Part 2: New Frameworks for Marketing in the Digital Economy

5 The New Customer Path

Understanding customer path is imperative for all industries. What is important is to build quality touch points and it has to be quality versus quantity.  Touch points is the way you connect to your customers, critical areas that the customer values.  Mapping customer path or journey is a tool to strengthen channel presence. By knowing how to create awareness, how they research, what motivates the guest and what can be the out of the box experience of guests at the resort would help modify a strong differentiator. In order to leverage on communication, there has to be a peer to per communication, the resort should consider building a better mind share, heart share and market share that will build brand loyalist. This will maximize operations efficiency and effectively, addressing the needs at the resort by attending to the immediate requests of the guests that will create a good story that will be shared to his/her direct network of friends and families. Stories worth sharing like, how they were able to recover a lost key or cell phone after an outing/camping.

Understanding How People Buy (from 4As to 5As)

In keeping the resort relevant, there is a need to track customer behavior and this is possible by following the 4 A’s frame work. As suggested it stands for Aware, Attitude, Act and Act Again. It was formerly an AIDA customer path concept that is modified to track post purchase customer behavior as well. At the resort Awareness starts with learning about the resort from friends. Attitude will address the like or dislike of a potential guest. The questions below research may help them decide if they will like it or not. Act is the new purchase. The questions below are decision factors in buying or booking a reservation. Act again is the out of the box experience, a determinant if they will recommend it to others or will they go back and visit the resort once again to share the experience to those who have not tried it or even to the same people because they liked the service.

The 4 A’s frame work also discusses the funnel and the conversion ratio from awareness to repeat guests. A certain percentage for example who are aware will be drilled down to those who will research or show interest, then down to a smaller percentage who will purchase or book and then act again is relatively lower than those who are likely to come back from the first visit. Once the resort is recommended or a guest came back then loyal advocates are earned. In Shift 1, a customer path must adapt to issues in connectivity and increased influence of social media FB page and Ads.  This may be represented into a sample marketing funnel like in website as digital channel like the figure below:

Shift 2, the new customer path should be aligned to building guest who are willing to be brand advocates and not just focused on building a repeat or loyal guests, they should be satisfied enough to spread the word. Moreover, the new customer path should take into account connectivity among customers through forums or beach related FB groups to deepen their awareness via direct communication. A positive communication is very important to deepen relationship of the resort to its potential guests.

The Shifting Customer Path in a Connected World

In shift 3, guests at the resort connect to travel advocates and travel bloggers and heavily read reviews online. Guests nowadays are willing to share their experience online from the time they have researched, experience customer service or reservation experience down to the treatment of resort staff. The conversation with the brand and its representative can challenge how the business do things the normal way, it may weaken and strengthen the brands image as well.

The 5 A’s on the other hand added “Advocate” at the last column. Aware is where they resort guests have been exposed to the brands name, have heard it somewhere or from someone. The brand is recognized in the field of tourism, resorts and beach camping.  Appeal is amplifying the short term memory, this is where response is seen as they take some necessary steps to know more about the product, and the more curious the more effective is the brand appeal. Researching due to curiosity is the Ask factor driven by curiosity, they call friends for feedback, crowd sourcing in FB, read online reviews or even call the reservations office for more info and inquire for package rates. A combination of offline and online strategies will help guests to make decision based on others suggestions and comments. Act in this new shift is not limited to purchasing, it is also the holistic experience from the time they call to inquire down to going to the resort. The guests are keen observer of how the brand character is portrayed by the employees, how their thoughts are being addressed and needs being delivered. Advocate is retention, repeat guest visits and making them love the service that they will go back and become evangelists, the offline strategy of sending out a simple questionnaires after the outing of asking “if they will recommend, why and why not?” could be a good strategy to build more brand ambassadors.

However, the path in 5A’s is not traditional straight forward flow, some guest that we may consider brand advocates may not necessarily experienced the resort, these can be our distant relatives or even family loyalist who may also spread positive brand image.  It may also be spiral in the sense that not all who have inquired will book or those who have experienced will try other resorts. Return guests does not necessarily need to go from awareness stage and will just loop to the feedback and act and book again. This non-traditional flow may be an avenue to discover rooms for improvement.

1. Driving from Awareness to Advocacy (the Ozone 3)

Marketing 4.0 focuses on Owned, Other, Outer as referred to the Ozone 3. In old marketing concept this is the Owned, Paid and Earned Media concepts respectively. The most important of all is getting brand advocates through “the outer” concept which is created by a good brand appeal. Maximize “the other” which refers to channels which creates curiosity that makes potential guest ask and inquire and create awareness through “the owned.”

In application, the resort could have the ff own, other and outer to drive advocacy.

OTHER	Face book Ads Display Search or Google Ads Search Engine Optimization Affiliate Marketing Paid Bloggers / Paid Press Release Email Content Survey Content
OWNED	Website Face book Page and Apps that fits the business Instagram page Indoor Ads Instagram Photo Frame (studio) You Tube Channel Online Community page
OUTER	Blog Posts Positive Online Reviews Shares, Likes, Status message on Facebook Likes and comments on Instagram, Regrams Positive Mentions Youtube (vblogs)
Messaging	Tailored Email for Affiliate partners Follow-up emails about promos offered
Integration	FB linked to Website and Online community. Blogs linked to Website and Social Media Fan Page Social Media page linked to websites Affiliate Marketing Partners linked to Reservation form You tube linked to website and FB pages. Display Search Ads linked to landing pages and/or website. Online community linked to FB and website.

