Does brand advocacy matter? Of course it does, and in the age of consumer control, it's more
important than ever. Every CMO leading a brand that even remotely
touches the digital space would be well advised write this on the
chalkboard 100 times. This is the thesis of my ClickZ column this morning. Among my key points.
Brand advocacy matters today because it precipitates an indelible
digital trail of commentary that publicly rewards or indicts brand
performance or the fulfillment of brand promises. This digital trail
acts like media in both intimate and incidental ways, consistently
affecting awareness, trail, and ultimately purchase of products -- or
the defection from them. And yes, this has everything to do with
business growth and health.
Back in business school, my service management professor James Heskett
constantly reminded us that keeping customers satisfied over a long
time dramatically impacts profitability on many levels. Profit
increases from price premiums, increased purchases, and even reduced
operating costs. But equally important, profit from so-called referrals
also increases over the lifespan of the customer relationship. Heskett
and his Harvard Business School colleague Earl Sasser hit this point
hard in their more recent book, "The Value Profit Chain."
Today we have an environment in which barriers
to providing feedback have virtually disappeared. Moreover, the choice
of megaphones for expressing satisfaction and dissatisfied is almost
limitless. To name just a few: blogs, forums, video, photos, social
networking pages, mobile Web 2.0 apps, and even Twitter.
What Drives Propensity to Recommend?
With the referral spectrum expanding and leaving a digital trail in
the process, brands must take a long look in the mirror and ask
themselves: what are the root drivers of advocacy? For eight years,
I've monitored CGM (define)
and online feedback. What I've consistently noticed, across virtually
every category, is that overall product experience -- not the cute buzz
campaign -- motivates advocacy. And most of the triggers occur offline,
not via that one-trick-pony, the viral video campaign:
According to the above data, if you really want to do word-of-mouth
marketing well, you're better off investing your attention on the
boring stuff, like product performance, employee training, quality, and
especially customer service. Certainly quite a few tactics and strategies can help you reap even
higher conversational or CGM returns from preexisting advocacy levels.
Blogs, CGM campaigns, influencer marketing, and online communities all
matter. But to have great potential and bring enduring, sustainable
value to the brand, they must sit on a solid foundation. Don't believe
me. Just search for your brand on Google or Wikipedia.
And remember, consumers on the extreme end of dissatisfaction can't
be ignored in this environment. Negative advocacy bleeds across the
Web. Consumers you've pushed to the dark side because of bad
experiences or mismanaged expectations can wreak havoc -- in perpetuity. Anger is an emotion, and, like it or not, emotion and conversation
have a symbiotic relationship. Conversation drives links, and links
translate into more optimized shelf-positioning on search results,
which increases the odds that other searchers will be met with brand
venom.
Measuring and Acting on the Insights: But there's a silver lining: this is all quantifiable. In the end,
we need strong, compelling metrics to ensure we're monitoring brand
advocacy levels. Metrics can range from informal "what's the pulse of
my consumer" searches to more involved Net Promoter or Online Promoter
scores. Lately I've been drawing attention to what I call the brand
advocacy quotient (BAQ). The BAQ looks at many data sources, including
unaided CGM (boards, blogs, forums), aided survey data (e.g., are you
likely to recommend this brand, and for what reason?), and even site
metered data to pinpoint advocacy depth.
In the end, we want not only a reliable long-term score card around
advocacy but also an understanding of the specific talk drivers that
compel consumers to reach out, recommend, create CGM, and talk around
the water cooler. In some categories, such as restaurant and casual
dining, the front counter experience is the number one advocacy driver.
In higher-involvement categories like financial services, electronics,
and wireless, it's customer service.
At the end of the day, if we want to see positive vibes about our
brand in the so-called conversation, we must dive deeper into the core
building blocks of product experience.
Nurturing advocacy also means rethinking what it means to truly
listen and respond to consumers. Brand advocates feel a deeper level of
intimate connection with the brand that listens to or dignifies their
voices, so we must ask harder questions about whether "being heard" is
worth the infrastructure investment.
We must always bear in mind the cost of not listening; the more
consumers feel like they aren't heard, the louder they get by
cross-posting, videocasting, typing in all capital letters, turning to
things like Twitter or The Consumerist, where they know they'll get a bigger audience. This is precisely the topic of my forthcoming book, "Satisfied Customers Tell Three Friends, Angry Customers Tell 3,000."
Setting up a corporate blog or CGM contest is a good entry point, but
it's not a panacea. Listening requires full attention and commitment.
However you look at it, loyalty isn't enough anymore. There's just
too much at stake in the flow of positive and negative commentary
consumers leave across the Web.
Yes, advocacy matters.
This evening, after reading a thoughtful post on viral marketing by respected blogger B.L. Ochman, I attempted to toss in a short and sweet "great post" comment. Before it could go up, I had to type in the term -- I hope I get this right -- BROWNLABRADOODLE. You've got to be kidding, I kept muttering to myself. Of course I promptly and predictably flubbed the spelling of this tongue-twister-on-steroids on the first two go-arounds, eliciting this annoying "error" message. Of course, this is just the tip of the iceberg. For some blogs, you practically need magnifying glasses (and a code-breaker) to figure out the weird bends and contortions of letters embedded in the cryptic words. It all borders on tragic. To keep our airwaves clean, we now have little choice but to subject consumers or users to what we might refer to as a "Conversational Customs Office." 
