Vinci And Customer Relationship Management

This is a story that happened to me as I was looking for a parking lot. I was on my way to watch the basketball game France-Hungrary.

Of course, in this neighborhood of Paris, finding a parking spot a night game is a difficult task, and hence, I drove around the block many times to finally decide to get inside the Vinci parking. I get inside the parking and start driving around for about 10 minutes. As a matter of fact, there was no parking available in there. When I decide to get out of the parking, I had to p 2.5 euros, whereas I didn't even park, just for a minute!

Vinci's Park Problems
Vinci let me get into their parking whereas they couldn't deliver the service. They had no parking lot, that is fine, but they should alert about it. Also, I have to pay for a service that hasn't been provide. This is just a total ripp off. If I couldn't consume the product, I should be paid back.

On top of that, Vinci is proposing me a customer service phone number, to deal any kind of problems...

This is simply ridiculous. The company is not able to provide the service and require the customer to pay! This is obviously a complete ripp off. I am not used to use this blog for personal purpose, but I believe this has a complete link with the blog theme: customer relationship management.

This post is also a great way to see the community management strategy Vinci has established. Will they be able to get in contact with me to fix that problem (I have a pretty high reputation online now, and they shouldn't have no problems founding me)? Or will they ignore me on purpose, or simply will have no clue about this issue?

I'll keep you updated in case there is any kind of response.

Branding And SEM Don't Get Along Well

Branding is important for a company. It aims to give to stakeholders, customers and potential ones, a clear view of what the company offers, its position in the market and its values. Branding is a difficult exercise, especially for businesses that provides somehow the same kind of servies than its competitors. It is especially true in the business to business industry.

SEM is the art of buying keywords on search engines, in order to generate traffic on a website, and ultimately convert this traffic into customers. But sometimes, interests of both trades are hard to get along.

SEM takes into consideration web users semantic, and searching methods. If someone is looking for a video conferencing service, it will key "video conference". But branding aims to make a company and its product different. In that case, a company might establish itself as a video communication leader. Moreover, as brand specialist, they might consider the company is better off trying to buy keywords associated with the video communication terms than video conferencing words, which market is expensive and overcrowded.

SEM expert Ian Harris explains the problems he experiences to deal with branding consideration and SEO.

I believe the best solution is to brand yourself on the website as you like, but keep a search engine optimization strategy that would bring you the best results, taking into consideration web users terminologies. Also, with a microsite strategy or couple of landingscape, techniques that bring a high conversion rate most of the time with keywords campaigns, you could link both strategies without much problems.

Publicis Bought Razorfish

This is a great news. Global advertising company Publicis has purchased this week Razorfish, one of the finest web agency in the world. Previously owned by Microsoft, which didn't really want to get into the marketing and communication field, Razorfish has a great reputation, and works on all kind of Internet medium, from SEO to websites creation, but also, knows a lot about web 2.0 and social media.

I am glad and proud that Publicis, A French corporation, was able to make this smart move, which provides it a competitive advantage on other communication companies, as they have succeeded in diversifying its advertising offer on new media, meanwhile TV advertising is hit badly by crisis.

Very smart move, and looking forward how Publicis will leverage this new partnership to get even more into the Internet, but also in the US market.

Social Media To Provide A New 360 Customer Relationship Management

Social Media is a great new medium that has been emerging now for about 3 years. Marketers are still defining the use of it on the long term, but we can have a clear view that social media change dramatically the marketing approach of customers. Prior to social media, CRM was based on customizing a customer relationship management, based on company owned data. It was pretty difficult already, but the goal was to limit cost and have an appropriate message, upon customers needs.

But social media has open the picture and it is clear that it will have a great impact on both customer experience and service. Therefore, in a global customer relationship management approach, you could have different company's department that would use social media abilities to create this great online customer experience. I found that great article on line, which explains well how to use social media for a customer relationship strategy:

• SUPPORT DEPARTMENT: Strategic engagements in social media start therefor on the support side as we can see with companies like Comcast, Ford, Dell and many others.
• PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: A natural next step is to leverage the experience in the service and support departments to drive down product development cost, get early market feedback and in particular support during the product launch phase.
• LOGISTICS AND PROCUREMENT: Social media is probably the most effective and the least expensive early warning system for everybody involved in procurement, logistics and production planning challenges.
• SALES & MARKETING: With the experience from support, product development and logistics it is a natural to now leverage social media in sales and marketing. Why at last? Only happy customers become advocates, helper in the word of mouth campaign or any other function to help create buzz and become buzz drivers into a market. Frustrated customers do the other way around. So starting in marketing - while very counter intuitive - is probably the biggest mistake you can make when you engage in social media.

Of course such changes would drive a some major changes in business organization. Therefore, it is important to have a clear view on how companies are thinking about using social media to run their business. And that is also the reason why a community manager is important, as it could coordinate company's efforts.

Customer Relationship Starts Before Customer’s First Purchase

Customer relationship management (CRM) aims to manage customer experiences. This implies to take control over the whole relationship with a customer, from its first purchase to the next ones.

But the journey to provide a great customer relationship doesn’t start when the customer buys its first product. Indeed, if loyalty is engaged after the second purchase, the relationship a customer has with one company has already started prior that.

Customer’s decision making process
A customer has already established some contacts with the brands during his decision making process. Either he visited a website, or ask the opinion of some friends, but he already has a picture in mind of who you are. Even prior the decision making process.

I believe the decision making process is indeed not taking into consideration as much as it should. Analysing this key event is important, because it will probably determine how to market a product and adapt its communication.

Branding Is Key Prior To Purchase
Hence, your brand, the way you communicate on your customer service and experience, will help you to set up a particular customer relationship with customers. A company

Promoting Customer Service
Also, as customer relationship management is starting before the customer enter the retail, it could have a clear expectation of what the relationship will be based on. Indeed, most of companies now promote their customer service policy and strategy on their website. By doing so, it alerts the customer that it is entering into a clear relationship where he'll get in returns of his loyalty some rewards and advantages.

Some Potential Tools To Evaluate Pre-customer Relationship
I believe the topic of CRM before the first purchase hasn't really been developped so far. Actually, it is difficult to have clear measure about this step, as company's can't really get any data, but still, some tools could give a good outlook. For instance, branding surveys or focus group based on non customers could help you define what potential customers believe the relationship will be about.

Do you have any other ideas about the topic? Let's discuss about it.

Les marques nationales contre attaquent

La crise a profondément changer les stratégies de communication des enseignes de la grande distribution en France. Pouvoir d'achat en berne, moyens de communication revue à la baisse, et bien sûr changement profond dans les modes de consommation ont conduit les enseignes tels que Auchan, Carrefour ou Leclerc à revoir leurs messages publicitaires:

• Auchan communique sur leurs premiers prix: Ils les affiches sur les affiches, en parlent à la télévision, les incorporent dans leurs prospectus.
  
• Carrefour lance Carrefour Discount: L'enseigne ayant du mal à assoir son image prix, elle décide de lancer une nouvelle gamme de produits premiers prix, en lui assignant sa marque comme gage de qualité.
• Leclerc poursuit sa stratégie de comparaison de prix: Mais cette fois-ci, Leclerc va plus loin en mettant en avant le fait que ces premiers prix sont aussi moins cher que la concurrence dans des spots télévisées. Leclerc est le moins cher sur toutes les gammes de produits, grandes marques, MDD, et premiers prix, et le fait savoir.
• Intermarché invente le concept de Discount utile: les produits à bas prix sont sélectionnés en fonction des besoins du consommateur, et non en fonction de ceux qui sont le plus margés. Ainsi Intermarché a développé un concept qu'il explique sur les différents média (prospectus, télévision, radio etc...)

