Customizing your Real Message & Finding a CRM Voice?

As I mentioned in the prior post, I believe that the consumer world is in the midst of a true paradigm shift. In these dire economic times, there is a huge likelihood that the ongoing increase in the share of time and mind of the Internet is going to accelerate. The consumer will turn to the Internet even more because it offers useful new tools and services that cater specifically to the needs of people living in harder times. (Read here for more about why the crisis will push up Internet use).

The question now becomes how brands and companies want to take advantage of this. What posture will companies take to reach out to the consumer who is decidedly cautious, if not nervous about his or her future? The company that speaks to me in a way that makes sense is a good starting point. For example, if a company (ex Harrods) checks out my dopplr and see that I am going to travel to London on such and such a date, then drops me a pertinent offer for that date, would that not be a great idea? The chances are that I would be more than willing to view their mail (if they only they could make their creative a little more classy, too).

There has been much written about CRM (for basics, see marketingteacher.com), as in Customer Relationship Management. But, except for a couple of rare exceptions, I as a consumer have not been “feeling the love” from any particular brand or companies. It is not like I am not present on the Internet, or do not own any loyalty cards, or do not shop frequently at certain stores. There is certainly plenty of data on me out there to mine. At this point, for most companies, the mining has been, at best, superficial. There are some companies who have cottoned on to the idea of email campaigns as a cheap way to bolster traffic — to the web site if not the store. But that’s about it. But, I am looking for more. Companies need to tap into the data (which I volunteer) and capture my attention by knowing more about who I am.

Once companies have mastered dynamic customer knowledge (i.e. created a way to keep an up to date database), the question will then become to what extent (quantity and quality) the brand is communicating with its customers? There is a real risk that a deluge of irrelevant email campaigns will completely shut down the effectiveness of the email channel — broadening the definition of spam, increasing people’s intolerance to emails and making them opt out systematically or just delete with increasing revulsion on reception. If the average rate of opening an email drops down below the 2% level — a barometer for so many formerly traditional media campaigns — you may end up pissing more customers off in the process. While companies are still saving on the postal cost and on the CO2 with emails, they will be shooting themselves in the foot if they overdo it.

There is a golden opportunity to use the ‘net as a marketing tool. There are two important points. First, don’t abuse the opportunity out of laziness. Pouring out unpersonalized, non-customized emails is not the right answer; like cutting down rainforests, it is a very short-sighted approach. Second, mind the data (think “Mind the Gap” as they say in London’s tube stations). What is needed is to craft meaningful messages (in line with the brand’s values), with a customization that reflects some of the unique elements of the receiver.

This all leads me to the main point: Brands endeavouring on CRM programs need to reflect carefully to find their CRM VOICE. There are three core ingredients to creating a CRM Voice. (1) A CRM Voice first means being getting in touch with the brand’s DNA, its core values. How is each communication refurbishing the identity of the brand and reinforcing the customer’s affinity with the brand. (2) It means knowing how to create messages that are relevant to the brand and to the receiving client. Does the brand have an interest in me? Does it know me (without the overtones of Big Brother). Does it know how to surprise me? To wow me? (3) Finally, it means getting the frequency right, knowing how often that person needs or wants to be contacted — including all the different channels of communication (TV included). A well-adapted, customized message becomes part of a well-oiled service.

In summary, brands need to find their CRM Voice: a Customized Real Message that is aligned with the brand’s core values. Brands that are high in love (lovemarks *****) and respect have a potentially greater starting point. But, every customer is looking for meaning and, in today’s difficult economic times, they will be more than likely spending more time online. I will be keen to see which brands or companies come through this vortex smelling like roses — for the times they are a changing, and I believe a paradigm shift is well underway. Which companies are going to capitalize intelligently on the accelerated shift in time on online that is bound to accompany this worldwide crisis? If you do what you always did, you may no longer get what you always got.

