All companies in business today are agressively searching for a soluion to paricipate in a relationship with their customers.
There are several helpful sections provided by the authors:
- The segmentation of participants by Social Technographics - classifies people according to how they use social technology. Creators, Critics, Collectors, Joiners, Spectators and Inactives. Having recently worked with a client to better understand how their customers use technology in their daily life and their interaction with my client's brand. What we found was that the segmentation and definitions provided by Groundswell matched closely to what we found with our clients.
- Secondly, providing a monetary approach that can provide justification for tactics that are hard to describe, locate online, participate in and ultimately learn and apply to our client's business issues.
I beleve acknowledging the fact that this area of communication is one that will not be going away and will only be getting larger is a healthy and smart approach to future communication. I don't believe in stark statements such as "if you don't do this now, you'll lose." I do believe that postponing your participation in this space will cause your company to be at a competitive disadvantage in the future.
Using fundamental marketing mix budgeting techniques, I would suggest that an earmark of 10%-15% for customer engagement opportunities is appropriate in today's marketing environment. Another concept that needs inclusion in the strategic planning process, is the understanding or realization that engaging in this area will provide an opportunity to impact research and development, lowerng operational expenses, and in most cases can self-liquidate the investment. Normally, clients are hesitant to particpate for several reasons that range from unclear results, the coverage of work usually expands beyond the marketing department, and the workload puts a strain on limited resources within most marketing departments today. Those are valid challenges - they need to be addressed and resolved. I do believe company's that develop solutions to deal with the expanded reach Web 2.0 initiaitves have within a company will position themselves for success in the future.
More to come on Groundswell and other insights.
