Social Wave Strategy

1. By: Jay Deragon, Strategist Waves That Can Change the Landscape

2. What Can A “Wave” Do? A large wave can be destructive, disruptive, damaging, forceful and surprising to those unprepared.

3. A “Wave” Can Also… create opportunities to those who know how to ride them.

4. For Business a “Wave” of Demand is a Good Thing Demand comes from fulfilling buyer Intents. Demand comes from creating excellent buyer experiences. Demand comes from awareness of buyer experiences.

5. To Create “Waves” of Demand Use A Social Innovation Strategy

6. The Social “Wave” of Innovation The Social “Wave” of Innovation Requires a Different View of the World. A View from the Buyers Perspective.

7. Social Waves of Innovation Social Waves of innovation are created in the region where a market’s actions favorably affect both its cost structure and its value proposition to buyers. Cost savings are made by eliminating and reducing the factors an industry competes on. Buyer value is lifted by raising and creating elements the industry has never offered. Over time, costs are reduced further as scale economies kick in due to the increased relationship that superior value generates. Value comes from social innovation created to enhance buyer experiences. Supplier Buyer Supplier Cost Public Relations Connections Marketing & Advertising Intentions Presence Social Innovation Operations & Culture Preferences Human Resources Social Acumen Word of Mouth Buyer Value On-Line and Off- Line Presence Influence

8. Traditional Versus Social “Wave” Strategy In traditional strategies, differentiation costs because firms compete with the same best-practice principle. Here, the strategic choices for firms are to pursue either differentiation or low cost. In the social wave world, however, the strategic aim is to create new social wave rules by breaking the existing value-chain trade-off and thereby creating social innovation. Traditional Strategy Social Wave Strategy Compete using existing models. Create social innovation models. Beat the competition. Make the competition irrelevant. Exploit existing demand. Create and capture new demand. Make the value-chain trade-off. Break the value-chain trade-off. Align the whole system of a firm’s activities with its strategic choice of differentiation or low cost. Align the whole system of a firm’s activities in pursuit of differentiation through social innovation..

9. The Four Principles of Social Wave Strategy This figure highlights the four principles driving the successful formulation and execution of social wave strategy and the risks that these principles address. Formulation Principles Risk factor each principle Remove market boundaries Focus on the buyer, not the competition Reach beyond existing media Get the strategic sequence right Search for cultural risk Planning to reduce risk Scale risk into waves of influence Business model & cultural risk Evaluation principles Risk factor each principle Overcome key organizational hurdles Build social acumen into strategy Follow the buyers intents Ignore competition Organizational social assessment Management of social risk Market intention risk Technological risk

10. Strategy Waves The strategy canvas is both a diagnostic and an action framework for building a compelling social wave strategy. It captures the current state of play in the known market space. This allows you to understand where the buyer is currently investing, the factors the industry currently competes on in products, service, and delivery, and what customers receive from the existing competitive media in the market. The horizontal axis captures the range of factors the buyer follows on and invests in. The vertical axis captures the offering level that buyers receive across all these key competing factors. The value curve then provides a graphic depiction of a company’s relative performance across its industry’s factors of buyer intentions. High Low Buyer on-line behavior Buyer influences Price Use of buyer terminology Media quality Buyer complexity intention ranges

11. Four Actions Framework + Eliminate/Reduce/Raise/Create Grid Reduce The four actions framework offers an technique that breaks the trade-off between differentiation and low cost and to create a new value curve. It answers the four key questions of what markets take for granted and needs to be eliminated; what factors need to be reduced below market standards; what factors need to be raised above market standards; and what should be created that the market has never offered. Which factors should be reduced well below market standards? Eliminate A Create Social Value Curve Which factors should be created that the market has never offered? Which of the factors that the market takes for granted should be eliminated? Raise Which factors should be raised well above the industry’s standard? The eliminate-reduce-raise-create grid pushes companies not only to ask all four questions in the four actions framework but also to act on all four to create a new social wave curve. By driving companies to fill in the grid with the actions of eliminating, reducing, raising, and creating, the grid provides four immediate benefits: it pushes them to simultaneously pursue differentiation and low costs; identifies companies who are only raising and creating thereby raising costs; makes it easier for managers to understand and comply; and it drives companies to scrutinize every factor the industry competes on. Eliminate Raise Seller terminology and distinctions Value versus price Off line involvement Mass Media Messaging Buyer involvement Above-the-line marketing Reduce Create Easy access Message complexity Media range Ease of interaction Buyer constraints Responsive and personal

12. Four Steps of Visualizing Strategy The four steps of visualizing strategy builds on the paths of creating social waves and involves a lot of visual stimulation in order to unlock people’s creativity. The four steps include visual awakening, visual exploration, visual strategy fair, and visual communication. Visual Awakening Visual Exploration Visual Strategy Fair Visual Communication •Compare your business intentions with your buyers’ by drawing your “as is” social strategy canvas. •Go into the field (on & off line) to explore the social paths to creating social waves. •Draw your “to be” social strategy canvas based on insights from observations. •Distribute your before- and-after strategic “social” profiles on one page for easy comparison. •Get feedback on alternative strategy canvases from customers, partners’ and noncustomers. •Observe the distinctive advantages of alternative communications for products and service intentions. •Support only those projects and operational moves that allow your company to close the gaps to actualize the new social strategy. •See where your social strategy needs to change to match buyer intentions •Use feedback to build the best “to be” future social strategy. •See which factors you should eliminate, create, or change.

