Rob Fuggetta, founder & CEO of Zuberance, will be the guest speaker at the upcoming Northern California chapter meeting of the Marketing Executives Networking Group (MENG.)

Date: Thurs, Jan 19, 2012

Time: 6:30pm

Location: Parc 55 Wyndham Hotel, San Francisco

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Customer advocacy is the #1 priority for Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) worldwide, according to a recent IBM study. Fuggetta’s presentation, which is entitled “Turning Advocates into a Powerful Marketing Force,” will feature real-world case studies about how companies like Intuit, CDW, Rubio’s Fresh Mexican Grill and many others are leveraging their most enthusiastic customers to spread positive Word of Mouth and drive sales.

About the Speaker

Rob Fuggetta is the leading expert on brand advocacy and has more than 20 years of marketing leadership experience.  He is a former partner at Regis McKenna, the legendary Silicon Valley technology marketing and communications firm, where he co-led the global Apple account.  He later became the CMO at Genuity, a Verizon spin-out which went public in June 2000.  Fuggetta is the author of “Brand Advocates: Turning Enthusiastic Customers into a Powerful Marketing Force” to be published by John Wiley & Sons in 2012.

This article was originally posted on McKinsey&Company’s Chief Marketing and Sales Officer Forum.

In this interview, Rob Fuggetta, the founder and CEO of Zuberance, discusses the role of brand advocacy in driving growth at the end of the customer decision journey.

In search of the holy grail: authentic recommendations

“In the social media age, the holy grail for marketing leaders is getting customers to authentically recommend you. Or as Antonio Lucio (Global chief marketing, strategy and corporate development officer, Visa Inc.) recently said, ‘recommendations have become the new advertising.’

The most critical element of brand advocacy is authenticity. That’s why we (Zuberance) strongly recommend to brands that they never pay or reward their advocates. The moment someone knows you’re being paid to advocate for something, it immediately devalues their recommendation. From our research, we know that the number one reason people recommend is that they want to help others. If you have a good experience, you want to tell others. Social media multiplies that effect. You just have to make it easy for your brand advocates to do.”

CMOs have fallen behind their customers

“There certainly are plenty of challenges in developing brand advocates. Some brands and industries just don’t attract passionate buyers. In other cases brands don’t have a direct relationship with their buyers. But the most critical issue in my experience is that many marketing leaders don’t fully understand social media and its potential for driving brand advocacy. They’re still trying to get their minds around SEO. But the customer is way ahead of them.

Many consumers ignore paid and owned media, and instead turn to earned media. But up to 70 percent to 90 percent of marketing spend still goes to advertising and promotions. Marketers are setting up Facebook pages and spending a lot of effort and money trying to followers. Or they’re using Twitter for customer support but they’re not thinking in terms of advocacy and harnessing the power of their customers.

But I really think this goes beyond the CMO. The question of brand advocacy should be at the top of the CEO agenda as well. Advocacy is strategic. Advocates drive profits. Companies with happy customers grow faster than those without. It just makes sense to me. You have to evangelize evangelism.”

Converging media help conversions

“Any marketing leader launching a new product needs to figure out how to integrate earned media into their mix of owned and paid media. There is no question that consumers trust earned media significantly more than paid or owned media. In a Nielsen survey from 2009, 90 percent of consumers said they trusted recommendations from people they knew. What’s really interesting, however, is the convergence of these three media mix types, and how that can help drive conversion rates.

We tried this with Tivo, a client of ours. We found brand advocates – those who were passionate about Tivo – and provided them a way to easily share a video about a new product, Tivo Premiere, with their friends. There was no offer, no cash reward – we just made it easy.

Based on our tracking, 5 percent of the people who received the video actually went to Tivo and purchased Tivo Premiere. Many marketing programs have sales conversion rates of less than 1 percent. Not only did Tivo see a good transaction rate, they also earned higher margins because they didn’t have to sell through 3rd parties because consumers go straight to their site.”

Creating a culture of customer obsession

“Often times I see companies act to optimize short-term profits at the expense of advocacy. They cut back on services or maintenance, or provide fewer checkout people. In their desire to generate profits, companies are often destroying the very thing that made them a great company.

People at Virgin, Nordstroms, Jet Blue get that. Intuit has done a great job of creating a culture of customer obsession. They’ve been asking their customers for years ‘how likely will you recommend this product to a friend?’ In the past, companies could get away with bad service. But today, word of mouth spreads like wildfire with social media. It’s not like what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas anymore; today it’s what happens in Vegas stays on Facebook.”

