This month’s presentation focused on the relationship between marketing and culture and was led by Jon Wolske of Zappos Insights. Zappos Insights, an arm of Zappos, is dedicated to educating other businesses about the importance and impact of company culture.

The presentation included an overview of Zappos’ impressive growth and company values. Early in the presentation, Jon asked a critical question: “Do you have culture at your workplace?” Some, but not all, hands raised in the crowd. “The answer is yes,” he continued, asserting that culture is present in every organization, whether it is formalized or not.

Zappos culture guide Jon Wolske and fellow Zappos employees welcome a tour group with a choreographed weight-lifting routine featured on LasVegasSun.com

Zappos believes a company-wide focus on delivering great service is critical to its own success and that this focus relies on a strong, positive company culture. The result of this focus is evidenced in customer stories, employee advocates, and positive press.

Jon reviewed Zappos’10 core values. Customer experience is a key part of the Zappos marketing strategy, and they believe it starts at the website where their phone number prominently displayed. This leads back to value number 1, “Deliver WOW service,” and hinges on developing a “PEC” or a “Personal Emotional Connection.”

PEC-building also includes, but is not limited to, delivering bouquets of flowers and handwritten notes to customers. For Leap Year, it meant giving all customers who made purchases on Leap Year Day a four-year refund policy, instead of the usual duration. It also means going to the competitor on the customer’s behalf when Zappos can’t deliver, which can lead to powerful word-of-mouth marketing.

Culture is most evident in the Zappos’ call center. Unlike most modern call centers, front lines call takers have no script and no requirement to sell. The call center is not considered a cost center. Because of a shared sense of ownership and pride among employees, “there is no need to micromanage.” Employees are their strongest advocates and if you asked an employee what the company values are, he or she would not need to check the employee manual. “We just know what they are,” Jon said.

Their emphasis on culture has spurred more than just positive press and catchy theme songs and viral videos but ongoing success and growth. Zappos’ revenue reflects steady growth and, according to their reports, 75% of the average daily shoppers are returning customers and 45% were told about Zappos by friend.

Engaging online content, as well as interaction on social media sites and all other business operations, is designed to tie back to their commitment to the Four Cs: Culture, Customer Service, Clothing and Community. Zappos wants to be known for community. This includes their online community at zapposinsights.com. They are in the process of building a new home office in downtown Las Vegas to become a true part of their community. They are also working to grow education in Nevada, which is currently ranked worst in the country for education.

The presentation was followed with a Q&A session. Highlights are below:

What other social media sites does Zappos used, besides the big sites (Facebook, Twitter, et al)?

Zappos has “product managers” who are front lines to test out interaction on different social media sites. This includes the newest social media darling, Pinterest. There is also an application dev team which has previously launched their Couture Catalogue and Mappos, a visual map of what people are buying at any given moment.

Have you gotten feedback from the companies who tour the Zappos offices with the intent to change their own company culture?

Jon shared a story of one businessperson who had a one-hour tour which resulted in dramatic changes at his own company. “We’re not trying to get people to do what we do,” Jon explained. “A lot of it has to do with relaxing things a bit. We aren’t marketing Insights but we will be looking through our histories at some point soon.”

At a certain point during initial, required call center training, trainees are offered $3,000 to quit. What happens if someone gets through the $3,000 offer and is still not a good fit?

“Just like a performance issue, we coach,” said Jon. “If we can’t coach up, we coach out.”

What does Zappos use to monitor brand mentions on social sites?

“We run lean.” The team relies heavily on Google news and the Twitter conversation page. They monitor on a big picture scale.

Your value is “Do more with less,” and you say that you “run lean,” but great ideas cost money. How do you find balance?

If it’s free, they try it. If it costs money, employees are required to do a standard proposal process. “They’ve been good at taking risk and letting ideas fail.”

What provides a higher margin, the culture book or shoes?

“Well, the culture book is free, so the shoes.”

What is your philosophy on legal concerns?

The Zappos lawyers are also hired as a culture fit. Employees are expected to rely on common sense when making decisions; the onus is on the employee. “When you trust people to be adults, they will be. It works for us.”

He then added, “You can’t do the tour on roller blades, though.”

Many thanks to Jon for an excellent presentation! Be sure to check out the next AZIMA event “The Interactive Future of Hospitality & Tourism” on April 19^th at 6:00 PM at the Scottsdale Hilton.

