Already a success by any startup standards in just a few short years, Tony Hsieh, founder of Zappos, looked at the $32 million his company generated in 2002 and challenged his team to do better.

Roughly four years into the game, Hsieh decided it was time to look beyond shoes and move his company toward a more significant mission. His epiphany was the result of learning through research that companies serving customers with a higher purpose outperformed those that focused on market leadership and profitability in the long run.

Putting the Customer in Customer Service

In 2003, the Zappos brand evolved from an online shoe etailer toward a customer-centric organization powered by service. Everything started with looking at the pains customers were experiencing and the options they faced when making purchase decisions. One of the biggest sore spots for the company was something that was out of the company’s realm of control. While drop shipping equated to 25% of the annual revenue at the time, it was also the very thing that prevented the company from keeping its promise of delivering exceptional customer service. If the company was truly to become customer-focused, it would need to take control of the entire experience, from beginning to end. After killing drop shipping and taking control of its inventory, Zappos’ new customer service program resembled that of industry retail giant Nordstrom where the customer experience was paramount. Leaders for both companies will say that doing so, directly correlates service to loyalty, repeat business, word of mouth, and increased revenues.

“If you’re looking for a pair of shoes, and we’re out of your size, we made it part of our policy to refer them to a competitor that had it in stock.”

Almost immediately, the team noticed a difference Customers weren’t the only people singing Zappos’ praises. Employees were more engaged and passionate as a result. The new focus gave representatives something they could stand behind. Customers could hear the passion of the person on the other end of the phone. They cared. And, vendors noticed too. Suddenly their onsite visits would increase in frequency and length to see what the new Zappos was all about.

Focusing on customer service caused a snowball effect that helped Zappos soar to new heights. At the end of 2003, Zappos nearly doubled its revenues to $70mm. By 2004, the company earned $184mm.

Culture Shock

Business leaders, especially innovators, are continually looking at what’s working, but more importantly, what’s possible. By the close of 2004, the Zappos team believed that focusing on customers and their experiences had not only boosted revenues by 600%, doing so created a global community of enthusiasts and advocates behind the Zappos brand. In 2005, the team was set for its biggest transformation yet.

“We never really paid much attention to what other companies were doing. We never knew that the decisions we made were in direct contrast to those of our competitors.”

Tony believed that if making customers happy would help improve business, then focusing on company culture was a natural progression. Making company culture the number one priority resulted in the creation of a pipeline team, a group of trained professionals who host more than 40 classes to help improve morale and career development. Courses ranged from career and interdepartmental training to Zappos history to personal development programs such as strength finders, the science of happiness, and optimism. In 2005, early Zappos investor and professional life coach Dr. Vic moved into the Zappos HQ. He offered onsite coaching to employees looking for empowerment and direction and as a result, employees continued to evolve from a role driven by passion to one of now of a company stakeholder. The evidence of success was in the sales. 2005 hit a new high with $370 mm and 2006 generated almost $600 mm. With a customer and employee focused organization, the company would eventually hit $1 billion in 2008.

Delivering Happiness

In 2009, Zappos sought to reinvent Zappos once again, this time by focusing on employees, customers and also other companies through one powerful, yet uncommon business term, happiness.

“Customer service is about making customers happy, company culture is about making employees happy, so let’s just simplify it and at the same time, amplify our vision for our customers, employees, vendors, and peers.”

Following the success of investing in company culture and customer service, Hsieh was introduced to positive psychology. So the team took a step back and looked at the science of happiness in order to develop the company’s next growth strategy, delivering happiness to the world.

It started within.

For example, the management introduced elements of progress into its career advancement program to help employees stay happy consistently. Rather than give big promotions every 18 months to deserving employees, management introduced incremental advancement every six months.

Zappos also formalized the definition of culture into 10 core values:

1. Deliver “wow” through service;

2. embrace and drive change;

3. create fun and a little weirdness;

4. be adventurous, creative and open-minded;

5. pursue growth and learning;

6. build open and honest relationships with communication;

7. build a positive team and family spirit;

8. do more with less;

9. be passionate and determined;

10. be humble.