I receive, I would estimate, about 35 non-work related more or less ‘old fashioned’ messages a day via the multiple communications services to which I am subscribed: hotmail, gmail, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. When taken alongside the 100+ mails received daily at work, I would say that such a volume is basically average for a professional. A few folks I know in the high tech industry (e.g. at Google or Facebook) suffer numbers more like 250+.

A couple of comments here. First, the volume of these non-work mails is wholly manageable, if it were not for the time I like to take to reply to as many as I do. Secondly, the communications on Facebook remain surprisingly personal and, if not personal, opted in (via a membership in a group, etc., that I have chosen). Whether it’s a poke, some shared application or just a Facebook mail, the sender of the mail is someone with whom I accepted to be in contact, and by and large, there is a form of respect that seems to have settled in. And, whether the message is short and sharp or long and detailed, it is a message I typically enjoy opening. Thirdly, my regular post mail has been on the decline (thankfully we are not on any wasteful mailing lists). Having opted in for electronic versions for as many statements and bills as possible, the volume of CO2-related mail has dropped considerably.

On another level, when I take a step back and evaluate these 35 non-work communications, I feel like they fall into four categories.

(1) There are the sole-destination personal messages coming from people in and out of my life, dotted around the world. (2) There are the humourous messages, jokes of one or other colour (and often accompanied by cartoons or photos). Then, (3) there are the meaningful messages, for example, compassionate mails that spread humanitarian messages or soulful powerpoint slides shows (.pps). These last two categories of messages, which are more or less revisited “chain letters,” are collected and passed along to you as part of a group, selected perhaps for a specific or common value, but otherwise just part of a “forward to” group. Have you noticed that both the humourous and meaningful messages often contain a visual component? And, (4) finally of course, there is the beloved spam, spam, spam, eggs & spam and its small cousin Opted-in Newsletters/Mailings that get through the spam filter.

Based on this classification, I have to say that I understand why I enjoy my early morning hours delving into my message boxes. Three of the four categories are bound to be enjoyable. Whether humourous or “meaningful” — when added to the personal — the vast majority of the mails I receive are in fact laden with some emotion, although the jokes category can sometimes be a little irksome. Who is to say that the virtual is by definition cold and impersonal. Nonsense! There is a warm and fuzzy world out there!

One of the key lessons is in how you “train” or manage your contacts and the messages you send and receive. If you like the jokes from someone, then by all means, reply back and join in the foray. If you don’t like them, you can ask the person not to be sent jokes in the future. Alternatively, according to the sender, you can just delete them as they arrive.

What it comes down to, in my mind, is that along with My MSN and netvibes, my worldwide web interface is actually becoming ever more personalized. Social media is feeling like personal media. The jokes bring good cheer. The meaningful messages bring sense and/or purpose. The early morning (when I tend to my personal mails) becomes a moment of virtual emotion and reflection. And I have ever less tolerance for mail that is not on target or on message. This leads me to the question of how brands will truly insert themselves into my world without offending my karma and/or busting my bubble?

On a related topic, I enjoyed this post by Mitch Joel entitled “Intimacy 2.0“. What is true about the post I have done today is that I have relegated the content to largely 1.0 type communications: the email. But, just like letters of yore, each communication has its place and the “old fashioned” one-to-one communication in emails has its place and affords the opportunity for deeper conversations than might otherwise occur in a public domain. It is meet and right that the scale of intimacy in the communications should go from light and fluffy to profound and pensive. The essential point is being ready and able to join in those conversations, to take the time to write back to the people who mean something to you, to participate and engage in the subjects that are important to you. And, returning to the point of how brands are going to “engage” in these conversations, I can anticipate that new marketers in the future should be vetted for their online presence and ability to participate in online conversations. Your presence online will indeed become your best CV.

All in all, aside from the personal mail that somehow gets mistakenly caught up in the spam filter (which is almost as irritating as seeing a spare parking space in front of your doorstep after you circled for too long and parked very far away), my morning’s experience on the computer is generally a moment of bonheur.