Check out the recording below from our recent webinar on “Turning Fans and Followers into Brand Advocates” where marketing experts shared best practices on leveraging your fans, followers, and customers to recommend your brand and products to their networks.

Speakers:

Getting more fans and followers is great. Finding your Brand Advocates and energizing them to generate Social Recommendations is even better.

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Date: Wed, Oct 26, 2011
Time: 11am-12pm PST
Twitter hashtag: #LikesToLeads
Sponsors: Zuberance & Gleanster

Many marketers today are focused on building their social following on Facebook, Twitter, and other channels. However, clicking a ubiquitous “Like” or “Follow” button is the lowest common denominator when it comes to showing brand affinity. To gain true social marketing value, companies should identify their most enthusiastic fans and followers (AKA Brand Advocates) and energize them to share recommendations to their social networks. That’s exactly what Top Performers are doing, according to new Gleanster research. How they’re doing it, what technologies, business processes, and organizational resources they’re implementing, what metrics they’re using to track and measure success, and what specific business benefits they’re deriving as a result of their efforts are the focus of this webinar.

Register for the webinar and learn how to:

• Identify your Brand Advocates amongst your fans and followers
• Turn likes into leads
• Reduce customer acquisition costs via your fans and followers
• Energize your fans to generate social recommendations

Featured Speakers:

• Umang Shah (@umang_shah), Social Strategist, Microsoft
• Jeff Zabin (@jeffzabin), Research Director, Gleanster
• Rob Fuggetta (@robfuggetta), Founder/CEO, Zuberance

All registrants will receive a free copy of:

• How Top Performers Leverage Social Networking to Mobilize Brand Advocacy – Gleanster Report
• Turning Fans & Followers into Brand Advocates – Zuberance Report

About the Speakers

Umang Shah, Social Strategist, Microsoft

Umang Shah is a Social Strategist at Microsoft, responsible for engaging customers and partners in the US Small and Midsize Business market.  Prior to Microsoft, he founded Cubed Consulting, a small Integrated Marketing consultancy providing services to emerging and evolving businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area.  During his time at the Xerox Corporation, Umang became a recognized Thought Leader in Customer Marketing and Social Media.  He led a Digital Marketing Team (unofficially) tasked with “making Xerox cool again” through the creative application of emergent technologies.  Umang has served as the Social Media Strategy Advisor to VC Taskforce and was also responsible for launching innovative Customer Marketing programs for BEA Systems and VMware.  Umang is currently based in Bellevue, WA.

Jeff Zabin, Research Director, Gleanster

Jeff Zabin is research director at Gleanster, where his coverage includes social media marketing and monitoring. Until December 2009, he served as vice president and research fellow at Aberdeen Group. Zabin is the author of two bestselling business books: The Seven Steps to Nirvana and Precision Marketing. He has written more than a hundred influential articles in leading trade magazines as well as dozens of popular industry reports. Prior to joining Aberdeen in 2007, Zabin headed up product marketing and led the thought leadership program for the Global Marketing Solutions division of Fair Isaac (FICO) and served as vice president of marketing at Seurat Company, which was acquired by FICO in 2003. Zabin began his career in educational publishing, at Houghton Mifflin, and later served as a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Bolivia. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Rob Fuggetta, Founder/CEO, Zuberance

Rob Fuggetta, the founder and CEO of Zuberance, has more than 20 years of experience in Word of Mouth marketing, His WOM strategies have created marketing success for Apple, Intuit, Norton, and many others. Fuggetta is a frequent speaker and author of an upcoming book, “Energize! How to Turn Social Media & Word of Mouth into Sales by Energizing Brand Advocates.”

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The following is an excerpt from the upcoming book, “Energize! How to Turn Fans, Followers, and Loyal Customers into Social Media Marketing Machines,” by Rob Fuggetta, Founder & CEO, Zuberance.

George Hamma is an owner of a BMW MINI. But there’s nothing small about his passion for his beloved car.

Hamma, a youthful-looking 65, enthusiastically recommends MINI to hundreds of his friends, co-workers, and even complete strangers.

The Sunnyvale, CA resident is an active member of the Northern California chapter of the MINI owner’s club. He also shares his passion for MINI on his Facebook page, Twitter @ghamma, and on his personal website, where Hamma – an avid photographer – posts photos of MINI owners’ rallies.

Hamma is an active participant at NorthAmericanMotoring.com, a site where MINI owners meet to talk about their cars and motoring (about 16,500 members). Hamma has engaged in hundreds of conversations with current and (possibly) future MINI owners.

That’s George in the photo standing proudly next to his MINI, a 2011 MINI Cooper S Countryman ALL4, which he named “Fenton” in honor of a local ice cream parlor where his favorite flavor is also black and tan like his MINI.