2. Summary: Aware, Appeal, Ask, Act and Advocate

The 5A’s is designed to determine the ways on how the guests can reach you, how you can tap the interest and desires of your target market. This also can help you improve your conversion rate once you have identifies critical patterns that might hinder them in booking at the resort. This would also tell you the importance of having loyal advocates and not just stopping at the end sale but on how to amplify word of mouth by getting others to recommend you. This is a critical concept in making a marketing plan and business strategy. This could also identify problems and complaints of guests by combining online and offline platforms. This is a good tool to raise awareness and curiosity and further improve brand image. The 5 A’s aids in developing connectivity among potential guests from awareness to advocacy. Gaining advocacy is the identifier of a successful marketing campaign. Reaching out and gaining earned media who will speak highly of your product or services.

A. How can your brand identify and leverage the most critical touch points in the customer path?

The resort can maximize and leverage on tapping the customer buying patterns or the frequently asked questions, the barriers and other issues should be addressed to boost the resort’s full potential, this can help in creating more advocates by leveraging on channels which are means of communication between the brand and its guests. It can also be used in competitor analysis to develop a better brand differentiator.

B. How can your business improve brand favourability and optimize marketing efforts by evaluating the three main sources of influence across the customer path?

The three (3) influences can be used in integrating the zones that will benefit from one another. “Owned” linked to “Other” zone will drive page view that will boost search engine rankings in your owned website, owned FB page that is maximized using boost ads can drive engagement and conversion. “Other” zone like blogs, paid email in return can create additional awareness to support your “owned” zone like website FB page, Twitter, Instagam by having a link from the blogs. Blogs normally are the basis for product reviews and it is a great help to leverage on this, the links going to the “owned” will greatly benefit since “owned” are avenues to showcase your brand. However, the greatest favour is by designing owned zone to guide “outer” zone and by setting a good story board, pictures or example to the public through “owned” YouTube channel. This may increase vblogs which could come from the “outer” zone. In addition to that integrating you tube links to emails when customers’ requests for quotes will increase awareness and page views, this videos can set expectations and could entice them to create their own version.  Zone integration and better customer path analysis will drive more leads and value to the company. All zones complement each other, and it is crucial to have all three.

 

6 Marketing Productivity Metrics (PAR Purchase Action Ratio and BAR Brand Advocacy Ratio)

1. Introducing PAR and BAR

Purchase Action Ratio (PAR) and Brand Advocacy Ratio (BAR) are the main metrics that are needs to be tracked these days. Far from the usual social media metrics and digital channel metrics, this gives a broader sense of how well companies convert in terms of Sales and Positive influence.  BAR focuses on Advocacy while PAR on purchases. There are numerous metrics like Search Engine Conversion Ratio, Social Media Engagement Score, Visitor Conversion Ratio for website, Social Media ROI, CPA, CPM, CPC, Bounce rate for emails, Unsubscribe rates and the list goes on. Thus, the most important ingredient to a success of a business is the Purchase conversion (PAR) and the No. of people actually recommending you (BAR). 

In application, in 3,336 quotations made, 801 booked and 8 recommended the brand (this is based on original data for 2016) PAR is 801/3,336 = 24 % (low) because the ideal is at least 80% and the BAR is 9/801 = 1.12% for the resort.

2. Decomposing PAR and BAR

To determine profitability of a company, ROE may be a considered metric to summarize Profitability (as measured by net profit margin), Asset Use Efficiency (as measure of asset turnover) and Financial Leverage (as measure by equity multiplier). The goal is to have a higher ROE which means high profitability, maximized assets and high leverage. However, high leverage can be narrowed down to determine over leverage and under leverage.

Breaking PAR and BAR can give additional insights that aids the company to understand better when some data may be missing. Other formulas may be, PAR = Act/Total Market Share + Aware/Total market or Customer/Total Market Share / Aware / Total market or simply Market Share/Brand Awareness.

With PAR, market Share is always half % of brand awareness and this is a determinant on how marketers should be careful in spending.

Low conversion rate	Means
aware to appeal	Poor customer attraction and low brand positioning due to poor marketing implementation. Attraction level is close to 1.
appeal to ask	Low customer curiosity, customers are not compelled to ask questions Too high means brand message is unclear. Curiosity level should not be closer to 1.
ask to act	Low commitment, people talks about the brand but do not buy, guests might find the service to be disappointing.
act to advocate	Low affinity, experience at the resort was not great and not worth sharing or recommending. Goal is to increase compassion level.

With Bar, shows the outcome, the ideal bar score is 1. The goal is to go through the entire 5A’s without dropping out.

Low conversion rate	Means
5 A’s any given stage	A bottleneck, reduces productivity of the entire customer path, determines touch points that needs improvement. Altering bottleneck improves PAR and BAR.

 

BAR = (Appeal / Awareness) ( Ask/Appeal) (Act/Ask) (Avocates/Affinity)
         

BAR	Means	LOYALTY	IMPROVE ON
APPEAL AWARENESS	Poor customer attraction and low brand positioning due to poor marketing implementation. Attraction level is close to 1.	ATTRACTION	·       Repositioning ·       Marketing Communication
ASK APPEAL	Low customer curiosity, customers are not compelled to ask questions Too high means brand message is unclear. Curiosity level should not be closer to 1.	CURIOSITY	·       Community Marketing ·       Content Marketing
ACT ASK	Low commitment, people talks about the brand but do not buy, guests might find the service to be disappointing.	COMMITMENT	·       Channel ·       Management Sales Force
ADVOCATE AFFINITY	Low affinity, experience at the resort was not great and not worth sharing or recommending. Goal is to increase compassion level.	AFFINITY	·       Loyalty ·       Program Customer Care

