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Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
 The other day I was interested enough in a demo on a company’s website that I filled out a form to view it. Next day, I received a call from a very personable sales rep offering to answer my questions. Smart! They know that a person who checks out a demo is interested and perhaps a prospective buyer. And that’s the kind of lead that Sales wants — a prospect with a high likelihood of buying in the near term.
The demo was a piece of Content. We marketers have been talking about the importance of content in drawing prospective buyers in to the sales funnel. When I wrote newsletter articles about Content and about Inbound Marketing, I encouraged marketers to post digital content suited to different phases of the sales cycle and apply relevant tags and keywords so the content can be found via Search. And of course, we don’t leave it there; we use Social Media to invite people to view the content, because if it’s really good, people will share it with their friends and followers, increasing the volume of interested buyers who visit your website.
Nice! But once the visitor reaches your website and views the content, what’s next? How does a visitor become a buyer? Let’s consider some ways to keep the sales momentum going.
Different content for different stages in the sales cycle
Consider which stage of the sales cycle is served best by each piece of content. Here are some digital content types:
• Blog posts – May be generated by Marketing or by someone else in your organization
• Customer reviews – This type is generated by outsiders on other sites.
• Proprietary research reports
• Tools – ROI calculators and/or other self-qualifier tools
• Video – demos, customer stories
• White papers
Each must carry searchable keywords and tags and a URL pointing to more content. At some point, a prospect may drop from pursuing further information, probably because they have gathered enough for where they are in the buying process. But they know you better now and know how to get back to you when they’re ready.
Different types of content are more useful at different stages in the buying cycle. The vast majority of marketing messages aimed at people do not “reach” them because they are not seen at the right time in the individual’s buying processes. The beauty of Inbound Marketing is that, rather than trying to grab buyers’ attention, you draw their attention at the time when they are already curious, and you lead them to content that explains what they need to know at that stage in the cycle.
• Attention – Content that is useful at the earliest phases of the buying cycle needs to be educational. Avoid being too promotional at this stage. You’re just helping the buyer sort out your qualifications, attributes and special capabilities. Consider using a White Paper here.
• Consideration/Interest – Help your prospects identify the attributes that best meet their most important requirements. At this point, a demo video that shows buyers how they can use your product can elevate the prospect to the Desire stage.
• Desire/Decision – Here is the time to bring in an honest competitive product comparison. Or offer compelling customer testimonials (in text or video, if you can get it). Because this is high value information, require them to register to reach it.
• Action/Purchase – Provide a Call to Action and link to a landing page where the buyer can take action — buy (e-commerce) or be contacted by Sales. Set up a situation where the prospect can move on the decision. At this point, a promotional offer can seal the deal.
Registration forms – When is it a good idea to ask a visitor to register to see your content? Not until you pass the Attention (education) stage and, at the earliest, at the Interest stage. But keep it simple. Ask for too much information and you discourage people from looking at your content. Definitely gather information at the Decision stage.
Closing the loop – Make sure there is a “next” place for someone who is ready to go on. Use:
- A Call to Action – Include a “Contact Us” or “More…” link on every bit of content, even if you believe it is early in the buying cycle. Make sure the page or email you offer helps visitors move forward in the buying process if they’re ready.
- Share Buttons – Add a Share widget that let’s your readers share the content via email or on their social networks. It gives visitors an easy way to automatically include the URL.
Make sure your content is never a dead end. Make it easy for your prospects to move on to the next step, and always with appropriate content. If you don’t have relevant content for all the stages of the sales cycle, your first job, right now, today, is to make sure to produce and post it and make it abundantly available via SEO and social media.
Technorati Tags: content marketing, inbound marketing, lead funnel, SEO, Social Media
Tags: content marketing, inbound marketing, lead funnel, SEO, Social Media
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 3 Comments »
Monday, March 22nd, 2010
For years I’ve talked about transitioning in tech from Sales through Product Management and ultimately to Outbound Marketing. But lately, I’ve been talking about inbound marketing and am frequently met with puzzled looks. People inquire, “What is inbound marketing?”
In fact, the term “inbound marketing” has been around at least since 2007. The earliest mention I can find is in a January 2007 Forrester Report, How Technology Enables Inbound Marketing by Suresh Vittal. It spoke of using interaction management software and real-time analytics and was technology-focused.
Later in 2007 a company called HubSpot (founded in 2006) began using the term Inbound Marketing and branded their product Inbound Marketing Software. They pointed out how customer buying habits had changed. It was time, they said, for companies to begin “getting found” by potential buyers when they are already looking at products or services in your industry. In the past businesses began shopping by visiting trade shows; now it starts on Google.
