As pointed out
in the previous post on this topic, “cluster husbandry is not about targeting
consumers. It’s about encouraging them to become meaningfully engaged by
interacting with them in an authentic voice.” The social foundation of a
cluster in this sense is conversational reciprocity – two-way
communications between participants in the cluster. This is a key tool in
fostering meaningful online engagement.
It is important
to take into account that “two-way” communications is not limited to verbal
communications. A person’s mere presence in a cluster communicates something if
only curiosity about the cluster, who is it and why. From a marketer’s
perspective cluster metrics can have enormously information value. They
can put the market analyst in the position of being “a fly in the
corner,” observing what other cluster participants are saying about a brand,
their needs, the quality of their lives, their pains, but also their dreams, hopes
and plans for the future.
The frequency
with which a topic is discussed by participants in a cluster can also have
great value to the analyst. It can be a measure of the intensity of a need and
the percentage of cluster participants experiencing the need.
Advocates of
cluster husbandry regard it as one of the most significant developments in Web
2.0 – a term widely used to reflect the transition of consumers from passive
recipients of market information exchanges to active co-creators of market
information. To an analyst skilled in gathering, analyzing and interpreting
cluster metrics virtually no other form of exchanging information with
consumers provides a more empathetic view of customers.
Cluster
husbandry takes its cues from customers’ values, circumstances needs and
emotions, particularly as they are revealed in social networking venues. As
such, cluster husbandry is strongly grounded in empathy: the act of identifying
with and understanding another person’s values, circumstances, needs, and emotions.
Engagement
clusters are economic ecosystems within larger economic ecosystem that include
industries, government entities and society at-large. Engagement clusters, like
other economic ecosystems, are organized around the information needs and exchanges
between their participants. This is the essence of the multiple stakeholder
relationship (MSR) business model that will be the subject of an upcoming post
in this series.)
The market
analyst in cluster husbandry is not a passive recipient of information
generated by consumer participants in a cluster. But the proactive focus
different from what focused marketers’ attentions in the past when they were
more concerned with “sales funnels” and the direct conversion of consumers’
attention into sales.
In marketing
based on cluster husbandry, the marketer automatically shifts greater attention
to “referral funnels” by empathetically connecting with consumers’ need. This
requires a different way of thinking about marketing. As the term
“husbandry” suggests, it means growing, nurturing and feeding clusters with
information relevant to the topics and needs generated by cluster populations.
Through
feedback from r members of clusters comprising the total marketing realm of a
company’s economic ecosystem, the marketer comes to understand how his or her
messaging resonates throughout the various clusters and why. This
provides a knowledge-based foundation for refining or changing messaging and
media buys to reflect the messages that emerged in the ecosystem and thereby
increase conversion of interest to sales and extend advertising reach.
Immersion
Active recently designed and carried out a campaign that illustrates
significant increases in marketing effectiveness that can be achieved from a
consumer-centered cluster husbandry approach to marketing.
Home Instead
Senior Care wanted to connect with the adult children of older parents.
Immersion Active responded by first identifying a variety of channels adult
children were using to communicate with others. By monitoring these channels,
the market analysts was able to identify topics, needs and values that would be
helpful in creating messages from Home Instead Senior Care that were relevant
to potential customers.
Immersion
Active inferred from its analysis of these channels that features-based
advertising would likely have a weak conversion rate from attention to sales.
In fact, it believed that the ability of such advertising to get prospects’
attention would be poor.
So, instead of
a features-based approach, Immersion Active used a story-telling approach in
emails and other online messaging. The impact was unambiguously positive:
A 400% percent conversion lift and a five-fold increase in service inquiries
year over year.
Additionally,
Home Instead Senior Care experienced a more than doubling of the amount of
sharing of content on its domain through the use of helpful, conversational
resources. It found that that people who shared materials were over five times
more likely to inquire about services as those who did not share. That
provides strong support for the importance placed on achieving meaningful
online engagement that was discussed earlier and the vital importance of
conversational reciprocity.
Special Thanks
to Joe Ford, Director of Analytics and Optimization, Immersion Active, for help in developing this
series.