Following in the footsteps of the Walt Disney Company, Zappos looked externally to find ways to share its experience with culture and service to help others reinvent their businesses. As a result, Zappos introduced its Insights program, a series of immersion workshops designed to bring other businesses into the world of Zappos. By exposing its company secrets around happiness, culture, and service, other organizations could learn the Zappos way to improve relations with customers and employees.

To date, the Insights program has helped many businesses, many of which report that learning the Zappos Way helped increase sales and morale almost immediately. Zappos didn’t do too bad either. It closed 2009 with $1.2 billion in revenues and Amazon also acquired Zappos for $928 million in November that year.

The deal with Amazon proved gratifying. Over the years, Amazon attempted to “kill” Zappos with Endless.com, but Tony credits the company’s unique championing of employees, customers, and happiness with winning. Under Amazon, Zappos now runs as an independent brand, a brand that only continues to excel under the banner of happiness.

And, when you create an empowered workforce that is not only happy, but evangelical, placing them in front of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter ensures that the company’s mission, purpose, and culture scale as social media become pervasive as next generation platforms for sales, marketing, and service. At current count, 436 Zappos employees use Twitter, including CEO Tony Hsieh. For the record, Tony has over 1.8 million followers.

As Tony says, “Your culture is your brand. Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company.”

Comments

Every day we see search solutions that bridge the gap between Google and the niche searches that aren’t properly serviced yet. If you’ve ever been out of town on business, or across town on business, and needed a spot to work from, you and I have something in common. I’ve personally gone wardriving looking for accessible WiFi to use from the car while waiting for my next task. Working from the car is not particularly effective as there’s people walking around, cars going by, and you can’t go five minutes without needing to adjust the temperature. Wandering into the nearest coffee shop isn’t much better. Have you tried to focus on a project from an oversized leather chair with people chattering all around you? Lets just say that you get what you paid for with free work spaces.

Enter LiquidSpace, an application that uses your current location to assist you in finding some temporary workspace.

“The beautifully designed app lets you browse nearby spaces, read reviews, prices and reserve. Then use the app to arrange meetings, send invites or just show up, check-in and work. Workspaces can vary from pay by the hour conference rooms, empty desks in corporate offices, a swanky boardroom around the corner, a hip co-working space in Union Square to a boat deck with WiFi in the bay. The time and price structure will be pre-determined by the venue and all payments will be easy to handle within the app.”

Obviously this is a huge win-win for both mobile office types and business owners who are WiFi enabled and have temporary spaces they could rent out. Even our office has areas we could register with the software and start offering up.

The software developers are planning a huge event for the release of the software in a few days including a WiFi enabled bus with seats for rent that roams all over downtown Austin.

Would you rent a quiet spot with reliable power/internet for 2hours for a buck or so? Do you have space in a busy part of town that could be rented? My answer is yes to both!

Comments

1) It was recently reported that Facebook was the most visited website in 2010, beating out Google for the first time. Do you think that there is value there for small businesses or is just part of the social media hype?

Greg Finn
I honestly don’t think that Facebook Marketing is hype at all, and I think that many businesses are hesitant due to the perception that Facebook is a friend-to-friend network. Now with Facebook pages showing up directly into a user’s stream, businesses can have highly visible messages displayed to their fans – and it is far more than just advertising.

The fact that Facebook users are regular users is really the biggest upside to me, and it’s not just kids using it anymore. Facebookers really are adamant about checking the site frequently, whereas Twitter is used very differently (outside of our industry). Sure, Twitter has 15 million users, but according to a study from Edison Research, only 33% of users use Twitter once a day whereas 50% of users log on to Facebook in any given day. I have seen traffic stats mirror this research as well.

I also love the format that Facebook provides, allowing for easy communication, fan interaction, and sharing. Take a look at this post from the UFC – it not only has a link, but a description, video and comments/likes as well.

Whereas the same thing on Twitter looks like this:

I really look at Facebook as the most popular RSS feed in the world, pulling in information from friends and businesses. I would say that Facebook marketing may be the furthest thing from hype as Pages allow for businesses to post directly into arguably the best and most popular stream – the Facebook wall.

Victoria Edwards
I think there is great value in small businesses adding Facebook to their online marketing initiatives, as it’s a great way to promote a business in an area that essentially is free. While some may think it is hype, it has become an additional way to benefit from an organic perspective, as well as acquiring a larger audience for your brand. The trick is having a proper strategy with detailed and measurable KPI’s so you can track your success, so it does not become a time suck.

