Diamon Case

Get Them Talking: How Growing Participation Chains Will Grow Sales

November 17, 2009 By Sam Decker (@samdecker) and Ze Frank (@zefrank)

The Participation Chain

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 didn’t even need to get a foot in the door. Once people had expressed themselves in even the most banal way, saying “good” or “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 person’s 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, Forrester’s Brian Haven concluded that “engagement” was marketing’s new key metric, but engagement is not a binary thing. It needs to be...