No surprise to us at Freakin' Genius Marketing, social media has become an important marketing tool for small businesses, particularly younger firms: 32% of small-to-midsize businesses (SMBs) in operation for 0-6 years use Twitter, compared with just 7% of those in business for 11+ years, according to a report from BIA/Kelsey. Meanwhile, Twitter use among small to mid-size businesses doubled, from 9% in 2009 to 19% in 2010.
The longer a SMB has been in business, the less likely it is to use Twitter, and those older SMBs (11+ years in business) are more likely to use printed Yellow Pages (37%) than those in business 0-3 years (17%) or 4-6 years (22%).
Additionally, and also not really a surprise, nearly one-half (48%) of surveyed SMBs use Facebook to promote their businesses—even more than the 43% of SMBs that report using e-mail marketin, with over one in five (22%) SMBs use blogging to promote their businesses.
So it seems, digital media is a largely integrated part of most small to mid size businesses' marketing plans. Is it part of yours? Contact Freakin' Genius Marketing today to create a tactical action plan for digital in your marketing.
For more research results and to read more...
Do you know who your SUPER INFLUENCERS are?
Ok, so you have a database and, yes- I know how much it cost and how painstaking it was to get them to opt-in to your mailings. I also know how challenging it is to create emailings and social-media based promotions to keep their attention without encouraging them to opt-out because of a deluge of offers you might be sending them.
Have you customized groups within your email databases? By doing this you can define criteria that enables you to market 1:1 to each of your customers based on their individual purchasing habits and overall interests with you and your business.
By customizing groups within your opt-in databases you will be able to identify who your target markets for specific “products” or “services” are rather than blanketing your whole database. Opt-in or otherwise, deluging your customers with offers that they won’t relate to is not a way to keep them lively and responsive.
Additionally, and more to the point of this blog post, have you identified your super influencers? These are your customers who are not only likely to purchase something from you, or take you up on one of your email promotional offers, but more importantly these are the customers who will share your offer with others. These are your “virtual” testimonials who will pass along your emails and your blog entries.
If you haven’t identified who your SUPER INFLUENCERS are yet, you may be spending a lot of time facilitating social media that isn’t working for you. You may be FB’ing and Tweeting but without a great sharing ROI (Return on Investment) on pass-along.
You know I’m big on ROI…in fact, it’s my mantra. So let me explain.
Simply slapping up social media content and hoping it works to build awareness and drive sales is not enough. Many business owners fail to get maximum exposure for their social media campaigns because they don't take the extra step to activate viral sharing of their content. And if marketers don't identify their key influencers and motivate them to share, they're missing out on the real promise of social media: Social content works best when it's shared.
According to industry research, people who visit a campaign link after it's shared with them convert at up to four times the rate of those who just fall upon it by chance. So when you encourage sharing, you aren’t just increasing your reach—you’re dramatically boosting your viewer conversion.
So how can you get your following on Facebook and Twitter, as well as bloggers who love your products and services, to start sharing your content far and wide?
Here are three key ways to activating your key influencers to share more and more often:
1. Identify your Super Influencers
You know the rule, 1% of your social media followers are responsible for the majority of sharing. These "super-influencers" share your social media campaigns with their larger social networks, passing on links to your contests, promotions, deals, and other marketing campaigns.
These influencers are more than just fans, they're ambassadors. The process is fairly straightforward. There are a boatload of social media measurement tools that enable marketers to find the people who are talking most about their brand; see what type of content they're sharing and with whom, and learn how they are sharing it (email, Twitter, Facebook, their own blogs, etc.).
Once you find your influencers, the trick is activating them to share even more.
2. Activate Your Super Influencers
Once you've identified your super-influencers, you need to motivate them to share more. Do this by offering them "sharing incentives" that encourage them to share and reward them for their efforts.
One of the best incentives you can provide is exclusive information. Super-influencers love to be an inside source of information for their friends and followers—sharing contests, information, or deals with their social networks before other people have heard about them. Create exclusive content you share only with your super-influencers, and let them know they're part of a select few to receive this special offer.
Other incentives you can offer include shareable friends-and-family discounts, access to exclusive or after-hour in-store sales, VIP parties, and discounts for sharing a deal with 10 friends.
You will also want to comment directly on your super-influencers' blogs, link to and promote their content whenever possible, and publicly thank them for their loyalty via email or posts.
