Citizen Marketer 2.1

Aaron Strout

  • Home
  • About Aaron
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

Vintank Shows Us the Future of CRM for Vertical Industries

June 3, 2012 By Aaron Strout 5 Comments

With the volume of conversations that take place online today — literally exabytes worth — I’m constantly amazed by some companies’ lack of monitoring/leveraging these conversations to improve marketing, product development and customer service. In some ways, ignoring this information is tantamount to having a group of your best customers sitting down in your companies’ parking lot telling you everything they like and don’t like about you and your competitors’ products through a bull horn. Instead of listening, you block your ears and pretend they don’t exist.

We believe that vertical social listening coupled with social CRM creates unprecedented and invaluable context to create more meaningful engagement with customers. -- Paul Mabray, Vintank, Chief Strategy Officer

Fortunately, more and more businesses are realizing that there is a wealth of online information that exists to help them run better. Also helpful is the fact that companies like WCG (the agency I work for), Social Dynamx (the company my sister works for) and Vintank (the focus of this post) are helping companies listen, analyze and then act on the trillions of conversations happening on the social web. To that point, I had a chance last week to sit down with Vintank’s CTO, James Jory, to get an in depth demo of their “social CRM” platform that targets the wine industry. What I can tell you is that I am impressed. Now in the spirit of full disclosure, I sit on the advisory board of Vintank (an unpaid position) so I know a fair amount about what James and Chief Strategy Officer, Paul Mabray, are doing. But what I can tell you as objectively as is humanly possible is that these guys are focusing on all the right things.

After walking through Vintank’s social CRM platform, I am particularly impressed with four aspects of what they do:

  • Vertically focused listening
    Their platform is optimized and tuned to effectively filter conversations for products and brands in the wine industry. According to Jory, this is particularly important for wine due to the various ways consumers identify and describe wine brands and products and the massive volume of product selection (150K wines released in US market just last year and most products stay in market 3-10 years). For example, a general purpose listening platform would likely consider “corked” and “cork” to be the same term in a conversation when in reality these words have entirely different meanings in wine.Also important is the fact that Vintank actively listens to and captures ALL conversations that occur in their segment and not just the conversations related to their clients. This allows them to reach back through three plus years of social media activity in their system to bootstrap new clients and provide historical views for existing clients. During the demo, Paul Mabray framed the importance of this feature by saying, “We  believe that vertical social listening coupled with social CRM creates unprecedented and invaluable context to create more meaningful engagement with customers.” Amen to that sir!
  • Social Commerce or Commerce + Social
    Paul and James believe that that the push to bring commerce to social is putting the cart before the horse. Instead, they feel that social media can be much more effective when it is brought to commerce in the form of customer context and customer intelligence. A winery may have 1 or 2 transactional interactions with a narrow segment of their customer base each year (a tasting room visit, wine club shipments, winery event, e-commerce purchase, etc.). This provides them with an extremely limited context for each customer. However, they know their customers are consuming wine all year long and increasingly sharing those experiences through social media.
  • Rich Customer Context
    Building on the thoughts above, the cornerstone of Vintank’s  social CRM strategy is customer context. This includes stitching together all of a customer’s social profiles, presenting views of mentions of my brand as well as wine general, interactions with owned channels (twitter, FB, LBS), most recent purchase, lifetime value, wine club membership, membership in customer segments, team notes, and so on. This allows both small and large winery businesses to be more effective with their social media activities and interact with their customers with more context and knowledge.
  • Winery Social Index
    Vintank’s Winery Social Index provides a scoreboard of sorts on how wine brands are performing in social media. The algorithm was built specifically to level the playing field for wineries of all size. It rewards engagement (I wrote a post on the importance of this metric last week)  and healthy fan growth over the vanity metrics such as reach. It has provided a valuable KPI for the wine industry as wineries find their footing in social media.

So what can your company learn from Vintank and the way they help their customers look at the market? At a minimum, the fact that you shouldn’t be ignoring that “group of customers with their bull horns” in the parking lot. Beyond that, you may also realize that paying closer attention to how you are engaging with your customers versus how your competitors are doing it is also key. And finally, what role can social play in your commerce and customer relationship management strategy? Hopefully, the answer is “a big one.”

 

 

 

What Marketers Can Learn from Singer Leann Rimes

November 29, 2010 By Aaron Strout 2 Comments

This post originally appeared on Social Media Marketing Magazine on 11/1/2010.

I have always been a music enthusiast, but I’ve never been that interested in country music. And while I’m not ready to race out and fill my iTunes account with the likes of Kenny Chesney and Garth Brooks, I recently purchased a few songs by the lovely and talented Leann Rimes. Why the sudden change of heart? If you must know, it was because of a single tweet. Well, it was actually two tweets… and the fact that during a show I saw at the ANA’s Masters of Marketing event, she was authentic and genuinely made an attempt to connect with the crowd of 1,500 senior marketers.

