to buy from a specific online retailer.

� After a positive online shopping experience, 21% had recommended the retailer to friends and 13% had posted a positive review on social media.

� 85% of the consumers said they are prepared to pay between 5 and 25% more than the normal price in exchange for excellent customer service.

Where it concerns turning unhappy customers to happy customers and even ‘brand advocates’, the study is not really surprising. All professional customer service employees and salesmen, who understand their job, know how this should

be done, even without social media. And they know it starts by listening to customers.

What the study also proves (again):

� Listening to what your (prospective) customers say on social media makes a lot of sense and has a significant impact on the bottom-line if you also respond.

� Happy and unhappy customers have an important influence on your brand reputation.

� Above all, the survey provides another reason to invest in social media monitoring and a solid cross-channel customer service (complaints are rarely handled fully via social media), to focus more on a consistent and excellent customer experience and to approach people via digital media.

Word-of-mouth has been around for a long time, but the impact has increased enormously through social media, both positively and negatively. A satisfied customer tells more people than ever before. So does an unhappy one.

Remember that the voice of your customers can be a strong force in reaching and acquiring new customers. As long as you care.

Social media monitoring is first and foremost a matter of business intelligence. Identifying trends helps to improve overall marketing activities, pro-actively listening and engaging helps lowering customer service costs and rapidly solving problems, integrating social media conversation data enables you to create relevant cross-channel interactions.

Let’s take a look at the reputation perspective however and especially at the financial impact of listening to customer complaints and most of all…responding to them.

Don’t only listen: act and respond!

Just as in web analytics, simply measuring delivers no insights and results in no improvements if not properly followed up, social media monitoring alone is not enough. You need to act upon what you read, see and monitor.

A survey by RightNow and Harris Interactive provides some interesting data that show the impact on your bottom-line.

“The survey found that consumers who had a bad experience with a retailer, can be converted into real ‘brand advocates’ through social media, depending on the actions of the retailer.The Retail Consumer Report indicated that 68% of the questioned American consumers who had

Everyone is telling marketers how important social media monitoring is. Often, businesses monitor what is being said about them from a pure reputation management perspective. However, social media monitoring is about much more and is not only meant to smoothen our fears of a bad reputation.

the financial impact of (not) listening to customers online

‘Social media monitoring

is first and foremost a matter of business

intelligence’

‘After a positive online shopping

experience, 21% of consumers recommend a

retailer to friends’

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Today’s consumers expect a two-waycommunication with brands.

interactive consumer dialogues > cross-channelapproach > personalization > event-drivenmarketing > targeting & segmentation >designing scenarios > planning & prioritization> e-mail marketing > social media > behavioraltargeting > 360° customer view > life-cycle CRM

Marketers need the tools

to turn this reality into action.

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About the authorGiedrius Ivanauskas, is a researcher of social media and augmented reality. He shares his experience and insight about social

media at The Social Media Today blog and on his own site, Social Media Citizens. Find him on Twitter @smcitizens.

Joost de Valk is a blogging, SEO, WordPress and content marketing expert. He has written over 20 plugins for WordPress which, combined, have had more than 3 million downloads. Joost regularly shares his knowledge and experience via his globally popular blog at Yoast.com. We asked Joost, one of the featured speakers at the first edition of the Fusion Marketing Experience event, about the role of content, blogging and SEO.

‘Marketers tell a story they want to tell,

instead of a story that resonates with

their customers’

What is your opinion about the on-going discussions over content creation vs. “curation”?

“While both are valuable tactics, to become a real leader in your field, you need to create. The most valued people will always be those that come up with new strategies, ideas, tactics & tools. The people that help you find these new things have a role, and they could make a very decent living through that role, but they’re far more easily replaced. Take the roots of the Christian church: Jesus created the story that Paul spread. They both had an impact, but I think nobody would argue Jesus was the bigger one of the two. Also, creation in itself is mostly ‘curation’, as creation is the reorganization of existing, though sometimes deprecated ideas and making them relevant in a new context. There are very few really new ideas, if any at all”.

What are your favourite content strategies?

