Patterns and Marketing

Early in my marketing career, I learnt a very important lesson. Customers follow a 'PATTERN' . Seth Godin calls them "Tribes".

My ex boss, and my friend Abhay very recently, always spoke of 'Patterns'. They kept insisting to me that if one can deduce the patterns of customers, one can sell more effectively. Somehow, I've always felt this is a good way of understanding customer behavior (an area which intrigues me most). It was only when I looked at Google Analytics, and then at Trendsmap (a tool which shows Twitter trends from all around the world), that I got thinking. What if one can integrate what both these tools do, and integrate it with various marketing tools, so as to emerge with patterns.

The image below is a screenshot from Trendsmap


The next image is from Google Analytics



Now, imagine an integration with a survey, or with that email campaign you sent. Suppose you have a survey question: "What influences your soap purchase?" and the answers are

1. Smell
2. Not harsh on skin
3. Economical
4. Neat design. 

Now assign different color flags to each answer; red for option 1, green for option2, yellow for option 3 and blue for option 4.

Then suppose we integrate online surveys with Google Maps, so that you can watch results pop up in real time. Imagine the flags popping up with each click on your survey. The color coding makes it easy to identify, and the density of a certain color can help you detect the said "Patterns".

Here's a few uses I can see for this sort of data:

• Surveys: Imagine the patterns that can emerge over a period of time. You can easily compare the color flags over a period of time to see pattern changes. Strangely, if you watch National Geographic, they've used this technique to track migration patterns of animals.
  
• Emails: Tracking email links is a tedious job. If you have a newsletter, it becomes even worser. Looking at patterns, one can have tuned, targeted mails for various regions, based on user trends
• Social media: This is pretty easy, and a lot of it is already being implemented
  
• Sales team: Will be of great use to them. They can keep tagging their sales made on an interactive map, which can be shared with the marketing department. This can help he marketing team further establish usage trends, areas where products/ services are selling, product/services sales in respective areas, revenue maps for customers etc.
• Website: Create a map (2D) of your website, and track links. What would be interesting is if we can have a 'linktrail' of each customer; i.e. where does he click first, his 2nd click, and so on. If the entire trail can be mapped onto a pattern map, you have a consumer behavior map for your website. Optimise as much as you like after that.
  

Avinash Kaushik, of Occam's Razor and Google Analytics fame, remarks that analytics are easy, and unless you drill down, the simple mind cannot ascertain the key points from the data exhibited.

Perhaps this 'Pattern' detection will make it easy for the amateur researcher, or marketing executive to provide reports. Also, it might help make marketing a more reportable part of business (which it isn't right now).

Patterns and Marketing

One little Twitter bird sat on the wall

                                  (Courtesy of Dilbert.com)

I've been a pretty mute spectator on the Twitter thing. After having joined it in February, I've watched it grow. The fanfare has been getting extremely loud, probably too loud. Here's what about seven months on Twitter has taught me. My analysis on any subject tends to be simple, with focus on the benefits and the misfits.

Benefits

1. It's instant. Possibly the instantest (forgive the word twist)
2. It helps you learn
3. It's an instant database (not a long-term one though) of the best sites, information, snippets, you-name-it-you-got-it, on the internet
4. It can/might help you influence people
5. It has a SUPERB SEARCH option (real-time)- You can read this great post by Ann Smarty of SEOsmarty fame
6. Superb way to increase website visits
7. SEO: Links, backward and forward, Click throughs, optimized clicks, customized landing pages and much more
8. It helps increase a company brand value (Personal brand value also)
9. If you are the celebrity lover (which I am not), you could follow a lot of them (none follow you back of course), message them(expect no reply) and feel good about it
   

Misfits

1. It does not help you make friends. Common misconception. If that's your intention, head over to Facebook 
2. Horrible for ad placement- Too many reasons. If you post now, it might reflect at any position on your followers Twitter Dashboard. Also, your ads will disappear with the occurrence of fresher tweets. This compared to email where you Ad remains in the Inbox, and can be read later if need be
   
3. It is ruled by Narcissists, spammers, porn artists and people with pointless tweets
4. Contrary to belief, it does not really help you influence people- Suppose you follow a company on Twitter. Has their publishing a white-paper influenced you
   
5. It does not help sales
6. Most people are busy tweeting. It's akin to you conversing with someone, but the conversation is one-way; while you are talking about soccer, your freind is talking about the next rock concert
7. It is SPAMMY- Financial help, PORN (parents should never allow their kids, though Kids hate twitter anyways), Learn how to add a Zillion followers and the list goes on.

Marketing angle

If we take a marketers' angle (I am a marketer), here are few things one should consider before joining the Twitter bandwagon:

1. Be very clear on what you want to Tweet about
2. Don't just join for the heck of it. Formulate a plan of how frequently you are going to tweet in a day, what you are going to tweet about, and what kind of customers you can hope to influence
3. Twitter is a 24/7 machine. You will require a resource (s) who must monitor your account
4. Don't neglect your followers. Make sure you reply back/ Direct Message on time
5. Don't expect sales from Twitter. It's a platform where you can hope to influence and not sell
6. Twitter to me is the best substitute for word-of-mouth. If you tweet something of substance, which gets retweeted, you could expect a Pingomatic (My word: I'll elucidate in my next post) effect.
7. Use an URL shortener like bit.ly. It not only helps you track your tweets, but also helps you get Retweeted
8. Always Tweet within a limit of 100-110 characters. This allows for better Retweet value, and also the possibility of Follower remarks
9. Try and Rewtweet also. This shows that you care about the community at large.
10. Don't expect 1000 followers a day. Always remember the "Quality is better than Quantity" motto
11. Give back: Have incentives (the #moonfruit campaign), offer prizes, organize competitions, have charity auctions 
12. Last but not the least, remember that Twitter is social media. You do not thrive in society by being alone, not interacting with people and just living on an island.

(All icons courtesy of Smashing Magazine)

One little Twitter bird sat on the wall