Business Bloggers Flog Community Marketing
(Franki and I have split up our posts - prior to today, we both blogged under the same name.)
Two of my favorite business bloggers touched on one of my favorite topics today: community.
Specifically, Community Marketing.
John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing pitches the three "C's", and Jeremiah Owyang pitches the virtues of building a community around a product launch.
Let's see what these two web geniuses can tell us about why community matters in online marketing.
Jeremiah:
John:
So Jeremiah says that communities allow you to market your product better, and John says Community allows you to improve your content and (connection) with your core audience. So why do companies fail to build community? Why do they build great products and fail to market them to the most likely customers?
1) They don't know who makes up their community of buyers:
Even the savviest marketing strategist can't always predict who will buy a product. Oftentimes the designer and the marketer have an ideal customer in mind, but some other group of customers is better suited for a product. Did you ever hear the story about Novocaine? It was sold as a general anesthetic for years because the owner refused to sell it to dentists. Dentists weren't his ideal customer, so he shunned them. I wonder how much money he lost? So the first lesson is don't be the Novocaine guy. Community marketing gives you real-world information on how your actual customers are using your product.
2) They don't want a community, they want blind, deaf, dumb and rich customers:
The control mechanisms that allow a corporation to function aren't built for a rich customer-corporation interaction. Allowing customer feedback to reach back to a company opens up the door for product changes. Product changes mean delay, cost, expense, and sometimes the head of the person making the big decisions. Far too often, corporate executives would prefer to move forward without customer feedback in order to get a product, any product out the door - even if the design flaws are so egregious that the product is doomed from the start.
3) Building a community is a nice phrase, but it's hard to measure:
Building a community sounds very soft and squishy. Metrics for benefits of community building are difficult to pitch to decision-makers until the community is already built and delivering results. That's not a winning strategy for a marketing pitch.
4) Timing is everything:
Working on a community is a lot like incorporating Usability into software design. To work, the concept of community has to be integrated into the entire workflow. Many companies like the idea of building a community of users, but wait until the product is launched before trying to connect to their audience. At that point, little can be done to correct the first batch of products. You'd better hope you didn't make any mistakes...
A final thought from Jeremiah,
By the way, if you read this post, it's probably the time to mention that community marketing campaigns are a service you might consider hiring Durbin Media Group to perform for you.
Contact us:
Two of my favorite business bloggers touched on one of my favorite topics today: community.
Specifically, Community Marketing.
John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing pitches the three "C's", and Jeremiah Owyang pitches the virtues of building a community around a product launch.
Let's see what these two web geniuses can tell us about why community matters in online marketing.
Jeremiah:
Launching a product with great user zeal requires more than being mentioned on the countless of company launches occurring. Look how many Web 2.0 companies are in existence, (countless list of everything web 2.0) a handful of companies in each category will make it difficult for users to select, and then use. The influencers of any community will guide users toward one or two categories but ultimately, there will only be enough room for 3-4.
John:
Community is taking a group that enjoys your content and contact and finding ways to bring them together to make the content and contact better, more useful, bigger for all. This can be as basic as holding group training or even group client lunches around a theme.
So Jeremiah says that communities allow you to market your product better, and John says Community allows you to improve your content and (connection) with your core audience. So why do companies fail to build community? Why do they build great products and fail to market them to the most likely customers?
1) They don't know who makes up their community of buyers:
Even the savviest marketing strategist can't always predict who will buy a product. Oftentimes the designer and the marketer have an ideal customer in mind, but some other group of customers is better suited for a product. Did you ever hear the story about Novocaine? It was sold as a general anesthetic for years because the owner refused to sell it to dentists. Dentists weren't his ideal customer, so he shunned them. I wonder how much money he lost? So the first lesson is don't be the Novocaine guy. Community marketing gives you real-world information on how your actual customers are using your product.
2) They don't want a community, they want blind, deaf, dumb and rich customers:
The control mechanisms that allow a corporation to function aren't built for a rich customer-corporation interaction. Allowing customer feedback to reach back to a company opens up the door for product changes. Product changes mean delay, cost, expense, and sometimes the head of the person making the big decisions. Far too often, corporate executives would prefer to move forward without customer feedback in order to get a product, any product out the door - even if the design flaws are so egregious that the product is doomed from the start.
3) Building a community is a nice phrase, but it's hard to measure:
Building a community sounds very soft and squishy. Metrics for benefits of community building are difficult to pitch to decision-makers until the community is already built and delivering results. That's not a winning strategy for a marketing pitch.
4) Timing is everything:
Working on a community is a lot like incorporating Usability into software design. To work, the concept of community has to be integrated into the entire workflow. Many companies like the idea of building a community of users, but wait until the product is launched before trying to connect to their audience. At that point, little can be done to correct the first batch of products. You'd better hope you didn't make any mistakes...
A final thought from Jeremiah,
This doesn't mean you have to only build your own community, but also discover and harness existing communities. For long term sustainability, each of these companies in the list needs to deploy a Community Marketing program --the goal of such as program is to cultivate a thriving, ongoing community around your product or company for the ongoing future.
By the way, if you read this post, it's probably the time to mention that community marketing campaigns are a service you might consider hiring Durbin Media Group to perform for you.
Contact us:
posted by James Durbin @ 4:47 PM PERMALINK
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Links to this post:
Create a Link
<< Home