New Marketing Channels: Customer dialogue is critical

Go Interactive and Generate Dialogue!

Just finished a great article: The New Campaign Management Mandate by Forrester Research. Lots of great suggestions about rethinking traditional approaches to marketing campaign management.

Forrester mentions there are now a "dizzying array" of channels and tools available to reach consumers... placing the consumer in the driver's seat as far as marketing focus.  Forrester suggests this environment makes touching a customer easier but.. is a much more complicated life for marketers. There's the question of direction, integration and focus..at a minimum!

Amongst the challenges, Forrester suggests, is that, "emerging channels are under utilized for customer dialogue."

Have to go back to an earlier CPS blog regarding helicopter friends and their influence -- and how businesses can harness that influence through interactive touchscreen use. Helicopter friends Tweet, Facebook post and the like -- they've been called prosumers!  They broadcast information regarding likes, interests and...your products!  And, that broadcast message can be haphazard and unfocused.

Why not harness and direct these messages? Ask for comments; provide an easy way to Tweet your product? Plan on Facebook posts? You can effectively implementing a process for customer dialogue in an emerging channel!

Well-designed interactive touchscreen systems will help this process.  They'll present you..message, brand, products.  And, you're able to harness your consumer's interest to generate more messaging.  We've said a Tweet or Facebook post is a today's version of the referral.  Using an interactive touchscreen system, your shoppers can open a dialogue and broadcast your brand!

Then, you're achieving some of Forrester's objectives: engaging your consumer and providing relevance, personalization, and collaboration.

Content is King...and your prospects can help create it!

Andrew Davis recently dazzled the Housing Leadership Summit in Chicago, according to Builder, saying homebuilders need to focus on developing "real strategies" for Social Media.  Too many people, he argued, are focused on the technology as compared to the message.  Today's hot product becomes tomorrow's CompuServe or AltaVista.  And, the message shouldn't just be about your product..it needs to convey value from the consumer's perspective.



Content creation: Who could ask for more than: Love this Open Kitchen?

 Davis hit upon a couple of points we've blogged about: implementing easy-to-use technology that's at  people's fingertips such as an iPhone for sending photos or video from a home the home shopper toured.  That's bringing technology to a point of contact.

Davis also suggests, "the real trick is to get customers to use SM to talk about product to friends and family."

So, it's not content for content's sake or technology because it's cool... it's making what you have interactive, engaging, and informative enough that your users/viewers/home shoppers will want to chat/Tweet/post about it from their perspective...and that creates its own desirable content!

We like to say that an interactive touchscreen system in a sales/leasing/information center will be all of those things -- interactive, engaging, informative.  And, there are lots of innovative ways to drive content creation from such a system: give home shoppers a "mark-up" feature so they can write on the screen or put Facebook into the app and let your prospects post "I'm looking at a new home here at XYZ; my kids really love the park around the corner; the soccer fields are brand new and fabulous!"  Who wouldn't want that marketing piece?

We've talked about "helicopter friends;" Davis mentions "prosumers" who like to distribute information about products.  The name doesn't matter...these tech-savvy folks are creating your content and driving others to your door!

Tweets and Facebook posts: Today's version of a referral?



Sharing the experience: Lyon Homes' San Carlos Court

This week there have been two articles with seemingly divergent themes: CCES' article, "9 Purely Business Reasons to "Green" Your Company" and Dawn Sadler's "Creating a Legacy Brand" on http://www.jeffshore.com/. 

But..are they actually related?

CCES suggests there are 9 purely business reasons why "green" benefits a company's bottom line.  Sadler notes that the only marketing program that will continue to drive homebuilder business is referrals. CCES doesn't mention referrals; Sadler doesn't mention green.

We'd like to suggest there are a number of similarities -- and that an interactive touchscreen can enter this discussion, as well.  Do you remember an earlier discussion about "helicopter friends"?  Today, shoppers Tweet, Facebook and otherwise share information, recollections, and experiences with their friends based upon all sorts of events...including shopping.
Isn't sharing today's version of a referral?  

Put a shopper-friendly (and "green" with paper-saving and/or print on-demand features) interactive touchscreen in your business -- and you'll see not only positive feedback from your potential buyers but "sharing" amongst friends!  And, there are the "green" business benefits (cost savings, improved efficiencies, employee morale) that tag along, as well.

As Dawn Sadler notes, " it's not how much you intended the experience, it is how your buyer experienced it!"

Millennials: Convergence of Influence (aka "Helicopter Friends")

AdvertisingAge, on April 11, 2011, mentioned the idea, "convergence of influence."  You've heard about "helicopter parents", right?  Well, Advertising Age suggested millennials frequently function as "helicopter friends" in the much the same way as individuals influence each others' purchases, friends, world view. 

That concept is what makes today's social networking (and, more importantly, social marketing) so critical, "I made a mistake, I didn't like this product so...I'm going to share that experience with you because I don't want you to make the same mistake."

And, "helicoptering" applies to their positive purchasing experiences, as well.  Millennials, says AdvertisingAge, aren't impulse shoppers. They like to spend a lot of time and effort researching.  And, they like to share what they're seeing and buying (complete with images).

ZIslander leasing office Bryan, TX

Today's marketing strategies need to take that "shop/share/buy" process into account.  To some extent, it's no longer marketing to an individual ... but marketing to that individual and everyone within their social network.

That's what is exciting about the use of technology from a sales perspective: this audience will shop and when they see something in line with their spending priorities, they'll share it with friends... as well as buy.  It may not be the cheapest choice but...because technology has played a role in what they look for and actually see, they have become "expert" consumers. 

The web has helped make this "expert" consumer possible; now, it's time to incorporate a similar experience at "point of sale."  Interactive touchscreens encourage the same "shop" experience as they, too, engage, inform and create an "expert."  Adding the ability to "share" the experience is the next, critical step for interactive touchscreen design.