Posts Tagged ‘strategy’

Sam Decker First-ever European Social Commerce Award Winners

November 11th, 2008 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

The first European Social Commerce Summit had many tricks and surprises, but the one thing that didn’t surprise many of us was the winner of the coveted Social Commerce Achievement AwardWehkamp. We feel privileged to be working with many of our innovate clients, both across the UK and EU, but this one stands out as the leader in the Social Commerce space.

Wehkamp has been a solid driver of innovation and excellence for almost a year now – with solid review volume across all their categories, they continuously push us to improve and drive the market. As one of our key European clients, they have been instrumental in our understanding of the European word of mouth, and I know they will continue to be a force when it comes to launching viral and social initiatives on their site. Check out their current “Review and Win” campaign that urges participants to leave a video review, and be entered for a chance to win a car!

Great job all around for their very hard-working team – the Award is yours this year, we hope you continue to be the face of European success and innovation for Bazaarvoice!

Besides the Achievement Award, we also gave away four other awards for different successes in the UGC space – below is a quick overview of the Awards and the Winners!

Best Proof of ROI – Given to a client who did the best job proving ROI with the Bazaarvoice solution.
Winner: BODEN

Best Use of UGC in Email – Given to a client who drove the most value via email.
Winner: SCREWFIX

Best Participation Campaign – Given to a client who ran the most successful one-time campaign.
Winner: ARGOS

Best Use of Negative Reviews – Given to a client who uses negative reviews to drive changes within their organization.
Winner: WICKES

Sam Decker A Simple Way to Prioritize “Social” Initiatives

July 31st, 2008 by Sam Decker Chief Marketing Officer

When planning your social strategy and investments, it’s difficult to know where to start. Here’s a way to think about and organize your decisions, based on my years of sitting in the purchasing and strategist seat.

First, think about how any social technology will impact the prospect or customer’s “purchase momentum.” There are social technologies that create connections and communities, but the ultimate goal is driving purchases. Evaluate how salient any type of UGC or social participation is for researching, shopping, narrowing, comparing, and building confidence for prospects to buy. The closer the interaction is to a prospect’s “task,” the closer it is to helping people make their purchase decisions.

The importance of the second factor (X axis, below) is something I’ve come to realize after years of change leadership at startups, at Dell, and during the last two years seeing how the right investments in customer dialogue accelerates our clients’ social strategies. This is the depth and speed of acceptance of the proposed social initiative. I call this factor the “cultural momentum” of your initiative, and it relates to how quickly you can build excitement internally, bringing “customer oxygen” into your corporate culture! Let me explain…

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