3. Measure Your influencer's Effectiveness
You won't know whether sharing is working to increase brand influence and drive conversion if you don't measure it. It's important to find out exactly who is sharing your content the most, who they are sharing it with, where they are sharing it (which blogs, sites, and social networks, or via email), and whether that sharing is directly resulting in clicks and conversions. You can use those social media measurement tools I talked about above to find out the exact impact sharing is having on bottom-line results.
Creating and publishing social media content is not enough these days. Business owners that want to benefit from the real power of word-of-mouth need to find their super-influencers, and then motivate them to share. If you do this effectively, such sharers will directly boost traffic to your site and drive a large increase in conversion and hence, sales!
Have you customized groups within your email databases? By doing this you can define criteria that enables you to market 1:1 to each of your customers based on their individual purchasing habits and overall interests with you and your business.
By customizing groups within your opt-in databases you will be able to identify who your target markets for specific “products” or “services” are rather than blanketing your whole database. Opt-in or otherwise, deluging your customers with offers that they won’t relate to is not a way to keep them lively and responsive.
Additionally, and more to the point of this blog post, have you identified your super influencers? These are your customers who are not only likely to purchase something from you, or take you up on one of your email promotional offers, but more importantly these are the customers who will share your offer with others. These are your “virtual” testimonials who will pass along your emails and your blog entries.
If you haven’t identified who your SUPER INFLUENCERS are yet, you may be spending a lot of time facilitating social media that isn’t working for you. You may be FB’ing and Tweeting but without a great sharing ROI (Return on Investment) on pass-along.
You know I’m big on ROI…in fact, it’s my mantra. So let me explain.
Simply slapping up social media content and hoping it works to build awareness and drive sales is not enough. Many business owners fail to get maximum exposure for their social media campaigns because they don't take the extra step to activate viral sharing of their content. And if marketers don't identify their key influencers and motivate them to share, they're missing out on the real promise of social media: Social content works best when it's shared.
According to industry research, people who visit a campaign link after it's shared with them convert at up to four times the rate of those who just fall upon it by chance. So when you encourage sharing, you aren’t just increasing your reach—you’re dramatically boosting your viewer conversion.
So how can you get your following on Facebook and Twitter, as well as bloggers who love your products and services, to start sharing your content far and wide?
Here are three key ways to activating your key influencers to share more and more often:
1. Identify your Super Influencers
You know the rule, 1% of your social media followers are responsible for the majority of sharing. These "super-influencers" share your social media campaigns with their larger social networks, passing on links to your contests, promotions, deals, and other marketing campaigns.
These influencers are more than just fans, they're ambassadors. The process is fairly straightforward. There are a boatload of social media measurement tools that enable marketers to find the people who are talking most about their brand; see what type of content they're sharing and with whom, and learn how they are sharing it (email, Twitter, Facebook, their own blogs, etc.).
Once you find your influencers, the trick is activating them to share even more.
2. Activate Your Super Influencers
Once you've identified your super-influencers, you need to motivate them to share more. Do this by offering them "sharing incentives" that encourage them to share and reward them for their efforts.
One of the best incentives you can provide is exclusive information. Super-influencers love to be an inside source of information for their friends and followers—sharing contests, information, or deals with their social networks before other people have heard about them. Create exclusive content you share only with your super-influencers, and let them know they're part of a select few to receive this special offer.
Other incentives you can offer include shareable friends-and-family discounts, access to exclusive or after-hour in-store sales, VIP parties, and discounts for sharing a deal with 10 friends.
You will also want to comment directly on your super-influencers' blogs, link to and promote their content whenever possible, and publicly thank them for their loyalty via email or posts.
3. Measure Your influencer's Effectiveness
You won't know whether sharing is working to increase brand influence and drive conversion if you don't measure it. It's important to find out exactly who is sharing your content the most, who they are sharing it with, where they are sharing it (which blogs, sites, and social networks, or via email), and whether that sharing is directly resulting in clicks and conversions. You can use those social media measurement tools I talked about above to find out the exact impact sharing is having on bottom-line results.
Creating and publishing social media content is not enough these days. Business owners that want to benefit from the real power of word-of-mouth need to find their super-influencers, and then motivate them to share. If you do this effectively, such sharers will directly boost traffic to your site and drive a large increase in conversion and hence, sales!
Build a Dynamic Website and Grow your SEO!
Freakin' Genius Marketing is busily working on content and optimization for about 4 new websites along with the optimization of 2 existing sites this week. In all the hub-bub, what I’ve realized as the main point of contact at our agency is that I’m spending a great deal of time explaining the process to so many clients that I found myself channeling this as a blog post today.
