Zuberance Word Of Mouth Marketing Blog

Ted Rubin and Rob Fuggetta on How To Turn Social Media Into Sales Now – Recorded Webinar

Antonio Altamirano — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:43:00 +0000

Here is a recording of our latest Zuberance webinar where Ted Rubin and Rob Fuggetta talked about hwo social media and brand advocates are changing the marketing landscape. There are some great tips by Ted an Rob on how to move beyond monitoring and start driving sales with social media. By the end of the webinar you will learn how to measure social media ROI just like any other online marketing program.

Webinar 1/27: Learn The Secrets Behind E.L.F Cosmetics Social Media Success

Antonio Altamirano — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:45:47 +0000

Join us this Wednesday, January 27th at 11 am PT for an interesting conversation with Ted Rubin, CMO of E.L.F. Cosmetics.

Ted is a pioneer in the social media and social marketing field. Ted has been able to weave social media into the DNA of his company and not only as an afterthought or silo. You can read more about how Ted has been able to do this here. Rob Fuggetta, CEO and Founder of Zuberance, will compliment Ted’s presentation with tips on how your company can energize brand advocates and turn that into sales.

WHEN: Wednesday, January 27, 2010 11:00 AM PDT; 2 PM EDT

Click here to register

Free raffle for attendees: Two Master Makeup Collections courtesy of E.L.F Cosmetics

Learn:

How to identify and engage your Brand Advocates
How to mobilize your Brand Advocates to boost sales
How to measure Social Media ROI

How to follow the webinar?

Dial in to the webinar (Powered by GoToMeeting. You will need a few minutes to setup your computer if this is the first time you are using GoToMeeting
Ask questions and post comments to Twitter using the hash tag #sm2sales
Post comments in this post

Top 5 Trends in Social Media for 2010

Antonio Altamirano — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:58:06 +0000

Social media is undergoing a profound change in the way it is perceived in the enterprise. Marketers are trying to grasp its importance and the role it plays not only in outbound marketing but its role as a vital component of the company’s DNA.

CMO’s are struggling to understand and apply social media to influence their bottom line beyond the awareness.

Here are 5 trends that are of paramount importance for marketers and companies in 2010.

Marketers need a clear social media strategy

Understanding and engaging customers is the goal. Technology is secondary.
Using Forrester’s POST method and Social Technographics segmentation model will help marketers think strategically about social

Maximize social marketing

Companies evolve towards finding, engaging, and energizing Advocates, their most valuable customers.
Companies start using social technologies effectively to engage current customers and discover new ones.
Most companies have a Facebook and Twitter presence.

Social is not a role, it’s the business fabric

Integrating social with their overall customer relationship and marketing approach is key for a company’s success.

Social is media

Social is a medium for reaching and engaging just like any other media.

Social ROI becomes measurable

ROI becomes clear and compelling.
Leveraging social technologies, will allow companies to drive relevant and more qualified traffic than traditional (non-social) marketing methods
Our results in our programs show a conversion rate of 5% to 15%

Panel Discussion: The Future of Social Media in 2010

Antonio Altamirano — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 02:06:01 +0000

Rob Fuggetta, Founder & CEO of Zuberance, will join a distinguished panel of social media experts including Jeremiah Owyang to discuss the future of social media at an event hosted by the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association (SVAMA) on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010.

The event is open to the public and will be held at Adobe, East Tower, Park Room, 345 Park Avenue in San Jose. Please visit us here for more information and to register for the event

Here is a quick taste for what’s to come in the Future of Social Media Expert Panel:

Millions of consumers and businesses have integrated social media into their daily routines. Fuggetta and panelists at the SVAMA event will discuss how social media will change in 2010, what’s working in social media (and what isn’t); and where the latest social media trends are headed.

“We’re delighted that Rob Fuggetta of Zuberance is among the distinguished panelists who will be participating in our event,” said Alex Littlewood, president of the SVAMA. “Zuberance is on the cutting edge of social media, enabling leading brands to identify and mobilize their Advocates to drive measurable business results. Rob’s unique understanding of how to leverage social technologies to drive business results will provide both an insightful and practical perspective,” Littlewood added.

