Hi everybody welcome to Wilson’s Webinar CRM in the age of digital disruption

During today’s session we are going to talk about how digital disruption is changing how we reach and entertain customers and the ways that savvy marketers are responding.

Thanks for joining. It’s going to be a fun 30 minutes.

So before we get started I wanted to just take a minute and tell you a little bit about Wilson. Who we are and what makes us tick.

This is us when we all got iPads for the holidays a year or two ago –  demonstrating just how digitally tuned in we all really are.  We consider ourselves to be a modern CRM Agency, applying CRM best practices and expertise across the digital, social, mobile and direct channels.  And not necessarily having those channels work in silos, but integrating those CRM ideals and applying learnings across multiple areas to create truly engaging multi-channel experiences.

We’re based out of New York, are about 35 people strong and were founded about 10 years ago by this guy, Dave Wilson.  And, no, he doesn’t always wear a Santa hat, but he was that day.  And this handsome fellow up there, that’s me; I’m Jeff Fogliano, here at Wilson I am Managing Director of Interactive, in charge of all things digital.

And yes, if you’re curious, that is me holding my iPad backwards in the photo.  Not one of my proudest moments! But we’re not here to talk about my photo foibles.  What we’re here to talk about is digital disruption.  And what digital disruption really boils down to is a single idea: control.

These days it seems the consumers have it.  Consumers have a ton of devices that they love and can choose from them at any time.  Consumers can decide what device to use, when they want to use it and how they want to use it and often using them all simultaneously; which can leave marketers to sometimes feel that they’ve lost control of how to deliver their message in a clear and concise way.

So, I’m sure many of you have seen this but if you need any further proof of the fracturing of today’s consumers in the digital space, just look at this graphic released by Nielson in their State of the Media US Digital Consumer Report, late last year.

Just looking at some of these stats in the upper right hand corner, you can see that over the past 10 years the number of consumers with internet access has more than doubled.  81 billion, that’s billion, minutes, are now spent on social networks and blogs.  64% of mobile phone time is spent on apps and 42% of tablet owners use them daily while watching TV.

These days everyone is digital and everyone does it differently.

For example, let’s take Jack.  Jack’s 25 years old, he’s a gamer who likes to watch movies through Netflix or Vudu on his Xbox while simultaneously uploading photos to his Facebook friends on his phone.

Susan.  Susan might be 39; she’s a mother of two.  She uses her phone to download recipe apps like Epicurious or Big Oven while searching for deals on Groupon or Living Social and blogging about her day on Tumblr.

And finally Mark. Mark’s 49 and delivers sales presentations via Power Point, receives real time competitive data, takes mobile payments via Square and Skypes his family from the road.  And he, of course, Skypes using a Bluetooth headset.  We definitely advocate safe driving here!

But what’s important to remember about all of this is that digital disruption is nothing new.  The concept of disruption has been around since the dawn of time.  The wheel was a disruption, the light bulb was a disruption, the radio was a disruption.  In each case, whoever the traditional provider had been before that innovation was launched had to determine how to deal with it and take advantage of the opportunities that the disruption opened up for them.

So when it comes to digital disruption, it essentially started in 1996 with Web 1.0.  Ah the age of the animated GIF.  Who doesn’t remember seeing these little buttons on every single website you ever went to?  The Web 1.0 digital disruption was a mostly Read-Only web experience.  Marketers and brands were still primarily only pushing content out to customers.  It was mostly still a one-way communication.

But that changed with the advent of Web 2.0- the Read-Write Web.  Sites like YouTube, Vimeo, Flickr, Reddit and Wikipedia, among others, really for the first time ever gave the masses a voice.  It turned that one-way push marketing environment into a two-way communication; creating a new reality of transparency between brands and customers.  And it gave marketers an amazing opportunity to foster dialogue and create relationships with their customers in totally new ways.

It’s really not going to stop there.  At some point we’ll hit Web 3.0.  Now, there are a ton of different definitions out there for what Web 3.0 will be, but I’m particularly partial to this one:

Futurist John Smart, and what a great name for a Futurist, huh, John Smart? Anyway, John Smart theorizes that Web 3.0 will be; “The convergence of the virtual and physical world into the first-generation Metaverse.”

Sounds like quite a concept.  Essentially it really just boils down to the fact that he theorizes that there will be a further blurring of the lines between the online and offline worlds.  Some people actually feel that we’re already in a Web 3.0 environment with the prevalence of mobile and smartphones in the market.  But, some early precursors of Web 3.0 include geo-social apps like FourSquare and other SoLoMo (or Social, Local, Mobile) initiatives.