How about your experience? Do you agree with the categories? How can brands “interrupt” this tranquil, personal moment?

I admit that [my] using the email to send out holiday greetings still seems a little tacky (even if I tried to spruce it up). I would love to hide behind the ecological zeitgeist, but facility, timing and economics are all part of the “excuse.” Meanwhile, I was quite taken aback by the deluge of the Happy New Year messages I received via SMS this year. And the messages came throughout the day and night from all around the world (Sydney to San Fran via Iceland).

As you may now realize, I like to tabulate…things. This post is about tabulating the latest holiday greetings’ media.

SNAIL MAIL As a family, we received the dinkiest number of Christmas cards in my memory (which in this case likely means in my lifetime). I have found a grand total of 22 cards sent by post to our home (I exclude professional cards). No woe is me in this stat, especially since I barely got out any cards myself. Updated Jan 6, 2008: Since we live on the 6th floor and our elevator is closed for renovation [for two months, yikes], our mail it turns out was being held by our concierge. I just spoke with our concierge who handed me a sack of mail, including another 20 or so Christmas cards… so snail mail isn’t dead yet!

ELECTRONICA There were 10 Happy Holiday e-cards, 4 “spam” i.e. non personalized mailings (like mine cited above), and a good number of replies to my spam (I didn’t count, but I would have to say near 40 return hello’s). Naturally, on Facebook, there was the barrage of x-mail and 12 super wall messages.

TELEFONICA You still get the phone calls from the nearest and dearest (including a few Skypers). Then, there were the 34 SMS messages that I received on my cell. Wow. I get the feeling that the phone companies will not be complaining about that!

So, what will the 2008 Happy Holidays landscape look like? Facebook up or down? SMS more and more? Skype’s the limit?

For as long as I am allowed, I continue to wish you all ha pi ho li daze (that’s the second time on this blog, for those of you counting). And, am glad to usher in the wonderful period of the Galette des Rois…

Facebook, Blackberry, LinkedIn, Viadeo, Hotmail, Twitter, Plaxo, Jaiku, Bloglight.ning, del.icio.us and so on … the options for getting in touch are spreading rampantly. There is, on the one hand, a convergence and agglomeration of sites and, on the other, a massive divergence in terms of electronic communications. This latter consideration has now hit me frontally and seems to be winning out. Okay, it has been a few weeks already, but the daily onslaught of new friends and notifications on Facebook (FB) has basically slapped me in the Face.

Whereas I thought that a service like Netvibes was going to centralize and rationalize my (first, not second) life, the matinal “you’ve got mail” [for those poor people still paying AOL] has become “you”ve been nailed”. If it were not enough to have the quixotic vampires and zombies on FB, the hotmail emails are now stacking up alerts to open up other incoming messages on other platforms, from walls to superwalls to highballs and phone calls and text messaging. I believe that services like Netvibes are going to have redouble their efforts to become the singular interface. Spaces like MSN may need to be more liberal in allowing new applications and widgets (opening to other services) if they want to retain their primacy.

Here’s what I like in these new forms of communication: the enlargening of the net of friends with whom I am in touch and the rapidity and diversity (if meaninglessness) of the functionalities, such as poke back.

Here’s what is getting messy: where is the centralized database, warehousing of the messages and addresses? It’s getting more complex to keep up with all the threads.

Here is what is ugly: the paroxysm of messaging. Basic overload. It is getting too much even for me.

With this proliferation of “e-mail” (broadly speaking electronic communication) platforms it makes me wonder if standalone email will evolve to only be for spam and “non friendly” communication while the other services hone the idea of opted-in messaging with pre-selected contacts (“friends” in FB, linkedin contacts, Groups, etc.).

