The Side Benefits of Crowdsourcing

Crowdsourcing has become a popular business practice. The ease of connecting with people via social media enables an organization to turn to its tribe of followers for solutions or inspiration. New product ideas, customer service issues, and marketing input are three examples of how marketers use crowdsourcing to tap the wisdom of the crowds. One of the most effective crowdsourcing campaigns in recent years has been Doritos' Crash the Super Bowl contest. For the past seven years, Frito-Lay has challenged the public to submit Doritos commercials to air during the Super Bowl. Five finalists are picked, giving the winners (often upstart ad agencies) tremendous exposure and modest financial rewards. The payoff for Doritos has been successful commercials, in part because they are vetted by the public via a fan vote for the contest prior to the Super Bowl.

A Maverick Idea for Crowdsourcing

The latest example of using crowdsourcing to meet a marketing need comes from the NBA's Dallas Mavericks. Owner Mark Cuban, known for being innovative and a maverick in his own right, recently took to his blog to call on fans to help design the team's next uniform. Specifically, Cuban wants to debut new uniforms for the 2015-2016 season. Between now and May 31, he wants people to post their ideas for the next uniforms on his blog. Here are some details of Cuban's call for action:

• All submissions immediately become property of the team
• A winner may be picked from the submissions
• Winner will receive $1000 and possibly some free Mavs tickets
• Of course, the winner receives bragging rights for having his/her design chosen

Is Mark Cuban being a cheapskate for offering a measly $1000 to the winner... and there might not even be a winner? Some people think so, contending that if a professional designer was hired the fee would likely be six figures. But, judging by most comments posted on Cuban's blog (nearly 900 so far including many contest submissions) many Mavs fans have no problem with the conditions of the contest.

Promotion and Engagement are Side Benefits

The obvious benefit of crowdsourcing is innovation. Ideas for new value are generated, often by the very people who use or are served by the company or product. Generating multiple ideas is good; generating those ideas from users and customers is great. Another benefit can be realized from crowdsourcing as evidenced by the Dallas Mavericks example: Promotion. In this case, there is not much going on with the Dallas Mavericks these days- the team missed the NBA playoffs this season. The uniform design challenge is a way to stir interest in the team during an otherwise quiet time. 

More importantly, crowdsourcing provides a platform for engaging customers and other members of a brand community. Asking people for their input gives them a voice, making them feel valued. I read several of the comments to Cuban's post that contained contest submissions. Many people apologetically began by saying "I am not a good artist but..." yet uploaded their ideas for new uniforms. Many people included the acronym "MFFL" in their posts ("Mavericks Fan for Life"), providing a clear indication of their relationship status with the brand. For this segment of a brand's community, crowdsourcing is powerful because it makes these people feel like they are part of the organization. Their involvement is sought to innovate on the brand's behalf.

Cuban concludes his blog post about the contest by saying "let's see what you got." I'm with him- I cannot wait to see the quantity and quality of ideas submitted in the coming days. Regardless of whether the eventual next uniform design comes directly from the community submissions or indirectly influence a hired designer's work, Mark Cuban's crowdsouring call will likely be deemed a success.

Being Late Can be Offset by Being Great

Google playing catch up? An odd statement to make about a company that has been lauded consistently over the past decade as one of the most innovative firms in the world. However, that is exactly what Google is doing when it comes to its new Google Play Music service. The monthly subscription service gives users access to millions of songs. Custom playlists and stations, unlimited skipping, and use across multiple devices are features of the service. Sound familiar? Pandora, Spotify, Slacker, Rdio, and Rhapsody are in the game already. Google has to convince music listeners that its new service beats the status quo and that they should modify their listening behaviors and adopt Google Play Music.

It's OK to be Fashionably Late
Can late-to-market firms succeed in hyper-competitive categories like online music services? The answer is a resounding "yes." Being first or early to market only assures you notoriety to say you were a pioneer. It certainly does not guarantee success. Otherwise, I would be writing this post on my Commodore 64 computer. Late entrants often benefit by being able to learn from the missteps of pioneers. And, for newer product categories the task of building consumer demand for the product has been borne by competitors that entered earlier. In the case of Google Play Music, the aforementioned competitors along with Apple have transformed how people consume music. Google does not have to convince people that they should listen to music online, only that they should develop a preference for Google's service.