L'objectif de ces changements profonds de communication est bien sûr de proposer au consommateur des solutions par rapport à la période actuelle de crise, mais aussi pour partir à l'offensive des hard discounts, qui à l'heure d'aujourd'hui, gagnent des parts de marché.

Les marques nationales contre attaquent
Aujourd'hui, c'est donc les marques nationales qui se trouvent à mal, puisqu'ils avaient l'habitude d'être les rois de la communication en hypermarché. C'est pour cela qu'il y a quelques jours je viens de voir une affiche sur le Coca Cola Zero. Le texte (approximatif, car en voiture, je n'ai pas pu prendre l'affiche en photo): "qui mieux que Coca Cola Zero peut vous offrir du Coca Cola Zero?"

Et l'affiche renvoie sur un lien Internet: Les marques et vous. Ainsi les grandes marques nationales décident de se défendre et de mettre en avant son aspect qualitatif afin de pouvoir contrer l'offensive des MDD et autres premiers prix. De plus, certaines études aux Etats-Unis ont montré qu'avec la crise, les foyers vont moins au restaurant, mais ce rabattent sur des produits de marque pour avoir la même qualité.

Cette initiative montre bien que les grandes marques, plutôt individualiste dans l'esprit, montrent elles aussi des signes de faiblesse, et leurs problèmes actuelles. Voici l'édito du site.

"A quoi servent les marques ?

Une grande marque, c’est une marque de fabricant.

Elle affiche et engage la responsabilité du fabricant. Elle signe et authentifie son produit en rappelant qu'il a été fabriqué selon ses exigences et sous son contrôle. Elle assure un niveau de qualité.

Une grande marque, c’est aussi le signe d'une relation durable avec le consommateur : garantie, service après-vente, améliorations, innovations font partie de leur histoire depuis plus 150 ans.

Imaginiez-vous tout ce dont les marques sont capables ?

Une grande marque, c'est aussi un engagement : pour les consommateurs bien sûr, mais aussi pour la société dans son ensemble. En mettant leur nom au service de causes qui nous concernent, telles que l'écologie, l'innovation ou le développement durable, les marques participent directement à l'avancement de grands projets sociétaux.

L'objectif de ce nouveau portail est de mettre en lumière les initiatives, souvent méconnues, des marques qui vous entourent, et de vous faire découvrir leur face « cachée »..."

Dunkin Donuts Set Up An Iphone App For New Marketing Campaign

Dunikin Donuts set up a new marketing campaign. As the competition is getting tougher, with Starbucks being hit by the crisis and Mc Donald's entering the market with Mc Cafe, Dunkin Donuts created a new campaign, which invites customers to create Dunkin's next Donut.
This $10 million campaign has brought in the opinions of 130 000 participants.

Also part of the strategy the company launched a new Iphone app, enabling users to create shopping list with different co workers. That is actually very smart as it fits to customer's decision making process, since most of the times co workers of a company will share their orders.
To find out more, check here.

De la difference entre l’animateur de communauté et le manager de communauté

Le Monde consacre un article sur son site Internet sur le métier de Community Manager : « Sur le Net, des journalistes se muent en animateurs pour doper les audiences »

Ainsi, le journaliste explique que l’ »on parle de community manager. En français, on dit « animateur de communauté ».
Néanmoins le métier de manageur de communauté et d’animateur de communauté est bien différent. C’est comme comparé un télémarketeur avec un directeur marketing.

Dans l’article, on décrit des personnes ayant un rôle d’animateur de communauté à mi-temps, où il s’agit de modérer les interventions dans les communautés, de réagir si besoin. Il y a ainsi un réel rôle d’écoute et d’interaction avec la communauté.

Mais le réel poste de community manager, comme il va le devenir, est un rôle beaucoup plus évolué. Il implique de gérer une communauté, qui potentiellement peut compter des dizaines de milliers de personnes, sur des réseaux multiples (Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, sans parler des autres), il est important d’avoir une stratégie clair en tête.

Le poste de community manager possède un rôle clé dans une optique d’entreprise orientée client.

C’est pour cela que je considère qu’il est dangereux de confondre Community Manager, et Community animator, qui n’ont pas le même rôle.

Shareyourdiscount.com : A Mix between Web 2.0 and VRM

Vendor Relationship Management (VRM) is probably one of my favorite topic when approaching the future of customer relationship management (CRM).

New social media capabilities enable customers to interract like never before with companies, and hence somehow to inverse the relationship with them.

Shareyourdiscount.com is a pretty cool new website, that proposes you to (guess what) share your discount! You have the ability to provide a discount because of your job or network, you could help other people to use it, and eventually make a benefit out of it.

I am always thrilled when I find ingenious new discount concepts, and this one is pretty innovative. You are leveraging your community to get discount, and that is pretty powerful. How many times did you think about this friend that works for a car manufacturer and get great discounts on new cars?

Now I believe the biggest challenge of the website is to create the community which will allow users to share discounts. But I believe this is a great service, with a great future ahead.

And you, what do you think about it?

You May Comment On My Blog Now

Due to issues with my blog template, I have taken out my disqus feature to leave comments. I didn't notice I didn't put it back, but now the problem is fix. I hope I'll receive a lot of comments on both new and old messages. Sorry for the comments I might have deleted because of it, and hope you enjoy the new Disqus version.

Zappos.com

Here is a great presentation of Zappos.com, probably one of the most innovative company in terms of customer relationship management. Zappos is selling shoes, which has nothing revolutionary, but do it in a way to provide a high customer experience. That is this great customer service and ethic that has brough success to the company. The presentation give you some key on how they did it.

Zappos - Startup2Startup - 03-26-09

View more presentations from zappos.

Here is a good video too, found on the Altaide Valley website.

Amazon Acquires Zappos for $850 Million

Amazon has just acquired shoe online retail Zappos.com. Zappos could be considered as the most innovative and trendy online company of the past few years, for $850 million. They are selling shoes online, which is actually pretty common, but in such a manner that it makes them totally unique.

Indeed, Zappos has created such a corporate culture that it fashioned customer service. By providing the best to its customers, in terms of responsability, of fun, it ensures itself to provide a great customer experience.

Now Amazon would like to use the ideas and processes of Zappos to freshen its business and apply it to other departments of the company. I find that pretty cool for Zappos to be able to count on such a large online retailer, which could probably help them with growing sustainably.

But also, as Robert Scoble Tweeted, I am concerned about what made Zappos incredibly successful: Its corporate culture. I find that hard to believe to think that Amazon will be able to copy Zappos' culture. As a small business, with no large investors to please, Zappos could develop its own way, but Amazon is so huge that it is hard to believe such an organization could make Zappos' model work.

Anyways, I wish Zappos will benefit from it, and hope it will be very successful in the future.

Customer Experience Maturity Report: The State Of CRM Programs

Welcome fan of CRM (customer relationship management)! I mean, I believe that you are if you arrived right here, either you are a regular or a one time reader. I have talked a lot about CRM here. As the topic is quite large, I have talked a lot about CRM systems, strategies, and marketing implementation.

But I also believe that a strong CRM strategy must take care of a great customer experience. At some point, if you are able to provide a unique and remarkable experience to your customers, you'll be able to aquire their loyalty, without any kind of incentive from a loyalty program.