There are three main development specialists each with multiple jobs in the development of a website. All of the web specialists are both integral to the final product and the sum of its parts. These specialists are: The Designer, The Programmer, The Marketing Strategist/Content Writer. Let me explain.
The Designer (Note: sometimes the programmer is also a designer, but mostly a designer is an artist- while a programmer has a more technical background)
The designer is key to the look and feel of the site. We call this the User Interface (UI) which is the pretty part, all the colors, the logo, the layout, the template and the way the whole thing comes together. All this pretty stuff works with the programming and often goes into separate hands. The greatest inventions have been templates of previously designed websites you can purchase so you can visualize what your “website” will look like before it’s built. The templates sell for very little, which is so exciting, but need much programming customization. It’s like buying the empty bear skin at Build-a-Bear. You still have to stuff and dress it for it to be a proper bear.
The Programmer:
So after the designers develop the UI, the programmers then develop the supporting programming that makes it all work like a website instead of just a pretty picture. They are the behind the scenes guys who are the wind in the sails as it pertains to writing the html or developing the Flash (images) that make the site work as an integrated “location” on the web. They program the databases if your website collects information also. They are really all the function while the designer is really all about the form.
The challenge with building a website is that the User Interface (UI), programming, and much of the navigation depends on the content and the goal of the site. Are you looking for a static site to convert a visitor to a certain page to give you their email or call or potentially to get to your shopping cart to purchase something? It takes much collaboration of the offer, the look, the timing, and the ease of getting around the site to accomplish that.
Ok, on to what the site actually says.
The Marketing Strategist/Writer:
Not only does your website’s content have to be descriptive, clearly introduce and cohesively sell what your company’s service and products are all about, but the mapping of it needs to be intuitively navigable, meaning, it has to be natural to move around in it in a logical way. And oh yes, it needs to written with important keywords and key phrases so that prospective clients will find you based on the search engine spiders seeing your relevance to their search. This is called on-page search engine optimization (SEO) and is integral to success as it pertains to your website’s goal of reaching your prospective customers. Writing search optimized content is sometimes counter intuitive. It can be repetitious and lastly doesn’t believe in pronouns. There are many rules to writing for SEO and of course those rules are always changing as the search engines keep us all hopping so we don’t figure them out.
Ok, so now we take one more go round with the programming because, once the UI is working in conjunction with the on-page optimized content, the off-page SEO needs to be developed just prior to launching the site. The writer has coordinated this while writing the on-page content.
The off-page SEO includes the titles, metatags, keywords, and descriptions that go in the body of the programming (off-page) but are in keeping with the final content on the site itself (on-page). In other words, the off-page keywords have to coordinate with the content on the page so that the search engine sees the html language and then confirms the words are indeed present on the site and as such, will send a search prospect the name of your website and the page address and description that is most in keeping with the search term used.
Does this whole thing sound complicated? It's not if you have someone keeping their finger on the pulse. Ask our Smartysite clients, at Freakin’ Genius Marketing, we keep our finger on the pulse of your whole project. We have the 4-star programmers, we have the award winning designers who develop the UI, and we write fantastic optimized content, ready to roll! Turnkey Website Development! Could you even have imagined it to be this easy? SmartySites! It’s Freakin’ Genius!
There are three main development specialists each with multiple jobs in the development of a website. All of the web specialists are both integral to the final product and the sum of its parts. These specialists are: The Designer, The Programmer, The Marketing Strategist/Content Writer. Let me explain.
The Designer (Note: sometimes the programmer is also a designer, but mostly a designer is an artist- while a programmer has a more technical background)
The designer is key to the look and feel of the site. We call this the User Interface (UI) which is the pretty part, all the colors, the logo, the layout, the template and the way the whole thing comes together. All this pretty stuff works with the programming and often goes into separate hands. The greatest inventions have been templates of previously designed websites you can purchase so you can visualize what your “website” will look like before it’s built. The templates sell for very little, which is so exciting, but need much programming customization. It’s like buying the empty bear skin at Build-a-Bear. You still have to stuff and dress it for it to be a proper bear.
The Programmer:
So after the designers develop the UI, the programmers then develop the supporting programming that makes it all work like a website instead of just a pretty picture. They are the behind the scenes guys who are the wind in the sails as it pertains to writing the html or developing the Flash (images) that make the site work as an integrated “location” on the web. They program the databases if your website collects information also. They are really all the function while the designer is really all about the form.