What that all means is that the lines between marketing, media and content have been blurring and will continue to blur. And how can marketers deal with and capitalize on these disruptions? By applying the core principals of Customer Relationship Management or CRM.

So what are the core principals of CRM? What are the principles that we as marketers have been applying for years? Well let’s take a look.  They are:

• Determining goals that are mutually satisfying to you and your customer
• Establishing and maintaining customer dialogue
• Producing positive feelings in the customer
• Creating experiences that bridge the gap across multiple channels and have as many touch points as appropriate
• Defining measureable results

It all sounds easy enough, right.  It’s funny, I was actually out at South by Southwest back in March and I was blown away, as I’m sure everyone was who attended, by all of the different ideas and new innovations and technologies being developed.  But what really struck me, and I even Tweeted about it, was that even with all of those new and cutting edge technologies, just how many of the speakers and panelists tips boiled down to simply applying the core principles of CRM, just in new and innovative ways.

To prove that, why don’t we take a look at what some brands are doing in the digital space and how they’re applying CRM best practices.

Let’s start with Tiffany’s, a brand that’s been around for about 175 years, meaning that I’m sure they have weathered their fair share of disruptions and being around for 175 years means they were around before the light bulb, before the car, so I’m sure they had to go through this quite a few times.

Last year, Tiffany’s launched their “Love is Everywhere” promotion.  They invited users to share their stories of love, which fostered customer dialogue, with the community.  Visitors to the website were prompted to drag a heart to a location on this map where they had experienced a romantic moment.  They were asked to then fill in their initials and the initials of their loved one and add a note about what made that spot romantic and what made that spot so significant to them.

Here’s an example: “A proposal written and stuck inside the pages of my favorite Jane Austen novel, Pride and Prejudice.”

If that right there doesn’t produce a positive feeling, I don’t know what would.

This campaign actually went quite viral for Tiffany’s.  They had originally planned on primarily launching in the US but eventually they started to see stories come from as far off as Asia and the Middle East, it really took off for them.

But eventually, Tiffany’s started to see the submissions wane a bit. So they upped the ante.  They then transitioned into asking people to not only share their stories but share their true love in pictures.  Here are a few examples of photos that were submitted by visitors.  They also partnered with Instragram to facilitate the sharing of photos directly from a mobile device.

When we’re running a campaign or managing a CRM program for clients we like to keep a checklist of how we’re executing against our CRM core principles.  If Tiffany was keeping that checklist, here is how they’d measure up.

They fostered customer dialogue, produced positive feelings, created multi-channel experiences, and clearly they had measurable benchmarks for success demonstrated by the rollout of the photo submission module when the story submissions began to drop off.

Another brand we can look at is United Airlines.  Even though the snafus caused by the United/Continental merger over the past couple months have been a royal headache for a lot of travelers.  In fact, I know we had a few co-workers here who were caught up in the fiasco a little bit and had some, shall we say, difficult travelling experiences.  One way that United and Continental managed that and one way that they have managed issues like that for quite a while, has been by being leaders in the digital CRM space.

United uses their Twitter and Facebook pages to manage their customer service.  They have a strong email and automated phone call program to notify travelers of any change in status. There’s their mobile application which allows travelers to make reservations, get live flight updates and manage their frequent flyer account.  Additionally, it features interactive airport maps, access to United’s Twitter feed and mobile boarding passes. And finally they partnered with Foursquare on a promotion that awards frequent flyer miles every time you check-in at a United terminal.

Great customer service fostering dialogue between the brand and customers, a measureable mutual goal of offering miles for check-ins, and multi-channel experiences; all core CRM ideas.

Next, let’s take a look at Pampers.

You know it’s funny; I was reviewing this Webinar the other day and I realized that, well I didn’t realize this, but I’m going to be getting married in the fall and so this actually is a case study that might be applying to me sometime in the near future, not right away, but sometime in near future.

Pampers has also been a leader in the digital CRM space.  You can see here their Facebook page and Pampers maintains a robust customer service portal through Facebook.  They use a program called “Get Satisfaction” which is a social customer service platform that can be seamlessly plugged in to various online channels.  You can use it to have the same customer service platform living on your website, on Facebook, leverage it through Twitter and any other social channels you might be involved in.  So right there, customer dialogue, check.

They also run all sorts of promotions.  Shown here is their Gifts to Grow Loyalty Program.  Customers are prompted to download the Pampers Gifts to Grow app, create an account and each time they make a Pampers purchase they can enter a code into the app to gain points.  Points that they can redeem for all sorts of gifts and rewards.  Participants in the program are also entered into sweepstakes; get special offers, and a ton of other cool features.

