From the category archives:

Marketing

Are the business benefits of Social Networking sites and Twitter overhyped?

by positiveadmin on September 8, 2009

facebook-twitter

There’s a lot of chat in the marketing industry, at the moment, about the potential of social networking sites. But are they really practical business tools and is it worth the investment of time and money and, if so, what should you do to capitalize? For instance, did you know that 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content, or that 34% of bloggers post opinions about products and brands?

Big Statistics but Users Reluctant to Return

It is estimated that 60% of U.S.A. Twitter users fail to return the following month. Even giants such as MySpace and Facebook did a better job of holding on to users in the early stages of their launch. On top of that, half of all people using Twitter update their page less than once every 74 days (so it’s not exactly livin’ la vida loca) and most people only ever “tweet” once during their lifetime. In comparison, Facebook has 200 million active users and grew by 228% during the same period.

Yet the seemingly inexorable growth in social networking has created a huge potential market. Take a look at some impressive statistics:

  • If Facebook members were a country, it would be the world’s fourth largest, between the United States and Indonesia.
  • Eighty percent of Twitter usage is on mobile devices. People update anywhere, anytime. Imagine what that means for bad customer experiences!
  • 25% of search results for the world’s top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content.
  • 34% of bloggers post opinions about products and brands.
  • People care more about how their social group ranks products and services than how Google ranks them.
  • 78% of consumers trust peer recommendations.

How do I tap into Social Networking?

Social media can be useful for big brands or small businesses. Many companies feel they need to integrate social networking into their marketing mix, but don’t know where to start, or how to develop a plan.The problem is one of control. Social media has taken the institutional control of marketing and put it in the hands of consumers and the general public. Many people now form their opinions and impressions from online contacts. Understanding this change is an important factor in building a social media strategy. Traditional ways of thinking won’t necessarily work. Instead of studying demographics and statistics (Quantitative Research) you need to get involved with the conversations that are already happening online (Qualitative Research).

Basics

Determine who your audience are and where they are online. Blogs are a great place to start looking. There are sites that will track social networking and blog content by subject matter. Then start listening to what they’re saying. What are their issues, opinions, and needs? How does this information fit with your brand values? Understanding this information will help you determine how to best contribute to the conversation and make a contribution.Next, find out who drives the conversations or who has a strong influence. Some call these people “influentials” because they possess the authority, respect, or experience to shape people’s opinions.

Goals and Objectives

Consider your audience’s goals. You’ll get much further with social media marketing if you offer something of value first. Giving people something earns you the right to plug yourself a little. So draw a line on a piece of paper and write down your goals on one side and your audience’s goals on the other. Make sure you give enough before you try to get something back.

Develop your Plan

Map out your approach to delivering products or services to satisfy the needs of your social networking audience. Will you reach out and influence ‘influentials’? Will you provide free material or samples? How will it be delivered?

Maybe you have products that are environmentally friendly. Will you moderate and lead a conversation about environmental issues and become a leader? There are many creative ways to approach your audience. Be innovative.

Social Media Tools

There are many social media tools that can help you reach your audience. Will you build a blog or use a forum? How about developing educational material with video and delivering it on YouTube? Will you use Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn as social media tools?

There are many to choose from, and you aren’t limited to just one. Make sure, however, that you have solid, relevant content on your main Web site that you can lead visitors to when they want more detailed information. You can easily negate your social media marketing efforts by leading visitors to a Web site that delivers a poor experience.

Access and Course Correct

Good measurement will show you what is and isn’t working. Don’t be afraid to abandon a specific tactic or social media tool if it doesn’t work. Try a different one and see if you get better results. Certain tools will emerge as better performers depending on your industry, product, or service. Also, new tools are coming out every day that might be more efficient at getting the job done.

There we are. Social network marketing is a nebulous process – all smoke and mirrors rather than solid and quantifiable data. The trick is to have faith, see if there is a noticeable increase in business or website visitor numbers that cannot be attributed to any other marketing initiative. Now all you have to do is find the time and staff to make it happen – or entrust it to (let’s see) a marketing agency perhaps.