3. Driving Up Productivity

The driving force to increased productivity is improved awareness. Digital Channel is the latest and less costly way of driving awareness to your brand. Connectivity through social media and other digital platforms may trigger conversation and give information to those who have not heard of the product yet. People tend to listen and watch through YouTube to learn about a product, they read reviews on blogs and read comments and recommendation. It is said the previous chapters that customer tends to trust strangers posting reviews more than what the company website says or company advertisements. Leveraging on guests conversation online. Online content cannot be directly controlled by the company same with how we cannot control the sentiments that are being posted on social media Facebook page, we don’t practice deleting negative comments or harsh feedback because it is rude to the guest, we just address this and as much as possible settle things in a private chat room then if possible to request the removal of such comment. Customer conversation may reduce cost of advertising online and other costs and the challenge is to have positive advocates and positive mentions. However, this should not be the only medium to maximize companies advertising potentials, it is still best to have your own digital plan which has online and offline strategies to tap target market. Brands cannot solely rely on “outer” zone to build a good brand reputation.

To drive productivity to the resort here are the ways to leverage on a strategy.

1. Increase Attraction – Our value proposition is that we provide a pampered camping venue that is suited for all ages. Quality prime grade Kawayans and a decent restroom, we are also a good venue for team building and weddings. We have community building, we provide a camping ground as big as 4 HA, we engage in environmental activities and the list goes on and this set us apart from other camping sites. These information should be set clear to the market and communicated properly. The company also practice a culture that best fit the tourism industry, brand character and a brand voice and we stick to it as much as possible.

Sample of our brand voice is cool, calm, and collected and could make you feel relaxed and stress free; it talks like a best friend or a good companion; it is warm and welcoming; it treats its guest like a family member. It has an on-the-go attitude; it is ready to accept visitors and guests anytime 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It is expressive of individuality and encourages simplicity and freedom.

Brand Character:
1. Young, Adventurous & Romantic (trendy and has respect for nature)
2. Reasonable & Compassionate (competitive pricing)
3. Adaptable & Fit for all season (can customize packages)
4. Friendly & Sociable (easy to talk to)
5. Generous & Kind (do not hesitate in giving upgrades)
6. Helpful & Reliable (give exceptional assistance and value added services to guest)
7. Polite, warm hearted & Environmental friendly (engage in environmental protection activities and rehabilitation)

The resort interact with guests like a family member and interact talk as a friend.

2. Optimize Curiosity – When guests have high expectation, it simply means that they have not researched well enough to know what the resort can offer and this also means that they have little curiosity, when expectations are not set properly, there are disappointed guests who may write a negative review. Optimizing curiosity means creating truthful content and spreading the correct information about the services and products. Content marketing in blogs, press releases, info graphics etc. plays a vital role in this part, it has to be creative, enticing and not to lengthy nor misleading. These content should also be ”searchable and shareable”

3. Increase Commitment – An efficient inventory, reservations and after sales or loyalty program system are just a few processes that can be utilized to have an efficient and effective operation. Increasing commitment means having the sense of urgency and speed in providing available rooms and answering customer requests and inquiries. Maintaining 100% response rate on FB page is a good example. We make sure that the process are streamlined to achieve a hassle free transaction from the time a guest inquires till after the outing with our after sales program system. Commitment is also maximizing the inter connectivity of all digital channels.

4. Increase Affinity –Post purchase is very important in increasing loyal advocates. At the resort aim to be a part of the family outing even at the planning stage. Reservations officers talk like they are actually with them during the outing and make it sure that the people who are trying to customize a package will arrive at a very convenient yet reasonable outing package. We also empathize with the guests when tripods get lost, cameras buried in the sand, wallets misplaced. We ship these to them and guaranty security and do the extra mile to deliver in person. We would want to remain consistent without brand character of upholding values of honesty and integrity. Gamification is also done in Instagarm contests and we reward the winners by sending them the price and a handwritten personalized note from the owner.

A. How can your business adopt the new metrics of PAR and BAR to measure marketing productivity?

It is shown in the given example in no 1. Question that we can compute for BAR and PAR, we need to continue on this because PAR is heavily linked to the financial health of the company by giving metrics that is relation to actual sales or bookings.  Both are measures of productivity of spending and brand awareness. It is logical to say that it is impossible to have bookings without awareness of the brand first. PAR is a purchase action measurement while BAR tracks advocacy that results to sales growth. 

B. How can your business trigger favourable customer conversations in order to drive awareness without increasing the marketing budget significantly?

Leaving a positive impression from the beginning, from the time they called to inquire would be an advantage, not to sales pitch but to make them feel at home. Talking like you are a member of the family or group of friends is a way on how they can spread good news about your company. They would say that you are approachable, nice, helpful and friendly is a good trait that not all customer service representative has. Not sounding like robots or information hub. This is what I always remind my staff. Be a part of the outing. Be there when they need ideas, be there, meet the person behind the phone, meet and greet everyone, make them feel important, give additional perks that they did not expect. Have the initiative to reach out and picture the scenario based on expectation and reality without exaggeration. Telling the truth and the downside of some things is also practicing honesty and customer will appreciate it. The awareness will be from “word of mouth” and this is free.