As someone that embraced Twitter back in 2007, I regularly use it to learn, engage, and build relationships. To that end, I often make a point of acknowledging people, companies, and organizations when I feel like they are doing a good job. This may or may not mean anything to them, but it’s my style, and so far, it’s borne a lot of goodwill and business value for me.

Getting back to Leann Rimes and her performance at the ANA conference last week: as she was wrapping up her set, I took the time to look her up on Twitter and send her a thank you tweet. Imagine my surprise when she actually tweeted me back (twice)!

The reason I’m sharing this experience is not to show off—although who doesn’t love having a successful female country singer tweet them back—but rather to point out a lesson that big brands could learn from this experience. For starters, it doesn’t hurt to follow Ms. Rimes’ lead and ensure that your brand is perceived as credible and authentic. That was the thing about Leann that got me to tweet her in the first place. But more importantly, the fact that someone as busy as she must be took the time to tweet back to a potential fan was huge.

Did she do it because she knew that I was on the fence about liking her? I don’t think so. Looking back in her tweet stream, it appears she does that with a lot of people. It’s just who she is. What I can guarantee is that while she is a very talented singer, one of the main reasons she has become so successful is because she engages her “customers.”

Now would I have been as excited if a brand like Lexus or Starbucks tweeted me back? Probably not. But I do appreciate it when a brand takes the time to acknowledge me, and it has made me more likely to stick with that brand. For example, in the case of WiFi provider Boingo, I’ve actually become one of its biggest fans, primarily because Boingo regularly engages me in conversation on Twitter. Now Boingo only earns $120 per year from me, but I tell everyone I know about Boingo, have mentioned it in blog posts, and have even gone so far as to be interviewed in an article about Boingo and the “network effect of super fans” on the FASTforward blog.

So is your company engaging its customers? It doesn’t take a lot to get started—just a good listening tool and an internal and/or external resource that can help reach out to customers (or prospective customers) who are mentioning you. You’ll be surprised how far a tweet, a blog comment, or even a Facebook “like” will go in turning people’s heads.

Samsung Encourages You to Join the Conversation

September 27, 2010 By Aaron Strout 3 Comments

Apologies to my colleague, Joseph Jaffe, for borrowing the title of his second book, Join the Conversation [LINK], but in this instance, I just couldn’t resist. The “conversation” I’m referring to is one that consumer electronics giant, Samsung, is their asking their customers to “join” at the bottom of their home page.


At first blush, you might laugh and remind me that many brands these days are asking their customers to “join THEIR conversation” on Facebook, Twitter and the like. However, not so fast. In Samsung’s case, they are taking a clever and unorthodox approach to engaging with their customers. Let’s call it “reverse influencer outreach” where instead of asking bloggers like myself to reach Samsung’s customers (and prospective customers) via my Twitter, Facebook, blogs and podcasts, they instead are asking their customers to reach out to folks like me, Brian Solis, Mario Sundar and others. And instead of talking about Samsung’s products, we’re talking about the lifestyles that wrap around those products. Or in my case, more conversational topics like, “If you could write a best-selling book, what would it be about?”

Wait a second? Why would a Fortune500 company like Samsung who enjoys millions of visits a day to its website waste valuable real estate on frivolous conversation? Rather than speculate about why, I asked Samsung’s Social Media Manager, Esteban Contreras (the person that invited me to participate in this program) a couple of questions about the program. Here are his verbatim responses:


[Aaron] What was the impetus for your innovative approach?

[Esteban] Samsung’s strategy going into this exciting project was focused on creating an online environment that further engages with our consumers. We wanted to develop a customer-centric and socially relevant site that enhanced the overall brand experience.

Our new site provides opportunities for people to engage with us and with each other. From social elements on the homepage and “like” buttons on product pages, to consumer comments, reviews and Q and As.

[Aaron] Some people might say this is a waste of valuable space on Samsung US’s home page (I think it’s brilliant). What would you say to those detractors?

[Esteban] We are living in a world where consumers expect and deserve more. Being customer-centric means offering an authentic and human experience. That’s why you see photos of real people on our site and an easier experience to find some of our employees and official accounts on Twitter. It’s also why we’ve provided an area for our visitors to engage not only with us, but also with others that have similar interests.

The web has become a social web and all we’ve done is bring a small part of it unto our site. We believe that giving some of our valuable digital space to our customers is important because they are the number one reason why we love doing what we do. Our customers mean everything to us.

While the “join the conversation” program is too new to measure impact, I can tell you anecdotally that I’ve received a couple of dozen responses (and anticipate receiving hundreds more). More importantly, I can’t help but think that Samsung’s customers will appreciate the fact that a big brand is taking a few minutes out of the day to get to know it’s customers better (all of the inquiries come through as hash-tagged tweets with #samsung in the “@” replies I receive so Samsung can measure the traffic). Even smarter, Samsung is outsourcing the responses to subject matter experts versus tackling them all themselves — okay, I may not be a SME in book writing but I have supported the marketing/social campaigns around three colleagues’ books to date (We Are Smarter than Me, Flip the Funnel and now microMarketing).