So, mutually satisfying goals; check.  Positive feelings; check. Multi-channel experiences, check and everything’s measurable, check.

We’ve looked at some large companies so far.  But what you’ll often also find is that the companies that really get it and are using all of the CRM tools available are the small and medium sized businesses from online start-ups to established retailers.  So, let’s take a look at one.  Wrigleyville Sports.

I recently read about Wrigleyville Sports in an issue of Information Week.  Wrigleyville is a small retail business that sells sports related memorabilia and novelties in Chicago; hence the Wrigelyville.  They have a couple of stores in Chicago and one in Pittsburgh.  I hope the one in Pittsburgh isn’t named Wrigleyville.  I can’t imagine that would go over to well with those Pirates fans.  Even with all their retail locations, the fastest growing segment of their business is online through their ecommerce website.

Wrigleyville uses a whole host of tools to manage their business including the campaign management tools of their online NetSuite CRM application.  So if you’re not familiar, NetSuite is an integrated web-based software that enables Wrigleyville to track the results of sales and marketing across Twitter, across Facebook, through display ads on their various sites and also through their email lists associated with any of the specific stores.

They are also an excellent example of marrying social networking with more traditional CRM tactics. First, they have amassed nearly 22,000 likes, very respectful for a small business.  Next, you’ll see that they’re not only using Facebook for Facebook-centric activities but they also use  Facebook to cross promote and have a CTA for signing up for emails. Right here it says, “Join our mailing list to receive occasional emails regarding contests, promotions, and sales, along with hot new products.  It’s free to join and you may unsubscribe whenever you’d like.”

So right there, a great way of tying in activity on Facebook and also leveraging that same user base to build up your internal database. They also write posts promoting the benefits of the email program.  Here’s an example of one that says, “We will be sending out an exclusive 15% off coupon to our email list tomorrow afternoon.”  And it even also provides a way to text in to receive the coupon.  You’ll see here that it says, “Or text Wrigley to 22828.”

It’s funny, I presented this case study to some folks about a week ago or so and you could just see the light bulbs go off in people’s heads when they realize how simple it is to integrate these channels, to use what you’re doing on Facebook to feed into your email and it also works vice versa.  You can have learnings on email and gain people for your Facebook page via your email channel as well.

In terms of measurement, Wrigleyville again uses their NetSuite CRM system to track all online activity through to the customer level.  It can measure which customers responded, how much they spend and what they purchased all in order to measure the return on their promotions and their campaigns.

They’re another example of a company doing a great job at hitting all of the CRM hot buttons: mutual goals, customer dialogue, positive feelings, multi-channel experiences, and measurable results.

So if we were to stack up all of the companies we’ve reviewed so far here’s how they’d measure up. What this really shows is that there are several companies doing this very well: successfully employing CRM ideas to create experiences that customers can engage with across any device at any time, create experiences that customers want to engage with, and experiences that are trackable and measureable to determine eventual ROI.

We’ve seen how some brands are applying the core principles of CRM in the digital space, but the question is how are they producing it? What technologies and tools are brands using to create, serve up, support and track these initiatives?  That’s also kind of the beauty of the age we’re in right now, there’s so much choice.  While everything we just covered could, of course, be built from scratch for, I’m sure, very high budgets.  There are a ton of technologies available that provide out of the box platforms for much of what we just discussed.  The key is knowing what’s available and identifying which technologies are right for your program and your brand.

It’s understanding the social customer services options available, determining if an open source web CMS is right for you, implementing data tracking tools using social buzz monitoring tools, and understanding how to quickly and easily build a mobile app.

So, what can all these technologies do for you?

They can help you match social profiles to internal CRM lists to coordinate data and communication streams across various touch-points.

• They can help you to seamlessly manage customer relationships and customer service across different channels.
• They can help you to track ecommerce sales, including from social networking storefronts, in one central database.
• They can help you to view and influence online conversations across social networks, in blogs and the news about your brand.
• They can help you aggregate data to better understand customers, their likes, interests and more.
• They can help you to quickly deploy unique websites and mobile applications using open source or WSIYWIG platforms.

When it comes to mobile development in particular, lots of the folks that I talk to often think that building an app means building something from scratch. That’s really just not the case.  There are several tools out there, essentially content management system platforms for mobile app development, that can provide a framework to build upon. You can take their skeleton or a skeleton of an app, embed your content on it, customize as you need it and have your app.  You don’t necessarily have to start from the ground up every single time.