Though it is hard to make coexist a CRM strategy and a great customer experience. Thus, CRM is taking more and more into consideration the customer experience aspect.

The Customer Experience Maturity Monitor (CEMM), a qualitative and quantitative research study conducted by Peppers & Rogers Group, SAS Institute and Jubelirer Research, addresses these questions in its first report, "The State of Customer Experience Capabilities and Competencies." The research measured 58 variables in four categories: customer orientation; customer insight; customer interaction; and improvement. The premise is that a company must have more than the desire to manage the customer experience; they must have enterprise capabilities that leverage customer insight to better-manage customer interactions and continuously improve results. Importantly, for these capabilities to work, the company must have a customer orientation—a culture that focuses on the customer and builds trust.

Customer Interaction: Managing Strategies + Engaging Customers + Customer Orientation

Differentiating the customer experience for competitive advantage is about designing an experience for each customer that is based upon knowledge of that customer, delivering it across products and channels, and measuring individual outcomes to improve future interactions. Done well, CEM will guide investment to higher-potential customers, provide a richer experience that engenders loyalty and turn customers into advocates. Here's the deeper CEMM learning.

• Managing Strategies: Many companies use loyalty programs to differentiate and manage the customer experience. In the CEMM research study, 37 percent of respondents rated their capabilities as good or excellent when asked if: "Rewards and loyalty programs are used to encourage loyalty among high-value customers." However, only 18 percent rate their capabilities as good or excellent when asked if: "Individual 'treatment tracks' are created to manage the customer experience across products and channels." Ahhh….the truth revealed!

  While some companies have mature loyalty programs, many have no capabilities of differentiating the customer experience and still rely on brand advertising to shape customer perceptions. One respondent summed it up well when he said, "Most companies don't really have a customer experience strategy, but this is changing. Usually companies rely more on brand perceptions, but they are realizing the customer experience is the No. 1 influencer of brand perception, so they're paying more attention to customer experience."

• Engaging Customers: In the CEMM study, only 28 percent rate their company's performance as good or excellent at orchestrating outbound customer contact across products and channels. While this problem is easily solved with today's campaign management and marketing automation technologies, enterprise contact management capabilities remain illusive for most companies.

  Only 1 in 4 companies (25 percent) rate their capabilities good or excellent in the use of mathematical optimization to maximize the profitability of marketing campaigns. With the endless combination of products, channels and offers, marketing optimization technologies represents a clear opportunity to direct investment to higher-potential customers and improve decision making.

  For inbound interactions, 34 percent of respondents rate good or excellent their ability to use customer insight to guide pricing, service and product suggestions. Fewer still, at 19%, rate good or excellent their ability to calculate real-time best outcomes during customer sessions.

  Perhaps the biggest opportunity for improvement, for both outbound and inbound engagement, is behavior triggers. Only 22 percent of respondents rate good or excellent their ability to create triggers for systematic response to significant changes in customer behavior. Engaging customers when they have changed not only produces significantly higher response rates, but it also demonstrates to the customer that their relationship matters to your company.

• Customer Orientation: While capabilities to manage the customer experience lag, a customer orientation is emerging. In the CEMM survey, 76 percent agree that their company motivates employees to treat customers fairly. And 69 percent agree that their company takes the customer's point-of-view when making business decisions. Also encouraging, 69 percent agree that their company considers the impact that business decisions have on the future value of its customers.

This research shows that customer relationship management is evolving, taking more into consideration customer experience over data base management, which is actually is right way to drive a CRM strategy.

To get more information about the study, you may download here the White paper.

Jinni.com And Customer Relationship Management

I have found recently a brand new start up, jinni.com. The service helps you find some movies and TV shows that will match your tastes. The service is well designed, and help you find movies upon your description, other movies you like among other features.

You can try to get a beta invitation on the website. What I like about Jinni is that it has a great customer relationship management mindset.

• It provides a great service to customer, helping them to find the right product that will match their taste and needs.
• It will also provides on a company point of view some cross selling capabilities, which is the main purpose of a CRM strategy.
  
• It is a multi channel product. Jinni proposes you to get your movie either by buying them, renting them in the store or via a video on demand plateform.
  

Hence, I think this initiative is great and is actually a very efficient customer relationship management program. It encompasses both a great customer service, but also potential added sells for a company. You should think about how you could implement such a service to your business, it will be very powerful and a way of differenciation.



Here you'll see a great Jinni overview I have found on Youtube.

Customers Want Interraction And Prefer Video Game To Movies

Customers has been using for years now interactive media, especially the Internet. New social media like Facebook or Youtube, ambition to connect users with people they like. This is the future of entertainment. User are taking the power over big media corporation.

But social media is not the only medium that propose to people a high interaction level.

According to the latest survey, 53 per cent of individuals in the United States have been to the movies in the past 6 months, and 63 per cent (2 out of 3) have stayed at home choosing to rather play a video game. In addition, as far as to other forms of entertainment, 94 per cent of Americans reported to have listened to music, while other 6 per cent claimed not to have listened to any music in the past half a year.

"Video games account for one-third of the average monthly consumer spending in the United States for core entertainment content, including music, video and games," said Anita Frazier, games industry analyst for NPD. "While a portion of that share stems from the premium price of console games, we are also seeing an overall increase in the number of people participating in gaming year-over-year," she added.

This is the evidence people have changed they want to take part into the action. That is the main reason why we have seen the video game industry emerges as one of the most important entertaining kind nowadays.

Indeed as piracy is contaminating traditional artistic contain (video and music), video games are harder to pirate, but also provides a higer merging rate.

the average game player spent more that 38 dollars, on average, every month on "all types of gaming content" in the 3 months leading up to March this year. The report indicated that consumers spent approximately $160 in total per person, on a monthly basis, the majority of which being spend on TV (cable and/or satellite) as well as Internet access. Still, it is about 25 per cent of U.S. consumer monthly entertainment spending that has been snapped up by video gaming.

The video game industry explosion is a simple example of customers willing to take control over content, and to interact.

Travel Loyalty Program: 1-in-5 couldn’t vacation without travel loyalty points

Travel companies are expert in setting up loyalty programs. Indeed, I don't know no airlines company that doesn't own its loyalty program, which provides free miles to its customer upon its consumption.

But Colloquy is pointing out a great information:
"Twenty percent of Americans polled in a survey commissioned by the Wyndham Rewards loyalty program said they would be unable to take their next vacation without cashing in rewards points".

"Knowing that travelers are still taking vacations, but watching their overall spend more carefully, we wanted to find out exactly how important rewards points are to Americans," says Jill Noblett, Wyndham Hotel Group Senior Vice President of Loyalty and Direct Marketing. "This survey tells us reward points are rather significant."
According to the survey, 64 percent of Americans say rewards points are either "very important" or "extremely important" given the state of the economy. Twenty-nine percent responded "very important" and 35 percent responded "extremely important."
"We’ve noticed a significant, upward trend in our members using Wyndham Rewards points for free nights across the Wyndham Hotel Group’s 11 brands," says Noblett. "The increase in redeeming Wyndham Rewards points for airline miles and tickets has also grown this year compared to last year."

In this specific field, loyalty programs have become so important people couldn't live with it. Actually, loyalty program management is one of the biggest issue of airlines companies. With people saving free miles, these companies would have hard time dealing with every customers taking all their miles at once (it will hurt the cash flow big time).