 

7 Industry Archetypes and Best Practices (Channel, Brand, Sales and Service Management)

1. 4 Major industry Archetypes

Archetypes	Definition	Application in the resort
Door Knob (needs to improve affinity levels by building post-purchase engagements)	High commitment low curiosity level. Purchase is frequent and habitual. Usually the top of mind for its distinctive feature. Purchase is instant.	e.g. Consumer packed goods, e.g. Chooks to go chicken sold at the resort
Gold Fish (needs to optimize curiosity)	High curiosity level, mostly B2B. Customer frequently ask questions about the product before purchasing, collective advice is favoured.	e.g. HR looking for company team building venue e.g. Family outing (though not a b2b this is stated in the book)
Trumpet (needs to strive a perfect bow tie pattern)	Required high affinity levels, trust the quality of brands, there are advocates even if they have not experienced the brand. Strong reputation for quality	e.g. Banana boat ride and Jet Ski ( most luxurious activity)
Funnel (needs to improve commitment and affinity levels)	Most purchases are well planned, customers are highly involved. They purchase if they like what they hear from the conversation, overall customer experience matters.	e.g. Family and group outings e.g. Wedding Venue and Reception.
Bow tie (the ideal, maximize potentials)	The ideal customer-path pattern, people aware of the rand recommends the brand because of stellar reputation. Has a perfect BAR score of 1 (aware=advocate)and (appeal=act)	e.g. Repeat guests and advocates who have not even tried the resort.

2. 4 Marketing Best Practices

HIGH BAR	HIGH BAR	LOW BAR	LOW BAR
Narrow BAR range –  customers recommend Success is often determined by channel proximity and accessibility KEY SUCCESS FACTOR: Channel Management develop Omnichannel presence to drive sales	Wide BAR range customers recommend leading brands   KEY SUCCESS FACTOR: Brand Management	Wide BAR range Customers do not recommend brands Customer advocate leading brands KEY SUCCESS FACTOR: Service Management	Narrow BAR Range Tight competition Customers do not recommend Word of mouth is useless Extra effort to push the product to the market is needed. KEY SUCCESS FACTOR: Sales-force Management

Other insights:

• Keeping Brand Advocacy Ratio (BAR) high which means customers are willing to recommend your products and services.
• When median BAR is high the tendency to recommend more than one brand is high.
• Keep on building Brand Advocates that can give positive “Word of Mouth” for your brand
• Develop Social Media Marketing along with building brand advocates
• Keep building your brand reputation and achieve a high BAR
• Develop a “pull” marketing approach is best with high BAR
• Develop a “push” marketing approach with low BAR.
• Use Channel Management, success is linked to channel proximity and accessibility to target market
• Drive customers to online and offline strategies and this is always best when combined.
• Keeping customer intimacy is the key to an excellent service.
• Give recommendations to your patrons and develop an Omnichannel

3. Summary: Learning from Different Industries

Innovation disrupts almost all industries. All companies should be mobilizing for change and adapt to the shifts and changing trends of the market and its connectivity.  The 5A’s was a great eye opener and tool to analyse customer path behaviour and to identify touch points relevant to the business. The BAR and PAR are metrics that the company should look at every now and then aside from the many metrics the PAR and BAR are the most crucial these days.  Applying and understanding the 5A’s is a sure way to improve attraction, loyalty, affinity and commitment.

A. Which archetype best describes your industry?

While everyone is trying to have a Bowtie pattern, I can see that in our industry the most applicable is the ”funnel” for families and group outings and the “goldfish” for corporate team buildings B2B functions. So what is it for me then? Now I can see where I could leverage and where I should focus my effort on.

B. What are some of the key improvement opportunities for your business based on that archetype?

The FUNNEL needs to optimize curiosity while The GOLD FISH Pattern needs to optimize curiosity.  For the FUNNEL, Most purchases are well planned, people call, email and send FB inquiries to inquire, and customers are highly involved because everyone has to agree with the travel destination chosen. They purchase if they like what they hear from the conversation, they should be enticed and excited enough to book an accommodation. The overall customer experience matters a lot, they write blog about their outing, if not they give review ratings in FB, Google or in Tripadvisor.

For the GOLD FISH, Human resource personnel as one of the target persona has a very high curiosity level and do an extensive search over the net for the most affordable and practical team building venue that fits their budget and where they can make their desired team activities happen.  This is mostly B2B relationship. The Human resource officer frequently ask questions about the product before purchasing, collective advice is favoured as well and blogs also helps in leveraging in this target market.

C. What is the key success factor in your industry? How can you learn from other industries?

The key success factors include customization and human interaction via phone, a distinct brand voice and character. We treat the guests as family members and take into considerations their requests, sentiments even if it means that we need to go out of our way to serve them. Like for example, we don’t have a trike service, but if the guest request at the wee hours of the night, we can make it happen. We also value honesty and Integrity as our core culture. We make sure we hire employees has the same values. We work not as a team but as a family and treat guest as a family as well.

Other industry has a different Archetype, but I was able to connect some concepts and I have learned what a retail industry needs that it needs to improve affinity levels by building post-purchase engagements, it is high commitment low curiosity level. Purchase is frequent and habitual. Usually the top of mind for its distinctive feature. Purchase is instant and this can be applied in the resort business souvenir shop or retail shop selling basic needs. I will see how I can build post engagement with our services as well like the massage or boat rides etc.

 

Positive Mind, Positive Vibes, Positive Life…

Doing what you like is freedom, Liking what you do is happiness… 

Insight: Digital media needs to be customized per Industry, Social Media does not only focus on FB posting and content creation but building online community and community managers should also monitor brand’s online reputation.

Action: Build a content plan that fits your target market, a separate online community that addresses the need of your market with appropriate categories, and take care of the the customers by managing your online reputation.

