Netprophet – where great entrepreneurs in digital come together

Highlights from Netprophet Conference in May

The recent Netprohet conference proved once again that anyone can have a dream and turn it into a reality. Netprophet brings together a group of entrepreneurial leaders in digital marketing space from South Africa and around the globe. These entrepreneurs share their success stories with you detailing how their determination and innovative business ideas got them to where they are today.

Amongst the speakers this year were Mike Butcher, Editor of TechCrunch Europe; Andre DeWet GM of PriceCheck; Stuart Forrest CEO of Triggerfish Animation, Bob Skinstad ex South African Springbok  rugby player and now Director  & shareholder of Itec Innovate (Pty) Ltd & Justin Stanford co-founder & CEO 4Di Group to mention a few.

Erik is the Co-Founder of FONK, both Amsterdam and Cape Town based agency who specialise in multi touch devices. His presentation, “Tangible magic of the digital era”, focused on how people are losing the tangible side to things due to digital innovations such as online shopping, dating and living in general and how quickly those intangible things can disappear at the touch of a button. We are losing touch due to our intangible products/services linked to our mobile devices such as virtual friends, virtual money and virtual books etc. When we switch off our mobile device, we switch off the interconnected world we have created.

The argument: is digital enough and will it overtake the need consumers still have today to physically touch things before making a purchase? Erik says that the way forward will be the creation of symbiosis between reality (touch) and virtual/digital (intangible).

The point being that people are still willing to pay more for a “real” in-store experience vs. a virtual online one.  Why do we not flitch at paying up to R12 for a newspaper hardcopy but pull up our nose when we need to pay for something online like an app? We have created a culture where online content is expected to always be free because online content has credibility issues when it comes to being authentic. Nothing is more authentic than walking into a store, choosing a garment, feeling it, smelling it and trying it on. People look for the trust they receive from using their senses to smell & touch a product and they don’t mind paying for that trust and value. Anyone can post anything on the internet and sound like they know what they are doing. So the fight for authenticity from a digital perspective continues….

This reminds me of Truth’s mantra that customer centricity is driven from combining the ‘science and soul’ of retailing.  The offline world is the true ‘soul’.

Two other speakers who got me feeling rather inspired were South African entrepreneurs’ Andre De Wet & Stuart Forest.

Andre de Wet, a med school dropout turned GM of Price Check, is this year’s app of the year winner. Andre spoke of his journey and his presentation title, “It takes 15 years to become an overnight success” (previously quoted by Bono and Madonna!), touched on his devotion to learn and never getting too comfortable at any stage of your life, because that’s when you stop learning. He says that if you are feeling comfortable when you are in your 20s & 30s… “do yourself a favour & get uncomfortable…you have far too much to learn still”

Following a similar topic was Stuart Forest, CEO of Triggerfish Animation. Stuart, born in Port Elizabeth, with a passion for animation, started his journey building clay models just like popular owner & his dog, Wallace & Gromit. With little to no interest or growth opportunity in clay animation in South Africa he dedicated his time to 2D & 3D animation…. Today his 20 year vision is to displace Disney in their home market.

Triggerfish are behind two successful animation films namely Zambezia & Kumba. Animation is in another league of its own when it comes to patience & precision. In order for any animation to appear smooth, each frame needs to be displayed quickly. On average, 24 frames are needed per second. Translate that into 1 minute and an artist would need to draw over 1400 frames for 60 secs of smooth running.

Stuart’s presentation focused on lessons you were taught in playschool and how they still apply to your day to day life. Being patient, kind & honest was one and to get up and try again and again and again was another.

He firmly believes that as important as it is to have short term goals, the real McCoy is that vision of how you are going to achieve your major life goal which may just take 20 years to achieve.
As our favourite leadership coach, Robin Sharma, reminds us: ‘ideation without execution, is nothing more than delusion.”

Overall, Netprophet proved to be an inspiring day out, realising that everyone has the opportunity to dream and come up with something great, but it’s what you do, how you learn and how much you believe in yourself is what determines the success of your “something great”.

By Ros Siddle, Marketing & Research Manager, Truth

Turning likes into loyalty...... the ultimate prize of social engagement

“Is the short term tangible ROI more valuable than the insight we gain from long term engagement with your customers and the business potential thereof?”

I posed this question in a blog earlier this year (read here) and it seems this topic is still up for debate.

Ted Rubin, Chief Social Marketing Officer at Collective Bias suggests in his book Return on Relationship that “Social Media drives engagement, engagement drives loyalty, and loyalty correlates directly to increased sales. Return on Relationship™ = ROI”.

If this equation deems true…I’d like to unpack how marketers can begin to understand how to use this metric to determine ROI from social media.

We know that there is no real correlation between vanity metrics and revenue impact. What I mean here is that the more likes, follows & shares do not necessarily lead to an increase in income.

In a recent webinar, hosted by loyalty 360, there were 4 main questions marketers were dabbling with in attempt to answer “How to measure ROI from social media”

1. Quite obviously: What’s the ROI of SM?
Marketers are saying that is it difficult to justify increasing spend on social media arguing whether or not you can directly compare ROI attained from TV commercials & billboards etc. to the cost of your social media activities.

“Social media is so popular and effective as a marketing tool because it focuses on the customer experience instead of just throwing an advertisement at them and hoping the impression will stick.” by Ted Rubin.