On a similar note, beyond app development there is also responsive web design.  If you’re not familiar, you know, back in the day, if you wanted to build a mobile site, you built a separate mobile site; if you wanted to have a site for tablets you built a separate tablet site; if you wanted to build a site for the PC or the desktop you built a separate desktop version of your website.

But now, with responsive web design, you can essentially build a website once and have the website reformat itself for each individual type of screen a user might be visiting it on. So that basically means they can just build a website once and if somebody comes from a smartphone they can see the site one way, if somebody comes from a tablet they can see the site another way, if somebody comes from a desktop they can see the site another way.  Instead of having three different development projects you just have one and you just do it right from the get go.  Responsive web design is a topic for a whole different webinar.

At the very end of the day, while all of these technologies available are great and open up some many different opportunities.  It’s not just about the technology; it’s about how you use it.

It’s having a partner who can help you make sense of all those technologies.  It’s having a partner who can help you to assess the options available, who can help you to provide a recommendation on what solutions are right for you, who can help you to integrate those solutions with any existing infrastructure and with other marketing efforts.

Beyond the technology it’s about the content and measuring that goes into your campaign.  It’s about creating the best possible user experience and it’s about analyzing all of those factors to determine your ROI.

By looking at it holistically, by factoring all of this in, brands can finally get back that sense of control that they thought they might have lost.

Let’s tie this all back to digital disruption.  We discussed that companies can succeed in this new age by applying CRM best practices in new and innovative ways, by understanding and implementing new technologies, by having a partner who can help assess options, craft those engaging experiences and provide measureable results, and finally and maybe most importantly, by embracing the opportunities that digital disruption has made available.

In a talk late last year, James McQuivey of Forrester said, “To build the next generation of product experiences, you must digitally disrupt your own business.”

That’s absolutely true. It’s only by embracing the new reality of transparency behind our marketing efforts, embracing two-way communication between brands and customers and embracing the fact that we don’t have a problem with consumers having too many devices and too many ways to access information, we have an awesome opportunity to now talk to consumers at new times and in so many new and exciting ways.

When you understand that and when you begin to digitally disrupt your own business, that’s when you will truly succeed in the age of digital disruption.

Thank you.

Thanks everybody for attending our webinar today.  I think that’s probably about all we have time for today.  I really appreciated everyone’s time.  If you have any further questions or would like to get in touch please feel free to reach out to myself.  Once again, I’m Jeff Fogliano, Managing Director of Interactive at Wilson.  You can find my contact information on screen, feel free to give me a call, drop me an email (jfogliano@wilsonrms.com), message me on Twitter.  Or reach out to my colleague Shannyn Lee whose contact information is there as well.  Again, thank you very much for attending and I hope to hear from you all very soon.  Thanks a lot, take care.

We understand this reality of marketing today, and we thrive on the challenges.

It is important to be aware of the latest trends in social and mobile CRM to succeed in this new environment and that’s why we hosted our very first Webinar- CRM in the Age of Digital Disruption.

We wanted to share our expertise in this area and help disrupt the digital disruption. During an informative 30 minutes we discussed that the keys to success are:

• Applying customer relationship management best practices
• Understanding and implementing new technologies
• Having a partner who can help assess options, craft engaging experiences and provide measurable results
• Embracing the opportunities that digital disruption has made available
• …and we even managed to throw in a joke here and there

In case you missed the live Webinar or the encore performance, you can see it here – or click here for a full transcript.

From New York Times executive editor, Jill Abramson, speaking about the digital future of the publication to Ben Silbermann, co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, charming a packed room with the story of how he was inspired by his childhood bug collection to create the the design and user experience of the latest social sharing darling, everything we saw and every conversation we were part of acted a powerful reminder of how quickly technology is changing us and our expectations for what is normal.

There was tremendous buzz and more than a little media attention at “South By,” but the best reviews I’ve seen are those that succinctly summarize the essence of a speaker’s message. And, my favorite, so far, is a mash up of tweets and images from the week in Austin created by David Crandall below.

So much to absorb and learn! Next year, we’re bringing the entire team.

If there’s one thing clear about marketing today, it’s that there’s no clear-cut path to reaching consumers.  Today’s multi-focused, multi-tasking, multi-functional consumers want what they want, when they want, the way they want.

During our upcoming Webinar, CRM in the Age of Digital Disruption, we’ll show marketers how to adapt and succeed in this new environment.

As marketing, media and content converge, marketers must find ways to engage and entertain consumers on multiple levels—and get them to act.

We’ll show you how to apply the basics of CRM and leverage emerging technologies and methods to drive measurable results.

“In a culture where being social and outgoing are prized above all else, it can be difficult, even shameful, to be an introvert. But, as Susan Cain argues in this passionate talk, introverts bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world, and should be encouraged and celebrated.