Marketing 4.0: Moving from Traditional to Digital

I am an I.T. professional with the main focus on Online Marketing and monitoring activities of our Reservations Department for a family owned resort. I have other businesses related to Real Estate and Web development. I have been applying digital strategies based on what I have learned in Ateneo Java Wireless Center / IMMAP and from colleagues with the same area of expertise since 2012. I am not an expert but I am trying to keep my self abreast of the latest trend and approaches. Marketing is a race without a finish line and I would like to learn new concepts. I had a teaching career focused on web development and as an entrepreneur, I continue to train my employees and this is where I apply my love for teaching. I am a dedicated business owner and I understand the value of human capital. I find myself studying one course after another. I also study soft skills and personality development, a lighter channel to improve myself apart from the academic studies. In this way, I would like to influence or serve as an inspiration to others in whatever way possible.

Part 1: Fundamental Trends Shaping Marketing

1 Power Shifts to the Connected Customer

From Exclusive to Inclusive

Exclusive: The guests pay for the service only at the resort upon check in.

Inclusive: Guest can now pay through online BPI, BDO or even over atm deposit and Cebuana payment outlets for reservation fee. It’s a hassle free and more convenient way to pay. They can even send poof of payment electronically by taking a picture of the slip and sending it through Facebook messenger or Viber instead of emailing it.

From Vertical to Horizontal

Vertical: The resort’s main avenue for advertising is through road signs and distributing flyers within 5 km radius from the business site.

Horizontal: Guests nowadays have other means of getting information about the resort via FB, Google reviews, website, YouTube channels, earned media, word of mouth that they are not required to leave home to be able to research about the company.

From Individual to Social

Individual: Guest express their complaints directly to the front office manager at the resort.

Social: Guest express their positive, neutral and negative comments via Email, FB testimonials, blogs and even bargain for discounts and take advantage of the technology and social media to even get freebies. Nowadays guests can influence others about a brand far from what the resort wants to project. In today’s world, there is a strong need for community managers to monitor the comments and sentiments of guests as they comment on FB threads. Some netizens are very impatient, if you do not respond to their inquiries right away they will post something that is not nice like, “no one is answering my phone call” they are highly demanding even if we have 95% to 100% response rate on Facebook.  

A. What are the trends in your industry that demonstrate the shifts toward a more horizontal, inclusive and social business landscape?

Shift towards horizontal: Resort guests believe more in F-fact (friends, families, FB, Fans, Twitter followers) because they can easily access social media and company websites where in they can get information about the resort. They can search anything about the resort over search engines like Google and YouTube.

Shift towards inclusive: This enables the company to tap other markets that they cannot reach before, by joining FB groups, the resort was able to advertise to different organization and communities, and these communities had a more active role. Inclusivity is creating a social fence of stake holders, customer, suppliers, financiers, workforce, local government and interest group to improve the brand though collective feedback.

Shift towards social business landscape: Guests buying process is becoming more social, resort guests are becoming more active in online social platforms and this has been the contributing to their behavior in decision making. Online reviews in TripAdvisor has a huge impact if they are going to book or not.

B. What are your plans to embrace these shifts in the marketplace?

We make sure to consider the sentiments of the guests and feedback of those who have experienced the resort and try to tailor fit the products and services according to what could make their experience worthwhile.  We combine online and offline strategies and take into account their insights based on a survey given upon check out and their response on emails after the outing. This is to generate and build return guests and loyal customers. To make them feel that they are important.

2 The Paradoxes of Marketing to Connected Customers

1. Breaking the Myths of Connectivity

Connectivity has changed how businesses conduct operations and how it can tap markets. The time you spent building a brand can now be destroyed overnight. Businesses should take advantage of technology in order to sustain their businesses.  All businesses should mobilize for change. Connectivity changes the dynamics on how to compete and win the marketing race. It should also take into consideration all stakeholders involved especially its customers insights and recommendations about the product. It is no longer a one way street. To increase competitive advantage it should give importance on the influence and connectivity of its customer ad analyse the behavior of its target market. Technology is just the backbone of a company’s success, a more strategic approach is to analyse the “psyche” of the guests, their core desires and aspirations, techno graphics and technological user consumption. To be equipped with tools on how to counter brand attacks online and acknowledge brand ambassadors. To embrace connectivity, we have to consider mobile connectivity, experimental connectivity and social connectivity.  Resort guests of all ages can now utilize and maximize connectivity, the older markets can now adapt to the changing trends of mobile. The rise of the silver surfer or the baby boomers are adapting to change from emails to mobile.

2. Summary: Marketing Amid Paradoxes

Paradox 1 – Online interaction versus Offline interaction

A successful business always combine online and offline strategies. Businesses with physical stores would complement an online store. For the resort, we do not rely heavily on online bookings or online forms that the guests fills out. We make sure that we also have phone interaction to add a personal touch in assisting our guests while we customize their outing packages. Moreover, a personal chat available in the website would also help in an exceptional customer experience and satisfaction. Leveraging on mobile, businesses can use transmitters to alert the customers about promos discounts and other offers. In the case of the resort, this can be warning, announcements and safety measures while they are inside the resort premises. Analytics and guest behavior can also be maximized by analyzing logs, entry and exit pages to determine guest behavior while they are on the website. Split screen also being used to increase awareness on a certain brand. The resort uses a survey sheet to be filled out and submitted to the front desk, this is an offline strategy that shows love for customers. Thus, online and offline should coexist.

Paradox 2 – Informed customer versus Distracted Customers

Consumer purchase decisions are highly influenced by 3 factors. First, the media publication online or offline. Second, the opinion of friends and relatives. Third, their own personal opinion or knowledge of the product or service based on experience and reputation. Among the three, the widely used factor is the opinion of others before they engage into a brand and make a purchase. With the resort, we give high importance on customer feedback since this can go viral in a form of word of mouth. Distraction begins when starts researching about the company with the use of the internet guests. They get distracted because of other information available in other forms, for example in information on blogs, and other info from Google. Apparently, the strongest influence still comes from the trusted crowd because it is the most convenient source of information. The challenge is to win the customers attention given that in today’s world, the average attention span is down to 8 seconds. Applying the concept in the resort, a 30-second elevator speech can win potential guests. Confidence and in depth product expertise is a necessity for our reservations team. The company should I-Impress, C-Converse tapping core aspirations and sentiments and B-Build Positive Reputation to the brand’s benefit.