Answer the Ultimate Question
The failure rate for new products is very high, with estimates being that 80 to 90 percent of all new products do not make it in the marketplace. Thus, the odds are stacked against a new entrant like Google Play Music. This enormous risk is mitigated by Google's brand equity. If you or I were launching a start-up music service we would likely be prime candidates to be added to the failure rate statistic. However, the launch of Google Play Music as a brand extension in the Google Play platform (which is itself an extension of the Google brand) gives it a level of credibility that most new products must work for years to attain.

For Google Play Music or any other product to succeed, the ultimate question of "what's in it for me?" must be answered. Customers have to understand how they will benefit from using a product or service. In this case, it is the seamless experience of using Google Play Music along with the suite of Google products. Personally, I am an avid music streamer- I love listening to music while I work. I am giving Google Play Music a try as I write this post (Craig Chaquico's Acoustic Planet being the album of choice). In the end, I will adopt Google Music Play if I perceive the benefits of the service being superior to Spotify or Pandora. Is it more convenient to access? Is the user interface experience preferred?

Google is a great brand but not a perfect one. It has had its share of product failures over the years, and there is no assurance Google Play Music will succeed. But, if it should fail it will not be due to the order in which it appeared on the market. Similarly, if you are exploring a business opportunity do not automatically be dissuaded if established competitors are present. They exist because no better alternatives have been introduced to the market. That could all change if your offering successfully answers the WIIFM question among your target market.

Forbes.com - "Google Continues to Play Catch-Up with 'All Access' Music Service as Critics Sound Off"

Think Small for Social Media Marketing Wins

I often tell my students "marketing is easy; marketers screw it up." The marketing concept itself is based on a rather simple notion that an organization should have dual pursuits of satisfying customers' needs and wants while meeting profitability and other internal goals. Another example of the simplicity of marketing is that there are really only two ways to add value to products or services:

1. Increase benefits 
2. Reduce sacrifices

I could discuss several other instances in which marketing decisions can be boiled down to straightforward considerations, but that is not the point of this post. The focus is how to not screw up one of the newest, shiniest tools in our marketing toolkit: Social media.

Ditch the Big Thinking
Strategic planning is often about thinking big- more market share, percentage increase target for profits, specific dollar or unit volume for sales. We hear about BHAG- big, hairy, audacious goals. Apparently, there is no room for small thinkers in marketing. When it comes to social media, that is simply untrue. Digital marketing expert Mitch Joel recently posted in his Six Pixels of Separation blog about "The Small Wins from Social Media." Joel points out that the "big thinking" mentality that governs most marketing organizations found its way into social media marketing strategy. How many "likes" can we get on Facebook? How many followers can we add on Twitter? Restaurants, retailers, and others have run promotions giving away product and offering price discounts in a quest to amass a large social media following. Never mind that little thought may be given to what to do with the audience once collected, let's just up those audiencenumbers!

Small Ball" Wins
To borrow a baseball analogy, think of social media marketing as having the same impact that a singles hitter has in baseball. The performance may lack the drama of a home run, but consistency in getting hits improves batting average and helps the team. According to Mitch Joel, small wins in social media include getting customers to talk about themselves (rather than a focus on talking about the product or company), using blogs to develop a repository of critical thinking (as opposed to product promotion), and using podcasts to network with thought leaders and other influentials. Reach-oriented goals (i.e., the home runs) that are the norm in mass media-driven marketing are not necessarily a good fit for social media campaigns. Instead, Joel advocates looking for the small wins, advances in customer relationships and brand equity that are not as quantifiable and may lack the "wow factor" compared to size of audience.

Figuring out how to use social media as part of the marketing mix can be a daunting challenge. Simplify it by thinking small- use social media to achieve small gains in customer relationships and competitive position.

