Can You Market Trust?

by Jay Deragon on 09/22/2009

This entry is part 6 of 8 in the series Convertising

reputationIn an article from Business Week titled  “The Great Trust Offensive” the article says: “Companies as diverse as McDonald’s, Ford, and American Express are revamping their marketing to win back that most valuable of corporate assets” The asset they are referring to is consumer trust.

Prior to this article appearing Chris Brogan released his new book “Trust Agents” which made The New York Times list of best sellers. Chris is currently promoting his new book doing presentations throughout the country.

So it seems that all of a sudden we the people and they the brands had an epiphany and realized that human interaction and building relationships are driven by trust. Why all of a sudden did we wake up to this epiphany? Lets look at the definition of epiphany: a sudden, intuitive perception of or insight into the reality or essential meaning of something, usually initiated by some simple, homely, or commonplace occurrence or experience.

The commonplace occurrence or experience is people interacting with people, sharing, referring and engaging with other people and things they trust. I am not the smartest guy in the world but I think this commonplace occurrence or experience has been happening since we first walked the earth. Now with so much interaction and transparency online why does the  issue of trust seem to becoming more apparent and important?

Recycled Old Wisdom

Trust is a relationship of reliance. A trusted party is presumed to seek to fulfill obligations, words of intent, a code of conduct based on relationship principals and their previous promises.

Trust is a prediction of reliance on an action, based on what a party knows about the other party. Trust is a statement of intent followed through with actions, behaviors and words that reinforce the trustworthiness of someone or an organization. The creation and destruction of trust has been evident throughout the history of mankind. The wisdom of trust has and continues to be evident by the behavior and experience people have with others.

It is kind of ironic that the Business Week article says McDonald’s, Ford, and American Express are revamping their marketing to win back that most valuable of corporate assets. Marketing can indeed send a message that draws attention to why consumers should trust a brand. However,as the article also indicates, it is the behavior and experience of a brand or a person that instills trust over time. Notice emphasis on “instills trust over time“. Trust does not get created simply from marketing messages.

In The Relationship Economy all of our online and off line activity reflects whether our behavior and the experiences we create for people are worthy of their trust.  Trustworthiness is built based on the value of knowledge we share and the experiences we create for and with people. Pushing out spam messages,  bad experiences with brands and people does not reflect or instill trustworthiness. Today the explosion of online conversations threaded throughout the gushing rivers of social media heightens the issue of trust and make it more and more transparent than ever before. In the past if you didn’t trust someone or an organization your sentiment was shared with a few. Today it is shared with many at the click of a mouse.

Can You Market Trust?

When someone tries to sell you trust usually that means “keeps your eyes wide open”. Trust isn’t for sale rather it has been and always will be something earned. Once earned it creates a natural draw because others will reference the person or the experience based on the value they received from the trust they placed in them. We call it convertising.

The best way to market trust is simply to be trustworthy. Get it?

What say you?


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Push And It Will Be Rejected

by Jay Deragon on 09/20/2009

This entry is part 5 of 8 in the series Convertising

A lot has been published about push vs. pull marketing. Everyone knows the difference between the two methods and yet it seems that the market doesn’t comprehend the difference in “results between the two.

While social technologies are relative to “conversational pull” the advertising and marketing industry continues to push.  Every wonder why people still push?

It Is A Numbers Game

Pushing mass media is a game of numbers. The larger the audience you can reach the greater the chances are your “push” message will get attention of 3% whom will find relevance to the “pushed” offering. So the cost of pushing is justified by the 3% return. However the “cost” is not really a representation of “cost” as a whole rather it is justified to warrant the short term results.

Systemic cost are focused on total cost of waste rather than the cost of short term results.  The cost of waste is a longer term consideration and firms focused on building long term value look at the total system quality, cost and the results over the long term.

Relationships take time to build. When was the last time you created a lasting relationship in a thirty second ad, from cluttered communications, from irrelevant content that has no context to people’s interest at the moment of impact? You never have nor will you ever be able to.

The Result of Push

When you push yourself onto people the likely result is a rejection. When you push yourself into a conversation the likely conclusion is you are a rude person. When you try to “push” for results the likelihood is you will work very hard and the results won’t last very long.  Long term results come from short term quality efforts that reflect an understanding and wisdom about relationships.