13. Wants, Needs, Intention Map A corporate management team pursuing profitable growth can plot the market’s current and planned intents on a wants-needs-intentions (WNI) map. This strategy can help a company determine which buyers experience creates the biggest wave in growth and interaction. These are classified accordingly with the highest growth potential being wants, then to needs, then to the lowest rung, non-buyer intentions. Buyer wants & needs Growth comes from fulfilling buyer and non-buyer wants, needs and intentions Buyer intentions Non-buyer intentions Today Tomorrow

14. Three Tiers of Non-buyers There are three tiers of non-buyers that can be transformed into buyers. They differ in their relative distance from and experience with your market. The first tier of non-buyers minimally buy you offering out of necessity. The second tier of non-buyers refuse to use your offerings. The third tier are non-buyers who have never thought of your offerings as an option or have never heard of the offerings. Third Tier Second Tier First Tier Your Market

15. Sequence of Social Wave Strategy Buyer Value Is there exceptional buyer value in your business idea? No-- Rethink Yes An important part of social wave strategy is to “get the strategic sequence right.” This sequence fleshes out and validates social wave ideas to ensure their commercial viability. This can then reduce business model risk. In this model, potential social wave ideas must pass through a sequence of buyer value, accessibility, attention, and adoption. At each step there are only two options: a “yes” answer, in which case the idea may pass to the next step, or “no”. If an idea receives a no at any point, the company can either park the idea or rethink it until you get a yes. Accessibility Is your value easily accessible to the mass of buyers? No-- Rethink Yes Attention Can you attain a social wave of buyer attention to your value proposition? No-- Rethink Yes Adoption What are the adoption hurdles in actualizing your social wave? Are you addressing them up front? No-- Rethink Yes A Commercially Viable Social Wave Idea

16. Buyer Value Map The buyer utility map helps managers look at this issue from the right perspective. It outlines all the levers companies can pull to deliver exceptional value to buyers as well as the various experiences buyers can have with a product or service. The Six Stages of the Buyer Experience Cycle 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Value Accessible Useful Meaningful Relational Social Customer Productivity Simplicity The Six Value Levers Convenience Risk Fun and Image Environmental friendliness

17. Buyer Experience Cycle A buyer’s experience can usually be broken into a cycle of six stages, running more or less sequentially from value to social. Each stage encompasses a wide variety of specific experiences. At each stage, managers can ask a set of questions to gauge the quality of buyer’s experience. Value Accessible Useful Meaningful Relational Social Define the buyers attributes of value. What does accessible mean to the buyer? How does the buyer define useful? What would make the experience meaningful? What experience attributes create a sense of relational intents? Can the buyer share their experience with friends?

18. Uncovering Blocks to Buyer Value Uncovering blocks to buyer utility can identify the most compelling hot spots to unlock exceptional utility, social value. By locating your proposed offering on the thirty-six space of the buyer utility map, you can clearly see how, and whether the new idea not only creates a different utility proposition from existing offerings but also removes the biggest blocks to utility that stand in the way of converting noncustomers into customers. Value Accessibility Useful Meaningful Relational Social Customer Productivity: In which stage are the biggest blocks to customer productivity? Simplicity: In which stages are the biggest blocks to simplicity? Convenience: In which stage are the biggest blocks to convenience? Risk: In which stage are the biggest blocks to reducing risks? Fun and Image: In which stage are the biggest blocks to fun and image? Environmental Friendliness: In which stage are the biggest blocks to environmental friendliness?

19. Intention Model of Social Wave Strategy The intention model of social wave strategy shows how value innovation typically maximizes buyer experiences by using the three levers of strategic value, buyer value, and pricing innovation. The Strategic Value The Buyer Value The Value Cost/Benefit Streamlining and Social Innovations Partnering Pricing Innovation

20. Social Wave Idea Index The social wave idea index is a simple but robust test demonstrating how the sequence of value, accessibility, attention, and adoption form an integral whole to ensure commercial success through social wave strategy. Offering B Offering C Offering A Buyer Value Is there exceptional value? Are there compelling reasons to buy your offering? - - + Accessible Is your offering easily accessible to the mass of buyers? - - + Attention Does your message have reach, richness and social referrals? - - + Adoption Have you addressed adoption hurdles up front? - +/- +

21. Do You Have a Social “Wave” Strategy? If you don’t the swelling wave in the distance may disrupt your business landscape permanently..

22. Do You Have a Social “Wave” Strategy? If you do then you are in a good position to capture the disruptive nature of a large wave. Doing so means you’re the one changing the landscape.

23. A Social Wave Strategy…. will enable you to prepare and ride the “wave” of changes on the horizon caused by the advancements in social technology. Advancements yet to be discovered but forming in the distance.

24. By: Jay Deragon, Strategist jay.deragon@gmail.com A Strategy for Meeting The Social Waves of Intent.