In some ways, these CRM programs are efficient as they are retaining the customers which is eager to use its milage it earned.

7 Keys To Be A Good Marketer

My friend and marketing expert Henri Kaufman has recently received an award of the "Cercle du marketing direct" (somehow the French Direct Marketing Association), for his accomplishments. He took advantage of the event to provide us with a brand new video explaining us the 7 keys to be a good marketer.

If you are reading this blog, you are probably in the marketing field as I am, and you'll probably be interested in these explanations. Here are the translated tips.

1. You need to use your two brains: A good marketer must be creative and somekind of an artist, to create great and innovative ideas. But it also needs to be rational, and measure return on investment meanwhile handling budget and campaign costs. Customers' decision making process are complex and using both an emotional and a relational point of view. A marketer must be able to deal with both entities to provide the accurate message (which is pretty tricky somehow).
   
2. This is an all round job: Nowadays, marketers have a complete and balanced job. They have to deal with multiple projects, multi channel communication and multiple tools to measure return on investment. A good marketer therefore must be multi tasking and master all the aspects of the job.
   
3. Just Do It: That is my motto (well more Nike's one), but I believe this fit with this one. You must dare! Dare to do. Do not hesitate to try new things, to go beyond others would thing. Isn't it where your added value is? You need to go beyond the rules. You must have a wider vision than ordinary.
   
4. Don't let negative vibes overrule you: You can't let negative vibes stop your path. And trust me, they'll be a load of it. You must keep a positive mindset, and trust your ideas all the way in. Somehow, like an entrepreneur would.
   
5. Go beyond that first great idea: You must constantly seek for new ideas. The more you are working your ability to find ideas, the more you'll have. A great idea is good, but you should always look for new ideas. If you don't use it now, you might use them later.
   
6. No regrets: Do not regret the ideas you loved that was not accepted by your boss or your client. If you have tons of ideas, you should trust your skills to find other ones.
   
7. Be curious: Be curious to the world. You must explore new things. Customers are constantly changing, so does technology and media. Hence, you should always look for the new innovations, the new trends.

As a professional marketer, I try on a daily basis to apply these tips, and hope to do it the best.
If you are a French speaker, you should also watch the video.

Is Seesmic Dead?

Do you know about Seesmic? Seesmic is nowadays a desktop client which enables its users to combine their Facebook and Twitter accounts among others.

But Seesmic, prior to that, was a start up focusing on online video conversations. The idea was to create a community of people which could talk together thanks to videos. Loic Lemeur, the founder of this company had a lot of faith in this business. Actually, I have been pretty impressed by the development of the company. Nevertheless, the crisis hit up the Silicon Valley, and it seems that Loic Lemeur has been seeking another path for its company.

This article of the New York Times exposes the reasons why Seesmic has changed its goals. Mainly, it seems that the video conversations was hard to be adapted by the mass market. I have been since the beginning doubtful about the fact Seesmic could become as big as blogging for example for that matter. But I still believe the idea is great and should be considered not as a mainstream service, but maybe to transform the service to propose it for example to companies for focus group or other ways.

That would be a pitty if indeed Seesmic would be abandonned.

Un ancien dauphinois lance faisonsaffaire.com

J'ai trouvé sur le site webdeux.info, une interview intéressante de Franck David Colin, ancien dauphinois, qui vient de lancer son entreprise, faisonsaffaire.com.

C'est un concept que je trouve fort intéressant. Proposer une plateforme communautaire où investisseurs et entrepreneurs peuvent se rencontrer, et "faire affaire ensemble". De plus, je vous invite à jeter un oeil sur l'histoire de Franck David, et ses débuts en tant qu'entrepreneur.

Voici l'interview:

Pourrais-tu te présenter en quelques lignes ?
Je m’appelle Frank-David Colin, j’ai 29 ans, et voici mon histoire :
En 2004, 1 an après être sorti de l’Université Dauphine, j’ai créé une société qui a développé un système très innovant de gestion de contenu de site Internet. Après avoir constitué un portefeuille de clients, j’avais pour ambition de développer commercialement mon produit à grande échelle. Je ne pouvais pas le faire sans argent et n’avais pas la chance d’avoir dans mon entourage des personnes susceptibles de m’aider à financer ce développement (love-money). J’ai donc recherché des investisseurs, ou plus précisément des business angels. A 26 ans, sans carnet d’adresse ou piston, ça a été le parcours du combattant, voire « mission impossible ».
Par un hasard extraordinaire, j’ai été sollicité par un de mes clients pour dépanner une de ses relations qui avait besoin d’aide dans la synchronisation de son téléphone portable, chose qu’en tout geek que je suis, était tout à fait capable de faire ! Il se trouve que cette personne était un riche industriel américain ! Toujours focus sur ma recherche de business angel, tu imagines à quel point pour moi cette opportunité tombait du ciel ! A notre premier rendez-vous j’ai donc tout de suite saisie cette chance pour parler de mon projet et de ma recherche d’investisseur. Bingo ! Un premier rendez-vous était prévu pour parler de mon projet. 6 mois plus tard, après de multiples rendez-vous, nous étions sur la négociation de cette levée de fonds, quand une triste nouvelle est venue noircir cette belle aventure qui semblait commencer : mon investisseur était atteint d’une grave maladie et il en est décédé quelques mois plus tard…
J’ai été profondément attristé de perdre ce futur associé pour qui j’avais développé une véritable admiration. Parallèlement à cette tristesse, je me retrouvais à la case départ sans investisseur, sans carnet d’adresse, sans piston, avec plus de 6 mois d’énergie et d’espoir partis en fumée.
C’est dans ce désespoir et devant cette frustration de ne pas pouvoir rencontrer des investisseurs devant qui défendre mon projet que l’idée de le faire sur Internet est venue : FaisonsAffaire.com était né.

FaisonsAffaire.com c’est quoi exactement ?

FaisonsAffaire.com est une plate-forme de mise en relation d’entrepreneurs et d’investisseurs sur Internet. Combien d’entrepreneurs potentiels se sentent capable d’y arriver mais n’ont pas les moyens de financer leur projet ou n’ont pas encore le carnet d’adresse pour rencontrer les bonnes personnes? Faisonsaffaire.com est là pour changer la donne. Notre site offre la possibilité à ces entrepreneurs de présenter leur projet à de nombreux investisseurs et business angels et ainsi multiplier leurs chances de succès. La seule condition : avoir un projet sérieux, ambitieux, et cohérent.

Notre plate-forme a la particularité de prendre en considération les besoins des 2 mondes pour être réellement efficace. Par exemple, une problématique qui revient souvent côté entrepreneur est la réticence par rapport à la confidentialité. Notre site gère cette problématique en permettant à ces entrepreneurs de mettre leur projet en mode "confidentiel", limitant ainsi son accès qu’aux investisseurs qualifiés qui ont signé une clause de confidentialité.
Côté investisseurs, la problématique est différente. Les investisseurs sont souvent très pris par le temps et très sollicité. Nous sommes conscient qu’ils n’ont pas le temps de regarder 19 projets médiocres ou incomplets pour tomber sur le 20e qui sera intéressant, nous opérons ainsi un préfiltrage de tous les dossiers.

Depuis le lancement de la plate-forme, nous avons reçu plus de 2500 demandes d’inscription d’entrepreneurs (pour environ 100 projets en ligne) et nous comptons 615 investisseurs inscrits dont une centaine qualifiés.