The age of push marketing is coming to an end. The audience is moving to pull and those unaware are learning quickly the differences. The differences are profound and tap the very nature of human relations. Once tapped the audience immediately recognizes the difference and begins to reject anything “pushed” onto them.  The price of “pushing” just went up considerably with the rapid adoption of social technology.

You Ask Why?

The reason for the shift is that people learn from other people. Education comes from communications, awareness and revelations. Revelations come from communications between and amongst people whom have a relationship, an affinity to each others thoughts and knowledge. Knowledge shared is a powerful “pull” for any audience. But the pull comes from and between people learning together and sharing with each other. The reason for the emerging revelation of the difference between “push” vs. “pull” is because people are communicating their perspectives, their likes and dislikes and millions are listening.

However it seems that institutional thinking and past experiences by advertisers and brands think differently and rely on the old game of numbers to catch a few. The irony is that each passing minute more of the audience is becoming aware and rejecting any kind of push. Keep pushing and the message about your methods will continue to reach the audience and the audience is becoming more influential than the “pushed” message.  Get it?

What say you?

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Pull And It May Be Considered

by Jay Deragon on 09/19/2009

This entry is part 3 of 8 in the series Convertising

When we are conversing with people and our conversation attracts others to engage in the dialog then the participants and topic of discussion may be considered the attraction.

On the other hand when we are conversing with someone and  someone else tries to “push” themselves  into the conversation then most people would consider it rude or anti-social.  Sound familiar?

Advertisers and marketers view social media as a channel to “promote” their offers. Social media is a communications channel for people communicating with other people, in other words conversing.  Viewing social media as an advertising channel is like viewing people’s conversations as targets to “shoot for” within the channel of social media.

We Are Not Targets

It appears as though marketers think all this social stuff gives them “rich targeted data” to “push” their message into our conversations.  Facebook, Twitter, Blogs are all ripe “targets for Google ad sense, brand banners, offers etc. etc.  One wonders if these channels were indeed ripe for advertisers then why is it that 98% of the ads don’t “click”.  The data should speak for itself. A 98% failure rate to engage us in a conversation is a rejection of advertisers trying to “push” themselves into our conversations.

How Could Advertisers Pull?

The ultimate “pull” for brands and merchants is a customer referral. The advertising industry has known this for years and yet some how executives continue to approve of the old “push” method and spend billions while the data clearly shows a rejection to “push” methods.

To pull people to a product or service there has to be:

  1. Market Awareness
  2. Market Consideration
  3. Market Consumption
  4. Market Satisfaction
  5. Market Dialog & Referral

Awareness comes when people learn about who you are and what value you offer. Consideration comes when the market has a need and is aware that you may be able to meet that need. Consumption comes when the market uses your offering. Satisfaction comes when your offering meets or exceeds the markets need. Only after you’ve created awareness, consideration, consumption and satisfaction will the market begin to have dialog about their experience and share that with others (referral).

The old way of getting awareness was to leverage (push) mass media. However today the audience rejects mass media so it isn’t likely to pull the audience to you. Pushing yourself unto an audience isn’t an effective way to gain consideration. Consumption comes after awareness and consideration and your not likely to force consumption by pushing your offering down the throat of consumers. If your offering doesn’t fulfill a need and create better than expected experiences then your not likely to achieve market satisfaction. Without satisfaction any probable dialog and referral is not going to create the right kind of awareness you seek.

Creating pull is a lot harder than simply pushing your offering into peoples conversations. Even if you learned how to use social media to create pull and gain consideration from the audience, if you can’t satisfy a need beyond expectations you are not likely to create good dialog and referrals. Consider it!

What say you?

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What Is Convertising?

by Jay Deragon on 09/18/2009

This entry is part 2 of 8 in the series Convertising

convertisingFrom the early 1920′s mass media has emerged as the dominate method for brands and merchandisers to “reach” their audience.

Mass media denotes a section of the media specifically designed to reach a very large audience such as the population of a nation state. The term was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines.  Since their was no way for an audience to engage in dialog over this method there has been no feedback or interaction until now.

Now with the emergence of social media the audience is expressing it’s dislike of mass media and a preference for “social media”.

Any Evidence That Advertising Doesn’t Work?

