get them talking: how growing participation chains will grow sales

8/14/2019 Get Them Talking: How Growing Participation Chains Will Grow Sales

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Get Them Talking: How GrowingParticipation Chains Will Grow Sales

November 17, 2009

By Sam Decker (@samdecker)

and Ze Frank (@zefrank)


2/14

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As part of a consumer research study,

residents of Dallas, Texas, received a phone

call asking if they would let a Hunger Relief

Committee representative come to their

homes and sell them cookies, with the

proceeds to be used to buy meals for the

needy. Only 18 percent agreed. But, when the

caller started by asking, How are you

feeling this evening? and waited for a reply,

32 percent nearly double the earlier number

agreed to a visit from the cookie seller. Even

more astounding was the fact

that once someone followed up by paying

a visit, nearly everyone (89 percent) made

a cookie purchase.

Daniel J. Howard, the researcher at Southern

Methodist University who conducted the

study, called this the foot-in-the-mouth

effect, because, in this case, the salesperson

didnt even need to get a foot in the door.

Once people had expressed themselves in

even the most banal way, saying goodor fine or the like, they were much more

likely to take the next step of allowing the

cookie seller to visit their homes. Once the

salesperson was at their doorstep, they were

almost certain to purchase.

This powerful analog interaction can

be replicated online in what we call a

participation chain a way of cultivating

user involvement so that each action builds

upon the one before, building value along

the way. After an initial act of participation,

marketers can then lead the person to another

act, and to another, and so on. The chain

of user engagement not only increases that

persons relationship with your brand, and

potentially leads to a purchase, but may

also leave behind a trail of content which

can lead other site visitors to increase their

own engagement. In 2007, Forresters Brian

Haven concluded that engagement was

marketings new key metric, but engagement

is not a binary thing. It needs to be cultivated

by leading users along a participation chain.

The Participation Chain


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90% of UK shoppers surveyed said they

wish they could communicate directly with

businesses using live chat, forums or call-

me-back facilities via their websites; one in

three require it from the UK businesses they

currently use. (1&1, October 2007)

There were nearly 116 million US user-

generated content consumers in 2008, along

with 82.5 million content creators. Both

numbers are set to climb signicantly by 2013.

(eMarketer, February 2009)

See more stats at

www.bazaarvoice.com/stats.

Participation Creates Engagement Value

Here are two generally accepted principles:

1. In traditional recency, frequency, monetary

(RFM) models, direct marketers know that

the person most likely to respond to an

offer is someone who has responded to

a previous offer.

2. Researchers know that someone who

has participated in a survey, usability

study, or focus group is likely to change

the way they think or behave as a result

of that experience.

We can combine these two principles into a

simple truth: time and money are two sides

of the same coin. In general, the more time

a customer spends with you assuming a

positive experience the more likely they

are to spend money with you (or take some

related action). A Harvard Business Review

article by Michael I. Norton refers to this as

The Ikea Effect, noting that his research has

found that labor undertaken in association

with a brand such as self-assembly of Ikea

furniture increases peoples affection for the

result of that labor. When people construct

products themselves, from bookshelves to

Build-a-Bears, they come to overvalue their

(often poorly made) creations, Norton writes.

Online, those who labor to contribute content

reviews, answers, stories, wishlists, etc.

have, in effect, invested themselves in

something. Their contributions could be for

the sake of others. A study by Keller Fay and

Bazaarvoice revealed 90% of people who

write product reviews do so to help others,

and 80% do so to help the brand. Regardless

of whether the investment is for others or for

the brand, when someone participates within

a platform or web site, they increase their

connection to that brand or platform.


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John Lazarchic, PETCOs VP of e-commerce,

says having reviews on his site has led to

increased levels of engagement and loyalty.

Customers who write reviews are more

engaged with the site and come back to the

site more often, according to Lazarchic.

Our goals are twofold: one, to increase the

content on the website, which adds value to the

website; and two, to build loyalty. If they take

the time to write, people tend to come back

and see what others say. They now own part of

the website.

The links in online participation chains can

take a variety of forms. Some opportunities for

participation are effectively private, or shared

among a small group of people. Examples

include building wishlists, creating gift

registries, sending a friend an e-mail, or lling

out a survey. Other links are more public, such

as posting a publicly-viewable photo, writing a

product review, or answering a question posted

by another visitor to the web site.PETCO has seen customer reviews and customer-

generated Q&A lead directly to increased sales and

fewer product returns. PETCO rewards top contributors

with special badges.


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Participation Creates Engagement Value

Word of mouth has always been the most

impactful form of marketing. Now more

than ever, customers are less likely to pay

attention to marketing-speak and more likely

to pay attention to (and trust) content from

other people.