Brand Advocates: Do They Influence Sales?

Antonio Altamirano — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 23:45:52 +0000

A recent study by eMarketer highlights the importance of brand advocates and their influence online and offline. Over 53% of US online users have an active role helping a friend or a family member make a decision about a product purchase and over 40% of active US online users share product advice that they’ve read online.

Over 40% of active US users share advice about products and influence purchases

Reaching your advocates and giving them tools to share their love for your brand and products online becomes ever more important if you want to influence the bottom line by driving sales. There is a great probability that your next sale will be driven and influenced by an advocate of your product or brand. You need to be ready ahead of time and empower your advocates to drive more sales.

Zuberance has done this for several types of customers like large Telcos, beloved consumer brands and internet retailers among others. We know what it takes to mobilize your brand advocates online and we’ve seen the value of doing it right by driving conversion rates higher than 70% in some cases.

Ted Rubin: How A Chief Marketing Officer Drives Sales With Social Media

Antonio Altamirano — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 00:23:09 +0000

Chief Marketing Officers in the era of brand advocates and social media. A conversation with Ted Rubin, e.l.f.’s CMO and the architect of its successful social media campaign.

“The next important growth feature for social networks will be ubiquity. Social networks must be woven into everything we encounter and social media/marketing should be integrated into the fabric of all marketing channels, strategically managed from 360 perspective. Social Media is a platform… Social Marketing is how it is leveraged by a brand.” -Ted Rubin

Times are changing fast. Companies need to learn how to interact and respond in an efficient and positive manner to their audience via social media and to understand how to pool positive word-of-mouth and energize their brand advocates online. Through our conversation, there was a strong and recurring emphasis on a theme that ties e.l.f.’s marketing strategy together: social media and the power of the advocate.

Companies need to learn how to move away from passively listening and instead spring into action when the needs of their customers are not met. It is not enough to be an active listener; your brand needs to be an active and engaged participant. This is not the same as participation by broadcast. Participation by broadcast is when a brand is visibly active but establishes a one-way broadcast communication style with their audience.

The role of the Chief Marketing Officer is shifting

According to the best empirical evidence to date—from oft-cited research by the global recruiting firm Spencer Stuart—the average CMO tenure is a mere 23 months, less than half the average tenure of chief executive officers in the same firms. This data takes on ominous tones when enhanced by anecdotal narratives, such as Starbucks’ record of five heads of marketing in seven years, or Coca-Cola refilling its CMO position four times in six years.

Given the relatively short tenure of a CMO and the new marketing landscape, it is of utmost importance that the approach to the CMO role changes. Evolution needs to start with the C-suite and refocus the role of the CMO not as the mythical figure behind the strategy, but as the guiding rod and public face in the market where the CMO can exert influence. Part of the CMO role evolves into a chief relationship manager of sorts.

This is a transcendental evolution, where the customer is at the center of brand value creation and the CMOs strategize across new and classic marketing channels by making the brand part of a fluid conversation.

The shift from old to new marketing is hard work but pays off

Ted has managed to make this shift for himself and for EyesLipsFace as well. This has taken a lot of work, but it has paid off handsomely for the company and for his personal brand as well. EyesLipsFace, under Ted’s leadership, has been at the forefront of social marketing and innovation by using social media to turn advocates into sales and quantifiable ROI.

According to a study by Zuberance, the advocate channel outperforms more traditional online marketing channels like search engine marketing and display by a factor of five on average. EyesLipsFace has been able to tap into that advocate channel by energizing their passionate customers and turning them into a large virtual sales force that is driving quantifiable sales.

Obstacles that CMOs face

There are two main obstacles that CMOs need to sort through before they can take advantage of social media. They need to decide when to get involved and how. The challenge today is that CMOs are either waiting too long or going in too quickly. There are two things that could happen in either scenario.

