Lessons From Ford’s Brilliant Use of Social Media

You may have heard the news: Ford reported its biggest annual profit since 1999. That's a huge accomplishment for a company that was on the ropes in 2009, a symbol of a once-great American industry in seemingly fatal decline.

Many factors contributed to Ford's shift from the breakdown lane into the fast lane: the sale or retirement of underperforming brands, the dramatic decision to close a quarter of its plants, and the aggressive reduction of its labor and health care costs.

But, there is something else they did right, something that has been lost in the recent discussions about its comeback: Ford has been engaging in unprecedented dialogues with consumers.

Today, success in marketing is achieved as a result of personal conversations and points of engagement with customers and prospects. As discussed in my recent book, Voice of the Customer Marketing, Ford designed an unprecedented social media–driven plan to create such engagements.

In 2009, Ford spent roughly one-quarter of its marketing dollars on digital and social media. This was more than double the amount spent by its competitors. Ford was clearly out front in the social networking arena, and its efforts paid rich dividends. As Ford’s chief marketing executive, James Farley, put it: “If you are trying to communicate, as we are, that you have been reinventing the company, you can’t just say it. You have to get the people to say it to each other.”

Say it they did! They posted 11,000 videos, 15,000 Twitter messages, and over 11 million social networking impressions as part of an American Ford Fiesta prelaunch social media campaign called the Fiesta Movement.

Add your comments below -- we would love to hear from you about using social media for your company!!

The results were remarkable: 4.5 million YouTube views, 3.5 million Twitter impressions, and 80,000 “hand raisers” who asked to be kept up to date on the U.S. launch of the Ford Fiesta. Of those hand raisers, 97 percent did not own a Ford vehicle.

The Fiesta campaign inspired tens of thousands of people, not merely to listen passively to Ford advertising, but to engage in an ongoing dialogue with the company through channels of their own choosing: to post videos, to share feedback, and stay engaged and in touch with “The Ford Story,” very often via multiple feeds. For some great insights on Ford's ongoing cutting-edge social media campaign, check out this link.

Ford's results remind us that social media represents one of the most sophisticated forms of selling. The sale is the by-product of the quality and mutual benefit of relationships and trust.

Try This:

Re-think how you view customer acquisition. View it as the building of trust and engagement with an empowered group of people, (not targets). Engage them to tell you their stories with your product, make it a personal experience for them and you.

Provide them with multiple channels-- Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, e-mail, and other media -- by which to engage with, contribute to, and respond to, your company's ongoing story.

Lessons from My Chimney Cleaner About Service and Marketing Best Practices

Last week Ginger Conlon, Editorial Director of 1to1® Media posted the following Guest Blogger article which I wrote for them.

We thought you would enjoy reading about impressive service and marketing best practices.

A few weeks ago I called a local chimney-cleaning company and set up an appointment for a cleaning. When the workmen arrived, I asked them to remove their sooty shoes when walking around the house. Despite this request, the workers left an ugly trail of black soot stains on our basement carpeting.

So began a fascinating opportunity to experience how some companies are mastering the integration of marketing and customer service. My problem was turned into a marketing opportunity by the company -- but only because the person I spoke with to file my complaint understood that customer service is actually a marketing opportunity. That person happened to be the owner of the company.

Viewing customer service and marketing as two sides of the same coin is the first step in turning service disasters into marketing opportunities. This can only occur if marketing and customer service teams work together based on the recognition that customer retention is essential. Marketing can no longer afford to view customer service as a labor intensive "operations" function. In this era of empowered consumers with social media megaphones, the ability of dissatisfied customers to voice their opinions worldwide is astonishing and frightening.

Back to my chimney-cleaning saga: The owner listened carefully to my complaint and acknowledged his company's responsibility for the problem. He said, "On behalf of our company, I would like to apologize for what happened. I would also like to thank you for taking the time to call. We will do what it takes to clean up the mess we created."

The owner and I reviewed the details of the damage and the follow-up action, which was to have a professional carpet cleaning company come to my home within a week, at no charge. I then asked why he had thanked me for making the call. His reply was the essence of both great marketing and great customer service.

Add your comments below and share your thoughts about great customer service!

