Curly Hair rides Groundswell

Naturallycurly.com is an Austin based online community. It’s a designated online community for people with Curly hair to share their story, get information and make friend. The business model for the company is very simple –bring in traffic to their main site; monetize the traffic by selling advertising space to curly hair related product company such as P&G.

Since the creation, the site has attracted 15K registered customers, however, the company did not have a strategy for social media and they expect a higher growth rate potential if they use social media to market themselves.
That’s why me and 3 other MBA students were hired as consultant. Although curly hair is not a common thing in China, I am inherently interested in the topic and with a strong passion to use our business knowledge and social media experience to help a start-up company in need.

The first step we did was to interview the Employee and observe the website, because in order to bring in more traffic, especially quality traffic, we have to understand who the targeted customers are. After all these interviews and analysis, we realized female customer has a significant higher percentage in the customer base, what’s more, according to the social Technographic profile, there are higher percentage of Critics, Joiner and spectator in their customer base. But the next question is where are these potential customers in the groundswell, how to bring them to Naturallycurly?

Identify where the potential customers are:
Knowem.com is a very popular website, it provides list of popular groundswell sites organized under different category. Because we know critics, joiner and spectator are more likely to become the customer, and joiner prefer SNS such as Facebook and twitter to update with their friends what’s going on; Critics has higher tendency to use forum to express their opinion while spectator prefer to read instead of create and react to content, such as Blog. Our strategy was to use Knowem.com to identify a list of 50 sites under these 3 categories (SNS, Forum, Blog) where naturallycurly.com should focus its marketing effort to.

Assess the quality of each sites:
Right now we have a list of 50 sites where our potential customer are, but which has better quality? With the limited marketing budget, which sites should the company put higher priority?
Luckily we have some very popular web analytics tool such as Google analytics, alexa.com and compete.com. Google analytics is probably the most sophiscated tool among three, however, it requires the targeted site to preload a tracking code which is not the case for many sites. So we used alexa.com and compete.com as the traffic data for most popular sites are captured in real time. These 2 sites provide very detailed traffic information such as how many people visit a particular website, what’s the average page viewed, viewers’ demographic. We use these information to evaluate the quality of 50 sites we chose early, the criteria were site traffic(potential customer size), relevance to lifestyle topics and likelihood the customer will be interested in naturallycurly.com. we use these criteria to grade 50 sites. Meanwhile, because we don’t have high confidence in the quality of the free resource, we use both compete.com and alexa.com grade the list and did a weighted average of the result. Based on our assessment, we gave a list of 20 web sites where naturallycurly.com hasn’t made a proactive presence but should. The rest 30 sites are good to market to only if they have extra resource. In terms of how to market to these 20 websites, it requires a variety of approaches such as creating fan page, add advertising, participate in discussion with the objective to raise the awareness and increase the point of access. Because the time constrains for this project, the implementation was not part of our delivery.

Now we identified where the creator, critics, collector, joiner and spectator are and approach them with the right techniques. However, this effort to engage the right people, Marvin, connector and salesman will not guarantee a success in viral marketing. According to Tipping point, we also have to make the product sticky. That’s exactly what we did in the next step -we tried to increase the stickiness of naturally.com main site to achieve 2 objectives: retain the traffic therefore increase the quality of the user base; build a solid base for the word of mouth effect. Again, how to make the product sticky depends on the understanding of the targeted customers – critics, joiner and spectator. Natuallycurly.com has a forum, but somehow it hasn’t been a highlight. Knowing critics is a major customer base and they love quality forum to express their opinion, we recommend the company to streamline their current forum page to be more user friendly; meanwhile, add a daily top 5 forum topics in the prominent position on the main page. Besides, we also recommend the company to frequently launch small scale rating and survey on the latest news because Critics love these activities. For joiner, we recommend to add a SNS icon at prominent place on the main site, so when joiner find an interesting information on naturallycurly.com, they can instantly click the icon and share with their friends on facebook. For spectator, we know we have to increase the quality of the content, noticing the company used to hire famous blogger generate content, we recommend continuing this effort, besides, once a new blog is generated, the spectators should easily notice.

