Reflection: Chapter 5-8

Listening to, Talking to, Energizing & Sustaining the Groundswell

Many companies listen and react to their customers in the form of “market research.” They look to learn and map the most popular trends so that they can adjust their marketing strategies accordingly. Many companies use tools such as surveys to learn more about their customers, although they have their boundaries. While you may think of the most innovative questions, surveys can’t tell you what you never thought to ask. Unlike a personal interaction, surveys can’t give you much qualitative data that might be exactly what you're looking for, no matter how much you listen. 

There are two strategies that Li and 

Bernoff cite as being the best professional tools for listening to the groundswell—private communities and brand monitoring. The first, private communities, can often be very expensive but the ROI can be great, if a company acts on what they learn from the community. Li & Bernoff state “the popularity of private communities has spread because they deliver not just insights but actionable insights” (p.88). The other, brand monitoring, include having a dedicated team looking through blogs, discussion forums and rating sites to gain insight into what your customers may be thinking and saying about your product/service. While the volume of feedback might be encouraging, it is important to realize that the people you hear from are not representative of the entire population.

While listening is important, there is another equally important part—communicating back.

Talking with the groundswell differs from traditional marketing in that marketing often involves shouting at your customers as to why your product/service is the best. Marketing departments have managed to do this through advertising and public relations. Li & Bernoff cite that while advertising is about the mass, public relations aims at exposure in free media—especially in the form of press releases. They use the following figure to describe the process of marketing theory.  The issue with this method is that the middle of the funnel is out of marketer’s control. 

The authors provide four techniques that they think are best practices when talking with the groundswell: (1) post a viral video, (2) engage in social networks and user-generated content sites, (3) join the blogosphere, and (4) create a community. Regardless of which technique your company employs, it is important to remember that these things need to be personalized. People want to talk to other people, not a robot.

In our opinion, viral videos are one of the most successful way to engage with the groundswell, out of the techniques listed. Take the Dollar Shave Club video. It was posted on YouTube on March 6, 2012 and within two days helped to generate 12,000 orders. This video is quirky, funny and short and it doesn’t scream at you. To this day this video has 25,747,281 views.

Once you have listened and spoken with the groundswell, you must move forward with energizing and helping it to sustain itself. Li & Bernoff define energizing the groundswell as getting one's supporters "riled up and spreading the word" (p.130). One of the most successful ways to go about this is by helping to promote word of mouth marketing. The great thing about word of mouth is that it is genuine and honest. Most people, aside from actors, have no reason to lie when they are promoting an item to family and friends. Once individuals have a good (or bad) experience, they often want to share it, which helps companies because testimonials are more reliable than a company talking about their own products/services. You can often start by finding your customers that are most enthusiastic about your brand and see what they are saying about it. 

While there are companies that can sell you a word of mouth program (BzzAgent), some of the most successful campaigns happen organically when companies actually listen to the feedback that brand enthusiast give. Then you must decide whether you want to energize the groundswell--if you have A LOT of negative reviews you might want to think twice. You also need to think about it as a long-term effort and plan for the future because you can't start a community that you have no intention on continuously engaging with. An energized community has expectations of engagement and as much as they are your most positive customers, they can easily turn on you. 

Once you have built your community it can be hard to continually support it with problems that might come up. Many companies have turned to outsourcing and computer-generated customer service departments to help combat the issues of rising costs and man-power needed. But as we stated before, people want to talk to another human being....not a robot. 

Li & Bernoff state that while the groundswell supporting each other can lead to money-savings and happier customers, it will change the dynamic of your company. You will not only have to lay off your support employees but you will have to look at customer service in a different ways. They advise companies to first ask themselves three questions (1) what problem will you solve, (2)  how will you participate, and (3) should you create a support community or join an existing one. They end the chapter with the following insight: if you engage and cultivate your community properly, you can have a front-row seat to what your customers are saying about your product/service and your support team can be empowered to influence development and marketing in the company given their newfound insight. 

Considering the groundswell determines what your brand stands for it is important to treat it with respect and help it to grow in your favor. The groundswell has the power to make or break your company. 

What do you think about the advice the Li & Bernoff give in these chapters? Have you seen these techniques work successfully in the real world?