Paradox 3 – Negative Advocacy versus Positive Advocacy

Connectivity is an avenue for guests to express their sentiments about a brand, celebrity endorsers have little to no impact to consumers these days, people now trust true sentiments from a non-celebrity for its sincerity. Connectivity is an avenue for brand advocacy. Brand advocates who are not necessarily popular may influence potential guests at the resort more than the paid artists of this century. Brand advocacy has three types, promoters, passives and detractors. A net promoter can be measured by subtracting the percentage of detractors. The total average should be the positive word of mouth.  In the resort, we tally numbers of promoters, neutral and negative promoters, if it is a blog we give a point score per line and if the positive is greater than the negative then it is a positive blog review.  The challenge is to change the mind-set of the negative detractors by communicating to them privately, however there will always be negative detractors. On a lighter note, detractors are also the tools to further improve our guest relations, products and services.

Another advocacy is the prompted advocacy, this usually dormant, the brand recommendation will only be triggered when an old or new customer gave opinion that triggers the person to react once again.  One old post in the resorts FB page can trigger prompted advocates when new comments appears in the thread once again.  The essence is in today’s digital arena, brand haters may trigger brand lovers and vice versa.   

A. What are some cases in your industry that capture the paradoxical nature of connected customers?

(Answers and applications in our business are presented in bold from the previous question)

B. How do you plan to embrace the paradoxes?

In our resort business, we have to combine online and offline strategies for a full and successful marketing plan. Make love for customers the core culture of the company and address the needs of the brand promoters and haters. Listening and answering each and every sentiments would build a good and positive overall online reputation.

3 The Influential Digital Subcultures

1. Youth: Acquiring the Mind share

The youth usually are the trendsetters. They can influence the older generation in terms of the latest trends in fashion, music, food, sports and technology. Tapping the youth who are usually the ones eager to try new things in the market could reach the conventional market positively. They are creators in the techno graphic ladder and could be creators of YouTube videos and Vblogs.

They are potential customers as they will eventually work and earn, then spend for a brand that they believe in. They are also considered as the most profitable customers because of their capacity to buy in the near future. The goal is to influence their minds that your product is cool and worth trying e.g. I pods, Netflix etc. They have a digital lifestyle that takes into account the possibility of hitting a pool of followers. Youth also can adapt to changing technology and trends, if this happens they are the best brand ambassadors for any time of business because they are considered as “game changers.”

2. Women: Growing the Market Share

Women, especially the stay at home moms and housewives have the time to do research over the internet compared to men who are usually preoccupied with work. They have the final say in purchasing decisions. They lurk “lurkers” over the net for the best products and services for their families. They are also considered as spectators.

Women can multi task and as information collectors, their behavior spending habits are relatively different compared to men, they make sure that they have researched well. Let say for example the way a woman do grocery, they go to every isle back and forth to compare products. This is also how they research over the net. As a result their counterparts, friends and relatives trust their instincts and decision when purchasing something because of their attention to detail.

3. Netizens: Expanding the Heart Share

Netizens are the internet savvy potential brand keepers and ambassadors, they are critics and joiners or groups and communities. They are highly influential because they can blog, create info graphics, videos to express their thoughts about a product or services. They are “creators, collectors and critics” in the techno graphic ladder because they put action and consume whatever they find online. Their desire to always be connected is what companies can take advantage of. They are social connectors and evangelist and are usually online and chatting to people in Facebook messenger, Viber, Whatsapp and other app where they can voice their opinion by commenting, voting, liking sharing posts. They have almost all social media apps like Instagram, Pinterest etc. They can be potentially lovers or haters of your brand and this can affect your online engagement.  

4. Summary: Youth, Women and Netizens

Youth, Women and Netizens are the most influential people in this digital age. They are considered as minorities in the society. However, they give the biggest impact in social media, mainly because they are the ones that are heavily attached to social networks and could affect mainstream culture. They can create a huge impact in your business because of their large network of friends and family. YMN when impressed can contribute to good engagement to promote your brand.

A. How can your business acquire greater mind share by leveraging youth’s roles of early adopters and trendsetters.

Beach Camping is the new trend and majority of guests who are booking for an accommodation are newly grads working for the call center industry. They can be the new set of trend setters and as we introduce Glamping as the latest trend in camping, we can take advantage of their abilities to influence others as soon as they have tried our new service. They have the eagerness and willingness to try new things and they can simply create videos, blogs and vbogs about their adventure. Older generations are not as carefree and thrill seeking. The youth can simply invite their families and older generation if they envision a positive and memorable experience that can be cherished and treasured with their love ones. Youth in their late teens also may be brand advocates when they see pictures of the beach, beach activities, thrilling boat rides and banana boat rides. They can convince their parents to visit the resort and no one can resist a young adult when parents and grandparents would want to enjoy a bonding activity them. Moreover, Student campers are enthusiastic, friendly and funny, these are the traits of the youth population, and they would like to experience independence and confidence. Their core desire is to live a carefree life, explore new things and establish social relationships. They are usually equipped with a tablet or mobile phones. By understanding this, the resort can use mobile channels.

