The Buzz Bin

Mar
24
2008

Marketing Departments Become Two-Way

Part III of Social Media’s Role within Global Businesses

CurrentMarketingAs socialized feedback becomes increasing prevalent across a wide variety of business functions, enterprises will need to better absorb external information. This new listening “socialprise” (a term coined by Sarah Perez last week) will change from an outbound marketing communications machine to an organism interacting with a larger community of stakeholders.

In turn, the marketing department will also have to incorporate feedback. Consider the above chart, which demonstrates the usual business activity of executives determining strategy, followed by an outbound marketing push.  Hopefully, the CxOs determine product direction based on research.

In the social enabled environment, a majority of marketing department activities can and will receive direct impact from its customers.  As a result, the structure of communications will change.  Not only will marketing communicate outwardly, but ideally it will also serve as an ombudsman reflecting stakeholders’ input.

Here’s another chart that demonstrates this two-way feedback with various marketing functions (please forgive my photoshop skills):

 SocialMarketing

Notice that almost all of the marketing functions have two-way feedback.  Even advertising and direct marketing can inspire conversation within a larger stakeholder community.  This feedback should be received through other vehicles, such as a social media monitoring program.

Just a disclaimer: Some may place different tools under the control of another function like PR or product marketing.  This is particularly true in the case of social media, which is often fought over by different departments within marketing, in large part because it combines aspects of many disciplines.

Used in the right way, external feedback can affect the very core of a business’s strategy.  Consider Dell’s change in customer service, or it’s decision to offer Linux services. How about Southwest’s decision to postpone assigned seating? The trend is spreading, too.  Sarah Perez’s already referenced post discusses several new tools that companies can use to harvest customer conversations.

More importantly this movement opens Pandora’s box…  Which conversations are the right ones to listen to?  Not all feedback and suggestions can be adapted by the company for a wide variety of reasons. How can a company harvest those conversations to effectively gage the marketplace before its too late?  In some cases, feedback may not be recognized as valuable, but taken into a larger context that feedback may be part of a critical trend.

On Friday, Part IV will further examine the listening conundrum that socially catalyzed enterprises face.  Past episodes of Social Media’s Role within Global Businesses:

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by Geoff Livingston | Branding, Internet Marketing, PR, Social Networks |

4 Responses to “Marketing Departments Become Two-Way”

  • Monday musings: social network economics, free and legal news pics, the future of marketing, and more | higher ed marketing Says:

    March 24th, 2008 at 12:55 pm

    […] Moving toward two-way marketing. This piece in The Buzz Bin talks about how listening, customer feedback, etc., have become more important in traditional marketing. […]

  • John Johansen Says:

    March 24th, 2008 at 2:31 pm

    One trend that I think companies will have to adopt to really get the value out of social media is moving the conversation out of marketing.

    That’s the context I read your quote with.
    “Not all feedback and suggestions can be adapted by the company for a wide variety of reasons. How can a company harvest those conversations to effectively gage the marketplace before its too late? In some cases, feedback may not be recognized as valuable, but taken into a larger context that feedback may be part of a critical trend.”

    Outbound marketing will soon be one of the tools in our toolbox. Inbound marketing, the people talking back to us, will require a different process. In this scenario, I see marketing in your proposed role of Ombudsman, facilitating the flow of conversations to departments that can make the judgments on what is critical. Marketing will be the filter that allows other business departments to get their work done without sacrificing participation in the in-bound process.

    One question I have is whether marketing needs to be consolidated under that model? Core messages should come from a specifically responsible group of traditional marketers. But product development, customer service, sales, management, should all have someone within the department, embedded marketers if you will, with the front-line responsibility for monitoring in-bound communications relevant to them and coordinating with other departments to act on it.

    Decentralized marketing with skills in other functional areas. Now we’re talking. (pun intended)

  • Spin Thicket Comments Says:

    March 25th, 2008 at 6:21 pm

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  • John Whiteside Says:

    April 6th, 2008 at 8:56 am

    I have to admit the the title of this post made me stop - the word “become,” specifically. Good marketing has always been two-way, good product marketing in particular.

    Social media certainly change the dynamics. I think one of the most important changes is that it’s harder for companies to make the classic mistake of structuring feedback mechanisms so that they hear things they want to hear - for example, discovering what all your current customers want in the next product (but missing out what would make all those non-customers start doing business with you).

    Certainly there’s been lots of ineffective one-way marketing in the past; I think social media make that much harder to maintain, and that’s a great thing.

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