MINI’s Super Salesperson

As a direct result of his advocacy, six friends have bought MINI’s. At about $35,000 per MINI, Hamma has generated about $200,000 in revenues for BMW, making Hamma one of MINI’s best – and certainly one of its most cost-effective  – sales people.

MINI hasn’t given Hamma anything – not even a MINI t-shirt or key chain – in exchange for his advocacy. “I recommend MINI because it’s fun to drive. It’s a great product,” says Hamma. “Every time I drive my MINI, I get a big smile on my face,” he adds.

Hamma says he’s such an effective Advocate of MINI that his local MINI dealership has suggested he join their sales team.

“My local MINI dealership wants me to come in and sell MINIs for them,” laughs Hamma. “Hmmm…wonder how much that pays?” he chuckles.

Singing MINI’s Praises

A while back, Hamma enthusiastically recommended MINI to a fellow member of a professional chorus.

“I’m not kidding. The very next week she shows up at chorus practice in her new MINI. Same model as mine,” Hamma says.

Mad about Motoring

Hamma is a car enthusiast who drove BMW cars in the 1960s and 70s on the rally circuit. He occasionally takes lunch breaks from his job as a senior product tester at a Silicon Valley tech company by driving his MINI “quickly around twisty little roads” near the company.

“The other day I went over there and thrashed it pretty good. I came back to the office with a big smile on my face,” he says.

MAXImum Word of Mouth

MINI is one of those passion brands with millions of Advocates and enthusiasts like Hamma. MINI stokes this passion with the MINI Owner’s Lounge, a private, online community for MINI owners; MINI owner rallies and special events; online reviews and more. Plus, MINI gets plenty of organic positive Word of Mouth from user-created online communities, forums, events, and more.

MINI Hazard

One of the few drawbacks of owning a MINI, Hamma says, is that it has caused him to have a sore right shoulder.

“Every now and then, my wife will remind me if I’m driving a little too fast,” chuckles Hamma.

An occasional sore shoulder is a small price to pay for the fun of driving his black and tan MINI, says Hamma. “I tell all my friends and colleagues: If you want to have fun driving, go get yourself a MINI. You will not regret it,” he says.

Read more: “Energize! How to Turn Fans, Followers, and Loyal Customers into Social Media Marketing Machines”

Read more: Extreme Brand Advocate Stories

-Rob Fuggetta, Founder/CEO, Zuberance

Below is the recording from our recent webinar on “Secrets of B2B Social Media & Word of Mouth Marketing” during which top marketers with a breadth of experience running B2B marketing shared social media success stories from brands like Intuit, Adobe, Microsoft, and CDW.

We also conducted a poll during the webinar and asked the audience, “How much of your business comes from Word of Mouth?” ANSWER: 48% say that 50% or more of their business comes from WOM. (See results below.)

Make sure to download our “Top 5 Myths of B2B Word of Mouth” whitepaper.

-Cara Fuggetta, Marketing Manager, Zuberance

Need more evidence that Word of Mouth is the most powerful driver of business for B2B marketers?

48% of B2B marketers say half or more of their business comes from Word of Mouth, according to a new Zuberance poll.

We conducted the poll during our September 21, 2011 webinar, “Secrets of B2B Social Media and Word of Mouth marketing.”

-Rob Fuggetta, Founder/CEO, Zuberance

The following is an excerpt from the upcoming book, “Energize! How to Turn Fans, Followers, and Loyal Customers into Social Media Marketing Machines,” by Rob Fuggetta, Founder & CEO, Zuberance.

Most people assume that advocacy is limited only to sexy or cool brands like Apple, Starbucks, or Porsche. Not true. Advocates of business brands can also be just as enthusiastic.

Hard-Core CDW Advocate: Justin Dorfman

Justin Dorfman is a self-described “hard-core CDW Advocate.” (CDW is a leading provider of technology solutions for business, government, education, and healthcare. Ranked No. 38 on Forbes’ list of America’s Largest Private Companies, CDW features dedicated account managers who help customers choose the right technology products and services to meet their needs.)

Dorfman, 26, is a support engineer for NetDNA, a content delivery network based in Los Angeles. Dorfman’s passion for CDW was ignited back in 2004 when he bought his first product – a RAID controller, a device that manages physical disk drives – from CDW while working for Western Costume Company, a costume warehouse in Hollywood. He was so impressed with CDW’s responsiveness and customer service that he said: “Oh my God, I’m in love with this company.”