With all of the mobile, social and email activities consuming the marketing efforts of organizations in the B2B and B2C spaces, Joel Book of ExactTarget brought all of the planning, executing and evaluating together in weaving a concise web of how to manage cross-channel marketing and cultivate a more fulfilling customer life cycle of engagement.

Before a turnout of 100 attendees at the Feb, 16 AZIMA event, Book dove into research, reflections and the results of two case studies to portray how a proper CRM methodology should work. Essentially, given the “33 Flavors” of available channels (remember that Springsteen song “57 Channels and There’s Nothin’ On?), the key to attracting, engaging and serving customers is constantly delivering personal, relevant and timelyinformation while also respecting their boundaries. He cited the campaigns of Pei Wei and Volvo Construction Equipment for their successful database development, targeted customer engagement and very high redemption percentages.

For you academics out there, the thematic six-step disciplinary progression chart for a robust Cross-Channel CRM campaign consists of the following:

Acquire -> Engage -> Convert -> Serve -> Grow -> Retain (Brand Ambassador status!)

Book pointed to a major disconnect that often exists between the web content management department and the business development / customer engagement teams. Lead generation suffers dramatically when the call to action isn’t immediately visible or definable on the home page for the sake of being aligned with the needed data to initiate the customer relationship and nurture the engagement life cycle. The “Lead Management Workflow” relies on two factors – the speed of the response to an initial customer request (should arrive within 24 hours of receiving contact information) and delivering quality and qualified information into the hands of local dealers, agents or representatives.

He emphasized the importance of organizations having the courage to experiment with their data, the digital media tools and their methods of acquisition and measurement to develop the right formula that will work for their particular customer service objectives. He closed with the thought that social media is not the End Game, but is rather a step in the Cross-Channel CRM cycle of capturing emails and consistently following through on personalizing customer needs and interests. He summed up his presentation with the mantra that “Serving is the New Selling” on the quest to nurture a successful customer life cycle with data integration and marketing automation.

Joel Book’s Overarching Principles for Effective CCM & CRM

1. Develop a customer engagement strategy – have a campaign management process.
2. Maintain customer data integration and centralization –  ensure engagement at every stage of the life cycle.
3. Marketing automation – have web and sales/service teams aligned to sustain the life cycle.

Key Takeaway Notes:

1. In 1990, one television spot on the three major networks could disseminate its message to reach 80 percent of households across the United States. Today, it would take 20 messaging channels to attain that same figure. (Read: massive media fragmentation!)
2. The ROI ratio of cross-channel marketing is $41 of revenue for every $1 invested.
3. Organizations should regularly harvest referrals, opinions, evaluations, word of mouth (earned social media) to augment the lead management workflow and assist product distributors and sales representatives in the field.
4. It is essential to have comprehensive CRM software for data cleansing and lead scoring to support the lead management workflow.
5. According to a Forrester study, 30 percent of customers will start their purchase decision-making at an organization’s home page and 27 percent at a brand page.
6. 58 percent of customers begin purchase process with search and 46 percent combine social media and search.
7. The most effective CRM software should analyze customer activity points and frequency to calculate a rank profile and likelihood to buy.
8. By 2015, 71 percent of sales leads are expected to originate through a corporate website.
9. There is no such thing as a singe-channel consumer!
10. CRM programs should embrace the Zappos model that service is the anchor of selling.

This post is a reprint of an original post shared by AZIMA member Liam O’Mahoney. Read the original post on Customer Relationship Management on Liam’s blog.

In the two decades that have followed many major cities have seen the demise of the dailies replaced by interactive social media and the rise of  mobile apps for Smartphones.

According to Emarketer’s, Noah Elkin ,mobile advertising is on track  to lead the once crowded field of traditional media radio, TV, newspapers, magazines.

“Total mobile advertising spending (which includes ads on cellphones, smart phones like the BlackBerry and tablet devices like the iPad) in 2010, according to projections from eMarketer, will reach $743 million, a 79% increase over 2009.”. “Mobile Advertising and Marketing: Past the Tipping Point.”

Will newspaper ads go into the media vault of yesteryear(think BetaMax tapes, VHS,tapes in general)?

Not at the moment as products and services will continue to appear in Sunday newspapers and  supplements, however as the Nielsen Company observes

“ Nearly all adults in the U.S. now have cellphones, with one in four having smartphones, pocket-sized

devices more powerful than the computers initially used to send men to the moon.”

“The State of Mobile Apps.”