He said, "I want to be able to go to your home next year and the following year and the year after that, to clean your chimney. By calling our company, you provided me with the opportunity to prove to you that, while we made a mistake, we have the professionalism and integrity to take care of our customers. I want to prove to you, that even though we have already been paid for this job, we are not just looking for the bucks. I want you as a long-term customer."

I was intrigued. What he had just said was in line with one of the most important, though often overlooked tenets of innovative marketing: One of the most important metrics for identifying the success of a marketing initiative is its capacity to generate repeat purchases.

I asked about the company's customer service team. Was I getting a good outcome simply because I had been lucky enough to speak with the owner of the company? Or was this approach really part of the organization's service culture?

My call, as it turned out, had been no accident. Customer service reps at this firm were empowered to resolve customer problems; they worked closely with the marketing department to ensure that customer acquisition and retention were tightly integrated.

This was a fairly small company, a fact that intrigues me on two fronts. First, smaller organizations (which are likely to have fewer problems with "turf and fiefdoms"), may well have the inside track when it comes to seamlessly coordinating marketing and customer service efforts. Second, those companies that do manage to integrate these departments successfully find themselves in a position to significantly improve the customer experience and increase customer lifetime value.

Here are seven tips to help you improve your customer experience:

1. Do not view customer service call centers as cost centers. These are revenue centers.

2. Customers' post-sales experiences have significant impact on repeat purchase likelihood and willingness to recommend the company. Companies must consider the financial ramifications of losing customers due to poor post-sale experiences.

3. Do not cut back on training, quality control procedures, and related investments in customer service call centers.

4. Remember that it's seven to 10 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than to sell an existing customer.

5. Mistakes happen. Make sure that, when they do, your frontline people are empowered to take responsibility for those mistakes, and propose a solution that is fair to the customer.

6. Customers expect high-quality post-sale support. If it is lacking, they will not only be inclined to go elsewhere, but they will also be inclined to use the power of social media to let others know about their dissatisfaction.

7. The big question is not whether we can get a customer to buy from us once, but whether, after a customer service problem, we can get him or her to buy from us a second time. What kind of experience will make a customer decide not only that he or she isn't going to demand a refund, but that a repeat purchase is in order?

The owner of that chimney-cleaning company knew that I, as his customer, considered the marketing and customer service experience to be inseparable -- so he made sure that he and his entire team operated under the same assumption. As a result, I am now a satisfied customer, a committed candidate for repeat business -- and an evangelist for his firm.

'List Fatigue'...Or Just Strategy Fatigue?

The Problem: My database is delivering steadily declining response rates. How do I overcome "list fatigue"?

The Solution: Take the time to find out what your customers and prospects really want to receive from your organization, and how they want to receive it.

"List fatigue" is often a euphemism for the customer and prospect fatigue that results from marketing that's largely untargeted and undifferentiated. I call this "spray and pray" marketing.

When the same kind of generic message goes out to tens of thousands of people at a time, it's inevitable that interest, and response rates, will drop. When economic times are tough, the decline usually occurs at an accelerated pace.

If customers or prospects feel that your marketing is not relevant or exciting, they are likely to forget that they opted in to your list (a common occurrence), and will consider your emails to be spam. In a recent MarketingSherpa survey, 74 percent of respondents defined "spam" as "e-mail I did not sign-up to receive."

The solution is to stop "spray and pray" and adopt opt-in/preference driven communications.

Have an opinion about "spray and pray" versus opt-in/preference driven marketing? Comment below and share your thoughts on this post!

However, we must explain exactly what information we’re asking for, why we’re asking for it, and the customer benefit of targeted and relevant communications. When customers have a compelling reason to self-profile and share detailed information, they will opt-in in significant numbers.

Forbes.com highlighted our article Target That Marketing as posted by Investor's Business Daily.

Microsoft’s online Business Resource Center is a best-in-class example of an opt-in/self-profiling relationship strategy. By creating a Voice-of-Customer driven opt-in relationship marketing program, Microsoft generated opt-in rates that ranged between 45 to 95 percent -- the opposite of "list fatigue"!

Try This:

Learn more about Microsoft's targeted opt-in relationship program. Then conduct research to understand what value proposition would be required to motivate your customers and prospects to self-profile their preferences and opt-in to a deeper relationship with your company.