In his new book…The Network Is Your Customer, David Rodgers shares fives steps any business can use to create value (Social Value) and reach its consumer.
Access: Be faster, be easier, be everywhere…be always on. Be where your consumer is.
Engage: Be a source of valued content.
Customize: Make your offering adaptable to your consumer’s needs.
Connect: Become a part of your consumer’s conversations.
Collaborate: Involve your consumers in every stage of your enterprise.
Before we look at your business and your business’s Social Value let me take a moment to first look at you.
I suspect you have a laptop or desktop at both your home and office. If you are like 50% of the US population by the end of this year you will have a smartphone (yes 50% according to Nielson). If you already have a smartphone, I doubt you would ever give it up. Having a Droid myself, I know you use it to send and receive both personal and professional email, text, navigate, use it for video and photo sharing plus you are on this device more than your significant other wants you to be.
When you use your desktop or laptop to search or surf and that puts you within reach of over a trillion interconnected web pages by using any one of the major web browsers. Last year, you also probably bought from the iTunes Store as you are one of the 5 billion transactions that Apple reported for iTunes in 2010…you are also probably Twittering, Skyping, watching streaming video, or viewing on-demand movies using Comcast/Hulu or Netflix. You were also probably one of the consumers who spent more than $36 Billion online during the Holiday’s last year. And maybe…just maybe last Christmas you treated yourself and family to a new TV Internet appliance like Apple/Google TV so you can bring the whole web experience to your new 42” or greater “3D” Flat Screen TV including shopping.
Wait…last and certainly not least… you are on both LinkedIn and on Facebook where you’re sharing your personal and professional lives with your interconnections, family and friends.
The point here is that you personally are already vested in a large Network and the Network is us.
But unfortunately along the way something happened. Something truly strange… something odd which is completely opposite of what you are doing in and around how you use your personal electronic network everyday…what is it?
Well… you walked into your office and for the most part your office unplugged your business to the outside-networked world, which includes your social and mobile consumers.
Then attended a senior meeting shouldn’t be wondering why most or the entire cool consumer networking platforms that you have been using personally are not in use by your business to engage, converse, connect and collaborate with your consumer? And from an outsiders view of your business… it looks like you have hit the “UnNetworking Wall”. A Wall, which may by default been installed to prevent engagement and conversations with consumers in the social space.
So how do you expect your consumers to engage, converse, connect and collaborate with you if you make them continually jump your UnNetworked Wall?
Is your business using Social networking tools to reach your consumer? Do you have a Facebook Shopping Tab? Are you protecting your consumer’s data and their credit cards by creating transactions on your website from all social platforms (not closing sales on social platforms)? Do you feel placing offers on your consumer’s Facebook’s Wall is how they want to have conversations with your brand? By the way, research says otherwise. How is your business benefiting from the current craze in couponing? What are you doing with YouTube, Podcasting, On-Demand Video Streaming, Facebook and Twittering…?
Are you enabling your consumers to access your content and have conversation about your products and offers/deals/coupons on their smartphones? A mobile plan should be in place since 50% of the consumers in the US will be surfing the web on a smartphone by the end of 2011. As Morgan Stanley predicts in its 2010 Trend report that 50% of all e-Commerce will be done on a smartphone by 2014. Is your business moving just as fast to engage with consumers in mobile and deliver a mobile e-Commerce or local store experience?
The answer to any of these questions is to have your business simply take a look at itself in the social and mobile mirror and determine whether you are appropriately engaging with your consumers.
It’s all about the Mirror Test…
So ask yourself and your Marketing Team this question: If we personally use all of these Network tools in our daily lives why are we not aggressively going after the opportunity to add Social Value by engaging, conversing, connecting and collaborating with our consumers in our daily marketing efforts. If you aren’t doing this now… then WHY? If we can’t do it then WHO in the organization is preventing this from happening? If it’s not YOU who will be the heretic… WHO should it be?
The HERETIC or the SHEEPWALKER…
At The ShoppeSimple Network we help you hurdle the Mirror Test. Yes, we have heard all the excuses as to why a business shouldn’t do social or mobile now…
Here are just a few:
Ø We haven’t seen the return on Social or Mobile to date so it is just not a priority
Ø Everyone else is doing it this way so we are just copying them
Ø We do not have the resources at the moment to add another initiative to our marketing mix
Ø We are looking to build these social and mobile systems in house
Ø Other marketing initiatives are of a higher priority
Ø We do not have buy in from Senior Leaders since they are not on Facebook or using a Smartphone for e-Commerce
Ø Our business is B2B not B2C
Ø Social and Mobile isn’t my responsibility
But do any of these points make sense when you personally are so engaged in the social and mobile worlds. Since you personally utilize all of these electronic network tools, why would you think your consumer is any different?
At The ShoppeSimple Network we provide a marketing service, which is totally guaranteed to drive business profits that are incremental (not coming from channel shift). How do we do this? We find social consumers who are interested in your brand, who want to have a conversation with you, want to buy from you and tell their friends about your brand. We deliver these consumers to your website for transactions which not only protects your data security (and your privacy statement) but also makes the consumer feel good about shopping safely and securely.
In essence, we build a new Social (Facebook/Twitter/Google/Yahoo along with your digital properties) and Mobile loyalty program and have it online for your business in less than 30 day. Plus…The ShoppeSimple Network program is affordable with the entire program available to you for a reasonable monthly subscription fee (without any commissions, tolls,maintenance or implementation fees of any kind).
Just like every other client, your program will drive new business, new customers, higher average orders and more order frequency all in less than 30 days. In fact we guarantee you a return of 30% in 30 days or you just don’t pay the bill. And since we launched our new marketing SaaS solutions around Social and Mobile no client has left the program nor have we had to make good on our guarantee.
What does that say…that you are indeed missing something? Something that consumers want and enjoy!
Additionally all of the transactions through The ShoppeSimple Network are done on your site and with your credit card processing.
We do all of what we do by enabling what Rogers speaks too… engage, converse, connect and collaborate with your consumers.
Bottom line: with The ShoppeSimple Network you will have a new social and mobile loyalty program that is essentially turn key up and running in less than 30 days without any IT resources or expense. So if you want to simply plug into The ShoppeSimple Network simply reply to this email or phone me up at 612-349-2740. We will set up a quick demo and show you how our clients are driving new social business to their brands.
Best,
Jeffery