But just as the past is a memory, the future of social and mobile media is now and surviving newspapers must make the switch to digital or face being placed on the endangered species list.

Guest Post By: Joanne Levin a marketing pro in targeted strategy,research and website content. Effective and essential marketing is her focus.

Nearly 100 members of the Arizona Interactive Marketing Association gathered to hear Anderson disperse such tasty nuggets of tech-geek goodness like:

• About 925,000 mobile devices are activated every day
• Mobile-specific adwords campaigns have seen click-through rate increases up to 11.5%
• Retailers with optimized mobile sites are increasing customer engagement by 85%
• 61% of users will not return to your site if it is not mobile enabled

Clearly, the theme running through the 45 minute presentation was to mobilize your web site, if you haven’t already. Anderson provided several tips to AZIMA members to do just that, including keeping the layout simple; design for thumbs, not mouse clicks; prioritize your content; use uniquely mobile features, and make it easy to convert.

Among the AZIMA members attending included interactive marketers from Vertical Measures, Mint Social, Empire Cat, Gannett Local and other Valley marketing companies. Anderson’s talk is just one of the benefits to members and guests that AZIMA brings to the Valley’s Interactive marketing world every month.

Every month, AZIMA brings a guest speaker to offer new insights and challenges to some of the best interactive marketers. To find out more about becoming a member or reaching this targeted tech-driven audience, contact our board members to learn about exciting opportunities for 2012.

Why is the Hispanic Market important?

Latinos are the fastest growing minority group in the United States. 1 in 4 children are Latino, 1 in 6 U.S. residents are Latino, and by 2020 that statistic is expected to be 1 in 5.  There are over 50.5 million Latinos in the U.S. – that’s more Canadians than there are in Canada – and that makes the U.S. the second largest Hispanic country in the world (Mexico is #1).

Latinos are early adopters of technology, highly engaged online, and active mobile users – according to Kelly, 25% of 1st generation iPhone purchases were made by Latinos, and Hispanics make up the largest percentage of users of MySpace and Facebook.  However, Hispanic social media usage is different from non-Hispanic usage in that they are more likely to:

• Engage in social media for personal use rather than business
• Use social media to reach out to extended family or communicate with friends they know, rather than building networks of new people
• Need an effective and affordable way to communicate with family in different countries

So how do you get started?

Understanding Acculturation vs. Assimilation

According to Kelly, one of the biggest mistakes companies make when marketing to Hispanics is to assume that they’re all just one big group of Spanish-speaking people.  There are Hispanic people from many different countries, with their own customs and traditions, but there’s more to it than that.  Successful living in a foreign culture is often more about acculturation (acquiring a 2nd culture) than assimilation (forfeiting one’s culture and taking on another).

In her presentation, Kelly went over her trademarked “Latino Acculturation Stratification” model, which breaks out Latino U.S. residents into four groups based upon how long they and their family have been in the U.S., their language abilities, and other factors related to their history, their preferences, and how they identify themselves.  Each of these groups hold different values, and you should consider how they would prefer you to engage with them (like you would with any market or demographic).  Don’t just consider the demographics though, think about the psychographics – what are they interested in and what matters to them?

How do you connect with Hispanics?

• First of all – try doing it in their language.  Many Hispanics don’t speak English at all, but even those that do often prefer to speak Spanish.  This is especially critical for the more complex offerings, like financial, real estate, and insurance transactions, which include contracts, legal obligations and other fine details which may get lost in translation.

• Consider including additional content for your Hispanic market.  But translating is not enough.  Kelly discussed the importance of building different content (including images, copy, color, etc.) and sending messages that are relevant to your audience and what’s important to them – their values.  In her book, she goes into the difference between translation and transcreation.  Basically, make sure you’re not just translating your English copy word-for-word.  Ideally, work with a marketing agency that understands Hispanic marketing to create culturally-relevant messages in Spanish. However, if you don’t have the budget to hire an agency to create new content, at least simplify your copy before translation – remove idioms or turns-of-phrase and use language that leaves no room for interpretation.

• Next, make sure your company is prepared to do business in Spanish.  Have at least one employee who can provide friendly and helpful customer service in Spanish.  Post signage in Spanish.  Record a voicemail in Spanish, or offer a separate number for Hispanic customers.  Prepare your office or store to accommodate your customers and their family – Hispanic families often make decisions together and run errands as a family – offer treats or toys for children, or even just extra seating.

