Deborah Eastman, Chief Marketing Officer, Satmetrix

Word of Mouth Marketing Conference and Net Promoter

Last week I had the opportunity to attend the Word of Mouth Marketing Conference (WOMMA) in Las Vegas.  It was a great opportunity to hear the latest buzz in word of mouth marketing, current research and customer case studies.

Day one was the Research Symposium and I was on the first panel, “The Net Promoter Debate” along with Tim Keiningham of IPSOS, Matt McGlinn of BzzAgent, and Suhail Kahn of IBM.  We had a healthy conversation on the merits of deploying Net Promoter and heard Tim's concerns about the research which is well documented in the blogs.  Overall, the audience seemed to support the value that Net Promoter offers in driving front line behavior by focusing on recommend behavior.  There will be a podcast available shortly and I plan to write a follow-up post with some of the points debated.

The next two days were packed with many case studies of companies applying word of mouth to the marketing mix.  Two main stage presentations that stood out include the highly successful launch of Halo game where the marketing team used a combination of mainstream media and word of mouth marketing techniques to drive first week sales greater than the last Harry Potter book.  While they clearly exceeded all their goals for sales and pull through sales of the Xbox, what would be interesting is to understand how much their investment in mainstream media increased the word of mouth buzz. They clearly executed a well orchestrated marketing mix!

The other was from Dell.  We all know the story of Dell Hell and Jeff Jarvis.  What was most impressive about this presentation was how far Dell has come in listening to customers and communicating back.  Two key investments in improving their customer relationships include their blog, direct2dell and ideastorm.  Both are a clear demonstration of their commitment to improving customer experience and building a customer centric culture.

Overall, there were three key themes I walked away with.

1. Net Promoter was prominent in many of the breakout sessions.  Adoption is strong and its link to Word of Mouth (WOM) is obvious.  Knowing who will recommend and who will not has a clear connection to positive and negative word of mouth that can affect your brand.  The word of mouth marketing trends will only continue to fuel the adoption of Net Promoter as companies see the value of Promoters and the risk of Detractors.

2. Know who has influence is the next frontier.  As we evolve the use of Net Promoter the need to extend a brand’s ability to evaluate the impact of Promoters and Detractors on their market is critical.  Do they have influence?  How big is their sphere of influence?  Are they credible?  These are areas word of mouth marketing and Satmetrix will continue to innovate on.

3. Communities are hot.  There was a community type presentation at almost every breakout.  Clearly companies are adopting online communities as a way to listen to customers and learn about ways to improve their products and services.  Many of these are a broader application of the traditional focus group activity, with customers coming in and out of communities at points in time to participate in specific “projects.”

Satmetrix believes in all of the above and the good news is our customers are seeing value from these principles.  As the leader in Net Promoter program development it was a natural extension to add customer communities to our portfolio.  Together fostering Promoters and communities provides a powerful platform for companies to build a richer customer relationship that grows loyalty and recommend behavior for future growth.  We see communities as going beyond the research value they provide, to become a marketing asset that can be used to build more meaningful customer relationships.  Not cycling people in and out as projects define, but engaging them continuously in areas of the business that they care about and finding ways to communicate with them in a relevant manner that drives loyalty is key. More on our community offerings and how to build a marketing asset is coming in a subsequent posting. 

Welcome to the inaugural blog for Satmetrix.com

Welcome to the inaugural blog for Satmetrix.com. I’m Deborah, the Chief Marketing Officer, and I am excited to start the conversation with you about what’s happening at Satmetrix and trends in our market. I look forward to your comments.

Satmetrix recently announced the acquisition of Informative, which enables companies like LEGO and Intuit to build interactive communities to further its customer loyalty programs. It’s an exciting time for the company and for the market. There is no doubt that Net Promoter score (NPS) and operational loyalty programs are creating a disruptive force in our industry.  Satmetrix and Informative clients are seeing positive results. Our clients are opting for Net Promoter over traditional loyalty measures as it is easy to understand and actionable, enabling them to change from a more passive customer measurement program to an active organization-wide loyalty improvement program. By successfully integrating NPS across the business, they get information into the hands of the employees on the frontline to change relationships one customer at a time, and engage in a dialog that enables customer centric innovation.