Truly Winning With Digital: Solving for Both Own and Rent

Marketers were simply responsible for creating a demand for their products or services. Someone else took care of the consumer relationship – pre or post sale. All that changed with the web. Marketers are not just responsible for new and more sophisticated acquisitions strategies. In addition they are also responsible for the experiences that exist on websites, mobile applications, and social platforms.

At the highest level often there is a lack of clarity in companies if they should just be on Facebook or should they have their own website (mobile, tablet, desktop). Even when they are on all or some of those platforms, the actual execution vastly under delivers on the available potential.

When all you have is a presence on Google+ or Facebook, you are renting an audience

To help provide some soul searching clarity, I’ve developed a simple three question framework you can use to identify how sophisticated your current digital marketing approach is (question one), how fantastic – or not – your social execution is (question two), and if you are take full advantage at delivering near-term, medium-term and long term value to your business (question three).

Answer three simple questions, and get ready to truly rock digital.

1. Do you have both an "own" and a "rent" existence for your brand?

When all you have is a presence on Google+ or Facebook, you are renting an audience. Sure, people may circle/like you on those platforms. But everything there is controlled by the platform owner.

Google+/Facebook determine who will see your posts (how much to choke you with EdgeRank). They determine what you can do on the platform today, what you can do today that you can't do tomorrow, and the pace at which they innovate. For the most part, they also own the data about your circlers/likers, and in many ways the relationship too.

You do get to engage. You get to bring your creativity within the confines of the newsfeed system on either platform. You get to determine if you want to reply to comments, or allow x or y or z.

But you are simply renting.

No modern company will have a complete digital marketing strategy without a robust presence on Facebook/Google+. But to have only a rented digital existence is a profoundly sub-optimal and short-sighted decision.

You need to have an owned existence as well. For almost all brands, that means a website on your domain and where you set the rules of engagement, own the content (and whether it can be deleted/kept/blacklisted), and determine the sophistication of the creativity; a destination where you send all the "clicks" you collect from your multi-channel inbound marketing strategy, the outcomes you can deliver for your customers, the data you collect (with permission), what you do with it, and so much more.

So what do you have? Do you rent or own?

You want to have both. But if you can only have one, choose own.

2. On your "rent" existence, are you shouting or adding value to the audience's life?

It is heartbreaking to see how most big brands use Facebook and Google+. Vaseline’s Facebook Page is one product shot after another. If you follow Vaseline, do you really want to see a Vaseline product shot Every Single Day?

But they are of course far from unique. Check out any P&G brand. Check out L'Oreal. Check out any other Consumer Product Goods (CPG) brand.

Don't stop there. Check out any B2B, B2Q, M2Z brand. In. Any. Country!

Now, check out my beloved Innocent Drinks or the fantastic RedBull pages on Facebook. Or the ESPN page on Google+

Almost no shouting. Almost no pimping. No: BUY ME! BUY ME NOW! DID YOU FORGET I COME IN A BOTTLE?

And here's the test to apply to your brand: Would you want your brand's posts to in your own newsfeed every day? Multiple times a day? Day after day after day?

If the answer is no, shut down your Google+, your Facebook existence. You may be posting, but you are certainly not creating any long term value to your business.

Ditto for YouTube brand channels. Do you have yet another lame brand channel full of just your TV ads, or does yours rock, like Tide’s or Purina’s. which offer tips and in many ways make your life better and really connect with you?

Another test to apply: How are you doing in terms of Conversation Rate, Amplification Rate, Applause Rate? Use those brilliant social media metrics to optimize your social existence.

If you are going to rent an existence, make sure it is an existence in which you can build a loyal, repeatedly reachable, truly connected-to-your-brand audience.

3. On your "own" existence: Are you solving for a local maxima, 2% (one outcome) or are you solving for a global maxima, 100% (a cluster of macro and micro outcomes)?

The most common "own" existence is your website. It is also your mobile website (if different from desktop). It is also your mobile app. It is your blog (hopefully on the company domain). Etc.

On an owned existence, you can deliver a cluster of macro and micro outcomes to your direct site visitors as well as to the people you invite via your digital campaigns (search, social, email, display). Unlike on Google+ or Facebook (and you should be on both) you can have product recommendation tools, you can have in-depth information about your products, you can have downloads, you can have lead gen forms, you can have games/videos/branded content, you can have credit card applications, support options, forums/peer-to-peer help areas, you can have … literally anything your customers are interested in.

If all you have is one conversion, say a buy now process or lead gen, then you are making a very poor use of the web. You can of course do ecommerce/lead gen. But what is amazing about the web, unlike TV or Radio or even your physical store, is that you can deliver against multiple customer expectations at a very low cost.

Here's a company in a direct-to-dentist supplies equipment business with macro (Add To Order) and micro (all others below) outcomes, solving for a global maxima:

So … is your digital outcomes strategy this robust?

It is heartbreaking to see how most big brands use Facebook and Google+

Are you satisfied with a local maxima or is your digital existence solving for a global maxima?

Defining at the highest level if you are solving for an Own or a Rent strategy (or ideally both) with digital is critical. Once you’ve identified your strategy the key determent of success will be to ensure that for your Rent strategy your focus is on conversations and not shouting, and for your Own strategy you are solving for a portfolio of near and long term outcomes.

That’s it. That is all it takes to win with digital! 

Image courtesy of b2bmarketinginsider.com