“My most valued content strategy is still the “long form” or “give it all away“ tutorial. Basically I have given most of what I know away on my blog and keep getting more back. I’ve done this for clients too with amazing results. The only thing that becomes hard is to find ways to give more away so you can get more back”.

Where do marketers still fail in terms of SEO and content strategy most often?

“They’re telling a story they want to tell, instead of a story that resonates with their customers. A story should touch on their daily lives. It should either evoke real emotion or offer real help.As is often said, advertising is

the cost of being boring. Good SEO can come cheap, if your product rocks and your story is solid”

What SEO/Content strategy trends are you following at the moment?

“Taking it from the more philosophical below straight down to the trenches: I’ve recently been dabbling a lot in Google Shopping Search for some clients and am very interested in how more and more companies seem to be using reviews and review data effectively in their tactics. Having people rank & rate products and stories and using their own words while doing so allows us to understand what they like and dislike and in which words we should talk about the products or services we want to sell them”.

a story should evoke

real emotions

Joost de Valk, Content Marketing Expert

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Seven content sources per purchase cycle

Michael Gale of Forrester wrote on his blog that our target groups consult an average of seven content sources and look at five or more content types throughout their buying journey. Gale specifically directed his post at technology marketers, but much of what he said applies to marketers in general.

Gale justly remarks that the complexity in the buying journey, in this case predominantly B2B, goes much further than just the content sources and types called-up by prospects during their “buying journey”.

There is after all a rising mixture of formats in a much more integrated way than before. Think for instance about the cross-fertilization of various marketing channels and tactics and about how the buyers jump from one channel and format to the other.

A non-linear and heterogeneous marketing mix ecosystem

Therefore a holistic and integrated approach where the communication revolves around the prospect and customer is essential. Add to that a selective integration of various content needs in specific online objectives and actions, and it is clear that, as described by Gale, the marketing mix ecosystem is not linear and homogeneous. The author points out that, in order to succeed in the other P’s, companies should first know how to manage the most important dynamics of the marketing mix in this fragmented and multi dimensional situation. Otherwise you won’t know the effect of a price adjustment for example. Determining the marketing mix is therefore no longer possible based on what we used to do. What is the first step in a different approach? Start with the customer. It is once again a plea for an integrated cross-channel interaction strategy whereby a clear link should exist between defining multi-step communication processes, lead nurturing stages, content marketing programs and measurement processes, whereby the customer is king and the centre of our marketing universe.

If you take a look at the rise of social networking among these demographic groups, on the other hand, you see that in the 15-34-year-olds age group social networking increased by 32% and among older generations even by 38%. In other words: social networking becomes more popular and - literally - “more mature”.

Another report, by Econsultancy, the ‘Email Marketing Industry Census 2011, shows that the percentage of businesses spending over £50,000 on email marketing between 2010 and this year increased from 18% to 25%. Even the percentage of respondents sending over 250,000 emails per month increased: from 27% to 37%. The conclusion is clear again: we send more email.

It’s about integration and people

Isn’t this a contradiction? comScore shows that the use of social networking booms while that of email seems to slow among consumers on the one hand and email marketing budgets are increasing on the other. Are marketers stupid? Absolutely not! First and foremost, the figures are often incorrectly interpreted, leading to numerous reports predicting the death of email marketing (and many other channels).

The use of email is changing. Among other reasons because of the integration of email into cross-channel strategies to which social media marketing indeed belongs as well.

We also often overlook the fact that media consumption is constantly changing. The use of communication channels is also evolving over the course of people’s lives. It is obvious that a 16-year young will use less email less and spend more time on social networks. When he moves out of the house and starts a career, his email use will inevitably increase.

Marketers would certainly not be willing to invest in email marketing if it didn’t pay. Email marketing is and - as the report of Econsultancy yet again shows - remains an excellent tool for achieving various marketing objectives. It’s unfortunate that companies continue to lag behind in terms of social media, however.

Look to your customers, use what works and is appreciated and integrate it intelligently.

About the authorJ-P De Clerck is a 360 degrees interactive marketing consultant and serial blogger, specialized in the cross-fertilization of online channels and interactions. His areas of expertise include email marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, content marketing, web analytics and conversion optimization. He manages several blogs and online communities regarding various interactive marketing and media topics. Find him on Twitter on @conversionation.

