Chapter 5

Discover New Customers

A failure to generate new customers can hurt an organization dramatically. It limits the company's ability to expand its base of owners and prospects, increase revenue, and generate profits necessary to grow the business and reward investors. While lead-generation tools can be helpful, their strength is in locating prospects based on profiles of the customers you currently have. Social media listening, on the other hand, helps companies discover people who are interested in their products or services but currently invisible to them.

Why do potentially valuable customers and growth prospects remain “hidden in plain sight”? One reason is that advertisers and marketers collectively remain trapped by conventional mind-sets. Social media listening techniques enable marketers and advertisers to “pan for customer gold” by helping us to reframe and rethink conventional wisdom, encourage us to link disparate data, and open our minds to what that data tells us. Our case studies uncovered a variety of faint signals that [after being amplified through analysis] located new customers who exhibited real business potential.

Winning Plays for Discovering New Customers

Case study analysis led us to identify the following winning plays for discovering new customers.

• Challenge “conventional wisdom” and the widely held beliefs you currently have about customers. Break free of your current customer definitions, and look outside them. The Hennessy and Suzuki cases, below, show how the companies transformed their marketing strategies from clubby and performance-oriented, respectively, to urban, after learning of exceptionally passionate customers flying well beneath their radar.
• Use social media listening to learn about customers and prospects in ways that provide richer insight than surveys alone can do. Profile and understand nonconventional users. Though in-house research may identify lapsed users, it does not convey what these people are doing now, what they may be looking for, or what untapped opportunities exist. The same goes for light or infrequent users.
• Listen to multicultural consumers. Make sure that your social media listening is inclusive and free of bias. Today's world is a mosaic of peoples, cultures, languages, and values, all of which represent new market opportunities, when understood in the correct terms. Two cases we present—one for French Cognac, the other for a Japanese motorcycle—reveal how companies can open themselves up to new, lucrative markets by listening to multicultural consumers. Glean additional knowledge from understanding which ethnicities and cultures use certain popular online services. For example, Twitter overindexes on African-Americans: Nearly 25 percent of tweets—twice their population percentage—relate to African-American themes, culture, and topics that may be valuable for marketing and advertising.
• Analyze related data. Find new clues by following trails of customer activities expressed through Web site linking patterns, site visitation, and other related log file analyses. These are useful not only for meeting objectives like improving customer experience or optimizing search engine effectiveness; they can also reveal the kind of information that will help grow your business. Hennessy's case vividly demonstrates how companies can stumble on a pattern of Web links and, by being open-minded, uncover a market they did not know existed that can become their central focus.
• Listen for changes in speakers’ voices. Monitor conversations to detect shifts in who's talking, which you can do easily by reading posts or engaging in sophisticated processes such as text analytics. One computer game maker tuned into a major trend, the rise of female gamers, by tracking variations in the ratio of male to female posters on forums. This gave it valuable lead time for creating a new marketing strategy (see “Track Voices in the Conversations,” later in the chapter).
• Be bold; have the courage to act on social media listening findings. Companies uncovering new customers through social media listening may sometimes find themselves challenged by the insights because the prospects were not just “off the radar”; they were not in line with ingrained assumptions. The Hennessy and Suzuki cases revealed a fairly unexpected group of core urban customers, not the clubby and strict horsepower junkies, respectively, whereas the game company saw that its customers were changing from male to female. These new discoveries prompted those companies to confront traditionally accepted models, which posed tough choices between staying the course or adapting in order to grow. Changing takes guts; after all, how many of us would completely alter the image and marketing approach of an iconic brand like Hennessy? However, the company reduced risk by triangulating and cross-checking its listening with a variety of sources. The result was that management confidence increased to the level necessary to support game-changing decisions and create compelling social media strategies.

The companies whose stories we explore in this chapter used social media listening in ways that uncovered potential among multicultural markets and light users. As you read through them, take note that the approaches and methods used are not limited to their particular organization or industry; rather, they are applicable to discovering any new market and exploring any customer group.

From case review, we identified four tactics:

• Listen to the story in people's behavior.
• Track voices in conversations.
• Look at customer data with fresh eyes.
• Listen to light purchasers.

Listen to the Story in People's Behavior

Back in 2005, world-leading cognac brand Hennessy conducted an analysis of links coming into its Web site and spotted a trend: The number of links between its company Web site and BlackPlanet.com—the largest social network for African-Americans—was unexpected and substantial. This kind of link analysis is one of the studies conducted by companies looking to improve their search engine optimization and search results ranking. By discerning which sites are linking to their own, this analysis provides some (albeit, weak) signals about audiences and site content appeal. Hennessy stumbled on a passionate market, one they were completely unaware of.