B. How can your business grow market share by leveraging the household influence of women?

Mothers with young kids who would like to introduce their children to the sand and water is another target persona, they have this ability to search and research the web for the most affordable yet safest beach camp sites. Casa Astillero also have air-conditioned and non-air-conditioned rooms that we call “Kabanas” that is even suitable for pregnant women. The resort can leverage on its decent and clean camping restrooms that sets us apart from other resorts. Housewives and Mothers are decision makers when it comes to recreational activities for the family. Mothers and housewives are affectionate, loving and practical. They need love, attention, respect and security. Their core desire is to give the best for their families and keep the family intact. The resort should understand that they want to keep things within budget and so we should make rates reasonable. They usually have laptops or desktops at home and is heavily attached to their smartphones to get in touch with their husbands and relatives.

C. How can your business identify and utilize Netizens to win greater heart share?

Netizens who are frequently online and has been spending more than 5-10 hours online per day can be tapped by being visible in almost all social media channels especially on Facebook. They are fond of joining groups and organizations that best fit their interest. An avid camper for example joins organization and FB groups that involves outdoors, hiking, snorkeling, fishing, camping, travel, mountaineering etc. The company can leverage in group tour packages in order to tap the Netizens who has this interest. Netizens who are creators, collectors and critics can be reached through posting ads on various FB groups in relation to travel. Netizens are optimistic and passionate about building their social circle. They share posts, engage, constantly likes posts and comments. Their core desire is to freely express their thoughts and feelings, very much active online and actively participates in peer/group online hangouts. The resort may also come up with a community website to cater the needs of avid campers, this community page will discuss reef rehabilitation, safety measures during camping, recommended beach activities that will eventually touch the hearts of the passionate avid campers who would like to make a difference and are very much engaged in online activities.

4 Marketing 4.0 in the Digital Economy (When Online Meets Offline, Style Meets Substance and Machine-to-Machine Meets Human-to-Human)

1. Moving from Traditional to Digital

The first step in going digital is to segment your market for a more targeted audience, this is where we take into consideration the segmentation based on geographic locations, demographic, behavioral profiles and the psyche of the brand persona. Segmentation is a brand strategy to shape positioning in the market.  More often than not segmentation is made without the consent of the customers. As marketers, we decide on what areas to cover in your market segmentation, how we analyse the market, its core aspirations and behavior. In this day and age, communities are the newest segments, this may be in a form of online organizations or FB groups. The down side is they are prone to spamming but there are administrators to maintain the page’s exclusivity.

Brand Positioning and Differentiation to Brand Clarification of Character and codes

Traditionally, brand positioning can be characterized by a brand name, logo and tagline to distinguish the brand from its competition.  The brand equity as the overall perception of the brand may help in creating a strategy to reach the market. Moreover it may be linked to brand positioning which aims to make the brand the top of mind product or service to its consumers. Brand positioning makes that promise and it needs to be fulfilled by the brand to keep customer loyalty.

In digital, customers are empowered to affect brand equity and brand positioning. Social media has its share of influencing the target market. These days everything is so transparent that the effect of a certain brand can be posted online straight from the consumer’s mouth. Exaggeration of ads and false advertisements are now a thing of the past.

In conclusion, traditional marketing is no longer enough. With so much things happening on the internet and how things are disrupted  by technology, a brand need to innovate and adapt to the changing trend in the market and go digital as well. Logo’s and taglines are not enough, there has to be a solid brand character, voice and preposition that you need to project to the public for your image to be more distinct to be able to compete in the digital space.

From Selling the 4 P’s to Commercializing the 4 C’s

The traditional 4 P’s or product positioning, placing, promotion and price has evolved to 4 C’s which now takes into consideration the co-creation, currency, communal activation and conversation about a brand.

Co creation is the new age of product development strategy where customers are involved in the formulation of ideas and concepts because they have the opportunity to personalize products and services. Currency is the new pricing scheme. Analytics plays an important role of understating the spending pattern of consumer then customizes the price based on historical purchase pattern, proximity to store to be able to convert more customers. Communal activation is the placing and distribution in the old 4 P’s method. Products are now made available in a peer to peer concept maximizing technologies like 3D and online portals where customers can access products anytime and it can be delivered to your doorstep unlike the conventional shopping. Promotion is the old Conversation in the 4C’s. In today’s generation, the evolution is from TV promotion to reviews or word of mouth in any social media platform. Traditional customers are passive objects of selling techniques while in digital, it is commercial value plus engaged customers.

 From Customer Service Processes to Collaborative Customer Care

Far from the usual approach if treating customers as kings after they have purchased a product, companies now view customers as equals after shifting to the customer care approach. Serving the customer after the sale is no longer enough. At this digital age, the brand needs to listen, interact, react and take action to customer insights, comments, suggestion, feedback and violent reaction about their brands.

2. Integrating Traditional and Digital

Traditional and digital should co-exist. Traditional marketing has the main focus on creating awareness and interest while digital’s role is to drive action and advocacy. Digital is more result driven as you can easily track and measure the effect of digital efforts as compared to traditional. It is not just cheaper but it is also a much reliable tool to understand the target consumer better since customer interact with brand. 

3. Summary: Redefining Marketing in the Digital Economy

Building advocacy and engagement is what we need in our time in order to have a successful business. We have to leverage in meeting the standards of the guests, customers and consumers. This can be made possible by understanding the 4C’s and how it should be applied in our businesses. Marketing 4.0 is a combination of online and offline marketing, putting style adding brand voice and character to be used in keeping in touch with your customer base. It should maximize the benefits of internet of things, machine to machine connectivity, human to human connectivity to improve engagement that leads to a higher conversion rate and achieving its goal to acquire brand advocates.