In case it wasn’t plainly evident, Kelly McDonald is a wealth of information and insight when it comes to multi-cultural marketing, and her presentation at the September AZIMA social event was an eye-opener. Read her book – you’ll learn about more than just demographics and cultural differences; you’ll learn how to pay attention, listen to your consumers’ needs, and make better connections with everyone around you.

Guest Post By:

Jen Cykman is a Web Analyst at Cardinal Path, a premier Digital Intelligence and Optimization firm, with offices throughout North America. It has received two WAA Achievement nominations, and features some of the top minds in the Digital Intelligence community. Jen specializes in SEO and web analytics, with a passion for content and user experience.  Find her on LinkedIn.

• Why join us? Focus on Real World experiences!
• Learn from and meet the best in the business!
• Mobile, video, search, social, measurement, and more.

The major Digital Agencies will all be there. Everything from the 101 session, Small / Medium Business to Enterprise. Join our panel of experts in a comfortable environment allowing for direct interaction.

• Ask questions that are pertinent to your organization
• Hear and see how other companies are approaching Social Media, the challenges and successes.
• Case Studies will be emphasized, real world information!
• What tools are being using?
• How do you measure success?
• How do you convince your management?
• What questions do you need to ask to be successful?
• How to address corporate policies around Social Media?

Meet others with similar goals and make new connections. Oh and there’s some great food too. Exceptional prizes are being given away as well!

For additional information please go to: SocialMediaAZ.org (Use #SMAZ on Twitter: SMAZ conversations on Twitter)

Please visit and thank our sponsors:

ExactTarget

KEO Marketing

Vertical Measures

City of Tempe

BulbStorm

Mint Social (Social Media Marketing Company)

SpyFu

Black Dog Promotions

Infusionsoft

The Kelly Law Firm

Shwaag.com

aloft Hotel Tempe

Madcap Theater

PopChips

Our partner associations:

Business Marketing Association (BMA)

Public Relations Society of America (PRSA)

Social Media Club (SMC)

Arizona Interactive Marketing Association(AZIMA)

Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization Arizona (SEMPO)

Location: 730 S. Mill Ave Tempe, 85281

Date: Friday, October 07, 2011 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM (MT)

Register TODAY!

The August AZIMA event featured guest speaker Neal Schaffer of WindMill Networking and author of Maximizing LinkedIn for Sales & Social Media Marketing, who spoke about the power of social media, and in particular LinkedIn, to drive results for your company and your career. Neal reinforced the importance of businesses needing to not only participate in social media, but embrace it throughout their organization. A few years ago, social media was viewed as a fad – but now its here to stay. According to Neal, more time is spent online than watching TV, especially among 45-54 year olds, so it’s critical we shift our marketing focus there accordingly.

Neal broke down social media strategy into something easy to understand and act upon. According to Neal, the average marketer or company goes through three stages of understanding social media:

• It’s scary and has no ROI – let’s ignore it.
• Maybe we should consider it – after all, other companies are doing it, maybe even our competitors!
• How can we do more social media? Social is great, lets do more!

Once marketers move to third stage and have fully embraced social media, Neal recommends the PDCA approach. What’s that, you ask?

• Plan – plan your strategy & define your goals
• Do – execute your plan
• Check – monitor your results
• Act – revise your plan based on the results you checked

In the end, you’ll realize just how critical the role of a social media marketer is. Neal believes its so important a community manager should truly be a 6 figure job!

Neal also shared some tips for LinkedIn with the audience – Neal was one of the earliest adopters of LinkedIn and known as one of the original “LinkedIn Lions.” He was part of the open networking movement and built his connections to be as large as possible, generating tons of business leads, consulting gigs and job prospects. Neal encourages marketers to be open & connect with each other on LinkedIn as a great way to generate leads and connect with others.

In addition to the presentation and usual networking hour, we gave away a free Kindle to one lucky attendee, as well as a few copies of Arnie Kuenn’s new book, Accelerate!, which just debuted recently on Amazon and can be purchased here.

Thanks to all that attended!

It makes sense. People want to be connected and can often be associated through a brand. The majority of brands accomplish this by asking for ‘Likes’ and running some kind of promotion through Facebook, Twitter and a host of other big-name communities.

While this creates many opportunities to interact with a subsection of users, this grouping of communities with third parties (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) can also defragment what should be a whole community under a brand. Rather than always sending users to these others platforms when in need of social integration, why not look at how user communities can be kept together as well as add features to brands, products and services?