Well consider the data:

  1. 1-3% Return from traditional mass media methods
  2. 96% of online ads never get “clicked”
  3. 98% of actual sales come from referrals

Josh Berhoff from Forrester says: “Marketers don’t understand channels where you have to talk and listen at the same time. The marketing industry’s idea of two way communications is to put an 800 number or a web site address in an ad and take orders.”

OK, we’ve already seen this, we already know this so what is the point?  The point is if you already know this why haven’t you changed your methods to “convertising?  You say what is it?

Convertising is simply tapping into the marketplace of conversations and engaging in those conversations with the aim of creating an affinity to what interest people. What interest people? There are a ton of topics that have an affinity to any product or service and there are millions of people discussing those topics. The transformation for marketers and advertisers is that while your product or service may not be the topic the topic may in fact have relevance to your product or service performance.  Still don’t believe so?

Zappo’s conversations were not about shoes rather about service and how they stand behind that which they sell, no questions asked.  Zappo’s sold more shoes just by engaging in dialog around service which just happens to be relevant and relative to people buying shoes.

Convertising is engaging with people where they are, what they are discussing and when they are discussing it. The relevancy of any product or service is people’s experience, people’s interest and if you can engage at those levels you are convertizing.  The difference is you are not selling rather you are conversing with value that relates to peoples need rather than your need to sell.

The opportunity for the Advertising Industry is to create a new image, a new method and capture the value which can be pulled from convertising. The value of conversational currency is a lot more than the value of advertising. Get it? No? Well then continue doing what you’ve always done and get less than you’ve always got. Get that?

What say you?

See slide show below

Convertising Vs Advertising
View more presentations from Jay Deragon.
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From Advertising To Convertising?

by Jay Deragon on 09/17/2009

This entry is part 1 of 8 in the series Convertising

cost-of-social-mediaThe word irrelevant reflects no connection to a person, place or thing.

Dictionary.com defines it as not relevant; not applicable or pertinent. Sound like many of the ads “pushed” in your face, on line and off line?

Social media is ripping the advertising industry wide open.With on line click through rates running less than 2% and off line methods running 1-4% the audience is learning just how ineffective and irrelevant the old methods are. At the same time the industry will argue with these numbers to justify these old methods.  I think Einstein said “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results”. Would you say that believing in the old methods is insane?

Advertising Or Convertising?

When people need or want something in the old days they’d look up information in the yellow pages. Today people turn to search engines to find what they want or need. Each day on average Google gets used 235 million times. While at the same time advertising online get little if any attention and less than 2% click through rates.

When people are looking to purchase something they want and need more and more they are going on line to find out what other people think or say about a product, service or brand. In other words after they have found something they continue to “search” for conversations that are relevant to their desire to buy something. Thus the relevancy that influences people’s buying behavior  is other people’s conversation.

Convertising is a lot more effective, efficient and relevant than irrelevant advertising. Why? Because people conversing don’t “push” intrusive information into the space of conversations rather their conversations about anything and everything is what pulls other people to those conversations. People trust people, not institutions or advertisements.

Why Is Advertising Irrelevant?

Stop and think about the wasteful methods deployed by advertisers past, present and moving into the future. Think about the cost of waste beyond the advertisers wasted spending. Cost of our attention, our time and yes even our own productivity.  Don’t think so? Think about it.

  1. How much time do we waste watching a TV ad that has no relevancy to our interest?
  2. How much attention and space is wasted pushing advertisements on the web even if Google Ad sense promises relevancy?
  3. When you want or desire something do you sit and watch/read advertisements or do you search for what you want and need?
  4. Do you think that we as consumers pay for the waste built into the old methods? $1.5 trillions globally. Sounds like a government spend on pork barrel projects. How do you like that affinity and image?
  5. How long has the advertising industry been drinking their own koolaid? Forever!

And on top of all this the advertising industry thinks that people are loyal to brands.  The only context of people’s loyalty to a brands product is whether the product does what is expected or more and the price reflects the experience and the service (value) from people within a brand, a relational experience. The only loyalty a brand can instill is if it is loyal to its customers.

Just maybe it is time for leaders in the advertising industry to convert their old methods to the new method of convertising. The technology to do so exist today and it is relevant to rate of return, rate of interest and ease of use by and for the benefit of people. You know those folks whose expenditures have enabled you to continue to advertise the old way. Get it?

What say you?

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