The use of email marketing is rising

According to the “Europe Digital Year In Review 2010” report by comScore, last year the use of email among 15-34-year-olds dropped by 11%. It is only among older generations that the use of email has risen: by 6% to be exact

even in the days of social media

the marketing mix is more important than ever before

With the rise of new communication channels and the fragmentation of the media landscape, the attention of the (prospective) customer is becoming more spread out. The increased control of people over their own buying journey is a further argument for a seamlessly integrated marketing strategy. The target groups that we would like to reach and which we would like to find us demonstrate increasingly more complex and fragmented behaviour, specifically in their shopping behaviour.

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What is your message to businesses wishing to improve their marketing?

“To succeed today, as has always been the case, you need to obsess about how customers and prospects experience your brand. Digital channels and the analysis tools we have available today, allow us to get closer to the customer than ever before, even at a distance. Successful brands create experiences and the digital experiences you create have to be amazing to cut-through. Average isn’t good enough.”

How do you see email marketing, web analytics, SEO and all other tactics evolving in a multi-channel world?

“Companies who get the most from their digital marketing today know how the different parts of the jigsaw fit together. They don’t run the different digital channels like SEO, Email, Display and Affiliate Marketing separately. Instead, they have an integrated content and media strategy which creates an engaging, irresistible brand that people want to get involved with”.

“To help give marketers a framework to help create a plan or review their approaches, I’ve developed the Smart Insights RACE framework that can be used to develop a holistic roadmap for their digital marketing. RACE stands for Reach, Act, Convert and Engage. It is a digital marketing strategy planning tool whereby we depart from a situation analysis, pass to an objective setting, next a strategic phase and finally the tactical part whereby all digital channels come into play”.

“The first edition of my Internet, Marketing, Strategy and Planning book from 2000 already contained a template for creating what we then called an Internet Marketing Plan. Today, marketers are even more hungry for guidance, given the importance of digital media. RACE is an answer to that and I welcome everyone to comment on it or help improve it on www.smartinsights.com

Towards a holistic digital

marketing the RACE framework

'The digital experiences you create have to be amazing to cut-through.

Average isn’t good enough'Dr. Dave Chaffey, Smartinsights.com

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The Fusion Marketing Experience looks at marketing from an integrated perspective and with a strong focus on interactive marketing. Dr. Dave Chaffey, a well-known author and founder of SmartInsights.com, has such an integrated perspective and even developed a framework for digital marketers.

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Alchemy Worx recently did research on the link

between branding and email. The results were

surprising. “Over the years one of the things I noticed

was that if you have a customer who receives twenty

emails from you, that customer will spend more than

one who gets five. If I said to you, I have a customer

with a list of 200.000 people and they sell a product

and they currently send one email a month. Which

will make them more money? Segmenting that list

so that each person gets a different email or just

sending everyone two emails? Well, you will get

more money by sending everyone the same email

twice in a month.”

So sending more mails to a list is better than sending segmented mails?

“That’s right. Now, let me qualify this straight

away. There is a limit, it’s not true all the time.

Let me give you two examples. One person does

no segmentation and sends two emails. Another

person does segmentation and sends two emails.

Then the segmentation will be the difference.

Frequency and reach are the most important factors

in email marketing. The more people you have on

the list and the more emails you send, the more

money you will make. And because of that, one of

the weirdest things about email is how little people

spend in trying to acquire email addresses”.

Because all the money goes to segmentation etc…

“ Absolutely and it’s just missing the obvious thing!

If I have a list of one million and you have a list of

one hundred thousand, you can’t beat me. Reach

and frequency are what works in advertising – it

has always worked. So, the more people who see

your commercial and the more times they see it, the

more will buy your product”.

What did your analysis of email and branding show?“Unfortunately not enough marketers look at all

revenue from all sources around email activity. We

don’t ask if this person is buying in the store every

week or perhaps searching Google, or are they

doing something else to reach me? And we don’t

put those together. So, what we did was look at

one of our clients who was able to supply us with

revenue data from all sources. And we looked at the

people who were not on their list and their purchase

behaviour. We plotted a line not by hour, but by

every three to six hours or so for people not on the

list and we plotted purchases by people who were

on the list, but didn’t open the email. In the two days

after the email went in to the inbox, there was a big

spike in sales from people who received the email,

but didn’t open it”.