Waiting too long means the competition will take that first mover advantage that can effectively give your competition full ownership of your

However, if a brand gets involved too quickly they might get end up in a broadcast-only mode that might prove more costly than no presence at all.

So what is a CMO to do?

Research the medium and become knowledgeable.

There’s nothing better than first hand experience. According to Ted, he spent some valuable time researching and learning the field before he applied it to e.l.f. cosmetics

Build a following for your personal brand.

If you are able to build a sizeable audience for your personal brand then you will have a better understanding of what it takes to develop a social marketing strategy for you company. Ted started way ahead of his peers by building and engaging a sizable audience that he can now mobilize

Build a strategy with measurable goals.

But don’t get stuck in the areas that cannot be measured right away as these are potentially very valuable to the company’s bottom line down the road. Set your CEO’s expectations properly and don’t over promise.

Get your hands dirty.

Interact with your audience and provide that personal touch that your brand needs

What are the results that Ted has been able to get for e.l.f. cosmetics this year?

Growing exponentially from early numbers of 300,000 to now over 2,000,000 subscribers with less than a 0.5 percent unsubscribe rate. 30K group members in Facebook in less than 12 months. 40K followers on Twitter since launch. 5400 followers on YouTube with over 50K views to e.l.f. videos which is only the tip of the iceberg since there are many more user generated videos. Askelf.com as a feedback channel where 99% of the feedback has been positive. The campaign “The New Face of e.l.f., Beauty at All Ages” and the “Wish for This” app generated over. 14,500 wishes, 2,000 retweets, 200,000 impressions in the first 3 weeks

CMOs looking at 2010 and 2011

Ted mentioned a couple of things that will mark the evolution of the role of the CMO. First of all, 2009 was the year when companies and CMOs learned and applied the basics of social marketing to their program by entering social networks and building audiences. However, the strategy was either not clear or not existent in many cases.

In 2010 CMOs will see the following developments and challenges:

A valuable tool that allows brands to measure not only mentions of the brand but how to tie that back to ROI will emerge thus making it easier for the CMO to build a stronger case for an overarching social marketing strategy. CEOs will step back and will let CMOs implement and experiment with newer ways to engage brand advocates thus allowing social marketing to grow as a fabric that ties sales and marketing together instead of just one more program in the mix. CMOs will be forced by customers to engage online and move beyond a broadcast-only relationship

Conclusion

CMOs face steep challenges and obstacles in the new marketing era. It is not enough to be well versed in the strategy and execution of a top-to-bottom marketing campaign that follows the classic structure of a marketing program. We are beyond that.

New marketing forces CMOs off of their comfort zone and into the playing field where they have to put the needs and wants of the customer at the forefront of the strategy, effectively turning the classic notion of marketing on its head.

You start at the “bottom” and build on top of tangible goals. You start with the customers and engage them fully. The challenges and marketing channels are different, but the fundamentals behind the marketing strategy remain the same.

It is time to rethink where the value resides. While it is true that classic media marketing still holds the lion share of marketing budgets, that does not imply it is engaging your audience or reaching them at all.

People expect brands to engage, to listen and to act. Your advocates are waiting, now it is your turn to move the engagement dial and reach out to them. You will be pleased with the results.

SPIFFY Awards: Why Are They Important For The Telecom Industry?

Antonio Altamirano — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 22:23:55 +0000

This post was written in collaboration with Liz Kerton who is the President of The Telecom Council of Silicon Valley. We wanted to provide more background on the importance of being nominated to the SPIFFY awards and why they are not only relevant for Zuberance but for the Telecommunications Industry as a whole. Zuberance was nominated to Best Communication Solution. Here is the complete list of nominees.

Can you please explain to us how the Telecom Council SPIFFY awards were started? What’s the driving force behind them?

