Laura Messerschmitt, Senior Marketing Manager at Intuit, discusses how Intuit is leveraging the Zuberance Advocate Platform to systematically energize Intuit Advocates at scale.

Questions discussed:

• What was Intuit’s marketing problem? (Beginning)
• How is Intuit identifying its Advocates? (:28)
• How is Intuit energizing its Advocates? (1:15)
• What are the benefits for Intuit? (1:49)
• Why Zuberance? (2:24)
• How is Zuberance different? (3:01)

Intuit identified Advocates through newsletters, in-product touch points, Facebook, Twitter, and their private community, the “Inner Circle.” They mobilized them to write and publish reviews to Amazon (with an estimated revenue impact in the millions), and to share offers like their “Love a Local Business” campaign, a program that gives out $100K in small business grants.

The Results:

• Intuit has identified 69% of their customer base as Intuit Advocates
• 30% Intuit Advocates have recommended the company in the form of writing a review or sharing an offer.
• On average, Intuit is getting approximately 2.3 in-bound clicks from prospects from Advocate shares. That’s a 231% Recommendation Click-Through Rate (CTR), which is hundreds of times higher than typical CTRs.

Click here to learn more about how to turn your customers into a powerful marketing force.

-Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance

Download: Top 5 Myths of B2B Word of Mouth.

Word of Mouth (WOM) is the “world’s most powerful sales tool,” according to Nielsen. Today, thanks to social media channels like blogs, Twitter, review sites and more, WOM and online recommendations are more influential than ever. But is WOM effective in B2B environments? Discover what’s fact and what’s fiction in B2B Word of Mouth marketing.

Download this whitepaper and learn:

• What role does social media play in influencing business purchase decisions?
• How to measure B2B Word of Mouth
• How B2B and B2C WOM compare.

We want to hear from you!  Share your thoughts on the whitepaper here.

The new Forrester Research Inc report, “Emerging Technology Applications For Marketing,” stresses the importance of businesses understanding up-and-coming marketing technology in order to effectively communicate to customers.  These technologies are a great support to the marketing mix.  Forrester advises CIO’s and CMO’s to work together for ideal business success. In order to stay relevant and reliable, CIO’s should be aware of new technologies that could be incorporated into the marketing strategy, especially in B2B companies.

Some key takeaways from this report are as follows:

• When you address customer needs effectively, sales follow.  Marketing should focus on putting the customer in the driver’s seat, which ultimately benefits the bottom line.

• 58% of Marketing Professionals think IT and Marketing speak different languages.  56% think IT doesn’t understand our business.  In reality, the two departments are very closely related – both have a clear set of processes that help the organization relate to the customer, enhance the brand experience, collect data and help secure revenue.

• One of the four emerging technologies to watch in 2011 is: Brand Advocate platforms to energize Word of Mouth (WOM).  Zuberance was given a notable mention as a supplier of this technology!

• Consumers are increasingly more proactive in their advocacy of brands through recommendations across social media channels, which is extremely helpful for B2C companies.  But, B2B marketers can use Brand Advocate platforms to encourage WOM by loyal customers in order to generate sales leads, references, and share your thought leadership.

• Brand Advocate platforms are quantifiable! These platforms facilitate sharing through digital and social mediums that have built in analytics tracking WOM results – easily translated to sales impact.

• Encourage your marketing team to get customer feedback on how to improve.  With thoughtful responses you can deliver better customer service and collaborate with IT to find new technologies and vendors to address concerns or opportunities.

In conclusion, IT and Marketing can easily work together to employ new marketing initiatives that deliver more value and are sustainable in our highly social world.

-Lucy Arnold, Marketing Coordinator, Zuberance

Forrester Research Inc Analyst, Josh Bernoff, released a report recently entitled, “Competitive Strategy in the Age of the Customer.” The report discusses the only sustainable competitive advantage in the current customer-centric era: engagement. Below are some highlights from the report.

• Key takeaway: Companies need to adjust their business strategy from being customer focused to customer obsessed. The proliferation of social media has disrupted every industry and created empowered consumers. They now have the tools to rave about your products, complain about your customer service, or follow your brand within the interconnected social web.  Customer obsession should be business’ #1 priority over any other strategic imperative.
• Value versatility over lock-in. Focus your strategy, energy, and budget on processes that improve knowledge of and engagement with customers that take priority over maintaining traditional competitive barriers. Don’t back your “loyal” customers into a corner through contracts and proprietary technology. Instead, aim to create authentic advocacy by adjusting to customer needs. Enthusiastic repeat business is much more valuable than content customers (who might actually be detractors) that are stuck in a contract.
• We are now in an empowered-customer-centric era. Shift your thoughts and budget accordingly. As Ian Wolfman of imc2 said, “Stop using ads to cover up a weak reputation and unhappy customers. Prioritize Word of Mouth over mouthing off.” Bernoff suggests cutting 10% of your traditional advertising budget and reallocating it to strategies that include a viral potential like social, devices, and content. Ads are far more effective when consumers are primed to believe them through the influence of their peers.
• Find ways to sell more to current customers and get them to recommend your brand to their networks. New customers are more expensive to acquire than repeat customers; and repeat customers are much more accessible. Let your current customers, particularly you’re Advocates who are willing and ready to spread their enthusiasm, be your customer acquisition force by making it easy for them to recommend your brand.
• Measurement is key. Prove your word of mouth marketing efforts are successful but measuring results. Appropriate metrics will vary across companies, but companies must measure campaigns that can tie back to business results such as leads, database sign-ups, inbound clicks, etc.

