Build Relationships and connect.

Image by kris247

Under the title “Say Goodbye To Experimental Spending In 2009″, Mediapost’s Mark Walsh writes about a panel at ad:tech new York on media planning and buying the digital era. He quotes Donna Speciale, Mediavest USA: “09 is not the year for testing. Brands want to stick with areas that are tried and true.”

The question is: What areas are tried and true? The diminishing value of advertising on TV? The increasing banner blindness of people? The continuous decline of newspaper advertising value? Or is it just Google? Donna Speciale might be talking about tried and true areas for her agency: Good commissions for big campaigns. Efficient delivery of mass messages. That might be in the best interest of her agency. But it’s not in the best interest of brands.

Just ask Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson or Henkel AG: The WSJ reports that all those CPG giants are seeing a consumer trend abandoning brand loyalty due to the economic crisis. Store brands are on the rise, 25% of consumers say they don’t really see a difference between national brands and store brand of paper products, sales of Gain rose by 10% while the pricier Tide has weaker results, 25% of upper-income consumers gave up favorite brands over six months in 2008 and private-label versions of soap and other bath products are up 23% in the last 12 months.

I guess those tried and true areas don’t work that well.

And, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. How can you communicate with people when you treated them like sheep and target audiences for the longest time? How can you hope to get your message across in the age of media snacking? Do you really believe anybody cares about your brand when they have bills to pay, mouths to feed and the constant barrage of bad news to digest? And how much less do they care about your advertising?

People are cutting back. People are trying to save each and every penny. You should cut back, too. Cut back on the mass approach. Cut back on the reach and frequency philosophy. Cut back on the tactics that lead people to negate your brand and go to private labels.

Instead, build relationships. Learn as much as you can about your customers. There are a gazillion tools out there that allow you to connect with people. It’s easy to break a brand bond when there’s no relationship between people and the brand. 

Rethink your CRM systems. Are they only beneficial to you? What benefits do people get out of them? How can you transform your current CRM system to facilitate a real, authentic relationship with people? 

Rethink your company structure. If you consider Conversational Marketing/Social Media as a tactic, an execution, a short-term band-aid: Please stick to the tried and true areas. But, if you see Social Media as a game-changer, as an opportunity to strategically revamp your business and open new markets – this might be the biggest opportunity to change your category and become/remain the biggest player on the block. 

To adjust Obama’s quote: (Building relationships) “alone is not the change we seek. It is only the chance for us to make that change. And that cannot happen if we go back to the way things were.”

We are in the problem-solving business

Advertising used to be so easy: You write a cool tagline, develop a cool commercial, make sure all communications surrounding the commercial is integrated and then hope for the best. You worked for a great agency when you were thinking about the client goals throughout the creation process. You worked for a mediocre agency when everybody just cared about the awards and recognition. And you worked for a real crapshop when everybody was just thinking about their paycheck.

Ob boy, things have really changed. Now, agencies have to deliver experiences that improve people’s lives and, at the same time, make sure to help their clients with the bottom line. Thinking about awards shouldn’t even make the Top 10 list anymore.

In the old days, we tried to build emotional connections through funny 30-second sketches and innovative imagery. Today, we build emotional connections by helping people solve their problems: The widget displaying real-time traffic on your desktop, easing your commute and saving nanoseconds because you don’t have to type the URL. The Pizza Builder that makes the ordering process less arduous and so much more enjoyable. The Facebook CarPool application that helps people to connect with each other to reduce the their carbon footprint and get from A to B quicker.

The flashy ad doesn’t work anymore. People have moved on a while ago. Today, businesses build emotional connections  through utility. Make my life easier, more enjoyable, more experiential. Give me stories and memories to share, develop something special for me. Show that you understand me. Show that you don’t want to pollute my life with more noise. Show that you care about me. That’s how you develop connections and relationships.
And make people care about you.

Connections are vital

Good leaders and sales people have known this forever: A sense of connection makes a huge difference. Connections make or break your job interview. Connections help organizations in their collaboration and innovation efforts. Connections help people to feel better about themselves and make it through hard times.

Management 101 focuses on the employee-employer relationship alone. Recognition and respect are the keywords for a mutually rewarding relationship. While businesses continue to build relationships with people, they end up being too focused on transactions and re-purchase rate.

Instead, businesses need to focus on valuable and open relationships with people.
Valuable not in the sense of ROI (It’s a by-product, not the ultimate goal), rather as an understanding of the universal nature of people and the appreciation of individual contribution. Just taking the time and effort to connect with people is a valuable asset for businesses.  Kindness, fairness and social intelligence go a long way to achieve valuable connections.

These valuable connections will thrive in an open environment. An honest and safe place where people can share their opinion in order to gain understanding and develop new ideas. Nothing feels better to humans than being respected and recognized.

Using Jim Collins’ terminology:  Good companies value their employees and encourage open dialogue. Great companies extend this valuation and openness to everybody. You need the employee-business foundation before you can extend this model to your marketing.

Remember: Conversational Marketing is not a tactic. It’s a mindset that will change your business in magical ways.

Looks like a heart, doesn’t it? KevinRoberts would love it.