Marty Weintraub
I’ll focus on Facebook Ads, because we’ve been in the space since 2007. Paid Facebook is an incredible small business tool, both b2b and b2c. For perspective, 2 years ago it was already easy to recruit local plumbing businesses to up for Yellow Page products by serving ads reading “Free Internet Listings for Your Plumbing Business” to hundreds of SMB owners interested in “Master Plumber.” They signed up in droves across a number of local business segments as early as 2008.

A quick look shows that 30,580 people living in the United states “like” master electrician, master mechanic, master plumber, small business owners, business owner, or business development. FB rocks for many types of small business marketing assignments.

For instance, circumvent Groupon-type services to accomplish the same types of objectives for a much lower cost.

2) There are some businesses that are a natural fit for Facebook, and other businesses that don’t make too much sense. Can you give me some examples of who should definitely be spending time on Facebook and who shouldn’t?

Greg Finn
As a rule of thumb, if your business doesn’t have a kick-ass web presence, you probably have other things to worry about than Facebook. I do believe that most companies can achieve some facet of their overall goals on Facebook, but obviously some niches fit more than others. Companies that should be involved 100% are:

• Restaurants
• Retailers
• Ecommerce Sites
• Media/News/Blogs
• Destinations
• Charities

Types of companies that may benefit less & analyze their goals before participation:

• Highly Specialized B2B
• Industrial
• “One-Time Client” Services – i.e. Dishwasher Repair in Phoenix

With that being said, I do think that these companies can still find value if used correctly – just not as much. For example, a specialized widget manufacturer may not appeal to the majority of users, setting their Facebook page up as a news source for reps could be beneficial in keeping relationships. By updating their Facebook page with new products, company happenings, and industry news, a useful and informative destination would be created that could reach customers off of the main website. This type of communication is still valuable, just at a smaller scale than a post about a sweater sale at Old Navy.

Victoria Edwards
I feel anyone who is trying to gain a broader audience with their service, product, or brand has potential in utilizing Facebook as a robust online marketing channel.

Businesses that should not be on Facebook are the ones who have created a Facebook page, but have either left it on auto pilot or have forgotten about it. Not only does it make your brand look lazy and unprofessional, but it also leaves a window open for potential brand damage.

Marty Weintraub
Branding using FB actually lifts direct response search CTR in Google and Bing, because marketers can make any product a household name to the right users. Understanding that KPIs are sometimes secondary is key for SMBs. Anyone who’s been around the block will say that marketing famous brands is a much easier than unknown brands. The ability to tightly brand what you’re selling to highly specific social segments using Facebook Ads, at CPMs that are often still below 40 cents (a fraction of the cost of AdWords) is an opportunity that you should not miss while it’s still cheap. The price is going up and will continue to do so.

Therefore, anywhere marketers are successful in direct response search PPC, FB Ads is a natural build out. FB Ads ads are still much less expensive than AdWords. For SMBs and local business, understanding this dynamic opens up fabulous opportunities at dirt cheap prices. The barrier to entry is that FB, as grass roots as it is, requires savvy marketers to leverage for local. That’s the reason things are sometimes hard for local businesses.

3) Let’s stop talking theory and dig in. Are there any small businesses that you think are doing a good job on Facebook?

Greg Finn
Here are a few (and what I like about them):

YouTube

They do a great job communicating regularly using their own media. I think it is really clever how they post, and it is always topical. They also have perfect frequency and relevancy for their audience in my opinion.

UFC

I think that the UFC does an exemplary job in pushing their branding with Facebook. They work fans into regular photo updates, feature exclusives with fighters, and also let fans know what’s coming up. Best yet, they make users feel like they are important and somewhat of a VIP just for following. It would be hard to find a better event & branding example than the UFC.

WebProNews

This is hands down, no questions asked the best Facebook page in the Search space currently, and should be a model for any news source/blog. Instead of just spitting out info from their sites, regular posts include group questions/discussions, links to relevant stats/posts (not on WebProNews), company updates, and of course links to their content! It is a great job all around of not just broadcasting their news, but creating a valuable destination for marketers.