The challenge with building a website is that the User Interface (UI), programming, and much of the navigation depends on the content and the goal of the site. Are you looking for a static site to convert a visitor to a certain page to give you their email or call or potentially to get to your shopping cart to purchase something? It takes much collaboration of the offer, the look, the timing, and the ease of getting around the site to accomplish that.
Ok, on to what the site actually says.
The Marketing Strategist/Writer:
Not only does your website’s content have to be descriptive, clearly introduce and cohesively sell what your company’s service and products are all about, but the mapping of it needs to be intuitively navigable, meaning, it has to be natural to move around in it in a logical way. And oh yes, it needs to written with important keywords and key phrases so that prospective clients will find you based on the search engine spiders seeing your relevance to their search. This is called on-page search engine optimization (SEO) and is integral to success as it pertains to your website’s goal of reaching your prospective customers. Writing search optimized content is sometimes counter intuitive. It can be repetitious and lastly doesn’t believe in pronouns. There are many rules to writing for SEO and of course those rules are always changing as the search engines keep us all hopping so we don’t figure them out.
Ok, so now we take one more go round with the programming because, once the UI is working in conjunction with the on-page optimized content, the off-page SEO needs to be developed just prior to launching the site. The writer has coordinated this while writing the on-page content.
The off-page SEO includes the titles, metatags, keywords, and descriptions that go in the body of the programming (off-page) but are in keeping with the final content on the site itself (on-page). In other words, the off-page keywords have to coordinate with the content on the page so that the search engine sees the html language and then confirms the words are indeed present on the site and as such, will send a search prospect the name of your website and the page address and description that is most in keeping with the search term used.
Does this whole thing sound complicated? It's not if you have someone keeping their finger on the pulse. Ask our Smartysite clients, at Freakin’ Genius Marketing, we keep our finger on the pulse of your whole project. We have the 4-star programmers, we have the award winning designers who develop the UI, and we write fantastic optimized content, ready to roll! Turnkey Website Development! Could you even have imagined it to be this easy? SmartySites! It’s Freakin’ Genius!
Freakin' Genius...Loved this!
I just read about a local printer who wanted to encourage prospects to use them, so they sent 1,500 roundtrip transit bus and subway cards to show them how easy it was to get to their facility for a press check. The card, was sent attached to a full-color, 5-panel mailer that spelled out "Take a swipe at us" as the prospect unfolded it. RESULTS: 5% of all mailed recipients placed an order!
Marketers offer sweat, tears and blood to their potential clients
Some marketing agencies promise to give blood, sweat and tears to clients. Touch branding, a european-based marketing company has been intent on backing up the claim "We'll give our blood for good branding" with an edgy direct mail campaign built around the message.
With a flair for the dramatic, Touch has mailed real blood bags filled with fake blood to potential clients in their geographic target zone. The mailer includes a letter with a short intro to the company and a link to its website, which resembles a blood bag. They produced the whole thing in-house for around $1 a piece.
The edge that works for this campaign can only be achieved when marketers take risks and aren't afraid to get creative with their direct mail campaigns, even when they are only a part of the total effort.
"Direct mail works when it brings a positive surprise to the recipient", says Creative Director Martin Marusinec. "The postal service can deliver almost anything these days, so there's no reason why your direct mail has to be yet another letter or plain brochure."
With a flair for the dramatic, Touch has mailed real blood bags filled with fake blood to potential clients in their geographic target zone. The mailer includes a letter with a short intro to the company and a link to its website, which resembles a blood bag. They produced the whole thing in-house for around $1 a piece.The edge that works for this campaign can only be achieved when marketers take risks and aren't afraid to get creative with their direct mail campaigns, even when they are only a part of the total effort.
"Direct mail works when it brings a positive surprise to the recipient", says Creative Director Martin Marusinec. "The postal service can deliver almost anything these days, so there's no reason why your direct mail has to be yet another letter or plain brochure."
Email Alone Will Get you Nowhere- Diversity is Key!
When the economy went bellyup two years ago, many marketers did what they had to do: Cut their spending and focused the few dollars they did have on the cheapest available options - primarily digital venues.
That's understandable. But now that the economy is showing signs of life, too many are sticking to that strategy, essentially standing on the sidelines as the economic recovery kicks into gear. Worse yet, increasing budgets but not the channels they use to communicate.
If there's one painful lesson that every investor learned when Wall Street crashed, it's that diversification is key to success. So why haven't marketers learned that same lesson when it comes to their communications?