So, even though we don’t open every email, if the email is in the inbox, we process it?

“We talk as if all emails are the same. We are

completely generalizing. An email could be from

your boss stating that if you don’t reply by five

o’clock you’re fired, or it could be from your mother

saying your aunt is very sick, or it could be that

winning lottery phishing scam. You triage your

About the author

Andrew Bonar is an email deliverability consultant and founder of EmailExpert.org. Find Andrew on Twitter: @andrewbonar.

‘If only consumer behaviour was

important, you could never launch a new

product in this world’Dela Quist, Amazing Worx

Reach and frequency are what works in

advertising

Dela Quist, founder and CEO of Alchemy Worx is an

alternative voice in the email marketing industry. In this interview, Dela, one of the keynote

speakers at the first ‘Fusion Marketing Experience’ event presents an interesting view on

email marketing, frequency and branding.

inbox just like an emergency nurse. It may be a split

second decision, but you are using your highest

cognitive functions and that is why the branding is

so powerful.”

How far do companies have to go in letting the customer control the frequency ?“It’s not that I don’t believe people should have a

choice. But if only consumer behaviour was important,

you could never launch a new product in this world.

The desire to be targeted and segmented isn’t driven

by wanting to be nice. It’s driven by wanting to save

money. It’s driven by a desire to maximize your

budget. Keep sending until the numbers tell you that

you’ve reached the tipping point.”

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‘e-CRM should take in social, mobile, digital

and direct communications – whatever it takes to

connect with the customer on their journey with a brand’

Gianfranco Cuzziol, EHS 4 D Group

What is your perspective on what eCRM really is?

My aim is to demonstrate that the ‘e’ in eCRM is engagement, not just email – eCRM should take in social, mobile, digital and direct communications – whatever it takes to connect with the customer on their journey with a brand.

How much of the social experience is art and how much is science?

Well as I am a techie at heart and I’m going to lean towards science. There is definitely an art to conversation and being social, but ultimately I think that it’s the numbers behind the scene that are the most important. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the big creative idea that can be communicated across a series of integrated channels, but the clever bit from my perspective is the insight we can gain by looking at how that translates to action!

How do you define “relationship” in the context of marketing?

In my view, for ‘relationship’ read ‘connection’. In fact, one definition of relationship is ‘a state of connectedness between people’. Of course in every day life we want to imply some emotional connectedness in that relationship. Well that to me is where the stretch often goes too far.

Being connected could very well be at a transactional level where I tell what the latest deals are on my website, you show an interest and buy.

Of course that connectedness can grow and become much more. You might decide to give me feedback on my products or services, and even be an advocate whether by traditional word-of-mouth or via some social channel.

What channels do you think are the most effective for CRM? Phone, email or social?

They all have a part to play depending on many factors. Whether it’s B2C or B2B and at what point in the ‘relationship’ we are.

A degree in Astrophysics wouldn’t normally lead one to a career in digital marketing, but that unlikely path is the one which Gianfranco Cuzziol has walked. Gianfranco is fascinated with the cross-channel journey of the consumer and works with clients to help them leverage points of impact along that journey. He recently joined the EHS 4 D Group as Head of eCRM, where he looks after the development of their eCRM vision, strategy and delivery. We asked Fusion Marketing Experience keynote speaker Gianfranco about his views on eCRM and social evolutions.

I remember being asked at the end of my presentation at Webtrends Engage in London, on how a financial services institution might tackle comments via Twitter. My rule of thumb was:

� Publicly acknowledge that comment on Twitter – this not only shows your commitment to the channel but also heads off those members of the public who use social to vent their frustration partly because they think that no one is listening. So it’s also great as a PR tool

� If the customer wants to take it further, then email takes the conversation out of the public arena and shows a certain level of sensitivity that possibly isn’t what Twitter is for.

� Next comes a phone call and even possibly face-to-face depending on the situation, and the real human touch comes through.

So they are all effective in their own ways and for different reasons.

What would you advise to a starting marketer looking to go cross-channel?

