Are customer communities changing the marketing department
An interesting question that came up during our workshop (slides here) at the community 2.0 conference was whether CMO’s and their marketing departments are changing with the advent of successful customer communities.
The answer so far is unfortunately: no… While a majority of customer community initiatives seems to migrate towards marketing, they are doing so by accident – not by design. In fact we have seen cases where communities were transitioned under marketing, only to have marketing push back and have them end up with the CFO.
It makes sense for customer communities to end up under marketing – whether new product innovation communities, customer support communities or marketing communities. But they should come with a transformation of the CMO role and that of their marketing department – one in which they become the representative of the voice of the customer within the company instead of the brand builders or the sales support department.
Unfortunately, and in a majority of the cases that we surveyed as part of our study, that is not what is happening. In companies with large marketing budgets, community spending is too small to even make it on the radar screen of the CMO – who often manages the importance of programs and initiatives relative to marketing dollars spent on it. In many companies, the CMO does not have the mandate to represent the voice of the customer within the company – sometimes having no say on new product innovation and in most cases being completely detached from customer support. Yet when looking at companies like Zappos.com, you could argue that customer support is the new sales and marketing channel.
So where does that lead us? For those companies who are not transforming the role of the CMO and their marketing departments, many community activities will fail – as there is no connection between what customers do and expect in those communities and the internal business processes that can actually make things happen. In the long run, and because of the game-changing nature of successful communities, those marketing departments will become totally irrelevant to the company strategy.
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May 20th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Hi Francois,
If marketers are the voice of the customer then who is the voice of the company?
May 21st, 2008 at 7:49 am
Hi Mike – if you do it right, then you customer communities will do a fine job in representing the company and its products.
One way or the other, I do believe that people do not want to hear from companies anymore, they want to hear from other people.
Francois
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:56 am
Your thought provoking:
“One way or the other, I do believe that people do not want to hear from companies anymore, they want to hear from other people.”
conjured multiple thoughts starting with “I wish I’d made it to Community 2.0 early enough to hear the Zappos’ presentation”.
Your post alluding to the disconnect between Marketing departments that don’t change and the “Groundswell” for which Bernoff and Li make the case in their book reminded me of one of the oddest events I’ve ever attended: the Cluetrain Manifesto 10th Anniversary celebration in NY earlier this year.
Doc Searls keynoted. Josh Bernoff presented but the audience size was miniscule. Maybe 20 people in the room and perhaps 2 from companies not consultants or podcasters.
I’m curious how you see this disconnect between customers wanting to hear from peers and “those marketing departments will become totally irrelevant to the company strategy” being resolved and in what time frame?
June 19th, 2008 at 3:19 pm
Francois:
This is OLD SCHOOL thinking – but not very surprising. Many CMO’s still think the conversation is about their brand.
It is easy to shovel money out the door with 30 sec TV spots – much, much harder to do one human interaction at a time. But one at a time is what the technology has enables – and the future will demand.
My communities rant here,
http://tinyurl.com/685e3x
Thanks –
TO’B
August 25th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Francois, great article. There is much being written about the transformation of the CMO, yet I wonder if the issue is with the CMO or the organzation? Does the CMO have the support of the CEO and their peers to redirect their attention to customer experience? Are they being measured on the sustainable value of the brand through customer loyalty and retention or purely on acquistion?
As I watched the olympic ads I saw a total mismatch between the traditional advertising and today’s consumer. At $750K for 30 seconds compared with the < $200K annual investment identifed in your recent report on communites, something is definitely wrong. Here’s my post on the topic: http://satmetrix.typepad.com/deborah_eastman/
Deb Eastman
CMO
Satmetrix
September 18th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Social communities have been a great and useful tool for our social networking clients. They can spot trends, potential headches to avoid and in general keep the companies brand top of thought for the customer active in the customer communities.
Sandy Rowley
Mega Star Media INC
Customer Communities/Social Networks
1-877-736-6932
January 6th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
Marketers r the voice of the companies