The realization is, the lifespan of each of these channels are dramatically different and if you cannot justify spend per campaign (output) especially in social media, how does one begin to measure the return?

2. Do marketers care enough about data?
Data is not yet seen as an important tool to help increase effectiveness of marketing campaigns and social media campaigns……how come?

Currently, there seems to be not enough time dedicated to training. There are little to no resources, no skills, no staff & no ability (or desire by marketers) to get to the heart of data and how to attribute it across the company. The scale & complexity of data has changed dramatically – what used to be done by marketing teams on excel is no longer possible, it’s far too complex and leads to incorrect insights.

Businesses have evolved so much so that not only does your financial department or IT department   use data…but your marketers HAVE to use data too.

Advice given from the panel on the webinar suggest that marketers need to start from the beginning by defining their social media strategy to create & include insights derived from data.
Webinar host, Wes Brooks says, “No business has a data problem; they have a filter problem. Your analytics model has to look at the whole interconnected digital ecosystem for predictive data.”

It is essential for dialogues on data to start internally - data is needed from internal business partners and everyone needs to fine comb the data that is relevant to their department, but which aids to the bigger picture.

Lauren Swanson @swantonsoup  Marketers who embrace #data will get to leave the kids table and sit with the adults in the C-Suite. #SMTlive

Social Intelligence @SDLsocial  The future of marketing/sales is going to be data driven. You can use data to narrow down exact steps in the customer journey. #SMTlive

That’s why companies such as ourselves at Truth work strategically with data insights experts like P:cubed. The end client value proposition in the B2B market places is meaningless if data cannot be demystified.
 
3. Job titles & description are no longer clean cut.
The scale of a digital role is tremendous and the expectations are too high. There is major challenge to find one person to cover all aspects on this so called Social Media/Digital Strategist role. The expectation is that this job should cover roles that in their own capacity are so widespread such as digital & social media strategist, marketing manager, content & CRM management to mention a few.

Another change worth mentioning in organisations today is the CMO, CFO and CIO relationship….they’re big mates now. The CMO role has changed by becoming increasingly responsible for tech investments & actions driven by data insights. There should also be a single line that connects your social media manager and his/her team to your CMO.

Josh Milenthal @JM_allgrownup  The most common misconception is that "social" is just something someone can do on the side. It's a full time gig.

4. Focus on content…..not just selling.
As mentioned above, there is no real correlation between vanity metrics and revenue impact. The notion of accumulating as many likes/followers/fans will soon no longer be a metric to gauge popularity of a brand or show how truly engaged they are with their fans.

The true metric will be how engaged and loyal their fans are.  Good content builds trust, builds credibility. Content is read to acquire knowledge and shared to spread that knowledge. Technology has broken down the barriers between brands and customers making it much easier to speak AND listen to your customers and vice versa. It allows for ‘on demand response’ to the needs of your customers.

Become more creative with your content and move passed the pre-populated Facebook post or tweet. Use your data wisely and fuel content based on the insight you have about your customers. It gives your customers the chance to feel more for your brand once you’ve taken the time to engage with them about what’s relevant to them.

Josh Milenthal @JM_allgrownup Look at it like this. When marketing in person, do you preach a message or hold a conversation? Conversations increase trust/sales #SMTlive

Challenge yourself and think beyond the audience…..how do I change them into advocates? The advocates are what create the reality of the brand. People are watching & listening to these advocates so pay attention to who they are.
                                                                               
                                                                                Ros Siddle, Marketing & Loyalty Research Manager, Truth

Is this the end of value segmentation as we know it?

It strikes me that at times we, as marketers look to focus our budgets and efforts to retain our most valuable customers.  We also strive to increase engagement and spend from the group of customers showing the most potential to increase their future spend with our business.  But are we missing a trick by not focusing on the least likely group to increase their potential value to the business?

What about those who don’t spend much with you, but adore your brand?  In a standard RFM model (Recency, Frequency and Monetary), they are likely to be missed out, and not given the same attention as those who are spending more with you.  So should we be engaging with them?  I believe there are segments of customers with whom their value isn’t measurable on a purely financial basis.

I believe there is a space for CRM analytics and attitudinal research to be combined, to further understand your brands potential reach.  This is where the power of research comes in, and the much publicised Net Promoter Score (NPS) could help to establish the segments of customers whom adore or dislike your brand.

There is much talk of the pros and cons of using customer affinity measures such as the Net Promoter score – developed by Fred Reichheld author of the book ‘The Loyalty Effect’ and ‘The Ultimate Question’.  The idea being you ask a simple question – “on a scale of 0-10 how likely are you to recommend a {brand/product} to a friend or relative?” The responses are then measured by splitting the customer base into 3 groups: Detractors, Passives and Promoters. 
For some industries identifying those most likely to promote your brand, even if they have only purchased once, can be very fruitful in driving word of mouth influencer campaigns.  Creating a memorably brand experience for this group can drive considerable word of mouth impact, and potentially drive new customers.  That’s free acquisition, that can’t be gained anywhere else and can drive incredible value to your business in the long term.

On the flip side, those who fall into the low value/detractor category, a group least likely to spend with you, and most likely to talk negatively about your brand are equally worth considering a campaign to.  With the aim to reduce the negative impact of bad publicity by making peace with those unsatisfied with your brand/product or service.  It could save you lots in the future in rebuilding a brand or spending on PR.

                                                                           Karen De Lorenzo, Loyalty & Engagement Consultant, Truth