Many CEOs focused on measurable results are still skeptical about the merits.
Marty Pitches C Level With Emotions And Values
I scooped this article because there is some merit to pitching social media as one engineer to another as they suggest. The "plan and analyze, set Key Performance Indicators and track" approach is a technique P&G taught called shadowing. You act like the person you are selling too and increase your chances of convincing them to buy.
This article talks about how to package and sell social not how to love and care for it. I understand the complexity of selling to the "C" level and I approach "shadowing" differently. I try to think like a "C" level executive (CEO, CIO, CTO, CMO). Here are a few ways the C level executives think differently than everyone else:
* Time frames are shorter and longer simultaneously.
* It about the vision thing mostly.
* C Stands For Coach Too.
* Have To Sell To A Board.
* Report To More Stakeholders Than Anyone Else.
* Think About Legacy More Than Mere Mortals.
* C Also Stands For Hero Complex (not in bad way).
C level executives are different. Average tenure for a Chief Marketing Officer (CM0) is two years. Your "need results" mindset is short. Your "legacy" where will the company be in 20 years time frame is longer than almost anyone else in the building. One of the ways you become a C level is to have, share and relentlessly pitch your aspirational belief for the company, the where this company should be in 20 years speech.
Once you have the vision thing hook set do what no C level executive I've ever worked with/for can resist. Propose a simple test. According to this article you map that test up one side and down the other and that is one approach. I like to propose tiny tests in short time frames.
Move Twitter followers up 10% in a month via a Be Like Us campaign for example. Always provide 3 choices of campaign alternatives to a CEO and read Dan Ariely's book Predictably Irrational to know why 3 is the magic number.
Make the middle choice your sweet spot and recommendation, but be sure you can operate on either end of the spectrum if your frog jumps to another paddy all of a sudden (rogue jumping is another C level trait LOL). Here is the trick to my approach - it doesn’t matter what test you run.
Once you have the data from your test, and you will need to really get out there and beat the weeds for ALL the multi-touch benefit. Don't just use Google Analytics for this as it underreports social by 30%. Get a trial to Argyle Social or something similar and track with that. Use Topsy to look across the social web, visit the people who reTweeted your campaign and count their followers. Build all the math case this article talks about.
Then pick 3 "winning" factors and create an infographic mapping those wins to the C level values you know your boss loves (those things from the list above) like this:
** Legacy - Campaign lead "Be Like Us" article reached 28,333 people in 4 days via Retweets. There were 45 Retweeters with 4 "influential" accounts Retweeting.
** Values - Google Insight For Search shows our key phrase "Be Like Us" trended up 10% over the quarter.
** Return - Be Like Us reached 135,000 people directly and almost a million via friends of friends, gaining 10% to our subscriber list with a project Lifetime Value of $543,000 in the first year.
** Sentiment - Words used by our customers during Be Like Us include - joy (40x), Magical (10x) and Love (5x), call center complaints were down 3% while orders were up 20%.
** ROI - Our fully loaded cash costs were $50,000, we also added in soft costs such as time and opportunity costs bringing us to $110,000 producing ROI of $5 to $1 EBITA (Earnings Before Interest Taxes and Amortization).
** Comparison Set - Other times this year we've generated $5 to $1 return or greater are X, Y and Z. We've benchmarked to X, Y and Z and will report quarterly on how Be Like Us compares over the next year.
Etc.
The key in any C level presentation is NOT to close all the loops. Don't connect things as much as present the forest view. Like the orders being up. That could have 100 reasons. Don't connect but don't exclude it either. Some C levels will challenge the data. View any challenge as capitulation to the social storyline. They've bought you are now just haggling the details (lol).
That last dangle and comparison set can win the day especially if there are NO OTHER returns of similar significance. If not, pick something that was close and put social into the same matrix and put them on a watch list.
C levels love tests and they love to be kept informed. Use this synergy of DATA, shadowing and emotions and chances of success go up. Good luck and remember what Bernie Lee my old M&M/Mars boss taught me - internal sales are the hardest to make.
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Thanks for the Scoop and this feed looks cool. Marty (AKA Revolutions guy LOL).