The pleasant side-effect of building

participation chains is that a persons public

contributions ratings, reviews, stories,

answers, photos, videos, etc. can be used

to market to, and draw in participation from,

other visitors to the Web site. In a way, each

piece of contributed content has a chance to

help others, and they, in turn, want to return

the favor. Each piece of content is a building

block to creating a sense of community,

and amplies the authentic value of user-

generated content. As a result, others want to

participate. Bazaarvoice has found that as the

number of reviews increases on a web site,

helping more visitors purchase across more

products, the review volume continues to

increase. The theory holds that more content

engages more buyers, and those buyers

return to write reviews themselves.

As content grows, so does value to the

business. Bazaarvoice has found that more

reviews drive higher conversion, more search

trafc, and lower returns. With question and

answer content, more answers drive higher

conversion, lower returns, and fewer customer

service calls. For example, Canadian Tire

implemented the Bazaarvoice Ask & Answer

application on their site and found that

products with one answer per question had

28% fewer calls per product, and products

with more than three answers had an 81%

drop in calls per product.

Person like me is still the most trusted

source for information about a company

and, therefore, products. (Edelman Trust

Barometer, November 2007)

83% of online shoppers would make

purchases if sites offered increased interactive

elements. (Allurent, January 2008)

Recommendations from family and friends

trump all other consumer touchpoints when it

comes to inuencing purchases, according to

ZenithOptimedia. (AdAge, April, 2008)

See more stats at



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Canadian Tire got an unexpected

benet when they added Ask &

Answer to their site: customer

service costs decreased (while overall

satisfaction levels stayed steady).

Products with one answered question

got 28% fewer customer service calls,

those with two answers saw a 67%

decrease in customer service calls,

and three answers drove an 81%

decrease in such contacts.

Customer Service Contacts

Answers per Product

3+

2

1


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Participation chains are formed by linking

simple forms of participation into longer

chains to keep the user engaged over a longer

period of time, with the goal of moving them

towards a goal. That user, in the process,

becomes more engaged with the site,

brand or product, and creates content that

benets others. What you link together as a

participation chain is highly dependent on the

context and purpose of your brand, the site,

and the user.

Following are some actions that you could

ask a user, visitor or customer to take:

Submit a photo, such as a photo of theproduct being used by a family member

Take a poll or survey

Write a review Answer or ask a question

Share a story

Leave a comment

Like or vote up someone elsescontribution or content on the site

Create a wishlist or other type of list

How to Create a Participation Chain

Users who contribute product reviews or post

messages visit sites nine times as often as

noncontributors do. Contributors also make

purchases nearly twice as often. (McKinsey &

Co./Jupiter Media Metrix study, January 2002)

84% of marketers agree that building

customer trust will become marketings

primary objective. (1to1 Media survey of the

1to1 Xchange panel, April 2008)

See more stats at


Thanking customers for their reviews and asking

them to answer open questions helps further

engage with a brand.


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The Reviewer Intent Survey by Keller Fay Group and Bazaarvoice (November 2007)

found that helping other consumers, sharing experiences, and giving back to the

community motivated consumers to write reviews.

10%

19%

23%

24%

26%

23%

23%

24%

20%

13%

22%

39%

46%

48%

56%

56%

62%

70%

To help other consumers make good decisions

To share your experiences with other people

Because you rely on consumer reviews and posting

reviews yourself is a way of giving back

To reward a company that has done right by you

To help companies make improvements in the

products and services they offer

To help retailers make better decisions about what products they sell

Because giving feed back publicly is the best way to

get companies to listen to what you have to say

To correct the record when you see that somebody

else has given an unfair review

Because it's fun

Percent who answered 5 out of 5 (Extremely Important) Percent who answered 4 out of 5 (Important)

To determine what request should be front-

and-center when youre seeking participation,

put yourself in the users shoes. Consider

what he or she is hoping to accomplish at that

particular moment. Give them an opportunity

to move closer to that goal. Additionally,

give them a reason to contribute make an

argument as to why that moves them closer

to their goal. Bryan Eisenberg, author of

Waiting for Your Cat to Bark, who consults on

improving conversion rates on e-commerce

sites, is an advocate for the creation of

Personas proles of the different types

of people who might be using your site.

Developing these proles will help you see

your site from the eyes of your Web site visitors

and craft chains of actions that appeal to their

desires and goals.

There are a few reasons people are

motivated to participate or take the time

to contribute content. Focus the reason

for contribution on:

Them (their need for self expression) Canyou make them stand out, show off their

creativity, gain ego capital?

Sharing with friends Can you make themlook good in front of people they know?