Know where your audience is! You can’t decide in advance which channels you are going to use. There is no set solution. There is no such thing as best practice. You define your own best practice, for your brand your customer and your business model

What do you think will surprise marketers in the coming 3-5 years?

Although we talk about it now, I think marketers will still remain surprised about how difficult it will still be to attribute return to different channels. Unless we start thinking about it now and how we can take the data from various channels to create a unified view of customer interactions, marketers will still remain surprised when they are asked by the CFO: “show me the money”

IAbout the author

Jordie van Rijn is an independent email marketing consultant with his company emailMonday. He specializes in email marketing and event-driven campaigns. He works with A-list brands like AEGON, Unilever, Roche, Heineken, and many more. He is the co-founder of Emailtestbox, a dynamic email optimization tool and is the editor of emailvendorselection.com. Follow him on Twitter:@jvanrijn

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What exactly does Selligent Interactive Marketing do?

“It provides marketers with a product which allows them to manage all interactions with a single solution, combining direct mail, email, outbound calling, mobile messaging and inbound into a single platform, personalized according to each consumer’s channel preferences and individual profile. Responses are centrally stored, allowing central analysis and triggering of automated follow-up campaigns”.

What’s changed in regards to customer interaction and communication?

“While Copernicus rightly put the sun at the centre of our universe, we believe the centre of your marketing universe should be your customer. Your dialogue with that customer must revolve around how he wishes to interact with you and not how you wish to interact with him. This requires a paradigm shift in how marketers do business today”.

“Today’s customers are cross-channel. They seamlessly leap from one information channel to the next and use these channels to journey from one interaction to the next. They don’t feel it’s at all unreasonable to expect marketers to provide multiple channels and be on those channels for them”.

What do you believe consumers really want from brands and marketers in today’s multi-channel reality?

“Consumers now have control on the communication and information gathering processes and social and new media offer them additional interaction possibilities. Today’s consumer wants you to engage with them in highly personalized interactions. To reach them, they want you to be relevant, personal and valuable -- they don’t want an overload of messages. They reserve the choice as to when and how to interact.”.

That being the case, what do marketers need to do to succeed today?

“To succeed with the cross-channel and empowered customer, you must have an integrated cross-channel

Consistency and coordination

across all channels are becoming essential

Selligent is an innovator in conversion marketing and integrated interactive CRM and marketing solutions with Selligent Interactive Marketing as their flagship product. Their focus is on providing tools for companies facing the challenges of transforming into customer-driven and cross-channel organizations. We talked with Mieke De Ketelaere, Director Product Marketing and Technology Alliances.

approach. Marketers must leverage automation to ensure they optimize all the touch points with customers! We can’t have a direct personal relationship with every customer all the time, but an advanced automation solution can provide personalized, relevant and timely information that people are demanding today. It keeps the dialogue going and the interactions on the customer’s terms”.

Can you give us some perspective regarding how fast these new digital communication channels have grown?

“Consider that it took radio 50 years to reach 50 million people. TV did that in just over half the time. Now think about this: The Internet did that in five and Twitter managed it in just two years. The growth is exponential and consumers are quick to adopt any new channel which makes their lives easier and enriches them. They don’t even think about their being any lag time for companies to catch up and establish a presence on these channels. You’re either there or you are not there and if you are not there, they will find some other brand that is.”.

Exactly what does an efficient, modern interaction strategy require?

“I’m glad you asked! Let me answer that by listing the components point by point: - An integrated email marketing approach - A ‘closed loop’ of data and interactions - Personal, triggered, segmented, targeted and automated scenario driven dialogues - A cross-channel and multi-device vision - Integrated and customer-centric processes”

What do marketers and brands need to think about right now in order not to be left behind?

“Business increasingly will need integrated marketing solutions, enabling them to have a single view on the customer and have relevant dialogues with them throughout the whole customer experience. Consistency and coordination across all channels are becoming essential. These shifting priorities and views are not only necessary to optimize the way we communicate, but a must in a world where the customer is empowered, in control and cross-channel”.