By digging deeper, Hennessy learned that some BlackPlanet members simply linked personal pages to Hennessy's site. However, some went further by decorating their pages with borrowed images of Hennessy brands. In an attempt to learn more about these potential consumers, Hennessy then studied a random sample of BlackPlanet member Web pages to understand their themes and use of brand imagery. They also commissioned an online survey with research partner CRM Metrix to profile these users’ attitudes, usage, and influence.

According to the study's results, Hennessy discovered that visions of their brand expressed in the member pages “were not necessarily ours, but this does not make them any less valid.” Research showed that “the brand belongs as much to its consumers as to its managers…. We must listen without prejudice.” Stated another way, this is a shining illustration of customer “co-creation” and extraordinary brand engagement. The survey data described these individuals attractively, in that 8 out of 10 were “high-value” consumers, and they had a strong influence on the alcohol choices of people around them. About half the respondents were opinion leaders, a higher than usual percentage than that found generally, which is about 10 percent–20 percent in many categories.

Recognizing the inherent and potential long-term value in BlackPlanet members, Hennessy next sought to learn what would improve its site and make it more interesting and enjoyable for them. But Hennessy went further than just tweaking the site; it also asked for and listened to suggestions about “what would make the experience of drinking Hennessy cognacs more enjoyable?”

Figure 5.1 After applying social media listening to consumers, Hennessy revamped its marketing approach to center around music, art, and mixing.

Equipped with insights, Hennessy's improvements pivoted on providing service. The first thing the company did was to beef up the site's download sections with wallpapers and shareable images for page decoration and brand identification. Realizing that BlackPlanet members enjoyed drinking socially and mixing Hennessy's product into drinks, the company added recipes highlighting cognac as an ingredient, and offered Hennessy-branded e-invitations for parties.

Five years after the initial round of responses, the Hennessy site showed the brand's ongoing commitment to social media listening and evolving the relationship and experience. In 2009, Hennessy's “Artistry” initiative sponsored musicians, music tours, and streamed music, showcasing artists. Building on the ingredient insight, the brand's tagline became “the global art of mixing.” Hennessy also added a social networking component by creating a presence on Facebook and YouTube to give people the chance to take their mixing online.

Track Voices in the Conversations

Tracking topics and themes about products, services, or entire categories sheds light on consumer concerns and, over time, can be used to identify trends within markets. When coupled with analytics that reveal who is speaking, these shifts in voices send early signals of market changes. These are not just blips or fads; rather, they're long-term and structural differences that suggest new market opportunity.

As part of its customer listening program, one digital game publisher routinely monitored relevant sites for issues, problems, likes, dislikes, and so on. One aspect of its social media listening research identified the gender of people posting. To the company's surprise, it spotted an interesting and unexpected statistic in 2004: Women wrote about 40 percent of the posts. This discovery contradicted the company's and the industry's widely held impression that gamers were predominately young men. Just five years later, male gamers had become the minority. M16 and ePoll research found that “women are now gaming more often than men, a first in the gaming industry” (J.D. Power and Associates 2005, Knight 2009). By taking a previously “accepted” user trait into account, this company caught a market shift early, created new games for the female market, and benefitted from the lead-time advance warning social media listening provides.

Look at Customer Data with Fresh Eyes

Like Hennessy, Suzuki hit upon a new market, not through link listening, but by being open-minded to and pivoting on survey data. One month after launching its second-generation high-end bike Hayabusa, the fastest production bike in the world, Suzuki with its marketing and research agency Questus looked at the customer data they had on hand. They zoomed in on one impressive stat: Forty percent of buyers were “minority”—a “huge hidden audience,” in the words of Questus CEO Jeff Rosenblum.

Suzuki's Hayabusa team then started looking more deeply at this particular group by using a combination of social media listening, observational and ethnographics studies, surveys, and secondary analysis of statistics and trends. This work led Suzuki to realize that not all of its Hayabusa buyers were the strict racing and performance enthusiasts they targeted historically; instead, a substantial number were people participating in a heart-pumping, thriving global bike culture in the streets and online. Social media listening exposed the deep passions that owners and fans expressed on discussion boards and Web sites. They covered every topic imaginable—design, sounds, upgrading components, repairs, products, where to ride—and showed off photos and videos of their bikes. Hayabusa.org, one of the largest and most active forums, is independent of Suzuki; Busa fanatics built and maintain it. Manufacturers and retailers sponsor their own forum areas to attract and serve customers and prospects.