Aujourd’hui nous recevons en moyenne entre 15 et 20 nouveaux dossiers d’entrepreneur chaque jours!! La machine FaisonsAffaire.com est en marche! Je suis porteur de projet. Que dois je faire ? Quels sont les avantages de FaisonsAffaire.com ? Est ce que FaisonsAffaires est restreint aux projets "technologiques" ?

Tout simplement t’inscrire en ligne. L’inscription est gratuite et même rapide quand on a son business plan à porté de main! Une fois inscrit, l’entrepreneur dispose d’un espace dans lequel il va présenter son projet.

Dans cette espace il y a une 3 zones, une zone pour présenter une vidéo de moins de 3 minutes de son pitch élévateur (elevator pitch). Il y a une zone avec des informations très résumées (titre du projet, accroche, mots clés, montant recherché, etc) et enfin une zone "Executive summary" divisée en 4 parties :
- Présentation de l’offre et du modèle économique,
- Marché et concurrence,
- Equipe,
- Partie chiffrée

Une fois que l’entrepreneur a complété son dossier il demande sa mise en ligne à travers son espace personnel. Nos équipes reçoivent alors le dossier et vont se prononcer sur la mise en ligne ou non du projet. Si le projet est validé, il devient accessible aux investisseurs potentiels.
Les investisseurs, eux, découvrent les projets de différentes manières. Soit en faisant une recherche dans notre base de projets, soit parce que les projets sont en Une sur le site, soit parce qu’ils ont activé le système d’alerte e-mail qui leur permet de recevoir les nouveaux projets par e-mail.

Une fois qu’un investisseur est séduit par un projet et souhaite rencontrer un entrepreneur, il lui suffit de cliquer sur le bouton "Entrer en relation" et il obtient immédiatement les coordonnées de l’entrepreneur. L’entrepreneur au même moment reçoit un e-mail avec les coordonnées de l’investisseur.
Nous nous rémunérons qu’en cas de succès de la levée de fonds (entre 3,5% et 6% du montant levé).

FaisonsAffaire.com n’est pas réservé qu’aux projets technologiques, mais est ouvert à tous les secteurs, aussi bien aux services, qu’au BTP, qu’au Web 2.0, etc

Je suis un investisseur. Que dois je faire ? Quels sont les avantages de ta plateforme ?
Pour être inscrit en tant qu’investisseur, c’est très simple, il suffit de s’inscrire en ligne, de répondre à un petit questionnaire et de nous faire parvenir une copie de pièce d’identité. C’est également gratuit! Pour devenir investisseur qualifié, il faut en plus nous faire parvenir un document de clause de confidentialité signé, et un justificatif de sa qualité d’investisseur :
- Soit une attestation de l’AMF (Autorité des Marchés Financiers)
- Soit une copie du document d’adhésion à un club de business angels agrée France Angels
- Soit une copie du document d’adhésion à l’AFIC (Association Française des Investisseurs en Capital) pour les fonds d’investissement et les sociétés de capital-investissement
Notre plateforme s’adresse aussi bien à des investisseurs business angels qu’à des personnes physiques intéressées par la loi TEPA de défiscalisation de l’ISF, ou qu’à des fonds d’investissement ou des VC. Evidemment, les sociétés ciblées par les uns ou par les autres ne sont pas vraiment les mêmes…

Avec qui travailles-tu au quotidien pour gérer ce service ?
Nous gérons en interne tout le développement technique de la plate-forme et nous travaillons avec des free lances sur les créations graphiques et esthétiques autour de notre marque. Nous avons 2 analystes de projet qui ont des profils différents (Ecole d’ingénieur pour l’un et école de commerce pour l’autre). Même si au sein de la société, nous avons tous un rôle principal bien défini, j’ai l’habitude d’impliquer tout le monde dans les réflexions stratégiques de la boîte. Et nous sommes tous amenés à faire des choses très différentes pour l’entreprise. C’est ça aussi la vie d’une startup!

Où en es-tu aujourd’hui dans le développement de ton service ?
FaisonsAffaire.com a un peu plus de 8 mois. Nous avons assez rapidement refondu le site en tenant compte des remarques que nous avons eu et des constats que nous avons fait au bout de quelques mois d’exploitation. Le site est donc dans sa version opérationnelle et réellement mûr depuis février 2009. Nous avons aujourd’hui une "machine" qui marche avec des processus rodés qui fonctionnent. Nous comptons aujourd’hui plusieurs dizaines de rencontres depuis le lancement, nos premiers deals signés, et une audience qui grimpe tous les mois!
Je peux te dire que quand tu lis le témoignage du premier entrepreneur qui a levé des fonds grâce à toi, ça fait chaud au coeur!
Nous avons la chance d’avoir une très belle couverture médiatique. Nous avons eu des articles dans toute la presse : Capital, Management, Challenge, Le Figaro, La Tribune, L’entreprise, Entreprendre, Investir, etc. Nous avons eu aussi un reportage sur M6 à l’émission 100% Mag alors que c’est une émission grand public.
Nous sommes aussi actuellement en demi-finale de la BFM Académie (allez voter pour nous!!). http://www.bfmradio.com/BFM-Academie/ListeCandidats.html

Quelles sont les prochaines évolutions prévue pour FaisonsAffaire?
Nous avons très récemment conclu un accord de partenariat avec la Financière Xerys. Dans cet accord, Xerys s’engage à investir une somme globale d’1 million d’euros répartie sur 3 dossiers de notre plate-forme dans les secteurs des telecoms, de la santé et des nouvelles technologies (Web inclus!). C’est une révolution dans le sens où pour la première fois, une plate-forme "verrouille" des investissements pour ses entrepreneurs inscrits. C’est la preuve aussi de l’image de crédibilité que nous véhiculons auprès des professionnels de l’investissement.
Il y a beaucoup d’autres évolutions prévues, je ne peux malheureusement pas tout dévoiler mais ce qui est sûr c’est que toutes ces évolutions vont dans le même sens : Démocratiser l’investissement et permettre à tous les bons entrepreneurs de trouver des fonds!

Voyage d’étude au salon de la DMA (Direct Marketing Association) San Diego - 18-21 octobre 2009

La semaine dernière, comme je l'ai expliqué la semaine dernière sur ce même blog, je me suis rendu au siège d'Ubifrance, pour la restitution du voyage d'étude du ecommerce aux Etats-Unis.

Je me permets de faire un peu de publicité pour un autre événement organisé par la mission économique de New York, dans le cadre de la conférence de la DMA à San Diego en octobre prochaine. La DMA est l'association américaine du marketing direct, et ses conférences sont souvent le lieu favoris pour le décriptage des nouvelles tendances du marketing (puisque la DMA parle énormément de marketing sur Internet, et que le marketing direct est bel et bien une des tendances de fond en terme de communication).

Organisée par Ubifrance, ce voyage est l'occasion de visiter le plus grand salon consacré à la communication et à la vente aux Etats-Unis qui rassemble plus de 12 000 visiteurs américains et internationaux pour plus de 500 exposants

Objectifs :
- DÉCOUVRIR les nouveaux défis de la communication, du marketing et de la vente aux Etats-Unis et à l’international.
- ANTICIPER le développement des applications pour l’E-commerce mais également les outils de communication du marketing digital, du mobile et des réseaux sociaux.
- RENCONTRER des partenaires ou des clients potentiels et faire connaître votre offre de service

Contacts :
Cécile Delettré, Chef du pôle Marketing et Distribution
Agathe Barbier, Chargée de Développement
www.ubifrance.fr

Un label pour réguler les pratiques des comparateurs de prix

Leclerc fait n'importe quoi avec son comparateur? Maintenant un label de confiance va être mis en place pour réguler et vérifier la qualité des comparateurs de prix sur Internet.