Brands- Stop thinking that all eyes and ears are on you. All eyes and ears are actually on your customers. Download “Competitive Strategy in the Age of the Customer” here.

-Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance

Social media isn’t a “one size fits all” solution. If the client is in the B2B space they need to spend months if not years building a relationship. That’s because B2B sales cycles can be extremely long, said Mark Kurtz, Chief Growth Office and VP of New Media for Gage Marketing.

But in the B2C space, Gage can be very aggressive through promotions, contests, and ad campaigns. Ultimately though, social media doesn’t exist and survive in a bubble. It’s all about integrating a campaign, said Kurtz.

Connect social media with all forms of media.

-David Spark, Social Media Journalist, Spark Media Solutions

Last week, Zuberance sponsored an event held by the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association’s (SVAMA) on “The Next Step in Social: Beyond Listening & Engagement” at the Adobe headquarters in San Jose, CA. The highly engaged audience was there to gain insights from top marketers from Adobe, Intuit, Altimeter Group, and Zuberance on energizing Brand Advocates and measuring social media ROI. Take a look at the panel recording below.

Keynote Presentation by Chris Arens, Partner, Catalyst S+F

Panel Discussion: The Next Step in Social: Beyond Listening & Engagement

Featured Panel:

• Moderator – Chris Arens, noted influencer, author and marketing/ad agency veteran
• Susan Etlinger, Consultant, Altimeter Group
• Laura Messerschmitt, Senior Marketing Manager, Intuit
• Rob Fuggetta, Founder & CEO, Zuberance
• Maria Poveromo, Director of Social Media, Adobe Systems

Key takeaways from the discussion:

• Globalization of business is not an excuse for lacking a good relationship with your customers.
• The moment you start calling your customers “end users” respect goes out the door. They are PEOPLE.
• “Thinking about buying an Advocacy army? Forget it. You can’t buy love.” -@christianarens
• “Recommendations are the new advertising.” – CMO of Visa
• B2B users are the heaviest users of social media, so it pays to have a strong community to guide them to your brand.
• Measuring social media ROI varies across businesses. Zuberance developed ROA (Return on Advocacy) to measure the value of a recommendation.
• “Would you really stay away from social media even if there was no ROI? No, of course not.” – @robfuggetta
• 9 out of 10 people are listening but not posting on branded social channels. Deal with negative comments publicly and show your community that you’re listening. Some of the best campaigns come from taking negative responses and fixing it, which can turn detractors into Advocates.
• Intuit invites their Advocates into the “Intuit Inner Circle” where they are given access to exclusive events and information.
• The voice of customer helps fuel innovation. Adobe uses their Facebook fan page as a forum to engage with users, gain insight, and bring that info back to product development.
• “Social media is bringing people into the company. It’s not about getting through gate keepers anymore.” – @mariapoveromo
• The key to energizing Word of Mouth? Simply give Advocates the tools to recommend in ways that are easy, convenient, are distributable across channels.

Thank you again to the panelists and everyone who came out!

-Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance

You can hire the best copywriter, but they’ll never beat an Advocate when it comes to authenticity.

CDW realized that truism and as a result they started using advocate reviews in their marketing copy, said Lauren McCadney, Sr. Segment Marketing Manager for CDW.

With the success of using Advocate reviews, their next step is allowing Advocates to produce videos. Plus, CDW is building out a more formal and trackable Advocate referral program.

Last night, Zuberance sponsored the event held by the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association’s (SVAMA) on “The Next Step in Social: Beyond Listening & Engagement” at the Adobe headquarters in San Jose, CA. The highly engaged audience was there to gain insights from top marketers from Adobe, Intuit, Altimeter Group, and Zuberance on energizing Brand Advocates and measuring social media ROI.

*Note- We will have the recorded version of the panel discussion available here on Zuber Rants next week. Stay tuned!

Here are some of the key takeaways from the discussion:

• Globalization of business is not an excuse for lacking a good relationship with your customers.
• The moment you start calling your customers “end users” respect goes out the door. They are PEOPLE.
• “Thinking about buying an Advocacy army? Forget it. You can’t buy love.” -@christianarens
• “Recommendations are the new advertising.” – CMO of Visa
• B2B users are the heaviest users of social media, so it pays to have a strong community to guide them to your brand.
• Measuring social media ROI varies across businesses. Zuberance developed ROA (Return on Advocacy) to measure the value of a recommendation.
• “Would you really stay away from social media even if there was no ROI? No, of course not.” – @robfuggetta
• 9 out of 10 people are listening but not posting on branded social channels. Deal with negative comments publicly and show your community that you’re listening. Some of the best campaigns come from taking negative responses and fixing it, which can turn detractors into Advocates.
• Intuit invites their Advocates into the “Intuit Inner Circle” where they are given access to exclusive events and information.
• The voice of customer helps fuel innovation. Adobe uses their Facebook fan page as a forum to engage with users, gain insight, and bring that info back to product development.
• “Social media is bringing people into the company. It’s not about getting through gate keepers anymore.” – @mariapoveromo
• The key to energizing Word of Mouth? Simply give Advocates the tools to recommend in ways that are easy, convenient, are distributable across channels.

Thank you to the panelists and everyone who came out!

-Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance

Below is part 4 of 5 of the Chicago Brand Advocacy Series panel discussion on “How to Turn Word of Mouth and Social Media into Sales.”

You can find key takeaways, photos, and more videos from the Chicago Brand Advocacy Series here.

Below is part 3 of 5 of the Chicago Brand Advocacy Series panel discussion on “How to Turn Word of Mouth and Social Media into Sales.”

You can find key takeaways, photos, and more videos from the Chicago Brand Advocacy Series here.