What do you think of Samsungs’ approach? Is it worth the real estate they are using on their home page? Should Samsung themselves be getting more involved in the conversation? Or are they just being a good host, handing conversations off to the “experts” and then keeping an eye on what transpires?

A Tale of Two CMO’s: A Study in Contrasts

April 21, 2010 By Aaron Strout 15 Comments

As someone that’s spent the last 16 years of his life doing some form of advertising or marketing, I’ve been thinking a lot about what an exciting, yet anxious time this must be for most chief marketing officers (CMOs). To that end, there are still a number of CMOs and marketers that have chosen to ignore or hide from recent trends like social media and its ability to help brands — big and small — retain, engage and ultimately grow their current customer base.

While there is nothing to say that the strategies and tools that marketers have used for decades can’t still be effective, there are also a number of new tools that could greatly benefit their efforts. To help illustrate this point, I’ve decided to create a five part blog series titled, A Tale of Two CMO’s. The series will juxtapose the approaches of two marketing leaders with different backgrounds and viewpoints by asking them to answer questions — some that I will ask, others that I hope the readers of this blog will contribute. Each post will focus on a different marketing goal such as:

  • Awareness
  • Interest
  • Desire
  • Action
post script: I’ve updated items 2-4 based on my colleague, Joe Jaffe’s, AIDA version of the marketing funnel in his new book, Flip the Funnel.
To help bring the series to life, I’ve fleshed out the personas for Mr. “old school” CMO and Ms. “I’m okay with change” CMO. My goal is to post a new installment every week for the next five weeks — in a perfect world, this will be every Wednesday morning — but please know that I live in a far from perfect world.
Meet Our Two CMOs

Who: James Hossenpfeifer, CMO of a large consumer package goods company

Age: 61
Education: BA from Notre Dame, MBA from University of Michigan
Likes: Single malt scotch, World War II movies, Frank Sinatra and weekends at the country house
Favorite publications: The Financial Times, AdAge, Businessweek and the Wall Street Journal
Tools of choice: Direct mail, inserts, primetime television ads, print ads, the occasional outdoor ad to mix things up and recently, takeover ads on some of the larger networks like Yahoo.
Experience: During his first 12 years, James worked as an account exec on Madison Avenue for two well-known ad agencies. Feeling stuck in his career, he took two years off for B-school and then jumped to the client side at age 36. Since then, he’s held senior level marketing positions at three Fortune500 companies, the latest being the title of chief marketing officer at his current company (current tenure, 14 years).

Who: Tessa Brown

Age: 34
Education: BA from Columbia, MBA from Emory University.
Likes: Malbecs, spending time with her husband and two daughters, Coldplay and tv shows, Grey’s Anatomy and Madmen
Favorite publications: AdAge, Adweek, MarketingSherpa, the Wall Street Journal and marketing/PR blogs by people like Brian Solis and Seth Godin.
Tools of choice: e-mail, select television and online advertising, event sponsorship, corporate blog and most recently a little Twitter and a lot of Facebook Fanpage
Experience: started off as a marketing manager at a fast-growing startup where she quickly rose to the rank of VP of marketing. Following the birth of her second child, she left the startup world for B-School at Emory University in Atlanta. Tessa took a plum job as SVP of marketing at a Fortune1000 services company. A year ago Tessa was promoted to chief marketing officer — a title she’s still working on getting comfortable with.
So now you know are two CMO’s. And yes, I am playing a little bit of the stereotype card here with the old/young thing but I figured that that would be part of the fun.

To make this more exciting, I’d love to field questions in the comments section of this blog that I’d be willing to “ask” each of the CMO’s prior to upcoming posts. For example, I’ll have both CMO’s answer the question, “if you had to cut your marketing budget by 25% next year, how would this impact the amount that you spend on generating brand awareness.”

POST SCRIPT (1/8/11): I’ve added links to the other posts in the series below. Enjoy!

  • Awareness (part I)
  • Interest (part II)
  • A Sudden Turn of Events (part III)
  • The Final Chapter (part IV)
  • 1
  • 2
  • Next Page »

Recent Posts

  • How We Arrived at the What 2 Know Podcast: A Brief History
  • A Walk Down Memory Lane: My Third Ever Podcast… with Michael Arrington
  • 45 Things I’ve Learned in My 45 Years on Earth
  • SXSW Best Bars, Restaurants, Panels & Pro Tips from W2O
  • Austin Breakfast Places FTW

Recent Comments

  • jmctigue on Austin Breakfast Places FTW
  • aaronstrout on My Wife the Community Manager
  • Mike Troiano on My Wife the Community Manager
  • aaronstrout on My Wife the Community Manager
  • Samiina Mirza on My Wife the Community Manager

Categories

  • Analytics
  • Blog
  • content marketing
  • facebook
  • location based services
  • mobile
  • pre-commerce
  • social media
  • social media marketing
  • twitter
  • W2O Group

Search

Copyright © 2021 ·Stroutmeister Theme