‘To succeed with the cross-channel and empowered customer,

you must have an integrated cross-channel

approach’Mieke De Ketelaere, Selligent

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Rethinkingmarketingthe copernic an shift

Trey Pennington is a marketing pro, business connector, and storyteller with a passion to help people uncover their hidden treasures and put them to work. He uses social media to connect with audiences around the globe. HubSpot ranks his Facebook profile as one of the most influential in the world and his Twitter profile in the top 0.01%. Trey helped start ten Social Media Clubs in the US, UK, and Australia and routinely speaks to groups about using social media to make connections and have conversations that lead to commerce. We asked Trey, one of the keynote speakers at the Fusion Marketing Experience, about his views on the role of social media from the overall business and marketing perspective.

What is your key message at the Fusion Marketing Experience?

“The explosive growth of social media affords the commercial world unprecedented opportunity. The opportunity is not where people expect it, though. Many are looking at increasing ROI and profits through efficiency. The real opportunity is more fundamental and we’ll explore it’s unexpected source”.

Why do many marketers still fail to integrate social media successfully into their broader marketing strategies? What are they getting wrong and what they should do to get it right?

“Much of commercial communications comes from established professional disciplines like public relations, advertising, or marketing. Those branches of communication developed over long periods of time, have generations of experienced practitioners, and have developed substantial, documented bodies of knowledge to support their ongoing practice. Social media popped onto the scene from a different source—it bubbled up from kids. The grown ups saw social media as kids’ stuff. Instead of embracing social media and applying disciplined thinking to incorporating the new media into marketing programs, the professionals let social media evangelist develop independent strategies for each emerging platform”.

“The tide seems to be changing. Now each established discipline seems to be embracing social media and experimenting with it to see how it supports business objectives. I’m hesitant to label the experiments as “right” or “wrong,” however, I do suggest those who see social media as a free broadcast medium will tend to have less fulfilling experiences with it!”

Do you think social media integration is becoming a quality standard of a successful company?

“The opportunity is even more fundamental than integration. Rethinking marketing, starting with re-examining the purpose of a business, is where success begins. The shift is Copernican in its impact. Five hundred years ago the world was shocked to discover Earth was not the center of the universe. Today marketers are awakening to the realization the company is not the center of the commercial universe. Fortunately the soulful wail, ‘but we’ll lose control of the message,’ is rarely heard today. Three years ago, ‘controlling the message’ was a serious concern. Politicians still say over and over again, ‘If we can only get our message out.’ I predict within one or two more election cycles, those relics will be replaced with people who embrace the necessity of getting the message in. The real quality standard then will be redrawing the map of the universe and placing the corporation in its proper relation to everything else”.

Trey Pennington

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What are your favourite social media campaigns?

“Interesting category of thought—social media campaigns. It could be just me, but I don’t tend to think of social media in units of campaigns. Social media isn’t something with a beginning and an end; it’s life. One company who has impressed me with their philosophical embrace of social media is Coca-Cola.”

“Coca-Cola was willing to make a colossal break with their past when they discovered two fans had created an immensely popular Facebook Fan Page for their beloved, well-protected trademark. Instead of launching a bevy of expensive attorneys to take over or shut-down the Page, Coca-Cola invited the Page creators to Atlanta and treated them like royalty. Coca-Cola made sure they addressed all of the creators’ questions and then equipped them to continue their work of advocacy”.

“Chris Brown took a somewhat similar approach when Kevin and Jill totally violated his copyright for the song Forever. Kevin and Jill played the recording at a public performance (a violation of copyright), made a new recording of the song (another violation of copyright), and then published that bootlegged recording on YouTube (yet another, separately punishable violation of copyright). Instead of forcing YouTube to remove the illegal work, Chris Brown did nothing. As a result, the song experienced a remarkable resurgence, eventually making it to Billboard’s Hot 100 for the entire decade”. “Neither example was a “campaign.” Rather both were an visible demonstration of a whole new way of looking at things”.

You currently write a lot about influence, mainly on social media? How would you define an influencer? Do we overrate it?

“Over 3,000 years ago King Solomon bemoaned the incessant publishing of books. He’d probably think the modern man has gone plumb insane writing unending volumes on topics such as influence. My own writing on the topic is merely an effort to highlight the absurdity of reducing such a complex, multifaceted concept as influence to a two digit or elementary ranking. People search for an absolute and once-and-for-all measure of influence, yet influence is relative and dynamic”.

