European Association of Directory Publishers Keynote

Observations in the challenges in converting social conversation into business value for small businesses. Explores the differences between brands and small businesses, and talks to the progression of Promotion and Commerce.

Transcript

1. Getting to the Commercial Conversation.
2. Personal Profile •  Well-earned grey hair and flat forehead •  Serial entrepreneur in location-based media and platform technologies •  RRD, MapQuest, Jabber, Local Matters •  Now, CEO & Founder of Closely, Inc.
3. •  Colorado early stage tech company, formed Dec 2009. •  Empower small businesses to stimulate demand when they value it the most. •  Platform and tools for actionable social and mobile commerce. About Closely
4. Our Viewpoint Actionable commerce redefines Local Advertising. •  Live mobile & social are changing shopping decision practices. •  Shopping = quality + value + availability. •  Opinion + Promotions + Yield come together.
5. Getting to the Commercial Conversations Topics This Morning •  The Local Conversation Paradigm. •  Word-of-Mouth 2.0. •  Evolution of Social & Transactional Promotion. •  Where is today’s SMB? tomorrow’s Publisher?
6. Three Interlocking Shifts Word-of-mouth. Everywhere. Instantly Interactive. • Social Media • Mobility • Live Media
7. The Small Business’ O&O Media Channel Word of Mouth 2.0 Plug in and amplify. •  Consumers are totally comfortable and empowered to review & share. •  The average consumer has over 200 Facebook & 600 total connections. •  500 customers exceeds the potential reach of many local media channels.
8. Inverting Distribution Media Spend to Follow Customer + Social?
9. The strategic position of tools. There’s something big going on here. •  Hootsuite 3 years, 4M > 8M agents/users. $11M Revenue, $500M venture valuation. •  Reach Local 8 years, 20K businesses. $375M Revenue, $300M public co valuation.
10. Be careful projecting Brand models onto SMB’s Conversations vs. Promotions •  Content Marketing is all the brand marketing rage. •  Create differentiation via content + continual conversations. •  Brand, in most SMB’s, is defined in service experience; Marketing is most often directional. •  Conversational marketing suits high personality businesses, where consumer passion runs high. •  Most consumers do not want active conversation with most local businesses. •  Consumers follow businesses with an expectation of special treatment. •  Cultivating Best Customers with attention and reward are critical Best Practices.
11. Disconnect WOM & conversational marketing Focus activity for maximum actionable reach. •  Word of Mouth is not a B2C conversation. •  It’s social, but it’s C2C - 2C2C. •  Maximize Advocacy to Best & Most Valued Customers with experiences, attention, reward.
12. •  Most personal, builds personality •  Instigate customer interaction •  Highest involvement Conversational Content •  Straightforward •  Crosses activities and promotions •  Can drive actionable commerce Activity and Event •  Most directional and measurable •  “Ad Content” most requested by social followers Promotion Don’t just show up - say something! Content Elements of Social Marketing.
13. •  Where is Promotion Going? Strongest Connection to Converting Conversation
14. •  Prepaid and yield-aligned models highly appeal to SMB’s. •  Pay-per-action has a lot of attention. •  Instruments are rapidly evolving. •  Yield-structured offers •  Add-to-wallet, purchase targeting •  Return visit & loyalty marketing •  Distribution to every “ad container”. Promotions 2.0: Social, Mobile, Live Live invitations with actionable purchase.
15. Are Daily Deals Dying? Daily Deals & Mobile Offers are [visible & crude] elements of the reinvention of direct marketing. They signal a fundamental shift to actionable commerce. Hell, no. And yes, of course!
16. •  So, what do we do when most businesses are still just starting to walk? •  Presence-centered thinking, stalled in finding time, knowing what to do. For the SMB majority, we’re still very early.
17. What`s going on with: •  Direct Competitors •  Business Neighbors •  Nearby Event Activity Live Stream of social postings, promotions, deals, check-in specials. Businesses lean forward for local competition and activity context. Give them the tools to watch & learn.
19. Closely Perch •  Draw the business in, reduce confusion and fear. •  Become their trusted lens into the live mobile-social world. •  Build confidence and knowledge for future participation. Designed for Small Businesses
20. The Adaptive Publisher Promotion, yes. Conversation, no. •  Promotion & WOM are natural evolution of Ad models, embrace as new services opportunity. •  Rethink distribution, center on how to empower the SMB to grow & leverage their O&O social network. •  Create serviced solutions that bridge competing distribution.
21. email: perry.evans@closely.com twitter: @perryevans Thank You.