Boca Java

This is a good example of how a smaller retail company can not only promote product, but have a good time doing it. From asking questions to showing people at work to hosting events, Boca Java does a great job at updating fans. They also do a great job of creating unique Facebook only specials that provide fans with that VIP feel!

Victoria Edwards
Example #1: WUSLU http://www.facebook.com/wuslu

WUSLU is a ‘deal of the day’ site focusing on home furnishings. Not only does this Facebook page make use of the FBML to bring in the brand, the individual constantly monitors and engages with their fans, in addition to utilizing 3rd party applications, like Wildfire, to bring in contests that further engage the audience.

Example #2: http://www.facebook.com/horsetreats
As mentioned before, anyone who has creativity can be on Facebook and also find like minded people within this platform to engage with. Here is another great case and point. Horsetreats.com is exactly what is says: a website/Facebook page dedicated to selling treats specifically made for horseses…HEY…sorry bad joke.
What is so great about this page is seeing how many people are sharing pictures of their horses on the Facebook page, in addition to incorporating a tab that shows some of their products. This is great because it’s giving an additional bonus by incorporating conversion opportunities in Facebook.

A few other small businesses that I feel are doing a good job in Facebook, whether
from an engagement stance or by incorporating customization and conversion areas:
http://www.facebook.com/pointofviewcameras
http://www.facebook.com/Vamplet

http://www.facebook.com/mezstudio

Note: These are not clients, but I have gotten approval from these individuals to use them as examples.

Marty Weintraub
Sure. aimClear does not have any very small clients. We tend to work for large, multi-national type clients…SO this is a local business that I patronize and respect. Sammy’s Pizza, a small regional chain of mom and pop pizza shops, has over 8,000 fans with engagement and community involvement. Friends range from the Mayor of Duluth to the elderly and their grand kids who have been patronizing the shop for generations. I love the way the owners and their shrewd local agency drive traffic to MySammys.com, which turns public participation into actual equity for the website they own. There are only about 80,000 people that live in Duluth, maybe another 10,000 in the other communities Sammy’s serves. We’re talking about 7.2% of the population that has fanned Sammy’s!

4) I understand that lots of businesses are hesitant to publish metrics, but what are realistic goals that you have seen people achieve from Facebook?

Greg Finn

Obtainable Facebook goals should really mimic your overall website goals in my opinion (with the exception of e-commerce on Facebook). Whether it be increase in branding, increase in engagement, increases in site traffic, or increase in website sales, these can all be achieved on Facebook. In regards to traffic, I have consistently seen Facebook send 10% of the Daily Users to one’s website (the Daily User stat can be found within Facebook Insights in the Users section).

Victoria Edwards
I have seen a page surpass its 10,000 fan mark within a 4-5 month period without doing any advertising; however that number could have been reached in half the time if they were doing Facebook ads, as they are a well known brand & are a great fit for Facebook.

I think realistic goals must be set if a business wishes to do Facebook marketing but does not want to invest in Facebook ads. One must communicate that it will be a long, slow process by not adding Facebook advertising into the mix.

Marty Weintraub
For Facebook Ads, expect that for every 300K user segments targeted with average overlap, we can serve about 10 million impressions a month. It’s common to have 3/10th of a percent CTR, ranging as high as 1.2%. Costs can be as low as $.10 and can cost well over $1.00. Conversion to realistic KPIs is often over 3.5% and sometimes up over 10%, rivaling search. The key here is setting realistic KPIs.

5) For a small business who is getting ready to get involved on Facebook, what are three tips or actionable items you can share?

Greg Finn

1) Use the “visible-to-connection” tag Whether you are Kayne & Jay-Z or a retailer, you can entice users to like your page in return for an exclusive offer. By implementing this tag on a custom Facebook tab (full details here), you can give users a reason to like you, but keeping them after that is up to you…
2) Make it Easy
This seems like it is a no brainer, but you would be surprised by just how many sites overlook the placement of Facebook buttons and widgets on a homepage. Facebook has both share and like buttons as well as community widgets. A few simple things:

• If you can place a share button with icons, you will most likely have the highest number of article shares.
• The “Share” button currently puts out a stronger message than the “Like” button on users’ walls
• Placement optimization can boost CTR 3-5x
• Facebook has a variety of plug-ins that you can easily apply to your feed

3) Leverage Off-Line & Other Marketing to Help Promote Page
The easiest and quickest way to grow your page (with useful fans) is by utilizing your existing customers. There is no shortcut. To speed this process up, leverage as much offline as you can and include messaging in your other marketing as well. Not only will you have a high conversion rate, but the fans will be of the utmost quality – they already like you and are customers! This is one of the big resolutions that I talked about this year … even Wal-Mart is doing it.