Bien sûr les comparateurs de prix sur Internet ont révolutionné la consommation. D'un coup de clic, l'internaute est capable de voir les offres des principaux sites marchands sur Internet et vérifier où il pourra trouver le produit qu'il veut au prix le plus bas (pourquoi acheter plus cher ailleurs).

Mais le système est tout de même pervers. En effet, les comparateurs de prix ont entrainé une lutte acharnée pour faire baisser les prix. Et il en résulte que beaucoup de e commerçant ont soit découpé leur prix pour ne pas tenir compte par exemple des frais de port pour baisser leur prix facial, mais aussi souvent baissé la qualité des prestations et du service client. Il est facile de vendre moins cher quand la livraison prend 3 mois à arriver et qu'il y a aucun moyen de prendre contact avec personnes...

Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, la secrétaire en charge de la Prospective et du Développement de l’économie numérique, a présenté avec la FEVAD, la Fédération du e-commerce et de la vente à distance, un nouveau label de confiance spécialement destiné aux sites comparateurs, qui proposent de comparer les prix sur le Web des produits et services.

Ce label est avant tout destiné à rassurer les consommateurs internautes et à enfin clarifier les pratiques des sites comparateurs, à l’heure où les ventes en ligne ont progressé de 29% en 2008, pour atteindre les 20 milliards d’euros de chiffre d’affaires, selon les données dévoilées par la FEVAD.

Excellent initiative, qui permettra de définir un peu mieux les pratiques des comparateurs de prix, et de vraiment comparer les sites en fonction des services compris dans le prix exposé dans ce type de comparateur.

Mobile marketing Could Be Use For Any Kind Of B to C Business

Are you a frequent reader of my blog? If you are, you probably know how faithful I am in mobile marketing. I believe mobile are soon to become the greatest way to bond with your consumers. Most of customers own one, and it is well known it is the preferred tool people have on them 24/7. Now, some people are not so fan of mobile marketing, because they estimate it is so far used by a certain type of people, and hence, it is difficult to target people.

Of course, early adopters and technology savvy people use it and this is a great marketing segment. But I found this very interesting article on how to use mobile marketing in an overal marketing mix.

This article exposes many different examples on uses of mobile marketing, and by very different kind of actors:

• Audi in the car business, with its succesful campaign which reached 3.5 million downloads. for the Audi A4 Driving Challenge game.
• A Mexican Beer producer I have never heard of before, called Pacifico which introduced a rooster alarm clock app that crows.
• Even Kraft in the food business launched an app on Ipone:

What does It show? Mobile marketing shouldn't be considered as an elite marketing tool. Any kind of business could think about using those kind of marketing actions, because in fact, customers are already using these technologies.

Rencontre avec les experts du E-commerce & de la distribution à Boston & New York organisée par la mission économique de New York

Je me suis rendu ce matin au siège d'Ubifrance à Denfert Rochereau pour la restitution et un retour sur expérience du voyage d'étude E-commerce & de la distribution à Boston & New York que j'avais annoncé sur ce blog en son temps.

Cet événement a été organisé par le responsable du pôle distribution de la mission économique de New York, Cécile Delettré, qui fut en son temps mon chef de service lorsque je travaillais à Ubifrance dans le service marketing opérationnel.

L'événement réunissait certains des 25 participants à ce voyage d'étude, mais aussi des professionels du e-commerce, étant venus se renseigner sur le déroulement de la mission, du retour et la possibilité de participer aux prochains événements et voyages organisés par Ubifrance. J'en reparlerai d'ailleurs plus tard, dans de prochains billets.

Je fus ainsi agréablement surpris et enchanté de pouvoir rencontré Thierry Spencer, illustre blogger et expert en relation client, qui fit parti du voyage et qui a ravi le public de ces explications et de son retour sur expérience. D'ailleurs beaucoup de ces explications serviront de base à de prochains billets. De même Guillaume Weil, directeur de CRMmetrix, une entreprise spécialisé dans l'analyse de fréquentations de site Internet.

Cette mini conférence a débuté par un rappel de la feuille de route et du programme de cette mission, qui fut complète et qui compris la visite du salon de l'IRCE, le salon de la distribution sur Internet.

Puis nous avons eu le droit à différentes interventions nous présentant leurs principales découvertes. Ce fut fort intéressant encore une fois, puisque l'ensemble des thématiques (m-commerce, relation client, vidéo sur Internet ou encore paiement en ligne) ont été abordées.

Je pense aussi qu'il est fort intéressant qu'Ubifrance, dont la vocation est d'aider les entreprises françaises dans leurs efforts à l'exportation, d'organiser ce type de voyage, qui devient de plus en plus populaire.

Bientôt sur ce billet, des vidéos, et des informations sur les prochaines dates de voyage organisé, notamment dans le cadre du salon de la DMA en octobre à San Diego.

Socialcast

I wanted to talk to you about a very promising social media website I have found recently. Social media so far has rocketed on the mass market, but what about its applications in the business world?

Connecting different departments and employees to work on projects could indeed save time and create great synergies. The technology has shown its efficiency.

Socialcast aims to build an online business environment, using the web 2.0 technologies, to create a workspace. I haven’t really tried it yet, as I am not working on no project that would require me to interact with other people via this service, but so far it seems promising.

Another great advantage of the solution is that it is adapted to different format: you can integrate either on your Iphone, email account, desktop among others, or all at once!

I believe there is a lot to be done in terms of information systems.

Traditional VS Social CRM

Relationships between companies and customers have evolved throughout the times, so must CRM tools. Traditional customer relationship management programs aim to control interactions with customers in term of business process. The idea is to organize these interactions to make it simpler for the company to process. These CRM tools have shown their efficiency but also their limits in term of customer satisfaction.

Hence to create FAQs pages on websites and call centers to deal with customers' inquiries make sens in terms of investment and running cost, but how could you expect customers to be happy whereas human transactions have been left behind?

Social CRM is a vague term, and might not be appropriate. It aims though to use the new social media technologies and ideas to enhance these traditional crm tools to incorporate more its customers.

Indeed, it is difficult to make coexist both traditional and social CRM, because they don't have either the same goal nor usage. The idea is to keep CRM structures in terms of data collection and cross unit management, but also to get more content driven by using what is going on in online communities to bond with customers.

That is the reason why community management is so important. The community manager needs to mak the link between both traditional CRM and social CRM to have something that makes sense to end users.

Social Media Users Tend To Be More Loyal

Social media place customers in the center of the attention. This interesting study social media users are 83% more likely to be loyal customers.

• 20% of shoppers coming to the e-commerce site from one of the retailer`s social presences, including those on Ravelry and Flickr as well as its own blog, buy merchandise.
• Social media users are 83% more likely to be very loyal to the brand compared with those shoppers who don`t use social media.

It shows up the link between the use of social media and customer experience, that drives to purchase. Social media proves it is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Examples and case studies of social media used to enhance both customer service and experience are springing up. The time is now to take action.

Twitter Is Revolutionning PR

What is interesting is with web 2.0, companies are loosing the control of what is published about them. With blogs and forums, people can express themselves about what they think about the products and services.

But I believe Twitter is changing even more the public relationship job. Indeed, public relationship used to be about thinking and taking the time to get the right message at the right time. Twittering is totally the opposite. It must be quick, it must be free of corporate tune, and it must be interracting with people on the web.

