Pinko Marketing "Plan"

[splitbamboo]

I've been reading Pinko Marketing on Tara's blog and I noted that with
regard to Riya, marketing plans are out. However, how do you get your
arms around this concept to 1) pitch it and gain acceptance; and 2)
have some kind of roadmap to make sure that you are tracking and moving
in the right direction?

[Tara Hunt]

Splitbamboo,

Those are very good and valid questions...and they are uber tricky.

1) Pitching the concept.

People have been burnt at the stake for less. Imagine this, "Hi, I'm your new marketing director. I say we get out of the way and see what the community says." Heh. Nope. They'll be, like, "Um, and why are we paying you?"

So, pitch it this way: "I'm putting together a community-based marketing plan. Instead of spending money and time on building brand messages, let's put this puppy out there, see who picks it up and 'enlist' them to help guide us. As we get deeper into the community (Hugh MacLeod put this amazngly well: you stop living the brand, (instead) the brand starts living you), we'll inherently understand the direction. The community becomes our guide. We can tighten up the customer feedback loop and 'market' all at once. It's scary. It's organic. But, dammit, it's the most beautiful thing you'll ever see."

Then give examples (as listed on the wiki...I'll be filling in those case studies soon).

2) The roadmap.

Well, if you really need the roadmap, you can put together a schedule of check-in dates, reporting dates, ROI measures (but real ones, like number of correspondences, number of community events attended, stories of real conversations and feedback, a roadmap of improvements to the core product/service/etc.), etc. You can set down a heavy research plan. I believe in research. Organic, lived research (less about the stats and controlled testing - more about the doing and being and recording that). You can even put together a Keynote or a Powerpoint, if you must, that reports this stuff. Dazzle the boss with the stories. Post them on your blog. Build relationships. Have a goal for yourself that you will build x number of relationships without pitching.

Any other ideas from my fellow Pinkos?

Tara

--
tara 'miss rogue' hunt
www.horsepigcow.com

[Colin]

There is one element thats hard to address and thats creation of
business value. Customers of your/any service online will organically
drive you towards two things.
a) functional perfection
b) cheapest possible price or free

I have seen this many times, where open-ended conversations about
features, become open-endedly expensive. I think this was the one of
the failings of the dot com times - the belief that if enough people
used something, that it would magically result in a P/E that the NYSE
would love.

So, somehow without containing the organic growth, isn't there a need
within the customer feedback loop conversation to periodically circle
back to address the revenue business model. People are practical
enough to do that in my experience.