Meanwhile, the news announced last night on CNN Money (or Fortune) whereby Microsoft won out over Google and invested in $240 million for 1.6% of Facebook implies that FB is being valued at $15 billion. You have to admire Zuckerberg’s resolve at the age of 23 to delay the IPO for yet another year or two. Is he holding out for the 100 billion award? Borrowing from the tipping point concept, I see three tips: the first was the programmer/hacker rush to create their own applications on FB. The second, is the current tsunami type wave which is based on the social networking/gaming and is spreading like wildfire among groups. Then the last one will be as FB becomes a more accepted messaging service replacing emails (on hotmail, gmail, etc) and becomes accepted unilaterally at work sites. The deal between Blackberry and Facebook speaks to the early stages of this notion (they’ve already termed it “Faceberry”). Let’s see how Blackberry shares face today. By getting a foot in the door with FB, is Microsoft going to be able to bring what amounts to an open platform feeling (that exists in FB) to its sites? Meanwhile, ‘poor’ old Google will have to make do with spreading its Orkut social networking site which, for now, is only known in Brazil.

What do you think?

For other blogs and articles on the topic (for those of you who didn’t get enough!)
Seattle pi
Guardian Unlimited
Ben Metcalf
Techcrunch en français
And blanket more via Technorati

Word Consumption & Power of Silence

Saving Private Time

We consume words with our most precious resource: time. As such, we should be entirely watchful in its expenditure. Are you not tired of the deluge of words that gush out of some people’s mouths? Between formalities, small talk and thoughtlessness, a day can be spent in the total absence of substance. And on the Internet, solid reliable content is too often missing (or interactive) as well. There is email spam, hybrid spam in the form of forwarded messages/jokes, or just plain mails, empty of content (hi dude!). Twitter is mostly spam on dope.

Vapid Blogs

Next are vapid blogs. Limited original content or personal diaries that don’t interest people beyond intimate friends and family (and even then…). You can search “went to see my shrink today” and score many 11 hits on blogs. Then comes Facebook. What or who is a “real” friend? The one that sends you vampire hugs and pokes or the one that doesn’t (and sends meaningful messages in lieu). I love parts of Facebook for getting me in touch with some old friends. But the proliferation of meaningless applications feels scarily like spam. And I will only mention in passing the dry, uninteractive brand sites that are eye sores, crammed with one-way unauthentic information.

Silence my old friend

Given the chatter without content, sometimes silence is most welcome. Silence can say so much (like a post without comments?). The pregnant pause. The masterful stare. The whir of the wind. The density of thought. When will ESP hit the web?

Search engines and community based bookmarking and tagging services (such as del.ic.ious, digg it, etc.) are getting there, helping to refine the choice. But there is still a long way to go. Too little time and too much crud.

On another ‘note’, there is the regular, if not annoying, buzz and interruption of cell phones. Aside from the revealing or funny ring tone, the ring of the cell phone haunts our daily lives. The silence is invaded by cell phones ringing throughout presentations or killing the tension at a dramatic play…. I have come to appreciate the mute button on the cell phone. The silencing of a cell phone is sort of like a cell phone’s emasculation. Speaking of incoming calls, I am not a big fan of calls marked “private number.” While there are a few understandable instances, I tend not to reply to “private” numbers. Another way to keep me (and my cell phone) silent.

As I reflect further, without silence, one cannot listen. Without listening, there can be no peace (and if you listen to Nerd CEO, you will see the strength of silence in negotiation). And perhaps one could argue that there is no content without listening? If there is so little content, then maybe we should re-program ourselves to listen to silence. Everyday, I will dedicate ten minutes to being eyes shut, listening to the silence. My adaptation of yoga, I suppose. What about you?

Haven’t read Joseph Jaffe’s soon-to-be-released “Join the Conversation.” Due out Oct 21st you can pre-order on Amazon.com. But, clearly, IT is all about the Conversation, that which is meaningful. And for good measure, I add a blog entitled Join the Conversation that adds to the same conversation.

——

This post was inspired after a little world-spanning chat with my true friend Alex. Thank you.