The Interal CDW Champion

Since then, he’s purchased hundreds of thousands of dollars of computer gear from CDW while serving in IT positions for other companies. For example, when he started a new position as a junior systems engineer in December 2009 at Mahalo, he started buying gear from CDW. “I turned Mahalo into a CDW customer,” says Dorfman. In the 16 months he was at Mahalo, the company purchased about $200,000 in computer gear from CDW, largely as a result of Dorfman’s enthusiastic advocacy.

CDW has never paid Dorfman for his recommendations. “I put my reputation on the line for CDW and they’ve stood by me. They deliver every time,” says Dorfman. He adds: “They’re reliable. They don’t lie. You get your own account manager. There’s no calling and waiting on hold. They care for IT professionals. They know what we’re up against. They really get it.”

Establishing Advocate Relationships

Dorfman has become Facebook friends with CDW Senior Account Manager, Matt Cipolla. Cipolla has even recommended Dorfman on LinkedIn. “We know each other’s girlfriend’s names. We’re on a first-name basis. You’re just not going to get that from other IT companies,” says Dorfman.

In addition to evangelizing CDW to colleagues and friends offline, Dorfman recommends CDW online on Twitter (@jdorfman, where he has 443 followers as of July 2011;) by re-Tweeting CDW’s content and deals; talking them up on his blog (blog.justindorfman.com); his personal website Frugal IT; and on Spiceworks, an online community for IT professionals, where he created a “I love CDW” icon.

Lauren McCadney, Sr. Segment Marketing Manager for CDW, says: “I believe he (Justin) has come to represent the future of marketing:  influential Brand Advocates that establish a personal relationship with their favorite brands.  I’ve worked him for more years than I can count. And it was only in the last five years that I’ve come to really know customers like Justin as both a source of consumer insight but also as a friend.”

Read more: “Energize! How to Turn Fans, Followers, and Loyal Customers into Social Media Marketing Machines”

Read more: Extreme Brand Advocate Stories

-Rob Fuggetta, Founder/CEO, Zuberance

The following is an excerpt from the upcoming book, “Energize! How to Turn Fans, Followers, and Loyal Customers into Social Media Marketing Machines,” by Rob Fuggetta, Founder & CEO, Zuberance.

Melody Overton of Seattle is such a passionate Starbucks Advocate that her moniker is “Starbucks Melody.”

“I’ve been called Starbucks Melody even when I’m in the courtroom,” laughs Overton, an attorney who works in downtown Seattle, not far from where Starbucks was founded at Pike Place Market in March 1971.

Starbucks has more than 24 million fans on Facebook and 1.6 million Twitter followers, as of August 2011. But it’s hard to imagine any Starbucks customer more knowledgeable or passionate about Starbucks than Starbucks Melody.

Overton probably knows more about Starbucks than most Starbucks employees including their baristas (not unusual for Advocates of Starbucks and other brands.) When Overton talks about Starbucks, you can hear the excitement in her voice, like she’s had a few too many lattes.

Overton is the author of a popular blog all about Starbucks entitled “StarbucksMelody.com.” She also tweets about Starbucks (@SbuxMel), where she has about 4,000 followers. Overton is not a Starbucks employee or paid consultant. “I’m not on Starbucks’ payroll. They’ve never even given me a gift card,” she points out. Instead, like millions of other Advocates of other brands, Overton recommends Starbucks because she wants to share her authentic enthusiasm for Starbucks with others.

A Passion for Coffee

“I have a passion for coffee,” says Overton, who visits her local Starbucks “ritualistically twice a day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon.” Her favorite Starbucks coffees are the reserve blends prepared in Starbucks Clover® brewing system, found in some Starbucks stores. On those rare warm summer afternoons in Seattle – for Seattle, that means anything over 70 degrees – Overton likes drinking Starbucks iced passion tea or iced green tea.

“I like the way it (coffee) really has the ability to bring people together,” writes Overton in her blog. “I like the conversations around it. I like being able to have a common ground to connect with people about. Most of all, I fall in love with those moments when you can see some deep joy in a person’s eyes over discovering a new coffee, learning about coffee, or just hanging around the coffee – even if not drinking it.”

Her favorite Starbucks store? “Oooh, that’s a tough question. But like I’ve said on my blog, very high up there would be the store at First & Pike in Seattle, at the entrance to the Pike Place Market. It has beautiful design. The customer service is good. And it was the first Starbucks store to get two Clovers,” Overton says.

Melody Gets “Totally Sucked In”

Overton’s love affair with Starbucks began when she moved to Seattle in 1989 from nearby Tacoma, Washington, where she was in the air force. Overton’s attraction to Starbucks was as strong as Starbuck’s Italian roast.