During our final presentation, the management team was very excited about our finding and recommendation, they were also eager to have us for the next phase – strategy to monetize the traffic.
For me, the sense of fulfillment comes from the ability to apply what I learn from reading the Groundswell to solve a real life challenge. Online Marketing is very complicated because there are so many moving parts, but the social technographics profile provides a very good framework to systematically analyze the business.

War-Mart hit the gold

Wal-Mart has been very successful at converting customer data into better customer experience.

First, the data mining helps Wal-Mart predict very precisely on what’s going to happen on the consumer demand. This prior Hurricane Frances inventory stock up story is an iceberg of how the data giant utilize its rich customer data system to prepare for demand spike. Beside this extreme case, during the daily operations, Wal-Mart can easily use the customer shopping data to solve some most challenging Retail marketing questions - Seasonality and Cyclicality. Retailer always want to know when they should pile up their stock in a year, when they should reduce the inventory, for example, which month Frozen Turkey and pickle sales go up, when should they pile up beer. The precise prediction not only help Wal-Mart maximize its sales revenue, but also try to avoid Out-Of-Stock situation where customer experience can be hugely affected. Other than the regular seasonal prediction, Wal-Mart can also use the customer data to respond to Ad-Hoc events, such as colder-than-average winter, Yankees’ win of world championship, even which party win the presidential election might have a influence on how customers’ purchase behavior gear toward. The massive amount of data both in terms of geographic coverage and chronicle coverage really give the company the infinite opportunity to perfectly align its offerings with customer demand in real time.

Second, the Assortment challenge can also be easily solved by carefully analyzing the customer data. First of all, the data across the nation allows the company to better understand the consumer preference based on the region, location of the physical Wal-Mart store. What categories are in high demand and low demand in a Wal-Mart Austin store compared to a Wal-Mart store in Chicago? Within Austin, what are in higher demand in a Mexican-American neighborhood compared to Asian neighborhood? These are million dollar questions because it allows Wal-Mart to customize its particular store to cater to the potential customers. That’s exactly what happened in real life. The fact that I can get into the Wal-Mart in my neighborhood and find various types of Tofu on the shelf is really a testimony of how the company goes very far to integrate into the community and I think that’s one of the reasons they have been very successful against competitions.

Point of purchase is a key issue to adress in the retail marketing and Wal-Mart has been very successful in using the data to perfect these areas. The shelf display is more than a science than it looks like. What category should be put close to the store entry, what should be put on shelf eye level, should stationary session placed next to Toys session? Again, Wal-Mart has the data, and they can quickly experiment different configuration and accumulate knowledge on the perfect combination. Plus, this knowledge is shared across the Wal-Mart stores nationwide so the good practice spread overnight. So next time when you go to Wal-Mart and wondering why every store put the milk session on the far side of the entry with a very clear sight, just check your shopping cart and count on things you don’t really intend to buy. Also, when should the store start a promotion? When start a feature? These questions can also be answered by observing the historical promotion and feature sales activities data and the sales lift generated. Therefore every dollar the company spends on this marketing mix, they can potentially maximize the return.

Besides, the sales and price information can also give Wal-Mart the idea of price elasticity the company can better predict the demand and handle competition.


Wal-Mart is making the supplier more efficient and better off in the competition using its cutting edge technology and operation practice. First of all, Wal-Mart not only uses the insight from customer information to improve its own profitability, but also shares the real time inventory data with major suppliers through “Retail Link”- data web portal to external suppliers. This is why truck load of Kraft cereal will arrive the War-Mart store when the shelf just become empty. Just-In-Time operation helps suppliers always meet supply with demand. This might look demanding for suppliers at the beginning, but once they align their operation to meet up this expectation, they also benefit from less inventory cost and know-how of running a efficient business. War-Mart is also leveraging its influence to push other new technology through. The RFID (Radio Frequency Identity) technology is still a new application in the early phase of Technology Adoption Product Lifecycle, with the endorsement from huge company such as War-Mart, I can see how likely this new technology will cross the chasm and get to the mainstream market. Wal-Mart as a customer is an ideal early adaptor every technology is looking for. Meanwhile, this RFID new technology will make the transportation, inventory even more efficient, thus further improve the operation efficiency for both Wal-Mart and the suppliers who adopt it.