Borrowing from Lorelle Vanfossen, the suggested comment guidelines are as follows:

• Don’t use keywords in your comment form name – use your name, blog title, or a pseudonym that resembles a name by which you want to be known.
• Don’t stuff your comment signature (which is unnecessary – use the form) with links and qualifications on what kind of an expert you think you are. Let your comment speak for your expertise.
• Don’t leave long link addresses that screw up web page designs. Put them in an HTML anchor tag with descriptive text that tells the reader where the link is going and what it is about.
• Don’t attack the blogger nor other commenters. Attack the content if you have to attack, not the person.

And, although I have no reason yet to be so demanding (beggars can’t be choosers), I also think it is worth sharing the advice of Lorelle (experienced blogger) who posted the following advice on her post about how not to comment on a comment!

1. Say something intelligent
2. Ask something intelligent
3. Write something intelligent
4. Add to the conversation.

There’s a thread in that advice somewhere. Basically, it’s about avoiding saying “cool blog” (even if I do enjoy hearing it!), because it is one step away from spam.

So, what’s the blog all about? Aside from facing the inimitable existentialist questions about oneself, I have seen a slew of posts on the “why” of blogs and what is it all for? A few observations come to the fore. As cited in Opinionated Marketers, it really depends on your own objectives (fair enough) to establish what is a successful blog. Blogs continue to crop up at an incredible rate, although there appear to be signs that the rate of growth has matured as people have been moving their energies into the social networking world; and the life cycle of a blog is decidedly short (evidently many don’t last past 4 months).

David Sifry’s (founder of Techorati) State of the Blogosphere report in April 2007 says that “Technorati is now tracking over 70 million weblogs, and we’re seeing about 120,000 new weblogs being created worldwide each day. That’s about 1.4 blogs created every second of every day.” And, in the Live Web report, I was fascinated to see that there are more blogs in Japanese (37% of all blogs) than in English (36% of all blogs); only 8% of blogs are in Chinese. In 10th position, funnily enough is Farsi.

In a true sign of self-consciousness, meanwhile, bloggers are questioning why they are spending so many hours on their site, writing about themselves or otherwise exposing themselves. I am conscious, if also conscientious, about the ‘challenge’ posed by blogging. In a sign of the questioning, per a technorati study (that I haven’t been able to track down), apparently 79% of all blogs are abandoned — points to the pointlessness that many discover. Notmike reports from Gartner that there are now over 200 million dead blogs (see NY Post report). I have myself a second blog that I voluntarily began as a one-time experiment. Otherwise, my attention is uniquely consecrated to this site. This Caslon site (from down under) is interesting for accumulating stats on blogs. A Perseus report (see NYT article) says that 66% of blogs haven’t been updated in the last two months — which they claim is tantamount to dead.

In a Pew study , dating mid-2006, they surveyed 7,012 US adults by phone, including 4,753 internet users of whom 8% are bloggers, said that Bloggers write about the following topics (not including the splog, or spam blogs which apparently account for just under 10% of all blogs) – URL Source no longer valid.

“My life and experiences:” 37%
Politics and government: 11%
Entertainment: 7%
Sports: 6%
General news and current events: 5%
Business: 5%
Technology: 4%
Religion, spirituality or faith: 2%
Hobbies: 1%
Health: 1%

When I look at that list, I get a little scared, as I continue to post on all of the above but religion, spirituality and faith… (per my cloud I also specialize on France!). Sounds like a little lack of blog focus (which is one way not to get a quick, easy audience).

On another level, there is a whole lot of posting on how to make money on one’s blog, including my blogging friend at St Bloggie and at eMoms. And even making money on abandoned blogs, per this post at Bloggingexperiment. The motivations for blogging are varied, but apparently if a blog is to last, the posts tend to need to have content/length and the author must truly enjoying writing…. Personally, I am counting 10 months and going strong… Haven’t made a cent yet; it’s not part of the master plan. But I have enjoyed making the random virtual contacts (‘tlogs) and I plan to continue, at least for now.