Historically, Suzuki advertising had been highly corporate in nature, and covered the different lines of their bikes together. But given the strength of the listening insights, Suzuki green-lighted its first marketing and advertising program for a single model centered on the urban/street customer revealed through its research. That effort culminated in creating the BusaBeats campaign, initiated in 2008, and still running today. Suzuki makes extensive use of social media to create exceptional levels of Busa fan interaction and engagement, with both the brand and each other.

The program's introductory year stylishly integrated music, art, video, and a variety of digital media with a soft-sell, street-level approach that highlighted entertainment more than the company's typical corporate advertising agenda. Suzuki then intensified the campaign's level of consumer involvement by sponsoring “MC Battle,” a contest for rappers and hip-hop artists to produce tracks about the Hayabusa, based on beats created by leading MCs and celebrity producers directly on the BusaBeats.com Web site. Site visitors voted on tracks and ultimately picked the winner, who was awarded the top prize of a customized Hayabusa.

Social media metrics, especially plays and votes, emphasize the program's success. The top five music tracks racked up more than 67,000 plays and received more than 37,000 votes. There were more than 179,000 plays and nearly 100,000 votes across all submissions. In fact, the number of plays may have been even higher, since users were able to forward their tracks and challenge friends to battle outside the formal competition. Average visitor time spent, one measure of engagement, was an “impressive” 21.4 minutes. Questus's Rosenblum added that Hayabusa's share of social media voice exceeded its share of media spending, a fact that pointed toward a very efficient and successful investment inspired by social media listening (Ultimatemotorcycling.com 2010; Rosenblum 2010).

Listen to Light Purchasers

Converting sporadic users to more frequent purchasers is one way that companies can gain additional business. An essential step in creating or improving the product mix, marketing, and advertising strategy is to understand what makes them intermittent (versus regular) purchasers in the first place.

Case in point: One particular direct-mail order retailer was frequently disappointed by its unremarkable sales from African-Americans. It wasn't for lack of effort; the company communicated frequently. However, its messages, positioning, and product mix simply did not resonate. The retailer sought to remedy the situation by better understanding this market; to do so, it turned to social media listening.

Like much of the population today, African-Americans are well represented online. They often belong to social networks, like the previously mentioned BlackPlanet.com, to engage around shared interests, culture, and needs. This retailer worked with its listening vendor, Networked Insights, to identify the best online resources for listening to African-Americans—relevant blogs, forums, and communities with substantial traffic and visitor interaction. They used text analysis to break down the discussions on topics related to the mail order company's product lines, from which they identified key themes and consumer sentiment. They followed the steps for effective listening research outlined in Part I.

Discussions mentioning the company were minimal—an important point to keep in mind. When people talk about topics online, they do not always mention brands. In fact, brand mentions are a minority in many instances. One large food company with which we spoke and that has numerous brands in global distribution told us that 95 percent of the conversations in its categories were unbranded. Instead, discourse often relates to a category, usage occasions, or performance and emotional benefits. Companies that look only at mentions of their brands via social media monitoring may not make important observations that can lead to sharp insights.

Realizing that they were working with fundamentally category-level conversations, this retailer and Networked Insights expanded keywords and topics, a move that led them to identify hair-related issues as those that stood out as a major concern. People didn't talk about brands or competitors, but they did talk about topics like natural long hair, shampoo, wefts, virgin hair, corn rows, weaves, relaxed hair, wigs, and protein treatments. These conversations also included dialogue about culture, music, values, and emotions.

This analysis prompted the retailer to attempt to develop a strong emotional connection with African-Americans to help them reconnect with their heritage and raise their confidence, themes that surfaced through the research. The retailer chose to focus on three product areas tied to culture: wigs, weaves, and wefts. It capitalized on the interest in music by creating its own branded label, featuring affordable gospel, smooth jazz, and soul CDs. Online advertising co-branded the music label with the wigs and ran on their branded media properties, as banners on relevant sites coupons, and in opt-in e-newsletters.

Results showed that their strategy was a success. According to CEO Dan Neely of Networked Insights, “Thirty-six percent of product page views were linked back to the record offers through search and link referrals. Sales for the wigs surpassed first-year marketing goals by 18 percent. The CD business, designed as a loss leader, turned a modest profit just a few months after launch. But its real value is not in the profit, but in the emotional connection it created and reinforced for the retailer” (Networked Insights 2010; Neely 2010).

Summary

Social media listening enables companies to identify potentially valuable new markets from faint signals that emanate from related information, such as patterns of Web site links, data in routine reports, and conversations about categories, not specific brands. Signals need to be amplified and cross-checked with additional data sources; these enable marketers and advertisers to home in on the signals in order to define the market and develop strategies for maximizing emergent opportunities.