Also, PR are not addressing themselves to media anylonger. They must post everything public as the information will be faster to spread via individuals owning blogs, Facebook accounts and other Twitter accounts. Anyone is a media now, and in order to be efficient in spreading the information, traditionnal media are not fast enough.

A crisis could emerge fast in couple of Tweets, as we have seen for example during the riots in Iran. Hence, PR must be as reactive, meaning they must be alerted to what is going on Twitter at anytime, and being able to set up a strong community to react efficiently.

How does old public relationship managers are experiencing this great shift? It seems that these people have been educated and managing their jobs in a way which is not appropriate to nowadays media. They must adapt themselves to a kind of communication they are far to master. Actually, we could expect the community manager position to replace somehow public relationship, or even more precisely, to integrate it.

I'd like to have your feedback on this one.

Twitter for PR (Public Relations)

View more Microsoft Word documents from Corinne Weisgerber.

Dell Generating Millions With Twitter

Nobody has been able to make money with Twitter yet? Well, apparently, computer constructor Dell seems to have found out a way to make its Twittering activities profitable.

According to a fresh Guardian article, Dell estimates it generated $3 millions thanks to its Twitter accounts.

"We're also seeing that it's driving interest in new product as well. We're seeing people come from @DellOutlet on Twitter into the Dell.com/outlet site, and then ultimately decide to purchase a new system from elsewhere on Dell.com. If we factor those new system purchases that come from @DellOutlet, we're actually eclipsed $3 million in overall sales."

We need to be objective, these $3 million is nothing compared to Dell's overall sales of $12bn in the last three months. However, it shows out that Twitter could be a profitable activity. What would be interesting is to evaluate the return on investment Dell got, taking into considering the money spend and the staff set up for such a community management action.

I believe this has been very profitable

Malls Among The Best Advertising Medium

Who would thoughts that mall would turn into a great advertising medium? A lot of people were considering malls dead with the appearance of Internet. Now malls are doing better.

What is interesting is that Malls are among the best promotional medium on a technical point of view. You could do print, you could have interactive booth, you could have sampler of shows, or simply billboards displayed.

It seems that advertisement present in shopping centers are well percieved by customers.

According to studies:

• 91% of teen shoppers notice poster display ads at the mall
• 85% notice hanging advertising banners
• 77% notice sampling
• 58% notice promotional events
• 57% notice TV/video screens
• 48% notice interactive displays/kiosks
• 31% notice moving images projected on the floor or walls

I have recently attended a conference in Paris about new technologies in the shopping centers, organized by DMC. What showed up during this event was the need for shopping centers companies to reinvent their business, and to find new ways to create value. Maybe through new technologies shopping centers could provide superior advertising possibilities to brands?

Inspiring Customers Thanks To Non Profit Organization Techniques

Non profit organization share in commons: they are inspiring. They are able to get emotional with their donors, because they have an inspiring goal. It could be to educate children in poor country. To help homeless people, to fight cancer...

To market such an organization isn't so hard on a branding point of view: as they have a great goal, they creat empathy. But what if businesses could be learning from their techniques in order to create an emotional bond with their customers? Here is a great article that considered the idea.

1. To inspire the consumer, you must help him believe in something that he once thought was impossible.

That is probably the toughest one. Indeed, non profit organization have this ability in their genes. They are meant to change the world, to fight for what is percieved as impossible. But for a company, that has a business relationship, this is difficult to have such an image. However, you could try to approach it by making your customer active, pushing him to interact, to share, and to create value, wether it is for the company (to improve products or service) or for the community, or even for himself.

2. To inspire the consumer, you must show genuine appreciation for her business.

Imagine how a customer would feel if he received a voice mail simply saying, "Thank you for being such a great customer [or client]. We are not calling to sell you anything else, only to say thank you."That is an original idea, but indeed, sometimes companies forget how much customers are important for them. Let's not forget that without customers, there is no business. You should be thankful for all transactions made.

3. To inspire the consumer, you must help him see that he is a part of a bigger community of world changers.

Indeed, you must explain why you are like that. That might be the easiest one once you have decided of a guideline, of how you are aiming to change the world.


This is a very interesting article. I don't believe these tools are so easy to leverage, but it is interesting to see how non profit organization are using them on a marketing standpoint.

Turning Green Is A Great Way To Create Facial Added Value

How could you raise up your mergins in these tough times, where innovations is harder to find? What about adopting a sustainable development approach, and turning green?

Of course, sustainable development is important as old production process will become more and more costly, especially due to tax threshold, and it is important to be ethical with the company's stakeholders. But a recent study has shown that a product’s “energy footprint” influences 77 percent for consumers’ purchasing decisions, with 76 percent willing to pay more at the register for environmentally-friendly products.

This is important because it underlines the importance of ethic in business nowadays. The fair trade trend is another way to create added value without innovation, and to raise up one's brand equity.

Even though the crisis eclipsed somehow the green hype that was going on the past few years, green business remain one of the main trade to follow for marketers in a near future.

Spamming Not Good For CRM

In terms of email marketing, one of the challenge remains the customer to open the message in order to convert it. Email is a very personal medium, and because it is cheap, a lot of companies are using it for communication. Of course, some of them abuse of it, which you commonly know as spamming.

A study shows out that North Americans customers are very fast to unsubscribe, especially when the message is irrelevant, or when emails are received too frequently.

CRM aims to develop a sustainable relationship between a company and its customers, by providing an accurate conversation, taking into accounts customer's background and potential.

The idea is to limit the number of message, in order to provide a great message for customers.

As a matter of fact, this is the main reason why Seth Godin has created the Permission Marketing idea. People always forget that as an interaction medium, the email accounts are very personnal and should be handled with care. Moreover, when a customer unsubscribe, you are getttin rid of data and the possibility to communicate with him.

Therefore, in order to limit the unsubscription, and to keep your opening rates high, it is important to use email marketing efficiently, proposing powerful communication and fitting with customers' will in terms of frequency.

Twitter To Launch A Microblogging Search Engine

Google published a note explaining they are about to launch a microblogging search engine. That's a while we are expecting such a move in this business. Actually, Twitter made it easy for Google to access information. Now one of the main concern I have is that one of the most predictable business modell of Twitter would have probably gone through advertising, on an Adword basis. But now, Google, The expert of search engine, is taking away this possibility. Twitter could still post advertisement on Twitter account's page, but as Google is getting in the business, they excell in having contextual advertising posted on pages. I believe this is the first move for Google prior to a soon to be buyout.

Bank Is Using Twitter For Community Management

Twitter is a powerful community management tool. Twitter, as a micro blogging service, enables people to spread information and thoughts fast on the web. Therefore, this is information to set up a community management strategy to connect with customers and solve problems and brand manage online brand reputation.

On a customer relationship management point of view, banks have always been able to set up powerful CRM systems, and therefore, it makes a lot of sense for them to follow the Twitter hype. First National Bank (FNB) might not be the first bank to own a Twitter account, but their story on it is pretty interesting.

They've created the RBJacobs account, which represents the bank. What is interesting in this case, is that the company has decided not to use directly the bank, but someone that imperson the bank. Why? Maybe to acknowledge the personnal speech versus the corporate message, which we all know is very strict in the bank industry. Or simply also because big companies don't own a great public image, and it could be better for them to aboad their customer relationship with a "somewhat" third party...