6) They say that you learn more from your mistakes than your successes. Care to share a mistake you made or that you saw a small business make on Facebook?

Greg Finn
One of the biggest mishaps that I have been a part of involved a mishap with a promotion due to technical issues on the behalf of a website. I learned that while promotions can be a big positive for your page (now with less restrictions as of Dec 1st!) you should try to envision what will happen if everything goes wrong and devise a failsafe. If you are generating a coupon code – have a backup plan where you can identify winners; if you are using an app – make sure it is tested and can handle the traffic; if you are offering a giveaway – make sure you have enough supply for all of the demand. Issues do occur – especially on sites that you don’t own and control. By taking 15 minutes to virtually troubleshoot issues that will arise, you will absolutely save yourself from massive headaches.

Victoria Edwards
It was not a huge mistake but regardless I learned from it was trying to implement content, monitor and manage multiple pages for businesses. Reason why is that it was very time consuming and not very scalable if you’re doing it alone. Also, when questions on the page were customer service related, I would have to ask the client as I was not aware of the correct answer.

Another lesson learned was how slow of a process it was to increase various key performance indicators, for example fans acquisition, without leveraging Facebook ads. I became quickly aware how slow the process can become, in addition to realizing that if you have a client who does not want to do ads on Facebook, you MUST communicate how the process is much slower rate at which you increase like, fans etc. Set a realistic expectation and make sure they are communicated to your client if they do not add Facebook advertising.

Marty Weintraub
When trolls are incorrigible, it’s important not to take them on and ban them. Though I’m a big believer in letting the mob have it’s say, knowing when to end a conversation is a valuable skill that is out of most SMBs league. You can’t reason with a crazy person.I’ve seen simple complaints escalate into Better Business Bureau complaints and lawsuits as SMBs mismanaged trolling jerks in public, viral, and Google-indexed space. The biggest mistakes I’ve ever seen is when SMBs don’t call professional reputation managers when they’re in over their heads.

A big thank you to Greg, Victoria, and Marty for taking the time to participate and share your knowledge. There’s a lot of actionable advice that hopefully the readers can put into place.

Greg Finn

Greg Finn is the Chief Marketing Officer for Cypress North, a company that specializes in social media and search marketing services and web-based application development. He has been in the Internet marketing industry for 7+ years and has managed social media campaigns for clients of all shapes and sizes. In addition to Cypress North, he is a regular blogger on mainstream search engine blogs and has spoken about Internet Marketing in a variety of marketing conferences. You can also find Greg on Twitter (@gregfinn) or LinkedIn.

Victoria Edwards

Victoria Edwards has been working in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Social Media Optimization (SMO) for the past two-and-a-half years. Through her various online marketing experiences, Victoria realized that, no matter whether you are a small, local business or a medium-to-large corporation, search engine optimization along with social media should be an integral part of your marketing efforts. Victoria also has hosted several educational SEO and Social Media webinars as well panel discussions talking to small businesses on the importance of SEO and how to intermingle your SEO and social media efforts. Victoria also has written blog posts for Search Engine Journal and ONE AWESOME blog post for this site If you need to find Victoria on the interwebs, she uses the name TallChickVic, because that is what she is.

