E-commerce Link : Reality Check

Trust your instincts, question your consultants and thrive in slow times

You cannot control your customers anymore. Instead, it's time for you to enter "the conversation" or risk becoming irrelevant to them. And when you start conversing, you must be transparent and humanize yourself. It's imperative to assess the sentiment of your fans and detractors on the Web—take the pulse of your brand image. It's also time to map customers' social graphs and architect personas to keep them within your control.

Rather than look at these typical Web 2.0 statements as valid, let's temporarily invalidate them. No, you haven't lost control of your customers. No, the conversation they're having about you isn't new; it's just amplified and expedited by the Web. Your brand is human, and you are honest with customers.

My point is to demonstrate how such statements that many social media and Web marketing experts apply don't just sound ridiculous; they also signal a disconnect with your core business objectives. The bottom line: They're not in sync with your version of reality.

Making each budget dollar go further is vital to survival. That means realigning the goals of team members with objectives that improve customer connections and ROI. This month, I'm providing tips on getting the job done.

Question Your Consultants
What if "the experts" are wrong? What if they're inhibiting your ability to generate more digital sales, leads and meaningful customer interactions? It's time to ask hard questions of your employees and consultants.

You ask, "I need to sell more products—how can the Web help?" The digital consultant answers, but with a question, "Are you generating buzz about your brand on Facebook?" You have no answer. Poof! Somehow your consultant's question is more relevant and urgent. You wonder are you out of touch? Your sense of reality is challenged.

You may adopt your consultant's new questions—this reality—as your own. Suddenly you're playing catch-up. Your brand isn't in control. You rush into the digital jungle with new-found guides at your side—buzzing, posting and tweeting. But eventually you wonder why your objectives aren't met. The buzz, posts, tweets are novel, but what about sales and leads? What about your reality?

You know better, but you're compelled to believe in a hyper-connected world consisting of "new everything." Facebook, Twitter, blogging, iPhone apps—people are flocking to them by the millions. You can't sit idly by. But your gut still nags, "I think I'm relying on well-intentioned but inexperienced guides; I think I'm just throwing money at Facebook."

Tactic: Question your consultants. Press them to answer business questions first and without using words like traffic, engagement or buzz. Ask yourself: "Are we hiring employees and vendors based on tactical skills rather than the ability to create strategic results? Do they ask the right questions or avoid ours? Might we already have many of the answers we're seeking from the experts?" The answers may surprise you and prompt bold actions.

As an example, in a staff/vendor meeting, make a point to understand if you're using the Web to interact with customers intimately or if you're blasting and tweeting into the ether. If you're interacting, is it organized? Or do strategies work apart from (or compete with) each other? What actionable information does each interaction produce, and where does that information go? Is there room for each strategy to cooperatively push customers down the sales funnel using the collected information? Task your team to organize around logical customer behaviors and prompts.

Act on Your Instincts
What if social media is not a certain game-changer that only outside experts can comprehend and do, but a potential game-enhancer that your brand can accomplish—maybe even better than the experts? Even more radical, what if you already have the ability to make each digital budget dollar go further?

Like Converseon Chief Strategist Mike Moran preaches, you simply need to "Do It Wrong Quickly" and be fearless learners, trusting and acting on your instincts.

In the early 1990s, the Web was thought to disrupt or kill businesses—from travel to real estate agents. Trulia.com and Zillow.com are still around. But so are Realtors. As it turns out, all that data provided to homebuyers isn't terribly valuable by itself. The interpreters are.

In real estate, opinions and knowledge sharing on the Web—the wisdom of crowds—is helpful but not always trusted or valued. Buyers and sellers still value working with knowledgeable, credentialed people—Realtors. After all the hype and spin, trust and critical thinking matter more to people.

Realtors clearly have the social business know-how, given their expertise in facilitating conversations that lead to consumer trust. They simply need to learn how to best choose and apply an array of new digital marketing tools—you know, execute tactics.

In this context, who better to apply marketing within social media than Realtors themselves? They already have proven, effective strategies that power the tactics. They have the social business skills needed to succeed. In many ways, they should be schooling digital experts when it comes to creating more profits using Web technologies.

Is your business any different?

Tactic: Call a meeting and proclaim that getting more out of Web marketing resides in realigning creative and organizational forces when using new digital tools. Starting today, campaigns will occur with pre-defined goals that always prompt customer behavior. Use tactics that are proven winners and are part of an organized effort to net a new customer, induce a repurchase or create new value.

Suggest that tweeting is just that—aimless chit-chat if there is no organizational design, purpose or expected outcome "baked in" from the start. The same can be said for all digital tactics.

Empower your team to take action on the declaration. Structure your meeting to create the desired outcome: Web marketing practitioners who create, measure and optimize tactical campaigns that leverage proven marketing know-how (central to your historical success). Of course, these campaigns should be expected and structured to perform harmoniously together and more cost effectively than in the past.

The fundamental business rules have not changed. The environment and tools have. Yes, customers are hyper-connected and always on. But despite the hype of social media spinners, the fundamental business rules have not changed. The digital revolution is exciting and filled with opportunity, but capitalizing on it requires you to trust your instincts, question your consultants and take bold action to improve digital marketing returns.

Jeff Molander is a digital marketing strategist, professor of digital marketing at Loyola University, public speaker and author of a forthcoming book aimed at improving digital marketing results. He can be reached at jeff@jeffmolander.com and blogs at www.jeffmolander.com.

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