“Our world prizes extroverts — but Susan Cain makes a case for the quiet and contemplative.”

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

As an agency, we’re split. Some of us think the advertising matched the level of the game. Others thought people shouldn’t have wasted their $3.5+ million.

Today, everyone is talking about the ads. The best and the worst … The effective and the missed the mark … The big laughs and the big yawns.

Even Twinkies is getting mentioned, and that’s just from product placement in a Chevy ad.

And that’s the point.

The value of Super Bowl ads can’t be measured only in dollars and cents. Awareness, impressions, buzz and post-Super Bowl behavior all count toward Marketing ROI. While some spots did well, others fumbled. Here are hints for improving next year:

Memorable: Did you see the ad with Jerry Seinfeld? And the vampires? And the kid looking for a place to, ahem, go? Now quick, what products were they advertising? Hint one: Make sure consumers remember the brand, not just the spot.

Relevant: Falling back on the expected or what once worked—Monkeys in Suits and, yes, even Darth Vader—isn’t always the right game plan. Hint two: Don’t get caught up in the past. Make sure your spots have meaning for today.

On-point: We’re all for pre-game hype, but the spots need to live up to it. “Broderick, Broderick” recreating “Beuller, Beuller” was fun in teaser and long-form but fell flat in 30 seconds. Hint three: Make sure you can tell your story well across all executions.

Interactive: People don’t just watch the Superbowl; they live it on multiple screens. So reach them where they live (thanks for trying Coca-Cola). Hint four: Make sure your entertain and engage, so consumers stay with you long after the final TD.

For most people, going online is easy.

Watch the latest viral video. Check.
Post status updates. Done.
Catch up on the day’s news. Got it.
Do some banking. A snap.

But for millions of Americans living with disabilities, it’s not necessarily that simple.
However, there are technologies out there that can help.

Online content and services can be made accessible and usable for all.
Wells Fargo has made it happen with Online Banking.

They asked us to adapt their flash-based Online Banking tour (which we developed) for people with sight, hearing and mobility disabilities, to help them get comfortable with using the full site and feel confident about managing their money online.

After all, financial inclusion can help lead to financial independence.
And that’s what it’s really all about.

The foundation of these acts is to stop foreign web sites from delivering pirated movies, music and counterfeit goods.

Although the most controversial aspects of the legislation have been watered down, critics argue that the wording of SOPA and PIPA are cause for concern.

Some say it’s a precursor to censorship.
Others say it threatens the open Internet.

Here’s what we say:

As a marketing agency, we respect intellectual property rights and copyright law.
At the same time we recognize the power of the Web.

We understand there could be a call to remove unauthorized content from a Web site. But causing a mandatory blocking or removal of a site? Is that a bridge too far?

Based on the new laws, would we still be allowed to make that reference?

And that’s the point.

Piracy of movies and music should be stopped. Illegally downloading a full season of The Office or the full-length We Bought a Zoo before it appears in theaters is a crime. (Well, one could argue watching that movie is a crime on its own, but that’s beside the point.)

Anything that can potentially restrict the flow of information and ideas, or hinder freedom of expression is something else entirely.

True, a line has to be drawn between piracy and the protection of the creators, distributors and users of online content. But where it is drawn needs to be carefully considered.

As an Ohio State alum, I’ve been quite fortunate to be involved from an early stage in a new leadership development program for undergraduate students, Buckeye Leadership Fellows.

The program is designed to bring together the best and brightest third- and fourth-year undergrads in a privately funded, world-class personal and professional development experience that aims for the students to develop a deep sense of self-awareness which they accomplish via exercises and projects that require risk-taking and the application of creativity and innovative thinking.

All of that is a very fancy way of saying that we’re trying to bring real world experiences to undergrads at Ohio State to help them develop an appreciation for the sorts of challenges they’ll face when they don mortarboards and bid campus adieu one last time.

The first challenge launched in Columbus in September 2011 and the final presentations were held in New York in mid-December. The results, as you can see above, were definitely on the mark!

We ended the year with much good news! One person got engaged and is headed to wedded bliss. One person welcomed a beautiful baby girl. Neither event is related.

We take that fruitfulness as a sign of positive things to come, despite what the Mayan calendar says.

So what does all this mean?

Well, the first workweek of the New Year is done. We’re back from break and already in full swing. We’re making changes. Moving forward. Challenging ourselves to explore new ideas and new creative approaches.

After all, as it’s been said, “the best way to predict the future, is to create it.”

Stay tuned. And see what we bring to you in 2012.