Marty Weintraub

Marty’s online marketing experience dates to 1992, the dawn of the interactive era; however, his career has spanned more than three decades working in traditional and online marketing channels. Marty has been described as “not your typical agency type.” A “social media maverick” and “more innovator than follower,” He’s often to be found leading the conversations about search and social media marketing, and aimClear has become internationally recognized for its work in the field. An avid blogger, Marty shares his insights via the company’s online marketing blog, named an AdAge Power 150 blog, as well as in blogs and columns for SearchEngineLand, SearchEngineWatch, and Search Marketing Standard. He’s has spoken at many conferences worldwide, including Search Engine Strategies (SES), Search Marketing Expo (SMX), PubCon, International Search Summit, BlueGrass South, Direct Marketers Association, Search Engine Marketers of Portland (SEMpdx), and Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association (MIMA). aimClear, Marty and his team specialize in paid and organic search and contextual online marketing. aimClear’s services include blended search and social demographic research; search engine optimization (SEO) technical and semantic audits, analytics monitoring, and consulting; pay-per-click (PPC) audits, setup, testing, and ongoing management; online reputation management (ORM) dashboard configuration and ongoing monitoring; social media marketing consulting and data-driven community management; public relations; and copywriting. aimClear will be presenting a full day Facebook Training at SMX West upcoming. Client credits range from small start-ups to such household names as Martha Stewart Omni, Washington Post Properties, Malt-O-Meal Brands, Angie’s List, Second Life, BlueCross BlueShield, CBS, and Siemens North America. Marty enjoys camping, canoeing, fishing, eating (both cooking and patronizing James-Beard-award-winning restaurants), fine wine, listening to and recording music, and coaching his daughter’s soccer team.

Comments

Reinvigorate – Real-time web analytics with heat maps. Ooh, the colors are so pretty – all the way to the bank. This service is A-M-A-Z-ing. Monthly, daily, hourly and page level details plus the ability to name tag registered visitors.  If real-time web data is your caffeine, then this is the tool for you. There’s a dumbed down freebie version and a free trial. The paid service is very low cost starting at $10 per month.

TwentyFeet – This is a web-based dashboard that aggregates social stats from Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and bit.ly all on one place. It pings you when events are triggered and costs less than a Starbucks “blah blah latte” for an entire year. I can see it as a handy tool for a small business or no budget situation where you want to track basic social media sites. The site is run (and funded) by a German web agency in Wiesbaden called //SEIBERT/MEDIA.

SocialFlow – From the same folks that brought us TweetDeck and bit.ly, this social media engagement SaaS promises to “say the right thing to the right people at the right time” on Twitter, Facebook and Google Buzz.  Scary. If it works, scary awesome.  According to Om Malik, SocialFlow works by optimizing message format (hashtags + link shortening), then posts messages during your audience’s most receptive time periods, measures CTR, retweets and followers. Repeat. I just signed up for beta access so we’ll see if I can make it into the SocialFlow club.

Ontolo - From the link building virtuosos Garrett French and Ben Wills comes the new Ontolo Linkbuilding toolset described by my pal Andy Beal as “Link Building on Steroids“. Ben and Garrett have been diligent and generous in getting us a view and test, which I appreciate and hope to take advantage of soon. For now, my experience is based on the free public demo and from what I’ve heard, it’s an impressive link building tool that will save a ton of time when doing link analysis.

InfluenceFinder – This new link research tool makes MajesticSEO even better with wicked filtering options for link analysis. And we all know that links are the electricity that makes the Google world go ’round. The website is lite on information and heavy on the 7 day free trial, so you’ll need to sign up to get a look. Aaron Wall did a review here.

Funny how all these new tools conjoin two words for their names. Afraid of a little space between words, eh? Oh, what? Ah, yes. TopRank does the same thing. Damn these companies are smart.

What new analytics or efficient SEO / Social Media Marketing tools have you been testing?

Comments

With this change you might also have realised that noticed some other changes. For example when you take a look at the area where it used to have the images of your ‘Fan’s’ it now says  ‘xxx People like This’. One of the impacts of the change is that you can no longer click on the link of those photos and scroll through them and add one of the fans of your Page to become an admin of your Facebook Page.

So here is how you now add Fan’s to your Facebook Page.

1. Select the “Edit Page” option when you are viewing the Page you currently administer (under your image on the top left of your Facebook Page

2. On the right hand side you will see a link for ‘Admins’ and click “Add.”

3. You will be able to see all your friends and can then add people from your Friend List that you would like to be an Admin of your Facebook Page. If the  person you wish to invite to be an administrator of your Page is not presently a member of Facebook, you can invite them to so  by typing their email address in the “Add Admins via Email” field. They can then register on Facebook and will need to accept the invitation to become an admin as they join Facebook.

4. Click the “Add Admins” button.

The Facebook Friends you select will be able to help you manage your Page.

This means that any adminstrator of your Facebook Page must now also be connected to you as a Friend.

What other changes have you noticed as a result of this change to Facebook Pages this week?

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