We are in the information age where people should be accountable of keeping and using their personal information. So privacy issue does not bother me so long the company uses the data for the purpose of improving my shopping experience at Wal-Mart. Besides, what Wal-Mart has been collecting is mostly Scanner data which only indicate what has been sold instead of Panel data which indicate who are the customers. I am less concerned about sharing what I put in my cart than monetizing my personal contact information. I think Wal-Mart at least demonstrate their commitment to protect the customer info by not making the data available to public or other companies(you won't get Wal-Mart data from Neilson), but that being said, there are sign that Wal-Mart is also able to get Panel data which include personal info such as SSN and Driving license number. I think the Wal-Mart and the regulators should work together to make sure these information are not abused. This is good for the brand image of the company, and also good for the consumer because just as the concerns that Google might one day goes out of business, if Wal-Mart does, who can guarantee the takeover company will hold the same responsibility.

Recently I read an article from U.S. today, called “Watching a movie at home? Grab your iPhone”
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-12-29-dvd-iphone-app-blu-ray_N.htm

This is about how Movie studio utilizes the new technology such as social media network and Blu-rays DVD to provide a service in which once your device and the DVD player is synchronized, the movie viewers can not only to use their iPhone as a remote controller but also to generate real time comments and share with their friends.

This new application may sounds trivial as it does not use any cutting edge technology. At the first glance it may even sounds useless because why would movie viewers using other devices when watch movie? But in reality, we do, or at least we would.

This is a behavior we might not be able to capture if we simply ask some home movie viewers to express their movie experience, however, hindsight, 2 facts make this new service suddenly so relevant. First, the advance of social media as a way to express opinion start to unleash the desire of human being of being connected. from Web 1.0 where people will be the customer for the information to the web 1.5 where people start to express their ideas on blog till Web 2.0 where everyone is connected with everyone, we are surrounded by user generated content which are more personalized and relevant to our life. The viral nature of social media can be largely explained by the fact that it hit on something deep. Second, if we divide the movie consumption into 2 segments: serious movie and casual movie. The 2nd category in which people watch movie at home in a very casual setting is expanding. Largely because the fast pace of the life which doesn’t allow people to commit few hours exclusively in theater, not mention the traffic back and forth. Also the advance of the movie rental service offered by company such as Netflix satisfies the rising need.

It’s genius idea to combine the movie experience and the desire for connectivity by providing this service. This insight is probably not something you will get if you do a focus group survey, the company really has to observe the customers’ behavior and preference and get behind to understand the motivation and incentive then comes up with this unarticulated needs.

But how far this service can go? I think it’s a good question, personally I am very optimistic. There are basically 3 customers in this business. First, the movie viewers. The benefit for movie viewers is tremendous, imagine the ability to make a movie experience personal by adding humus comments about the actors’ dress or a subtle line and instantly share with your friend in another city who will laugh so loud when he watch the movie. Also, imagine that the you can comment on a random item in a scene such as the necklace of the actress, and link to the places where you just bought similar jewelry , you friends happen to be interested in the same item, she can quickly click the links and shop online during the course of the movie. Movie is no longer a passive experience, instead, it’s integrated.
At the same time, the integrated experience will attract more movies viewers, sometimes simply because a friend sends you funny comments about a scene in one movie which you haven’t watched. So the second customer for this service, the movie studio will be happy too.

The third customer, the advertiser may already smell the opportunity inside this, by adding very relevant commercial in the movie experience, it become less intrusive, sometimes can be even appreciated. Imagine how many people would buy Nike +plus series running shoes online if they see their favorite characters joggling in central park in a sunny day? This integrated experience allows the advertiser to capture the instant urge before it wanes out.

The newly launched apple iPad would be an extra push for this service because iPad makes the home entrainment experience more integrated, imagine now you don’t even need a DVD and TV, everything is in one handheld device.

don't get blind by blind test -innovate from real customer insight

Couple years ago, one of the product manager in my previous company approached the team with a product feature proposal for the Laserjet printer – ID copy feature. It was really a tough discussion because he insisted that this new feature will be a hit as he got feedback from many customers, and our competitor already included this cool feature. But it’s an engineering challenge to implement, what’s more, no one really understand what this new feature is going to significantly add value to customer, therefore set us apart from our competitor. So the proposal was rejected.