The SPIFFY Awards came about for 2 reasons. Firstly, because the 20+ carrier who make up the Service Provider Innovation Forum (SPIF), which has been meeting monthly since 2001, wanted to recognize the many good entrepreneurs that are pushing the Telecom industry forward. The second reason is to get the word out that The Telecom Council, of which SPIF is one Forum, is an excellent tool for telecom startups to touch many carriers at once.

What companies are supporting the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley and why?

The Telecom Council serves over 500 companies each year, through 40 meetings and several online tools. Of those 500, we have 75 member companies which cross the entire telecom ecosystem – from fixed to wireless, from major carriers to self-funded startups, and from global conglomerates to local entrepreneurs. All of our members are listed on our website along with attendee lists from meetings past. I would like to call special attention to our Executive Members however, since they guide the Council and our activities: Swisscom, Qualcomm, HP, Huawei, Ericsson, Norwest Venture Partners, and Fuse Capital.

What is the role of the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley within the industry?

Our role is to bring people together – I know that sounds like a dating service, but the purpose of getting the right people together is to improve the knowledge and communication across all different parts of telecom and move the Industry forward as a whole. We put the right decision makers in the room, and they do the rest. Simply look at our attendee lists online, and you will see what I mean.

Why should people care about the SPIFFY awards?

A SPIFFY Award indicates that a company has a solid, quantified interest from a group of over 20 carriers from around the world. It doesn’t guarantee success, but it does indicate that several operators see promise in the product or service. That means a lot to a telecom startup and should help them attract investment and customers.

See details for the event here

Debunking Top Five Myths of B2B Word-of-Mouth Marketing

Antonio Altamirano — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 23:11:38 +0000

In this post we are going to debunk the the top five myths around B2B word-of-mouth marketing.

Word of Mouth (WOM) is the “world’s most powerful sales tool,” according to Neilsen. Today, thanks to social media like blogs, social networks, Twitter and more, word-of-mouth is more influential than ever. But is word-of-mouth effective in B2B environments?

Myth #1: WOM is not influential in B2B.

Fact: WOM is the #1 influencer of B2B purchase decisions.

Word-of-Mouth Forrester Study

Few B2B customers ever buy anything without first asking their peers or colleagues about their experiences with the vendor and/or product. In a recent survey of B2B decision makers by Forrester Research, 84% of respondents said Word of Mouth recommendations influence their purchase decisions. While nearly all B2B companies have blogs, only 24% of respondents said they trust blogs. Other research firms also have found that WOM rules in B2B.

Myth #2: Businesspeople are not active users of social media.

Fact: Businesspeople are 2X to 3X more socially active than consumers.

Forrester recently surveyed B2B buyers to learn about their usage of social media. The results were stunning. B2B buyers are actually three times more active creators of social media and twice as active consumers of social content, the survey found.

Based on the survey results, Forrester told B2B marketers: If you’re not using word-of-mouth and social media as part of your marketing mix, you’re late to the party.

Myth #3: Businesspeople don’t advocate companies and products.

Fact: Businesspeople are more active advocates of companies and products than consumers.

Another myth that has pervaded B2B marketing is that businesspeople don’t advocate companies and products. In fact, B2B executives are more active recommenders than consumers, according to a study conducted by WOM research firm Keller Fay.

The study showed that business executives have 118 WOM conversations weekly compared to 100 for consumers. On average, executives mentioned 102 brands times per week compared to 77 for consumers. In 61% of the WOM conversations, executives recommended a brand or product to a peer or colleague.

40% of B2B Buyers are Advocates

Zuberance has conducted interviews with thousands of business decision makers to find out how likely they are to recommend the companies they do business with and products they’ve purchased.

On average, about 40% of customers are Advocates; they are highly likely to recommend. Survey results for eight B2B companies are shown in the chart to the right. The percentage of Advocates for these eight companies ranges from 25% of customers of a communications equipment company to 61% of customers of a broadband service provider.

Myth #4: B2B companies only have a few Advocates.

Fact: B2B companies have many Advocates.

