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Authenticity: The Future for Marketers & Affiliates
We live in a world of quiet wars. A world where affiliates are assaulted by merchants, cut out of innovative deals with portals by networks. These are just a few examples. There are many other similar wars going on and many are being fought quietly. Being an affiliate (value added pre-seller) or a retailer isn’t easy. In either case you’re pushing someone else’s product and you’ve got all kinds of competition coming at you!
So how to be different, stand out, earn customers’ attention and ultimately their trust? Simple: Be authentic.
Recently, I suggested most marketers are quite content to be less experimental when it comes to reinventing their business model. Duh. Yet I also believe that re-invention is NOT necessary in most cases. One can still transform his or her business without gutting it. All it takes, in many cases, is a shot in the arm. Never underestimate the power of being perceived as authentic.
Elements of new models (i.e. crowdsourcing) are powerful enough to be blended with existing marketing models to create a one-two “authenticity” punch. I’m not alone in seeing things this way.
According to media analyst and blogger Jeff Jarvis (Buzzmachine.com), the kind of entrepreneurial happenstance that crowdsourcing feeds on is what marketers should be noticing. As media companies and marketers debate over whether it’s content or distribution that is king, Jarvis points to the real issue:
“Trust is king in the kingdom of conversation. You want to participate in what people want to do on their own. You don’t want to extract value, you want to add value. You don’t want to build walls, fences or gardens to keep people from doing what they want to do without you. You want to enable them to do it. You want to join in. And once you get your head around that, you’ll see that you can grow so much bigger so much faster with so much less cost and risk.”
It’s all about authenticity and creating “real” experiences that serve real purposes (those which customers WANT and WILL do with or without your help!).
Let’s look at how one big company does this. As much as it probably would like to, auto insurer Progressive Corp. doesn’t ask its customers and prospects to stop comparing policies and prices. Rather, it boldly offers them assistance in doing so on its Web site. Progressive’s executives realize that prospects WILL shop around no matter what. In accepting this fact Progressive is able to enter a new, innovation friendly mindset. They’re less afraid of being authentic. They’re given more confidence in their product/service. In fact, it lites a fire under the rears of product development staff!
Bottom line: if price-shopping is the goal of their target market — if it’s “how they shop” by nature — then why not take action to help them achieve it? Indeed.
Kelly Mooney, president and CEO of Resource Interactive, an interactive marketing and technology firm, and author of Open Brands and The Ten Demandments: Rules to Live by in the Age of the Demanding Customer, is a proponent of keeping customers loyal through winning their hearts. She says:
“With the rise of the Internet-empowered consumer, brands are increasingly co-created with consumers, whether brands are on board or not. So it’s best to begin engaging your consumers and their communities.”
In the end, helpful acts earn both trust and increased purchase consideration. They’re remarkably authentic and breed good experiences. Participating, in an authentic way bonds otherwise fickle customers to your brand.
8 Comments
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Awesome Jeff.
Progressive - yes, a great example.
Mark
I think I’m more aware of dichotomies than others… my company’s named for it, in hindsight, maybe that’s no accident… anyhow…
Perhaps dichotomy is too strong a word for my next observation, because mutually exclusive would be going overboard… but…
When I read techno-babble, lexicon 2.0 if you will, it screams inauthentic to me…
“crowdsourcing”, really?
Maybe I’m just too fuddy duddy for all you young hipsters.
Sticking with the opposites theme… an unquote from Jerry Maguire for you…
You lost me at crowdsourcing.
Jeff, interesting post. What jumped out at me was your comment about re-invention. I fully agree that we do not need to re-invent anything in this industry. What we need is innovation, and this is what excites me about what we are doing over at MediaTrust and Advaliant.
Innovation trumps invention in existing market spaces and industries. Innovation by definition leads to an increase in value, whether it is revenue, customer service or authenticity. Trust me that I am a huge fan of invention, but from a B2B or B2C market perspective, the companies that can innovate will the the companies to work with and for.
We have recently started using new methods to reach into our customer base to insure higher levels of communication and provide the ability for our customers to make real-time decision and to increase value. We are instituting a social social media strategy to extend our reach, and to be available where the customer is as opposed to making them come to us. We are finalizing the development of a blog supporting knowledge transfer to the community, and we are using channels like Twitter, Facebook and others to increase the connections to affiliates and advertisers.
It has been interesting to see the almost immediate response from the communities to our efforts. I am looking forward to exploring other forms of innovation with regard to our CRM efforts. In a time when consumer-inspired initiatives are at an all-time high, its great to have our ears to the ground where the customers roam.
As a final note, if you will be in Boston at the Affiliate Summit East, I would like to invite you to continue the conversation re: authenticity in an interview with us at Relevantly Speaking. You can reach me by email if interested. I look forward to more postings from you.
@Pat even we young hipsters (I’ve got a month of my 20’s left) are getting tired of it. I’ve got to agree with Brian Oberkirch here:
http://www.brianoberkirch.com/2008/07/09/a-little-less-conversation/
Sam
SH, ahhhh yes. The fluffernutter diet. Isn’t.
Great post. It really has me thinking this morning!
I would say that what many traditional marketers and business have to do is not gutting themselves or their business, but give up some old habits that were not so good habits to begin with.. something that you can realize yourself, if you just take a step back and look at the stuff from a “persons” perspective. …
Did it ever “feel” right and natural as if it was meant to be like this? If your initial instinct tells you “NO”, then you already made a good start.
The rest will follow, if you keep on that track.
Bad habits are persistent and hard to get rid off, but they are usually easy to detect, which makes them much easier to tackle, if you really want to do it.
That’s how I see it.
Jeff, I’ve got to add that you have managed to get me thinking about authenticity for several days. So if my posts seem sarcastic, or even antithetical, there’s also a good heaping of “you made me think” in there too.
I think, like beauty, the eye of the beholder matters greatly. Perhaps why we look at this issue through different colored glasses.
Anyhow, I thought it was out of my mind… then I saw the Budweiser deal in the news last night, bought by InBev of Belgium… I’m a Bud man myself… after the news ended, there was a Bud commercial on, ending with the tagline “A Great American Lager”… and I thought of your thread here… again.
Now I’m thinking about how ephemeral and fragile it can be… strange that a foundational type characteristic can also be those things… another dichotomy… buggers are everywhere!