Creating a community that adds to your product or service

Garmin is an excellent example of this. Garmin had a similar social setup to most companies. They have Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and a blog. But, their users were split into these communities and their product wasn’t getting better for it. So, Garmin developed a social experience — Garmin Connect — that fit the culture of their community as well as extended the benefits of their products.

Garmin Connect is an entire social platform for the outdoorsy Garmin GPS users. With a Garmin GPS, walking, biking, running and hiking routes can be uploaded and shared with other users. If a user is looking for a change of scenery or in an unfamiliar location, the user could access Garmin Connect to browse and download routes according to the activity, distance, elevation and time needed to complete. Users can also share and track workout goals and analytics. To date, Garmin Connect users have logged more than 1.15 billion miles.

What’s can be learned from this? While a proprietary social network can’t always be developed for a brand, product or service — it’s important to think about how user communities can stay intact while improving whatever it is being sold. If there’s a culture behind a brand, product or service, make a better way for that culture to get together — even if it doesn’t fit within the confines of popular existing social platforms.

Guest Post By: Scott Rostohar Lost Creature (formerly Dojo Collective) | Copywriter for Apollo Group

Intrigued by technology, passionate about the phoenix creative community and plagued by the blank page.

Website: MeMyselfandIdeas.com

Everyday social media users use these platforms to network with likeminded individuals, keep up with friends and family, make professional connections and more. The possibilities are truly endless.

But how can the businesses and other organizations make lasting impressions on users who participate for personal reasons?  By being genuine, transparent and real.  Businesses and brands win over social media users when the brand personality is consistent across all channels – especially social media networks.

Businesses are give an opportunity to connect with customers on a very personal level through social networks, but many fall short or miss the point completely. And you don’t want to be one of those businesses.

That’s where Neal Schaffer comes in.

Schaffer is an internationally recognized speaker on social media and President of Windmills Marketing, a social media marketing strategic consultancy.  Schaffer helps businesses of all sizes and industries with their social media strategy and implementation, and he will be sharing the secrets of social media strategy at AZIMA’s August event.

Join us as Schaffer shares how businesses can begin go create a social media strategy.  Learn which people in your company should be involved in social media, as well as how to decide what networks are important for your business to participate on.

Here are the details:

Business Social Media Strategy: From Blogs to Tweeting, How & Why

Speaker: Neal Schaffer

Event Location: Scottsdale Hilton (6333 N. Scottsdale Rd., Scottsdale, AZ 85250) A light dinner, and one drink is included.

Time: Doors open at 6:00 p.m. for networking. Dinner served at 6:45 p.m. and presentation will begin at 7:00 p.m.

Pricing:

Student $25 (Enter “STUDENT” promo code)

Members $35 (Enter “AZIMAMEMBER” promo code

Non- Members $45

At the door $55

Register today!

As if that one amazing gift wasn’t enough for the month of July, AZIMA has also selected two random names from the roster of attendees of the last social event hosted on July 12th to award with free platinum passes to upcoming event SES San Francisco Conference and Expo on August 15- 19, 2011. This annual event, in its’ 13^th year draws thousands of marketers and agency professionals and focuses on education (no sales pitches!). They’ll cover Search Marketing (including SEO, PPC management & Social Media), keyword research, local advertising, mobile engagement, link building, duplicate content, multiple site issues, online video, site optimization and usability. It’ll include high-level strategy, keynotes, an expo floor with 100+ companies, networking events, parties and more.  Congratulations to AZIMA members Liam O’Mahoney and Martin Zwilling who will receive these platinum passes valued at $2,995 courtesy of the Arizona Interactive Marketing Association and it’s partner SES!

These winners will attend the conference along with at least two AZIMA Board of Directors, Arnie Kuenn, past President and Advisor who is slated to speak at the event and Jason Grovert, the Board’s Website & Technology Co-Chair.  All other AZIMA members and even occasional AZIMA supporters and friends can attend the event at 20% discounted rate using the promo code ‘20AZM’

Don’t worry, though. If you weren’t one of the lucky winners to this give-away there is still plenty of time left to be included in the many random member give-aways and contest that AZIMA has planned this year! Attend the August 9^th, event featuring Neal Schaffer discussing Social Media Strategy for Business and be an AZIMA member and you’ll be automatically included in the pool to receive a brand new Kindle courtesy of AZIMA and Cox Communications. One lucky winner will be chosen just after the event. Good luck to you!