Is the Marketing Campaign losing its Crown?

For those of us who have responsibility for generating tangible online results, there are few weapons more important than the Almighty Campaign. While some in advertising may use a different definition, I have always viewed an online campaign as a point-to-point exercise:

Outbound Stimulus From Brand >> Recipients Respond >> Recipients Take Action

An offer is pushed from the brand, a small percentage of recipients hit a landing page and an even smaller percentage transact. A nice, neat package. Metrics galore. And there are plenty of vendors out there to help me with list selection, predictive analytics, outbound strategies, landing page optimization and lead nurturing.

But the rise of social media has made me think a bit differently about the value of the Campaign. Although they remain critically important, response rates are suddenly not the only end game. Now, the nature of a prospect’s or customer’s interaction with a brand on proprietary or social sites provides me with potentially rich information. How vigorously are customers and prospects tracking my brand? What is spurring a rise or fall in their sentiment? Does my brand strategy leverage all of the different channels consumers are using to discuss my space or product? How are their interactions with competing or complementary products impacting their perception of a brand? And importantly, how can one use content to influence these interactions?

The Influence Game

In the world dominated by Campaigns, I had a nice tightly defined group of metrics. Most were binary. Recipients responded or they didn’t. As my targets participate on social properties, they have infinitely more points of expression. They can participate or observe. If they participate, there are varying levels of engagement and sentiment. And the metrics are more about shades of gray. Customers can now be represented along a spectrum of brand passion.

As the more passionate customers move up the scale, they join discussion groups around the brand, they formally join communities and actively participate, and are provided administrative rights to moderate and lead discussions on a site.

Alternate paths exist – the pyramid is not always linear. A consumer might very well discuss a product on a forum or ask for advice on Twitter before buying.

The end game for the marketer is to pull their target up the inverted pyramid of Brand Passion. As the inverted pyramid gets more top-heavy, the franchise becomes stronger.

So if the Marketing Campaign is to be displaced, a few things need to happen. First, analytics that help marketers segment by passion need to be nailed. Second, we need information that defines what content most efficiently moves the customer up the inverted pyramid. And third, we’ll want a way to deliver content to the pure social sites – such as forums - that will help marketers influence outcomes. I suspect these missing pieces are closer than we think...