A. How can your brand develop a powerful differential based on human-to-human touch in the digital world.

The brand can maximize human interaction by building a solid customer loyalty program, every after group outing our reservations officer are tasked to contact the guests and as on how did their outing go. The resort asks for feedback and pictures of their best shots. Aside from acknowledging their visit, we feature then in our FB wall. The team makes sure that there are after sale service and we talk to the guest directly via FB messenger and email. Their pictures are also added to the website gallery, not just to have fresh content but to make them feel that they are a part of the family and how thankful we are for having them at the resort. The resort monitors tweets, Instagram posts and answers all mobile inquiries. Our team is ready to respond via text to assist to their needs. Mobile and Facebook has served as a front desk support as well. It is not used only to close deals but to monitor the guests during the day of their outing, assisting them when they get lost along the way and checking up on them after the experience. The company would not go below 95% response rate on answering FB messages. Speend and urgency are qualities that we leverage to give exceptional customer service.

B. How can your business transition from the traditional 4Ps to the digital 4Cs by adopting co-creation, taking advantage of currency-like pricing, engaging in communal activation and driving conversation.

The resort let the customers customize their products and outing packages that makes them co-creators to personalize their needs and wants. They are co-creators because they start to suggest things for improvement and we take this seriously by improving our facilities to the extent of providing the suggested team building props for company outings.

On currency, we suggest a package to our guests and they can freely add or remove some items to fit their budget and preference. Based on our record since 2014 we were able to analyse the trends of the peak season and lean season based on the sales report and this serves a tool for marketing promotion on high season and lowering package rates on lean months. Data on page views are also available to see how much web traffic is there and is the visitor conversion ratio is high enough. We also use benchmarking and porters 5 analysis of new entrants to justify pricing and improve on value proposition.

Communal activation is the placing and distribution in the old 4 P’s method. We maximize the use of google maps and waze, these apps and technologies makes it easier for the guest to locate the resort. Maps are also uploaded in the website and should also be downloadable.

Promotion is the old Conversation in the 4C’s. The resort uses digital channels like, website position for the right key terms, Facebook messenger, Viber for engagement and human interaction, email marketing for contacting old guests and informing them of their loyalty guest privileges and discounts after the first visit. Instagram contest, online community website to increase environmental advocacy, Google paid ads to further increase awareness in a more targeted audience, and the most powerful media earned media by motivating guests to create their own vbolgs by setting a good storyboard that is uploaded in the resorts YouTube channel.

Offline strategies are still being kept, road signs, calling cards, and feedback survey sheet to ask the most important question, “Will you recommend us to others? Why and why not?” This will show love, empathy, focus and care for the guests.

C. What are the fundamental changes required in your customer-service strategy to embrace collaborative customer care?

Our collaborative customer care strategies is leaving no comments, questions and reactions unanswered. The resort makes sure that “No one is left behind” We guide and address the needs of the guests may it be on site or in our reservations office. We take action on customer ratings on Tripadvisor, Fb and Google. The resort also email guests with negative reviews, we try to reach them in whatever way possible, not just to build a good online reputation but to maintain a good guest relation service. Customer is king but the broader scale of customer care is treating the employees or the person beside you as the customer as well, in this way the team will be able to have a unified culture valuing teamwork and positive mind-set that will define the brand purpose, mission and its vision.

A Slide Share presentation on Chapter 8: Human-Centric Marketing for Brand Attraction

Building Authentic Brands as Friends

A slide Share presentation on CHAPTER 2: The Paradoxes of Marketing to Connected Customers

Online vs. Offline Interaction
Informed vs. Distracted Customer
Negative vs. Positive Advocacy

Life is a never ending learning and I will never get tired of learning new things and share my knowledge to other. And this is my digital Intro.

Have you tried googling for your name? If not, you should try it. It is interesting to know what comes out in google search.

Here is what came out when I searched for My last name – Astillero….

• Spanish Wiki definition (Spanish communities)
• Trip Advisor reviews 3.5 for family owned resort www.casaastillero.com

Here is what came out when I search for My last name – Pamela Astillero….

• My Facebook  Page
• Condos matching with leads from own website (condominiumsmanila.com)
• Linked In Profile
• You tube Channel created for the resort
• Bloggers review of the business owned (earned media blog)
• Resort Website
• Google Plus account

Google and yahoo almost have same contents because content in yahoo is powered by google.  It is always recommended to google your name because it is your brand. Let say for a certain brand, “XBrand” you may check if there are negative review. Others say that you may type “XBrand sucks” to check if there are bad comments/reviews or some body actually said something like this about your brand. This may help you manage your online reputation.

Another  reason why your should google your name is to know what will come out when a new acquaintance  tries to search about you over the net. It will help you manage your digital footprints. 

 

I have worked as an Internet Marketing Manager in a BPO company in Davao and in various companies. I have worked as a Marketing consultant for a B2B trading website, 15 years experience in online marketing for several dotcoms. My 15 years dotcom experience are focused on Web Directories, B2B, B2C, Trading, Promotional items, Travel websites, Jobsites, Music industry, Online Shopping and Real Estate.  I have handled research projects for payment card industry and lead generation, engaged in Affiliate Programs Projects and Digital Marketing.  In the process of honing my managerial skills, I’ve also developed a good work ethic, a sense of professionalism with a commitment towards excellence and a leadership style that takes into account the value of teamwork.    
Here is my LinkedIn Profile:. 

 

This is my adventure as an MBA student, as a Mom to a 6 year old, a Business Entrepreneur of a family owned resort , A Licensed Realtor who loves to travel to different places and different countries.  I am a Fan of Digital, Travel and Learning new things.

I have a passion for continuous learning, self development and music.

“A Ship is always safe at shore, but that is not what it’s built for.”-Albert Einstein