Also, an interesting quote :
“Some commentators are suggesting that Twitter could turn out to be a passing fad. However, in South Africa it's still in its infancy and FNB is deriving great benefit and insight by participating in this community,” adds Wertheim-Aymes.

Hence, FNB acknowledge that Twitter is still a hype, and it is yet to be embraced by the mass market. Nevertheless, they decided to get into the conversation, and test it before it spreads out. I actually believe this is a good strategy, as ways to use Twitter are emerging every day.

A New Cool Way To Use Twitter To Generate Business

What about if you could get some customers through Twitter? That is the idea cremebruleecart had. It is a creme brulée expert that owns a Twitter account. Whereever he goes in San Francisco, he posts a tweet, to inform its followers where they could get their creme brulees.

I have found this information on Loic Lemeur's blog, where you can find this interesting Youtube video about the concept.


This is a concrete example on how to use Twitter to promote your products and to leverage your community. I believe Twitter could become a great way to communicate on flash promotions and discounts.

Self Scanning Continues To Spread In France

Self scanning is a technology that enable customers to scan themselves products in order to avoid going to cashier. The main strength is to save time.

Self scanning in France is quite different from what it is in the US. Indeed, the customer don't go to a self check out spot, but is scanning products on the go, while grocery shopping. This is a big difference because with this concept you don't even need to do no line. You pick up the handheld, you shop and then you put it back.

Self scanning has been launched first by Auchan, and now, most of French grocery retailers own some stores equiped with such machines.

If I am quite wondering about the added value for customers of self check out, because you are basically getting rid of a service (someone scanning for you products), self scanning can save time to customers, and limit workforce expenses for retailers. Also, if self scanning springs up, it could save up room dedicated right now for cashiers to other products.

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Ten Years Of Permission Marketing

Seth Godin has celebrated on his blog the ten years anniversary of the launch of his Permission Marketing book. This masterpiece is one of the core document of the new customer relationship management system.

Fighting over spamming and bad uses of customers data, Seth Godin defines a new way to interact with customers, based on their will, and their preferences. That gave the birth to opt-in emailing, among other principles.

"Ten years later, ethical email marketing is a billion dollar industry. Many companies have been built on the foundation of this simple idea, and some of them are quite profitable. Daily Candy sold to Comcast for more than $120 million and it is nothing but a permission marketing engine. More important, I think, the attitude of anticipated, personal and relevant messaging is changing the way organizations come to market.

A search on the term shows a bazillion matches, though I wish spammers would quit using the term to pretend that they are actually doing something worthwhile. It delights me to see my neologism enter the language, used by people who didn't even know that it came from a book that's only ten years old.

The biggest impact of Permission Marketing isn't that there is less spam. In fact, there's more, because it's so cheap. No, the biggest measurable impact is the growth of truly opt in marketing, from close to zero to a number big enough that we've all seen it and are part of it. Not just email lists, of course, but RSS feeds and yes, Google AdWords.

Some lessons about accidental success:

1. Fred Hills, the editor who worked with me at Simon & Schuster, had worked on books by Nabokov and others. The fact that he didn't do a lot of business books gave me the freedom to write the book I wanted to write. Thankfully, he largely left me alone to make my own mistakes.
2. Because I got a small advance and wasn't a key book on their list, I had a lot of freedom. They let me art direct the cover, which ended up being a big win for the book and for my brand.
3. Brian Smale, who took the cover photo, was one of the new breed of magazine photographers who worked hard not to take boring photos. In those days, that was a revolutionary idea.
4. This was the first book where I started my tradition of using the ideas in the book to market the book. In this case, a simple permission offer: if you visit permission.com, I'll send you the first four chapters of the book for free. And you'll never get another note from me as a result. The only reason my publisher approved this idea is that they believed it would never work. Ten years later, I have no idea how many millions of people have written to that address, but it's a lot. (Yes, it still works).
5. I didn't have a grand organized promotional plan. I didn't orchestrate a movement. I just wrote a book and talked about it and tried to take my own advice.

There's a lot of updating that the book could use, because when I wrote it there was no Google, Facebook, Twitter, universal email access, widespread high bandwidth connectivity, browsers that rarely crashed or iPhones. But I'm going to let it stand as is, because keeping it up to date is a never ending task. I hope the general concepts stand the test of time. The biggest thing I'd change is the emphasis on games and prizes over promises and connection and information. I think the latter end up scaling better and are more universal and reliable."

Seth Godin is probably one of the most influential marketer of our time, and I invite you to read this great book

Can You Build A Community?

Most of the companies are dreaming about creating their own community thanks to the new social media. Hence, there are many reasons why they would like to interact with such a community:

• A community is a group of involved customers that would be the ambassadors of the brand
• They know the products and could be used to improve products or identify new products defects
• Having a community is a new medium which could provide a high return on investment during marketing campaigns as they have an emotional bond with the brand.

Therefore a lot of companies are embracing the idea of creating a community. Now that the hype has gone by, some people are wondering now if it is possible to build a community.

That is the question Loic Lemeur asked on his blog.


What is for sure is that building a community is not an easy task. We have already discussed about this topic on this blog.

In fact, even though you are a big corporation and you already own a great data base of customers, that doesn't imply you will be able to set up an active community. Indeed, the most difficult task is to get your community active. If someone has subscribe and entered its contact information, it doesn't mean his going to come back on a regular basis, nor to become a user and interact with the brand.

That is the reason why I believe any kind of community creation should be associated to a social media plateform like Facebook, in order to get people that participate and that would actually use your community, versus creating your own private community.

As a matter of fact, some brands struggle to generate a community for two main reasons:

- First, because most of the time they are creating a community which is a copycat of Facebook or a blog platform, that wouldn't create no added value to customers.

- Secondly, building a community requires time. Of course, if you are a big corporation, you could always leverage your customers' data base, and have a great marketing campaigns which would generate you leads, but a community needs to be active. It isn't a sprint but more like a marathon, and therefore it isn't an efficient way to create a community.

The key is therefore developping an added value service that will provided a daily service, which will create bonds with the community.

Video Camp 3 Paris, 20 juin 2009

Retenez la date et venez nous rejoindre pour célébrer ce Vidéo Camp.

Le Web devient de plus en plus visuel... les jeunes générations font de YouTube leur nouveau moteur de recherche...

Quelles, sont les nouvelles tendances en terme d'usage, de techno... Comment se porte Silverlight, comment réagit Adobe ? Et pourtant, cela reste très difficile aujourd'hui de faire un Business Model qui permette aux entreprises comme Google, DailyMotion, d'être rentable. Elles en sont bien loin (c'est faux?) !

Il semble qu'il y ait moins de projets portés par des startups sur le domaine de la vidéo... vous confirmez ?

Comment se portent les videocasts, les programmes video face au modèle de programmes viellissant ?

Bref, de quoi faire le point un an après le 1er VideoCamp à la Cartonnerie...

PPC et Henri Kaufman ont quelque chose à célébrer... ils vous diront cela de vive voix...

Et pour les passionnés, des bons moments fraternels, nous organiseront un #OpenKitchen... en clair on va cuisiner toute la journée (en bonus : en live streaming s'il vous plait) pour un bon repas de fin de journée bien mérité !

Alors ?

Pour s'enregistrer c'est là http://barcamp.org/VideoCampParis3

On vous attend... vous venez ?! Oui, oui, ouyi, oui, on compte sur vous..............

Moi j'en serai, et je serai ravi de vous y rencontrer!