“It seems to me companies would be better off to focus on users first and then equip real users with ample social objects so the users could tell their own stories in their own words. It’s much simpler for companies to identify users than influentials. All they have to do is look at their sales records”.

“Marketing to influencers is definitely overrated. Taking care of users should trump the elusive search for influencers. Users are the one who have a reason to get excited about a brand’s products and services. Influencers just tend to be more excited about themselves”.

About the authorGiedrius Ivanauskas, is a researcher of social media and augmented reality. He shares his experience and insight about social media at The Social Media Today blog and on his own site, Social Media Citizens. Find him on Twitter @smcitizens.

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The survey, called “Voice of the Customer in the Enterprise”, looks at customer feedback and satisfaction, the role they play in businesses, and what these same businesses do to improve customer satisfaction by gathering feedback and acting upon it. As always, there is a galaxy of difference between what businesses claim to be important and what they do, in reality. Sometimes one wonders if it’s really that hard to turn priorities into actions. Apparently it is, even if the steps to take are easy.

MarketTools found that 67% of businesses think customer satisfaction is extremely important, 25% very important, 8% somewhat important and 1% not important. It looks as if most businesses know that a satisfied

customer is very important but do they also act upon this?

Adapting business processes to customer feedback

In the era of the empowered consumer, customer satisfaction should be a holy grail for every single business on this planet. Fortunately, many realize that. However, let’s look a bit deeper now and see if companies put their money (or at least some effort)

About the authorJ-P De Clerck is a 360 degrees interactive marketing consultant and serial blogger, specialized in the cross-fertilization of online channels and interactions. His areas of expertise include email marketing, social media marketing, search engine marketing, content marketing, web analytics and conversion optimization. He manages several blogs and online communities regarding various interactive marketing and media topics. You can connect with him via Twitter on @conversionation.

A MediaPost article titled “Voice Of The Consumer Still In The Woods” tackles a survey by MarketTools: author Jack Loechner mainly looks at the social media aspect of the survey that found “94% of companies do not yet use social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter to gather customer feedback” in his post but there is more.

does your business care?&

‘In the era of the empowered consumer,

customer satisfaction should be a holy grail for

every single business on this planet’

Customer satisfaction customer feedback

where their mouth is. And more importantly: if organizations DO something with the feedback from their customers, regardless of channel, source or whatever.

After all, you can only achieve better customer satisfaction by checking how you’re doing and then improving, right? Even my six year old son knows that you have to do something if you want better results, and he doesn’t have a business. MarketTools asked the respondents “How often do you use customer feedback to change a business process?” 50% answered “sometimes”, 26% “often”, 16% “seldom” and 8% “never”.

So only one quarter of businesses, according to this survey, systematically (more or less) adapts the way they are working to the feedback they gather! These findings really are eye-opening and should be a call-to-action for businesses to start adapting their strategies.

How customer-centric is a business if it doesn’t shape itself around its customers and keeps

changing, adapting and improving as the customer’s needs, behaviour and preferences change as well – or as business processes seem to fail? Of course, to know that you have to get out the door now and then, measure a bit and listen to the feedback of your customers. But many businesses don’t.

Fortunately 43% of respondents claim to gather customer feedback continuously. Now it’s time to do something with it.

26 % use customer feedback to change a business process.

43% claim to gather customer feedback continuously.

67% of businesses think customer satisfaction is extremely important

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Our customers are online but so are we, marketers. And we all have our favourite tools that we like to use in order to find our way on the Web, organize information, measure our activities or simply communicate. What tools do you use? We asked around. Maybe you’ll find that little gem you were looking for.

Steven Van Belleghem (Author of The Conversation Manager): “I recently started to use Pinboard. It’s a site where I can store all the articles I read and want to keep. It’s like my personal digital library. I give a few tags to each article so I can easily find the content back. These links are open to other surfers as well. If people are interested in the stuff I find interesting, they can just look at my profile on Pinboard and see the articles. Same for me, I can look up articles from people that inspire me. It’s look a shared public library of links to valuable content”.