Helping strangers as mentioned earlier,90% of people write reviews to help others.

Helping you (the brand) as mentionedearlier, 80% also write product reviews to

help the brand.


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One strategy to consider is to allow users to

easily, without registration, contribute tiny

micro-bits of content. The success of the

Like thumbs-up button on Facebook, or

the status update, may, in part, be due to the

sheer ease of participating without making a

big commitment of time or creativity. Once

you have the user engaged with a micro-

action, you can move on to soliciting a

more robust action.

A simple example of this would be in an online

photo gallery. A user comes in with the goal

of sharing some photos with a friend. She

begins by uploading les from her computer,

then is offered chances to crop the photos,

scale them and tag them. Once her gallery is

nalized, shes presented with the options of

emailing them to a friend or posting them to

Facebook. Once that is done, she is offered

the chance to make a calendar, do it again,

or enter one of her photos in a contest. As

she enters the photo in the contest, she nds

she can view, rate and comment on other

peoples photos.

Participation chains are made possible

by merchandising next steps and making

participation calls to action very visible,

compelling and convenient. Alternatively, had

you just allowed them to upload a photo and

click done, you may never had gotten them

to create more content and increase their

engagement into that system.

An example of a more robust action is when

a customer leaves a review for a product or

service. In this case, the action represents a

commitment from the user that is far greater

than a mouse click. Once the submit button

is clicked, what are some possible ways to

form an action chain? The dead-end option

Engagement Engagement Engagement

Cycle of Engagement

Customer asks and

answers questions.

Customer writes a story

about brand.

Customer writes

product review.

Engagement Engagement

Visitors come to site to

read review.

More visitors are

attracted by the

customers content.

Visitor attracted by

customers content

becomes a new

customer.

New customer writes

product review.


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would be a thank you page and a back

button. Alternatively, you could ask the user

to write another review, ask them to rate other

reviews on the same product, or ask them if

they want to share the review they just wrote

with colleagues. You could also present an

opportunity for an action that is completely

unrelated to reviews ask them to submit an

entry to a contest or call for overall feedback

on the brand.

Bazaarvoice has learned that once people

contribute in some way (for example,

write a review) they are more likely to do

something else (such as answer a question

or write another review). For example, just by

presenting unanswered community questions

to a user after they had written a review,

average answer volume increased by 139%

across multiple clients.

Originally a customer may have clicked a link

in a post-purchase email to write a product

review with an objective of helping others,

because other site contributors helped her

decide upon that purchase. After writing

the review, she was invited to further help

customers by sharing an answer. In doing

home BROWSE SEARCH

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11/14

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so, she may have discovered that writing

this content contributes to a prole she has

on the web site, which encourages her to

possibly do the next link in the chain:

Share a prole or content with others viaemail or Facebook

Write another review

Write another answer

Share new content, suchas a story

Browse the content or prolesof others, which may lead to

a purchase

In one example noted by Bazaarvoice, a

large retailer sent emails to reviewers after

their product reviews were either posted

or rejected. This email simply thanked the

reviewers, let them know that their content

was published (or, if not, why). There were a

few links back to the ecommerce site, but noproduct promotion. What resulted from these

emails was unexpected and astonishing.

Those emails produced a higher open rate

and greater sales per email than almost

any promotional email the retailer sent to

customers. Why? The fact that people had

contributed to the site caused them to be

more invested in opening the email and

going back to the site to see their content

published. While they were there wrapped

in a blanket of contributory goodwill they

found something to buy!

In order to build a participation chain,

analyze the following within the context

of some participation that can occur on

your web site:

Identify the most common goals that usermight have.

Identify a next contribution that bestmaximizes the value for that user and their

context.

Identify the actions that you (as a platform)are most interested in having the user

participate in.

Identify the most simple and logical nextstep. If people are using your platform in

a way you hadnt intended, embrace it and

offer a clear path for them to accomplishtheir aims.

Consider explicitly asking a user to exploreanother part of the site, or learn more

about site functionality.

Identify ways to push toward high-valuecontent submission. Take that like or

one-click star rating and convert it into a

more robust review or story.


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For each of the actions above, evaluate how

easy it is for the user to make that next step.

Does it require knowledge about the site other

than what is displayed? Is the call to action

clear and visible? Is the call to action in a

logical place in the design ow? Are you using

language that is goal-oriented rather than

feature-oriented? Can you word these goals

in a social framework? (share a picture with

your friends rather than upload a pic and

then share with your friends).

