VRM Marketing

Scumbag Marketers-

Dean lays down the law :

We need enterprise buy in for this to work. (meaning large companies, brick n mortar and online and have CRM)

Don has brought up there there are a lot of companies that might want to sell what looks like CRM and it might not be with the best intent.

It’s all about money and they may say “what’s in it for me?”

We have a few candidates in mind … we know the right person there. It’s the highest of C persons because it has to come from the top or else we’re fighting our way through all the little fiefdoms… Because they have to be told

Pushback – Chris: look at Frank Eliason at ComcastCares who did grassroots, Twitterbased end-run.

Deb-Based on experience with P&G going to the top and pushing down even with smart big companies could be hard. So higher ups and infulentials

• We’ve agreed on Influentials and horizontal

Phil Wolff – another challenge, might be to understand the systems they are using and pull through with an existing vendors.

Sean, VRM isn’t going to replace CRM… It’s not a replacement… Think about Oracle/Sun for example, they may be incorporating VRM into part of their solution.

• So we have to take a multi-pronged approach
• We have to target each and speak in their language.

Gam – At sephora, they started at the top and were pushed progressively down to the group that was doing Facebook and they were only interested in their “the Fan site” so then it got totally diffused and sent out.

Sean says we’re tight but we still don’t talk in a way that has appeal horizontally among non-geeks

Doc says that there are a few people who get it the first time out. And now we (this group) needs to get out their with a set of stories that highlights the curb appeal

We’ve played down the marketing VRM until some code has been written and there are some examples out there.

We’ve been watching the best people rising and the people who really get it doing some cool stuff.

Now within 6mo to a year. We’ll have PublicRadio. We’ll have Gam’s thing andtcetera. And Deb’s gonna have the one pager.

Deb’s observation – there are all sorts of consultants saying “you don’t bet it” and evangelizing around Searchi optimization and blogging.

Deb has community managers at CPG, that means they get that. The future of e-commerce is the next step and “this is it.”

Dean is channeling Allan – he says that we’re making a statement and getting internal buy in. The mission now should be to get buy in from them and get them to pay something like $10K.

Deb says, they need a real story.

Chris says – We have two products now… One was VRM… The next one is a very distinct product which is “a seat at the table to influence creation of VRM”

It is Access, privilege and Influence and it should have a price attached to it.

Don – there is definitely value to them. We just have to bring it to their attention.

Chris is saying once again that it has value to them

There will be more of a story when the ClueTrain Manifesto update comes out it will clarify the connection.

Conceptual DNA exists.

Doc says also – by bureaucratizing what we do, some good things happened, but there’s some organization issues.

• Joyce, Judi, Dean and Renee are going to blend things back together. Renee Lloyd has the best way to articulate this and get the organization.

Dean: Big Company buy in will get companies getting big and small companies interested.

Doc has confidence that the major CRM companies are going to buy into this. Doc is planning to have a combined CRM/VRM session and CRM will sponsor, attend and bring customers.

Q: is there going to be a certification process. And The 4th party concept will be baked in. And certification will protect the concept and clarify. There will be a VRM seal of approval.

Per Dean: VRM as a brand is not sexy… And it’s not our consumer brand. Doc says that like the word ATM, people use them but necessarily use the term

Sean’s observation – the name isn’t as important as the fact that we have more clay on the piece and, besides, the naming folks at McCann or whatever will “make a hash” of any name we might come from

Phil’s idea – there are two sides that will make this work. We’ve been focusing on the plumbing side… And not the moms and pops or the people that are using it.

Sean is saying that there are stories to be told Deb says that we need the idiot CNN reporter can say the narrative

Jeff Schwartz… Agreed that it’s not ready,

Chris Anderson and Tim O’Reilley are not sold on it. But some others might be.

Sean: need the manifesto, need the North Star,

Paul: there’s not one user story, There are many orthogonal ones.

Deb: What we should do is have Sean, Doc or Dean give their elevator pitch.

And What’s your story to Mom.

Dean – Big go hears: These days we know that people have more communications platforms where you hear them speak. They are telling you what you had used as predictive, you can now get directly from them.

We enable this data to come in and we make it so you can use info from both sides.

Deb: we’ve heard that this is social media stuff is happening. Does it help me sell more stuff.

Paul – said that there’s a fourth party story for the shopper.

Doc: starts with a question:

Which do you hate more, loyalty cards or bad customer service? And dependeing on which one you go down that path.

Then the story is that the companies are already outsourcing their customer service to you. This is your chance to take better control of that.

Jeff asks: why would a vendor want you to give control to the customers?

Doc: Ask what do you hate most about your business A: Guesswork… You can get rid of the waste that occurs because of guess work

• We’re equipping pull as VRM turns push into pull.

There’s so much buzz about listening to your customer and enterprise “gets that” but they’re using market research data, customer research, and market effectiveness studies.

We need to use “the equipping” word… Ergo not the monitoring stuff

Don – the difference between marketing sales… Tell the marketing guy that VRM shortens the sales cycles, increases loyalty, costs less…

Sales guy … you tell them that they gotta have it.

Jeff Schwartz – says the good thing is to say things

Cover Fear of loss and Desire for gain

Sean says – this levels the playing field between big companies and you. You can interact with them eye-to-eye, peer-to-peer. No more loyalty cards. I’m doing it to GM…

Leveling the playing field is the big deal.

Phil’s asking whether we have a shopping list regarding the talent we need

Sean says that we need a grassroots movement sort of structure.