Maggie Fox (Founder and CEO of Social Media Group): “I am finding Tumblr very interesting and also make an effort to check out new and emerging platforms as I can. Internally, we use Yammer, which is also great for sharing content and connecting with the folks I work with.I never seem to be able to read as much as I should, and I get inputs in two ways – “human RSS” via Twitter (links people share) and actually via email, of all things – I really need to rely on other people to curate content for me since my time is so limited!”

Giedrius Ivanauskas (blogger Social Media Today): “ I just love this great tool Likebutton.me, which aggregates the Likes of the people from around the net. From the content marketing perspective it can be used as a powerful research and monitoring tool. You can browse through different categories and research trending topics, but more importantly you can add RSS feeds of your competitors or industry leaders in order to monitor what kind of content is most relevant to the their consumers. Moreover, it can be very useful tool for content curators as it clearly identifies the most Liked content on the net”.

Gianfranco Cuzziol (eCRM manager and Fusion Marketing Experience speaker): “I like Instapaper. Call me old fashioned, but I still believe that if an article is worth reading it shouldn’t be rushed and so not being online at that moment in time may not be the best way of absorbing that material. Instapaper is a simple tool to saves web pages for reading later. Discovering. By allowing me to simply bookmark or email a link to my account gives me the opportunity to digest at my leisure. But to me the best integration is that it allows me to save articles via my Twitter account which is what I use the most”.

Joe Pulizzi (Junta 42, Content Marketing Institute): “We keep a Top 42 list of content marketing blogs and regularly follow them. These are, in our research, the best of the best…so we learn a lot from them to keep up with the industry. I also set up search criteria in Twitter so that any related tweets pop up first in Tweetdeck so I can check them out”.

How do you organize your content and online activities? Let us know at info@fusionmarketingexperience.com

Thanks to the contributors and www.smcitizens.com for the extra input!

Dave Chaffey (Author of several marketing books and Fusion Marketing Experience speaker): “I’ve tried all the feedreading tools but to keep up to date and learn from fellow marketers and consultant I find Twitter Lists most efficient and interactive. On www.twitter.com/smartinsights we’ve a list on the top client-side marketers to learn from.”

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With every new medium that appears there is a tendency to judge the new media according to the rules of the media we know from the past. We take the new medium and look at it as an evolution of the previous medium. By now we know that new media usually do not replace the old, and the same goes for the internet. However, digital is in many respects very different from the “old” media. Interactivity is the one big difference everybody thinks of at first. But I would like to zoom in on the ability of the web to blend into people’s lives and the impact that has on communication.

The internet is different in its ability to blend into people’s life seamlessly. It’s not like TV, you could watch a movie on an iPhone while waiting for a train, but this will probably never be something the majority of the people do. Even listening to radio is something that works in some contexts, e.g. while driving, but does not work in other, e.g. while shopping. Digital communication is so versatile and so “bit-sized” that practically at any occasion one can consult online information or interact through digital channels. Ranging from looking up an address while standing at the traffic lights to making a Skype call on a sunny beach.

This bit-sized nature of digital communication is further catalyzed by two trends. First of all the

The internet was made for

integrated communication

Bert Van Wassenhove,Chief Digital Officer Square Melon

ultimate breakthrough of mobile internet which we’ve all been waiting for. Today we are truly connected to the internet everywhere we go. A second - less obvious - trend is the rise of new ways to interact digitally. We may spend more and more time in front of an internet browser using cloud applications. But people today are often online without knowing it. Many people don’t realize that they make an internet connection when they check the weather forecast on their smartphone, or use a “Coyote” to signal a speed trap.

That is why the future of digital communication is not in a silo but as an integrated part of the marketing plan. A marketeer may decide to us TV as a communication channel or not, but digital will always be part of the plan. In some cases more than prominent then others, but it will always be there.

This simple fact - every communication being digitized - opens a world of opportunity for real-live channels. Those channels where people actually put their hands on the product, or talk to real human beings. Very often these were considered as “less relevant” due to their inherent limitation in reach. Adding digital - especially the social part - to real-life interaction, can truly transform the communication business from broadcast to genuine conversations combining impact and reach.

olumn

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