Players of the Xbox game Halo despite

being presented with a vast rich landscape

featuring a seemingly unlimited number of

possible actions often nd themselves

intuitively moving forward exactly as

envisioned by the games designers. How

did the makers of the game ensure that the

story would move forward, while still giving

players the impression that they have free

will and a wide variety of options? They used

subtle cues involving lighting and music that

pull the player toward the path where the next

event was supposed to happen. Although

surrounded with a myriad of possibilities, the

next action is always intuitive and present and

leads players along a path.

Just like Halo, consumer platforms represent

a world with many possibilities, and the

trick is to provide clear paths so that users

can achieve specic goals. Once those

goals are achieved, a new goal should be

presented, leading the user forward. This can

be successful even if the participation chains

offer a next step that is tangential, or even

orthogonal from the original goal. One of the

Webs most fundamental properties is that it

allows and encourages serendipity users

may nd themselves happily doing something

entirely different from the purpose that

brought them to the site. Build your site with

an understanding of this.


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In the current explosion of social interactions,

its time to rethink your marketing assets.

Its always been about the customer, but

now theres exponential impact from your

customers engagement and inuence. Their

participation is the key to unlocking value.

As you begin the task of lengthening and

deepening customers participation onyour site, ask yourself where customers are

participating with your brand or platform and

determine what your brand is already doing

to keep the conversation going. Look for

participation dead ends, such as thank you

pages that lead nowhere. Consider possible

ways to follow up, including links on the

submission form, conrmation e-mails, follow-

up e-mails, and specialized notications on

return visits. Consider both short-term andlong-term engagement, realizing that a users

visit to your site may be his rst, or may be his

tenth. Make sure that the loyal customer has

new and different opportunities, as people may

tire if theyre offered the same opportunities

again and again. Dont be afraid to change

the conversation as you get to know one

another better.

Much has been said about engagement,

and about markets as conversations. The

participation chain concept addresses one of

the key considerations involved in this type

of marketing once you begin a dialogue

with your potential customer, how do you

keep it going and make the value exchange

deeper and more meaningful? Begin by

asking for participation, even if its only the

online equivalent of How are you feeling

this evening? because a seemingly-banal

response like ne could be the rst link in astrong and lengthy participation chain.

Of merchants who adopt customer reviews,

58% said improving customer experience was

the most important reason for adding reviews

to their sites, followed by building customer

loyalty (47%), driving sales (42%), and

maintaining a competitive advantage (37%).

(eTailing Group, June 2008)

68% of online marketers believe media is

in big trouble and will lose dollars to user-

generated content.(iMedia Connection,

February 2008)

Compete on Customer Conversations

See more stats at



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Bazaarvoice

3900 N. Capital of Texas Hwy., Suite 300

Austin, TX 78746

Toll-Free: (866) 522-9227

Phone: (512) 551-6000

Fax: (512) 551-6001

Site: www.bazaarvoice.com

Blog: www.bazaarblog.com

Twitter: @bazaarvoice

Learn more about Bazaarvoice

www.bazaarvoice.com/casestudies

www.bazaarvoice.com/research

www.bazaarvoice.com/stats

Send us your participation success story

The top ve stories will win a $50 gift card

and be featured in a webinar with Ze Frank

and Sam Decker on January 20th.

Submit your story to [email protected]

by January 12th.

Sam Decker

Chief Marketing Ofcer, Bazaarvoice

Sam Decker is a recognized expert in

eCommerce, word of mouth marketing,

and direct marketing. He frequently speaks

at marketing and eCommerce events and

authors the award-winning marketing blog at

www.deckermarketing.com.

Prior to Bazaarvoice, Decker helped buildDell.com into the largest consumer

eCommerce site, established their global

best practices in merchandising, analytics,

product management, and operations, and

pioneered Dells customer-centricity and

customer segmentation strategies. He has led

marketing at B2C and B2B startups, helped

develop loyalty marketing strategies for Apple

and Adobe, and written two marketing books.

He serves on the Board of the Word of MouthMarketing Association. Twitter: @samdecker.

Ze Frank

Designer, Speaker, and Popular Video Blogger

Ze Frank (pronounced Zay) brings an

entertaining and insightful look at how

technology and creativity intersect, especially

in web design, marketing and new forms of

media. He rose to Internet fame in 2001 with

his viral video How to Dance Properly, and

has been making online comedy and web

toys ever since. His most recent hit, TheShow with Ze Frank, drew press, praise, and

thousands of viewers daily during its year-long

run ending March 2007. The podcast earned

him a Vloggie at the inaugural 2006 award

show and a Web Award at SXSW 2007. His

most brilliant move: calling on fans to write the

show for him. Using collaborative tools, online

viewers collectively put words in his mouth

(and props in his lap); he faithfully performed

this wiki-comedy each week for his FabulosoFriday show. Twitter: @zefrank.

get them talking: how growing participation chains will grow sales

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