NextStage's founder discusses markets and what the current landscape is-- including how you can put markets, and buzz, to work for you.
A short time ago, when I wasn't looking, I became the marketing lead for the Web Analytics Association's (WAA) Standards and Research committees. Robbin Steif, CEO of Lunametrics suggested I'd be perfect for the position because I'm a nit-picker for exacting language and I do research. I got involved in the WAA only after lurking on their Yahoo! Group for about a year. NextStage has been around for about six years now and people, upon discovering us, ask if we do web analytics. My response, as posted on Robbin's blog, is "no," followed by a fumbling explanation of what NextStage does do (you can email Dr. Cindy LaChapelle if you want a concise explanation). I joined the WAA because potential clients were putting us in the web analytics provider space, and I figured it was time to learn what web analysts do, thinking I could more clearly define the differences between NextStage and web analytics that way.
This is all relevant because potential clients were telling us we hadn't clearly defined ourselves in the market. Then a funny thing happened.
How technology changes markets (Part deux)
One thing NextStage does do is lots of research, and one of the areas we research is how technology affects marketing. Let me give you an example of technology affecting marketing. A few weeks back Brian Ross of ABC news broke the story about Congressman Mark Foley on ABC's website, not on their evening news program. Once that story appeared on ABC's website, according to NPR, the floodgates opened.
The market most affected by technology in this case is the news market. More political insiders pay attention to Matt Drudge than they do the Washington Post, or so you'd think from a Times magazine column. The Drudge Report itself is an example of technology affecting the same news market. Cell phones have changed how we communicate, obviously, but the way our communications have changed has changed many markets. Cell phone network providers are willing to let you call your friends -- your immediate social network -- for next to nothing, using you as part of their viral campaign. Using cell phone users to spread their service virally allows them to drop the price of simple communications by layering several packages on top of their simple offering. Being able, for example, to know where your family and friends are at any time, day or night, changes how the nuclear family nuclearizes itself. If I can locate you at any point in time, I don't need to know where you are at every point in time.
The power of markets
I wrote in A New Branding, Online and Off how branding is changing due to emerging markets. This leads to the question, What's changing the markets?
I was once told, "If you don't have competition, you don't have a market." For example, the competition to the first automobiles was the horse and buggy. The rail system came near to collapse in the United States because of the advent of trucking, the competitive advantage being door-to-door delivery.
In a recent conversation with Robert Schettino, CMO of BuzzLogic, I asked if BuzzLogic had any competition, and the response was a very definite no, they did not. I don't know if BuzzLogic has any competition (Schettino did offer that there was no direct competition), what I do know is that the biggest change technology has generated in marketing is this-- the consumer now has near-ultimate say in what shapes the market. In every place I've been and in every culture I've studied, humans communicate and gather to communicate when it suits them, and what they communicate about is what interests them.
In this social market reality, and as I wrote previously, the internet is the great democratizer. Everybody gets to state their case, and you need to know whose case is valid, and who is trustworthy. Your social network does some of this vetting for you. This was very eloquently explained to me at a Boston KM Forum breakfast meeting, as I noted in my blog.
Common in the new social market (note that I don't write "markets") are two things: mindshare and buzz. It was "If you don't have competition, you don't have a market." I think the new saying is, "If you don't have buzz, you don't have a market." The more buzz you have, the more mindshare you have, both in the individual consumer and in the society as a whole.
The problem with buzz
Fellow iMedia Author Dawn Anfuso did an excellent piece on BuzzLogic and where buzz is going. But there is a problem with buzz-- it's highly time-dependent. Extremely time-dependent. So time-dependent that what is buzz-worthy today is stale within a few days of its advent.
I was talking with John Mello about buzz and how it applied to JupiterResearch's article on the new influencers. Again, this is a Holmes and Watson scenario. Now the traditional influencers are playing Holmes to the more social network savvy Watsons who propagate their messages for them.
The new markets
The emerging markets are powerful because their reach, their Long Tail, can be both broad and surgical. A broad tail is one which encompasses existing markets. An example of a broad tail involves finding the Holmes who are
- Recognized subject matter experts
- Respected by a broad general audience
- Active and vocal in passing along the respected message.
In other words, find the Betas who will give your product a thorough run and then talk about it enthusiastically to a lot of people. These are your traditional influencers, your Holmes. Make sure the "lot of people" they talk to are people who will pass the enthusiasm along.
Surgical long tails are the province of micro-targeting, so popular in politics these days. Surgical long tails or micro-targeting comes with a heavy price, though. Companies using micro-targeting need to
- Know the minimum number of consumers required to act on the market message before ROI sets in and
- Have good surety that number will be achieved.
Surgical Holmes are different from their broad tail counterparts. Here you need Holmes who are
- Recognized subject matter experts
- Respected by a highly active and vocal audience
- Respected in their own right by an extended peer group.
The new markets aren't going to make things easy. Part one is getting a brand which the new markets will embrace. Part two is, as always, identifying the market. Technology is giving us tools to do that. Just be careful in how you define your space. Your surgical marketing message might cut your broad tail in half without your even knowing it.
Joseph Carrabis is CRO and founder of NextStage Evolution and NextStage Global, and founder of KnowledgeNH and NH Business Development Network. Read full bio.