As B2B marketers know, within a single account there are multiple people who spread Word of Mouth. This includes end users, gate keepers, technical buyers, decision makers, and others. While some are more influential than others, all of these people are part of a Word of Mouth Community within an account.

At a single enterprise account, there may be 500 people who are part of a Word of Mouth community. Thus, a B2B company that has 100 customers may have a total Word of mouth community of 50,000 people (100 accounts x 500 people.)

Assuming that 40% of these people are Advocates, the company could have 20,000 Advocates (40% of 50,000). This is a large, highly influential, yet under-leveraged Virtual Salesforce. By energizing their Advocates, B2B companies can amplify positive Word of Mouth and drive qualified referral leads and sales.

Myth #5: The impact of Word of Mouth can’t be measured.

Fact: The impact of Word of Mouth can be measured as precisely as any form of online marketing.

There are dozens of tools that enable B2B marketers to measure the quantity and quality of Word of Mouth about their companies and products in the blogosphere and on social networks like Twitter.

Advanced Word of Mouth analytics enable B2B marketers to go beyond measuring buzz to measuring business and marketing results. For example, advanced analytics track Advocate impact on open rates, click through rates, and conversion rates. These advanced analytics enable marketers to harness the proven power of Word of Mouth and track its impact as precisely as a PPC or email marketing campaign

Help us fundraise for the kids: Zuberance will give $1 every time a new fan joins our Facebook page

Antonio Altamirano — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 17:45:08 +0000

Today Zuberance will be taking part in the First Annual Three Kings’ Day Online Fundraiser organized by Latism.

Zuberance will be donating $1 every time a new fan joins our Facebook page.

The goal is to reach 250 within the first hour.

Zuberance on Facebook

Who is the beneficiary of the Fundraiser?

The Children’s Aid Society

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)

How to get involved?

Go to our Facebook page today and become a fan.

Once you’ve done that you can leave us a quick message in the wall letting us know you are a fan or you can send out a tweet to @zuberance. This is not required but it will help us keep track of the activity.

Who are you helping?

You are helping kids in need. You are giving them the opportunity to celebrate the holidays with warm food and presents.

By becoming a fan of Zuberance you are automatically contributing to the fundraiser. Every time one more person becomes a fan, it adds an extra dollar to the contribution that we are prepared to make.

Zuberance: Nominated to Award for Best Communication Solution by Telecom Council of Silicon Valley

Antonio Altamirano — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:37:17 +0000

We have been nominated for a prestigious 2010 SPIFFY award from the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley’s Service Provider Forum.

The Telecom Council of Silicon Valley’s Service Provider Forum includes 20 global service providers such as AT&T, British Telecom, DoCoMo, France Telecom/Orange, Swisscom, Verizon, and many other fixed and wireless carriers from Europe, Asia, and North and South America. SPIFFY nominees were selected from among 100 start-up companies who presented in Telecom Council meetings in 2009.

SPIFFY nominations indicate a startup has innovation, opportunity, and a quantifiable interest among members of the Telecom Council. Winners will be announced at the SPIFFY awards ceremony on February 25, 2010 in Palo Alto.

“Zuberance is enabling service providers plus many other companies across multiple industries to engage and mobilize their Brand Advocates, leveraging the Groundswell power of Word of Mouth and social media,” said Elizabeth Kerton, president, the Telecom Council of Silicon Valley. “Telecom Council members were impressed by the measurable business results that Zuberance is delivering to telecom service providers,” said Kerton.

“We are honored to be chosen as a SPIFFY award nominee,” said Rob Fuggetta, Founder & CEO of Zuberance. “Our real-world research and experience with leading telecom service providers shows that a surprisingly high percentage of their customers – as many as one-third or more – are likely to recommend them. Zuberance is enabling service providers to turn these enthusiastic consumers and business users into a Virtual Salesforce, cost-effectively boosting awareness and demand,” said Fuggetta.

Please take a look at the press release for more information.

The event will take place on February 25th, 2010 at the Aquarius Theater in Palo Alto, CA

Check out the plan (@plancast) here!