Expanding on Dell's social technologies

If you have read my previous blog I covered Dell's Enterprise 2.0 implementation, Idea Storm. This week I am going to investigate in more depth on how Dell's Enterprise 2.0 has an impact on marketing and sales of Dell products. There are four sub-categories I will be covering: how Dell derives customer insight, how Dell uses social technologies for marketing communication/interaction, how Dell generates and fosters sale leads, and how dell uses social commerce.

Customer Insight

Researching Dell's enterprise and social technologies I can confidently claim that Dell's Enterprise 2.0 focus is to gain Customer Insight. As previously mentioned in earlier posts Idea Storm allows concerned customers to provide input on how the future of Dell products. This insight is to the benefit of Dell as it allows them to change their product to meet demand with less focus on market analysis and more focus on customer demands.

Marketing Communication and Interaction

Dell's marketing communication and interaction is a core focus of their social technologies, evidence behind this would be Dell's Facebook Page where they advertise Dell and also interact with their followers with posts. This communicates their product to consumers who are interested and allows them to interact with staff, ask questions, etc. This benefits Dell as they can get their product marketed directly to the consumers they want, without having to spend money on conventional marketing that reaches less of their ideal market.

Fostering Sale Leads

Dell as of 2012 had the third biggest market share of any personal computer manufacturer, against heavy competition from HP and Lenovo. Some of the success in staying in the top 5 for market share over the years can be attributed to Dell changing with the times to support user interaction. It is not directly clear how Dell's enterprise 2.0 implementation is used to impact sales leads. Beyond advertising their new products on social networks and on their website, Dell does not actively push for sales leads as they push for customer insight or marketing interaction. Sales leads are a subtle side-effect from the other components of Dell's Value Levers. Arguably fostering strong relationships with their user base through IdeaStorm, Dell is able to secure sales leads with technical users upon release of new products.

Social Commerce

The social commerce aspect of Dell's marketing and sales enterprise technologies is not as pronounced as some of the previous technologies but it is still accounted for by Dell. Dell links from their social networks sales that appear on their company website that has a shopping cart for product purchase direct from the manufacturer. This is beneficial to Dell as they can recommend this medium as the best way to purchase Dell products giving them the most profit as they don't have to sell their products to retailers who buy at a lower price than consumers.

Summary

In conclusion Dell benefits greatly from Enterprise 2.0 in the aspect of Marketing and Sales through the use of gaining customer insight, marketing communication and interaction, fostering sales leads and social commerce. Not only have these technologies allowed Dell to remain competitive but they also allow Dell to understand their customer base properly.