Shoring Up the Three Legged Stool of Customer Experience

A great deal of emphasis is put on the customer experience because of its impact in determining satisfaction and loyalty. In turn, satisfaction and loyalty influence profitability. An element of customer experience that can be easily overlooked is the internal relationship between a firm and its employees. When employees are ill equipped to serve customers in terms of training, of course the desired outcomes will be more difficult to attain. But, what happens if trust between management and employees has not been fully developed? The stage is set for failure to reach satisfaction and loyalty targets.

The Three Legged Stool of Customer Experience
Customer experience expert Shep Hyken discusses this situation using the analogy of a three legged stool. To effectively manage customer relationships, the three relationship "legs" must be made strong:

1. Management must trust employees
2. Employees must trust management
3. Customers must trust the company

If any of these legs are weak or are missing altogether, the stool will collapse. While the analogy of a three legged stool could suggest independence among the three relationships, the reality is that the three legs are highly interrelated.

Needed: A Culture of Trust
One word describes what is needed to ensure that the three legs that support customer experience are strong: Culture. A culture of trust must be established in all three of these relationships. In particular, employees must trust management's decisions, programs, and leadership. Employee trust breeds confidence in the firm and empowers employees to do their part to deliver great customer experiences. Unfortunately, this leg of the stool often is damaged by managers' failure to get employee buy-in, solicit their input from the front lines of servicing customers, and not viewing the firm-employee relationship as a marketing priority. A culture of trust sustains the firm-employee relationship by educating employees on their role in serving customers, acknowledging their successes, and giving them permission to fail occasionally.

View Employees as Customers
It is disheartening to see companies that espouse to be "customer focused" treat their employees as an afterthought. Extend the marketing concept to the internal market, your employees. Of course, they are not customers in the same sense, and if you subscribe to the adage that the customer is always right you may want to reconsider it when it comes to employees. But, there is little room to argue that if employees do not have a great relationship with their own brand, they will not be able to advance customer-brand relationships as well as they could if their leg of the customer experience stool was stronger. What is the current state of firm-employee relationships in your organization? Are they doing their part to hold up the stool, or is it a weak point that could break if not addressed?

Business 2 Community - "Trust Enhances Employee and Customer Experience"

40% of Your Customers Would Leave You- What to Do?

Would it be unsettling if you learned that 4 out every 10 of your customers are thinking about switching to a competitor? For many business owners and marketing managers, it would be a nightmare scenario that could cause many sleepless nights. This statistic is not a hypothetical question for wireless communications providers. A recent global survey of 8,700 consumers by Nokia Simmons Networks found that about 40 percent of wireless customers would entertain switching companies. That figure is astounding in itself; it is further amplified by the fact that this figure is 20 percent higher than just one year ago. Wireless companies hold leverage in the form of restrictive contracts that include early termination fees, but otherwise it appears that they are vulnerable to customer switching behavior.

What Customers Want
According to the NSN survey, what matters to wireless subscribers is pretty straightforward:

1. Voice quality
2. Network coverage
3. Contract conditions

If these factors are the greatest influences on customers' choice of wireless provider, it should not be too difficult to manage these issues to make them positive contributors to a customer's experience of doing business with the wireless provider of choice. Managing these factors and other touchpoints in the customer experience (e.g., billing, customer support) can be reduced to one word: Simplicity. A product whose underlying technologies are anything but simple to communicate via voice, text, and access the Internet must replace complexity with simplicity when it comes to the user interface with wireless companies.

Managing the Customer Experience
Knowing what customers value in their consumption experience is a starting point in managing customer satisfaction and minimizing customer churn. Going forward, one characteristic of companies that effectively retain customers will be a commitment to mapping and measuring the steps of the customer journey. In the wireless device category, voice quality, network coverage, and contract conditions influence satisfaction but are not the only determinants. Companies that commit to getting a more in-depth understanding of what customers want at every step in the customer journey will be better positioned to meet those wants and minimize dissatisfaction that could trigger a desire to switch to a competitor.

Here is a parting thought shared by Sarah Reedy, who wrote the article linked below: "Acting like you could lose a customer at any minute is the best way to ensure you don't." 

LightReading.com - "Mobile Users Yearn to Churn, NSN Finds"