As the result of this mono-venue approach, the digital world has become increasingly crowded- the average consumer receives 14-15 emails a day from companies or brands. That's not good for marketers lookign for engaging ways to get their messages into the hands of consumers.
Consider, for example, that the average household receives about 16 pieces of advertising-related mail per week (Source: 2008 Household Diary Study- USPS) and you can plainly see the potential that direct mail offers. Four times less clutter, an ability to stand out and the ability to put a brand's best case in the hands of your customer.
Beyond the clutter, there's simple math that says the more marketers diversify the communication venues speaking to the customer, the better the impact. A recent study found that 80% of consumers rely on more than one marketing message in multiple marketing venues when making a purchase decision. That makes sense to me. Most of us need to have multiple interactions with a brand before parting with our hard-earned money.
Don't forget the personalized URL, Quick Response code or other links that can be included in the print driven messages that can take your integrated digital marketing to a whole new level in 1:1 relationship building.
Tactical, dimensional marketing messages- cut through the clutter and get you noticed and will earn you a fair share of your customer's wallet-share. Diversify your marketing mix now and you'll benefit in the long run.
That's understandable. But now that the economy is showing signs of life, too many are sticking to that strategy, essentially standing on the sidelines as the economic recovery kicks into gear. Worse yet, increasing budgets but not the channels they use to communicate.
If there's one painful lesson that every investor learned when Wall Street crashed, it's that diversification is key to success. So why haven't marketers learned that same lesson when it comes to their communications?
As the result of this mono-venue approach, the digital world has become increasingly crowded- the average consumer receives 14-15 emails a day from companies or brands. That's not good for marketers lookign for engaging ways to get their messages into the hands of consumers.
Consider, for example, that the average household receives about 16 pieces of advertising-related mail per week (Source: 2008 Household Diary Study- USPS) and you can plainly see the potential that direct mail offers. Four times less clutter, an ability to stand out and the ability to put a brand's best case in the hands of your customer.
Beyond the clutter, there's simple math that says the more marketers diversify the communication venues speaking to the customer, the better the impact. A recent study found that 80% of consumers rely on more than one marketing message in multiple marketing venues when making a purchase decision. That makes sense to me. Most of us need to have multiple interactions with a brand before parting with our hard-earned money.
Don't forget the personalized URL, Quick Response code or other links that can be included in the print driven messages that can take your integrated digital marketing to a whole new level in 1:1 relationship building.
Tactical, dimensional marketing messages- cut through the clutter and get you noticed and will earn you a fair share of your customer's wallet-share. Diversify your marketing mix now and you'll benefit in the long run.
How do you REALLY connect with your customer?
By integrating elements of logic, general thought processes, emotions and their five senses you can discover a unique approach to the task of connecting with your customer.When marketing in an experiential manner your objective is always to encourage such a deep connection with the customer that they respond to your product offering based on both their emotional and rational response levels. Here are a few of the basics of experiential marketing, and how this process can help you succeed when other marketing strategies fail.
Appealing to a variety of senses, experiential marketing seeks to tap into that special place within consumers that has to do with inspiring thoughts about comfort and pleasure, as well as inspiring a sense of practicality. This means that, a marketer, you need to have a firm grasp on the mindset of the prospective target market you wish to attract. By understanding what the consumer is likely to think and feel, it is possible to get an idea of how to steer the customer in a direction that will relate with the product, and entice individuals to act on that impulse to purchase.
In order to engage in experiential marketing, it is necessary to connect with as many of the senses as possible. Striking displays with powerful visual elements, such as websites, and visual media such as print ads should not only be visually appealing, but also conjure up daydreams of locales and reminders of sensations that are enjoyable to the individual. When used to create customer experiences of this nature, a sense of rapport between the product and the consumer is established that helps to make the good or service more desirable with each encounter.
Because experiential marketing connects with the consumer on multiple levels, the strategy is ideally suited for contemporary sales and marketing campaigns. Shortened attention spans demand that any ad campaign make a quick impression, or the opportunity to engage the consumer will quickly pass. While thirty second ads on radio and television once had a great impact, many people now use modern technology to avoid this sort of marketing approach.
This means that ads you place on the internet, in the print media, and on modern billboards must immediately catch the attention of prospective clients and hold that attention long enough to make a lasting impression. Experiential marketing holds the key to making this happen. By appealing to all five senses, and making the connection quickly and seamlessly, this approach to the marketing task ensures that you can still attract and satisfy the needs and desires of your prospective target market.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