Overton’s passion for Starbucks kicked into high gear in 2008, when Howard Shultz came out of retirement to the revive the faltering company, which he said had lost some of its “romance” and “soul” as it became a global behemoth. In a highly unusual move, Starbucks actually closed down all of its stores on February 26, 2008 for one evening to train its baristas.

“2008 just rattled me. What an insane year that was for me, as a Starbucks lover. I said to myself: ‘Wow, this is really cool.’ I just got totally sucked in. I became so excited about Starbucks,” says Overton. She was particularly impressed by the launch in April 2008 of MyStarbucksidea.com, Starbucks’s first online community. “I loved it! I felt like I really had a voice; that I could connect with Starbucks and with other people like me and make a difference,” she says.

Melody’s Most Memorable Starbucks Moment

Overton’s most memorable Starbucks moment occurred three years later in January 2011, when she attended the official unveiling of Starbucks’s updated logo. “That was amazing,” says Overton, one of only three consumers Starbucks invited to the event, held at the company’s headquarters in Seattle. “Oh my God, I even got my picture taken with (Starbucks CEO) Howard Shultz. When I walked out of there I was on cloud nine. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven,” she gushes.

Rampant Starbucks Advocacy

Overton continues advocating Starbucks today to readers of her blog, Twitter followers, family, friends, colleagues, and just about anyone who’ll listen. “I’ve been known to randomly bring up Starbucks in all sorts of places, even when I’m sitting in a hair salon,” laughs Overton.

“The hardest people to sell Starbucks to aren’t in Seattle,” says Overton. “People here are hugely over-caffeinated,” she states. “My biggest accomplishment was when I got my sister-in-law, who lives in southern California, to drink a Starbucks pumpkin spice latte,” says Overton.

Exactly how many people has Overton converted to the Starbucks religion as a result of her rampant advocacy? “Hmmm, I’m not sure. It’s probably in the hundreds, or more.”

“I’ll have to ponder that over a French press,” she chuckles.

Read more: “Energize! How to Turn Fans, Followers, and Loyal Customers into Social Media Marketing Machines”

Read more: Extreme Brand Advocate Stories

-Rob Fuggetta, Founder/CEO, Zuberance

My biggest inspiration at Zuberance has always been our customers like Intuit, Rubio’s, and CDW and their fanatical Brand Advocates.

Now, I’m putting their stories in a book, entitled “Energize! How to Turn Fans, Followers, and Enthusiastic Customers into Social Media Marketing Machines.”

In the coming weeks, you’ll get sneak previews of the book here on the ZuberRants blog.

WHY ENERGIZE!?

There are lots of books about social media.

(My friend Michael Brito has a new book called “Smart Business, Social Business.” I highly recommend it.)

But until now, there hasn’t been a book on how to turn Advocates into a marketing force.

Energize! fills that gap.

BEYOND SOCIAL MEDIA

Energize! isn’t a social media marketing book, per se.

It’s about passionate Brand Advocates like George Hamma, an avid BMW Mini Advocate whose enthusiastic recommendations have inspired five friends to buy their own Mini’s, worth about $200,000 to BMW; Melody Overton (AKA “Starbucks Melody”), a Seattle attorney who is a walking Starbucks encyclopedia and who knows more about Starbucks than its baristas; and Justin Dorfman, a CDW Champion, whose enthusiastic recommendations have driven several hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales for the online IT retailer. (Read: Extreme Brand Advocate Stories.)

And it’s about innovative marketers and visionary business leaders that are transforming their companies and delivering ground-breaking marketing results by activating their Brand Armies. People like Lauren McCadney, who is championing advocacy at CDW; Porter Gale, a social media rock-star and former CMO at Virgin America; and Eric Ryan, the CEO of Method Products, whose avid customers (“People Against Dirty”) have turned household cleaners into a social movement.

A HANDBOOK FOR BRAND ADVOCACY

Today, as the power has shifted from marketers to social-media powered consumers, getting more “social recommendations” (recommendations on the social web) has become the Holy Grail. Seventy-one percent of marketers say advocacy is now a top priority.

Energize! will show you how.

You’ll learn how to energize your Brand Army by getting them to recommend your brand and products via reviews, stories, answers to prospects’ questions, sharing promotional offers and content, and more.

Energize! will feature more than 100 real-world case studies, profiles of Brand Advocates and marketers, plus tips and tricks on how to build and activate your Brand Army.

I hope you have as much fun reading Energize! as I’m having writing it.

Stay tuned.

-Rob Fuggetta, Founder/CEO, Zuberance