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‘I Love My Staff’ Integrated Campaign

by positiveadmin on June 29, 2009

paycare campaign

‘I Love My Staff’ may not sound as grand as ‘I Love New York’, but it carries the same sentiment of caring, valuing and pride. So when Healthcare Cash Benefits Plan provider, Paycare, needed a strategy to market their B2B ‘4work’ plans we saw a natural match. Smart employers, or managers, love their staff for a very practical reason; it’s a humane response and a canny investment that pays dividends.

So now we had the idea. But how did we develop it and create a managed, integrated process to give brand value to the product, achieve that all important stand-out and reach the corporate decision makers? Firstly we sat down with the client to work out where the current communication blocks were and, between us, devise a structured 7-step approach plan.

1. Tangibles.

We started by emulating the original ‘I Love New York’ campaign. More than just a slogan, the campaign was tangible in that it appeared on objects – cups and T-shirts. We had ‘I Love My Staff’ badges that would be sent to company bosses and Human Resource Managers.

2. List

We recommended that the client commission a reputable telemarketing company manage an appointments system – putting a structure in place to manage the contact process. They started by selecting a careful chosen group of companies over a particular geographic area. Once this was done we could start to target those companies with Direct Mail.

3. Direct Mail

The chosen companies received a personalised letter, a mailer and attached badge that touched on the benefits to the employer of ‘loving their staff’ the productivity gains of a healthy workforce, the decrease in absenteeism and the unfairness of staff having to make hard choices – fix their teeth or buy new shoes for their kids. We simply asked them ‘could you wear this badge with pride’. The letter finished with a promise of a phone call within two days.

Paycare Mailer

4. Telemarketing

The follow up call found out if the letter had been received, who the company decision maker actually was and, if there was an indication of interest, whether they would like an email presentation with more detail.

5. email

If they agreed to this a personalised six-page email presentation was sent, giving more details about the benefits to staff and company. The ‘I Love My Staff’ badge featured prominently. The final page had FAQ sections and the call for action was a simple make an appointment reply button – for a 15 minute face-to-face presentation.

Paycare email presentation

6. Visit

A corporate policy specialist would then visit, deliver a 15 minute presentation and answer any questions.

7. Talking Head

If even more information was required, or the decision had to go to a group or Board level, then the Paycare rep would leave behind a branded USB Stick multi-page, interactive, ‘talking head’ presentation.

This YouTube video is the nearest we could get to the user-controlled, fully-interactive presentation we went to so much trouble to create. The YouTube version tends to run together, but at least it gives a flavour of the original presentation.

This might seem like an overly complicated procedure, but experience has shown that this softly-softly approach, of drip-feeding information into an organisation, is the best way to cut through the natural blocks that businesses erect to shield their decision makers.

We know, from email campaigns featuring the ‘I Love My Staff’ badges, that this is having an effect. The replies and comments tend to be along the lines of staff expecting their bosses to be ‘wearing the badge next time they see them’. We’ll keep you posted as the results come in, but I have a feeling that this dry subject could just become a little bit moist.

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Straightening IT out.

by positiveadmin on June 23, 2009

yellow-pages-ad

Can’t tell your WAN from WAP, ROM from POP, IDE from ISP? It’s hardly surprising; the IT world is brimful of jargon and there are computer experts out there who are not afraid to use it to browbeat and baffle.

But suppose you are a computer guy who gives straight, no nonsense, advice. ‘This doesn’t work because ‘A’ is incompatible with ‘B’. To fix it you need either ‘C’ or ‘D’. I recommend ‘D’ but ‘C’ is cheaper, it’s up to you.’

See no jargon; it’s his USP rather than USB.

All he needs to do is get the word out effectively, but cheaply. But the only budget we have to work with is an upcoming Yellow Pages display ad. Now there is a science to Yellow Pages. Take a quarter page, or more, and you will attract big clients. Take lineage and you’ll get one man bands, or worse, confused old dears who will want to pay you in pre-decimal farthings. We settled on the middle ground, a small display ad – big enough to attract SME business, but small enough to dissuade the multi-nationals he could not possibly service.

Great, it meant we had the right size ad for the job, but we would have to convey a big message in one of the smallest display areas known to man. The solution, go for stand-out. We ditched the safe option (bullet-point lists of services) and went for a strong visual and tag line.

Result, new business and a happy IT man. We even received a compliment (via the client) from the Regional Director of Yellow Pages’ archrival, Thompson Directory.

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