Some of the most influential people in my world aren't bloggers. They're family and friends whom couldn't tell Bloglines from Flock from del.icio.us. If you believe all the hype these days, you'd think you'd need to just get your product in the hands of the most influential bloggers and bingo! you're golden. Or you only need to worry about monitoring the top 5% of bloggers (in whatever metric you wish to use). But whom influences the influencers? Who's just one very intimate degree away?
The [customer evangelism] tactic works because people basically want to make the world a better place, according to Guy Kawasaki, author of The Art of the Start and How to Drive Your Competition Crazy. That is the frequent difference, he says, between evangelism and sales. "When you have such a cause, then people will view it as ‘good news' and they will spread this good news," Kawasaki says. "It works because people have other people's best interests at heart." - The Power of One: Bike Maker Gears Up Customer Evangelists, CMO Magazine, Oct 2005
I wouldn't be surprised if Kawaski had already heard of Bike Friday well before this CMO case story. Quite possibly from fellow venture capitalist, er I mean Bike Friday evangelist, Randy Komisar, pictured right on his Air Friday.
(If you don't know from reading this blog, Komisar is also author of one of my most cherished business books.)
Me? I heard about Bike Friday from my housemate - an enthusiastic customer whom bought his first Bike Friday to tour Ireland with his daughter (alas whom I've failed to convert to becoming a blogger). He owns two Bike Friday bikes. I suppose you can call him an evangelist. He's also friends with Betsy Schwartz, whose pictured prominently on the front of the Bike Friday website (just like her photo to the left, above). I'll finally get to meet her in person when she speaks on her Guatemala/Mexico trip in Saratoga Oct 27th (keep checking calendar).
Yep, it's really a small world: Betsy just got back from home rebuilding in tsunami-struck Thailand with Habitat for Humanity (read the Bonus for a taste of her experience). And my housemate is interviewing at Apple as I type this - where Kawasaki was Apple's first "evangelist" and basically invented the term. Your white hot center most likely isn't Bike Friday's, yet it's remarkable how tight most communities are. That small world effect.
Because my housemate was looking out for my best interests, he tells me I ought to check out Bike Friday's marketing (fyi, he's an engineer, not in marketing/sales). And that's how I end up using the bike manufacturer as featured example in my BlogBusinessSummit talk to contrast their community to Kryptonite's:
In August 2002, they hired one of their customers – one of their customer evangelists, that is – into their marketing department. [6] Before that Gal From Down Under, a.k.a. Lynette Chiang, chronicled her bike adventures across the world on her website. Her company does not have a blog - she does.
I am absolutely certain that if a Bike Friday’s bikes had any problems, they’d hear the news from a customer first rather than when they unfolded their issue of the New York Times or turned the dial to NPR.
I'll tell you a secret (doubtful). I actually prefer to work with miniscule marketing budgets (as long as there is plenty to pay me!) because you're forced to seek and engage the 'White Hot Center' of your market, as Harry Beckwith calls the sweet spot. When there's no cash to litter the world with billboards and Superbowl ads and dropping flyers over cities from helicopters, you really hone in. "Mass communications can be a very effective way of creating awareness for your product. But awareness alone is not sufficient to drive adoption," says Paul McNamara, an entrepreneur-in-residence at El Dorado Ventures. McNamara continues in The Five Ways to Accelerate Revenue:
Give decision makers information that demonstrates the superiority of our product, so this [common] thinking goes, and the decision maker will logically analyze the data and output a purchase order. Simple, deterministic, rational and a complete myth.
Recent studies of human brain function have shown that the human decision making process relies much more on that part of the brain responsible for regulating social behavior than had previously been thought.
It's worth noting that McNamara doesn't even use the word marketing in his title. Too often we forget accelerating revenue is the point of marketing -- the stunning brochure isn't the end. He also says, "Too often I see organizations spending an inordinate amount of marketing resources creating classic sales tools (collateral material, TCO calculators and the like) and under investing in the things that really matter."I see far too many people jumping onto the blog bandwagon and settling for mere awareness, rather than adoption - ignoring the social nature of the media - and the social nature of markets.
Information diffusion is a term that describes how information travels through a social network by word of mouth. The simple truth is that people are substantially more likely to adopt a new technology if they have heard about it through personal contact with a peer. In many cases, people will not adopt a new technology unless someone they know has recommended it.
For example, when Harley Davidson wants to create buzz around an upcoming product, they will often have their engineering staff pre-brief influential members of the Harley Owners Group (the HOGs). These thought leaders then diffuse this information among others HOG members. The resulting buzz creates a strong sense of anticipation and preference for the product even before all of the details of the product are known. - Paul McNamara, El Dorado Ventures, "The Five Ways to Accelerate Revenue"
Contrary to popular opinion not everyone's diffusion network hinges on being Scobleized or Slashdotted. Glam.com wouldn't be necessarly be served (and it'd likely backfire, no offense intended but would you entrust your high end fashion purchases to a geek blogger -- or I for that matter?). Nor would 10thingswithkids.com. Nor the new venture I'm working on. Each is cultivating their unique community based on their market.
I'm intrigued with Kawasaki's juicy thought. Now what if you baked into your company the notion that that good news spreads because people have the best interests of others at heart? (Sure, we can take a more cynical view of why people spread news; but I'm talking about designing this "best interests at heart" intention into everything you do.)
I highly recommend digging into the Bike Friday example - you can learn tons from their site and the links I've provided. Plus thoroughly reviewing Paul McNamara's five accelerators even if you do have a lot of money to burn.
Bonus: From Betsy's (private) email from her Habitat for Humanity's Disaster Response Build:
The house that I am involved in is for Jumroon (67 years) and his wife Wanpen (58 years). They have 2 married children who both make a living nearby. The couple own a large piece of land close to the sea. Their small wooden home was situated in the middle. Jumroon, many years ago, had planted different fruit trees and earned his living selling the fruit from his many productive trees. His modest salary was approximately $750 annually.
On the morning of Dec 26th, Jumroom was planning to fertilize his fruit trees. He was getting everything ready for a good days work on his plantation. At 10:15 his cell phone rang. It was Wanpen calling from their daughter's mini market, located up on the main road. His wife needed him to come to the mini market as their were several people there who wanted to speak to him. Disappointed, Jumroon put down his utensils for the spraying job, left everything ready for his return, got in his small pickup and drove up the hill and down the road to the shop.
Fifteen minutes later the tsunami hit with the four giant waves taking out everything. His house and plantation were completely destroyed. He and his wife and daughter were all together in the mini market and unharmed. His son was safe as well. Jumroon is one of the luckier ones and we were thrilled to be able to help this man rebuild.
p.s. Thanks to Valerie Cunningham of GoingOn for reminding me I haven't spoken about marketing in quite a while.
tags social media wom word of mouth marketing customer evangelism social networks startups
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