But as we launched more products into this new channel and as we listened to more customers, we hear similar request keep coming, such as request for smaller footprint, lower power consumption, noise free, once we put them together, we gradually see a connection behind, customer is expecting a personal, intimate consumer printer, something a huge box sitting on the office floor with a lot of sophiscated functions which people never use can’t satisfy. We start to realize the real challenge –this is not just about a cool feature, as we just reposition these commercial based products into consumer channel, our product design concept is not perfectly aligned with customer expectation.

Based on these findings, we engaged with the customer to understand what they are looking for from a personal printer. Speed and durability are good to have, but other aspects such as simplicity, nice touch-and-feel loom in front of us as more seemingly appealing characteristics. Once we understand what is customer trying to achieve as a outcome instead of solution, the team not only reacted to these new requests more effectively, but also started to come up with very creative products hit on these points even sometimes customer hasn’t articulated yet.

Listen to customer requires the ability to get behind the seemingly trivial dots and start to form the line and plane. If we simply follow the customer passively, we can easily lose the sight of bigger picture therefore lose the opportunity to generate killer product.

But the other side of the story is that although our competitor is very good at coming up with new features which customer specifically request, it’s very interesting to find when it comes to purchase decision; our products are still the top choice. As the dominant leader in the commercial market over decades, our printers already established itself as the synonymous of premium quality, reliability and elegance, this ingrained underlying image is normally something customer won’t tell during an interview. However, when it comes to a still non-trivial home investment, they make the choice independent to what they say. Actually our company conservative innovation approach put us in a better position as customer sometimes perceive the overwhelming amount of incremental new features as a sign of quality trade off and a desperate move by the losing company. So our product’s classical white color and simple user interface give customer the sense of consistency and elegancy; the relatively bigger size imply good quality and durability, when customer make a decision, they un-consciously transfer the sensation into the overall product experience, but they think it’s all about product itself, to this sense, a printer is not that different than a cola.

Liang's Persona

Apple just released the I-pad. Although it looks like a zoom-out version of I-phone, it still has the Apple iconic sleek art deco flavor and the magic power to call me to take action to compromise my already tight school budget. I like the Electronic Gadget because it looks cool and therefore makes me cool. I bought I-Phone, Sony PS2, Nike+ just after they are available on the market, but my interest retention period is very short, for I-Phone, the only few functions I used for a long while are telephone and clock alarm until somebody points out other interesting functions to me, PS2 at that time helped me organize some house party with friends but quickly evolve into a sheer home decoration and statement that I am still as young as teenage. Nike+ is seldom used after the excitement of the first few weeks, but the fact it’s not cheap does serve a purpose – high fixed cost means high exit barrier so I am still running.

My wife called me this morning sharing with me the good news – she just got admission from CMU. It’s a great for us because graduate school in U.S. is something on the tops of her to do list, I am sure life won’t be complete if she does not cross that item off one day, and I am equally excited because she is happy and when wife is happy life is much easier. But second thought starts to haunt me very quickly –who is going to finance my schooling? Not mention her own expense in north east region where you need 8 dollars to buy 1 beer. Maybe I should shut down my desire to own an I-Pad but it’s really a pain.

The Austin half marathon is coming, but I am struggling whether I should sell my pass on Craigslist. First of all, I don’t think Running a half marathon on Valentine’s day is a good way to fight something when your wife is on the other side of the planet, plus it’s Chinese Lunar New year and I am supposed to eat a lot, but that is not gonna happen after marathon. OK, I have to confess, the real reason is I don’t think I am ready for 13 miles. I did practice about one month before the long break, I can manage 7 miles fine and progressively I run more, and the running cut short my drink and I pay more attention to what I eat, I actually felt very good and probably 10 years younger till the holiday season fiesta in New York City and San Francisco. 2 weeks food quest in NYC China town plus one week clan chauder on fisherman’s wharf put fat solid back to my Ab, I was as guilty as I was happy.

I actually love sports, used to play serious soccer in college. But soccer for me is all about imagination and creativity, you make a breakthrough which totally fool your opponent, then make a stunning pass which opponent can’t expect using their wild imagination. I think what satisfy me about soccer is my ability to create an idea in a split second and realize it in front of many others. Equally satisfying is the recognization I can quickly receive. For me the recognization is as important as self-fulfillment. Running is something very personal, unless you talk about it in the bar or on the nike+ social media site. I am not totally convinced whether the one-sided nature of running as a sports can meet my own desire – both personal achievement and interaction with others.