Rob Key of Converseon

Rob Key Rob is founder & CEO of Converseon, the award-winning social media marketing and communications agency designed to help companies “join the conversation” to meet business objectives.

Founded in 2001, Converseon provides leading brands with innovative “end-to-end” social media marketing and communication solutions. Converseon utilizes a range of cutting edge services and technologies – including brand monitoring, search and word of mouth marketing, digital PR, Search Engine Reputation Management (SERMA™), affiliate marketing, Blog/RSS tactics and more – to help companies manage and protect their brand, build buzz, drive sales and more effectively engage target audiences in the digital environment. Clients include many leading brands including Dow Chemical, Siemens, Cisco, Hilton Hotels, Showtime, Palm, among others.

Converseon’s work has been featured in such media as The Financial Times, CNN, Search Engine Land, Mediapost, Ad Age, Business Week, among others. The agency recently won the OMMA Award for “Best Use of Virtual Worlds” and the WOMMIE Award for “Best Word of Mouth Program” in 2007.

Rob speaks frequently at leading industry venues, including Search Engine Strategies, Ad:Tech, The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (where Converseon is a governing member), PRSA, SMX Social Media Conference, Syndicate and the Conference Board to evangelize his message for the need for creative communications innovation.

Prior to Converseon, Rob was head of the Innovations Group at a division of Young & Rubicam and a member of the WPP.com board.

Blake Cahill of Visible Technologies Back to Speakers Erin Byrne of Burson-Marsteller

WOMM-U: Day Two Case Study: Houlihan’s Restaurant

The final session of the conference featured a case study on Houlihan’s Restaurants, presented by Jen Gulvik, VP Marketing, Houlihan’s Restaurants, Inc.

In the past few years Houlihan’s has undergone a tremendous transformation. Spreading the word about this has been an interesting challenge. They’re not a national advertiser. While they are in some major markets, they don’t have the budget that many of their competitors do.

The task was to see if they could turn their customers into a marketing force. In the past many of their restaurants had established e-mail lists, it was one-way only. However they do receive a large amount of customer feedback, and this is increasing. She thinks this matches the trend of customers taking control of their brand experiences.

At a WOMMA event a year ago, Jen realized that they’re in an industry (food & beverage) that is heavily talked about. Why not take advantage of that?

First step was to determine who their brand lovers were. They created and sent out a survey. Some quick metrics: 114,949 sent, 18,695 received. From there they began to build out a program, an advisory group. This group would advise them on menu choices and other brand assets. They also developed a program for the HouliFAN’s.

The primary communication channel with the advisory group is the HQ, a password protected site that allows Houlihan’s to provide information to the fans. It also allows them to participate in coversations and get feedback.

One of the first things they did was ask the advisory group, what would you do? Early on they saw an issue related to the removal of fajitas from the menu, or as Jen said, a fajita-freakout.

Once the site was established with the advisory group, it expanded to the entire fan-base, the HouliFANs.

Soon afterwards they rolled out a new menu and used their fans and the site to spread the word. They found that 35% of the fans had spread WOM about the menu.

The program is still new and growing but they’ve been thrilled with the response and feedback they’ve received.

Rob Key of Converseon

On the agenda

WOMM-U: Day Two Case Study: Houlihan’s Restaurant

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