A Venn diagram in a post from HubSpot blogger, Rick Burnes, really brought the concept to life for me. It shows how three of today’s familiar marketing techniques overlap and interact to create an integrated inbound marketing approach:
Image from HubSpot blog
- Content marketing – Content is the collection of interesting and relevant information that attracts potential customers to your site or to your business.
- Search engine optimization – SEO makes it easier for buyers to find your content.
- Social media marketing – Use of social networks (SMM) extends the reach, spreads and amplifies the impact of your content.
Rather than finding customers as traditional outbound marketing has done, inbound marketing helps customers find you. You need not interrupt your target customers to get their attention. They’ll be looking for you when they’re considering a purchase, although they may not even know who you are yet when they start looking.
When they search (SEO) on a search engine or on their social network using phrases you use to label your content (content marketing), you’ll be findable. Social networks (SMM) serve to spread and amplify the message to a broader audience.
Inbound marketing uses the magnet approach (pull) vs. the bullhorn approach (push) of traditional outbound marketing. The intent is different, and so is the result. It’s a different way of growing demand.
For more on inbound marketing and how to use different types of content to reach potential buyers at different stages of the buying cycle, see Inbound Marketing: Just Another Marketing Buzz Phrase? in the KickStart Accelerator.
Why inbound marketing?
- Value – Inbound marketing is less costly. Freely placed content can be as attractive and successful as Pay-Per-Click, and when found organically via search engines is less expensive. The 2010 HubSpot survey reports that inbound marketing is 60% less expensive per lead than outbound marketing.
- Effectiveness – Outbound marketing messages are becoming less effective because, a) buyers are bombarded by a high volume of messages each day and either blocking them or turned off by them, and b) people trust social sources more than paid sources of product information.
- Self-qualifying – Rather than marketing trying to guess who might become a customer, potential buyers identify themselves. Inbound marketing’s messages reach prospects at the time when they are considering a purchase and are most receptive to marketing messages.
Beyond inbound marketing
Social media is not just for marketers. Other areas where your business should be using social media are:
- PR – Remember, there are two sides to social media — what you say about your business and what others say about your business. Reputation management belongs in PR (as in Public Relations!). Someone should be monitoring and responding to what various communities are saying about your organization, positive and negative. The rest of the world pays attention to how companies react to customer complaints that surface in social media.
- Customer service – A number of companies (notably Comcast, with @ComcastCares on Twitter) are putting social media to good use in their Customer Service operations.
Involve other functions besides Marketing in your company’s larger perspective on social media. Establish a Social Media Council in your organization that represents all the other functions that touch customers and the public, and make sure your company’s message and policies are reflected throughout their conversations on social media.
And finally…
…no, I do not work for HubSpot. I just believe their approach is very much to the point. The individual components of inbound marketing are just that — components. Together they are far more powerful than their sum.
Technorati Tags: content marketing, inbound marketing, SEO, Social Media
Tags: content marketing, inbound marketing, SEO, Social Media
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Sunday, February 28th, 2010
 The DMA Northern California (DMANC) recently hosted a presentation by Scott K. Wilder, former GM of Intuit’s Small Business Online Communities. The topic: “Getting Closer to the Customer Using Social Media: A Case Study from Intuit.” Here are a few key “take-aways” from Scott’s presentation.
Leading companies, like Intuit, have a relentless drive to understand their customers. Intuit’s founder, Scott Cook, started the “follow me home” program in 1989 to observe real customers using Intuit products in their home environment. It is part of Intuit’s culture to use every interaction with prospects and customers as a learning opportunity and to ask the “5 WHYS” – drilling down to the root of problems.
Based on this culture, it was natural for Intuit to embrace online communities with their customers. In 2003, Intuit started a Small Business online community then added Facebook and LinkedIN in 2008. In 2009 the company built community right into their products. Users have become company ambassadors and today, 70% of users get their answers from the community site versus customer support – significantly driving down support costs. Intuit is also leveraging Twitter and observing customer-created videos on YouTube that showcase Intuit’s products.
Before you launch into your Voice of the Customer initiatives, consider Scott’s “Top 10″ list of tips:
- Ask “what problem are you trying to solve?” Use objectives and metrics to build a business case. Be open to the unexpected.
- Have a clearly defined learning plan including how feedback will be shared and used. Scott’s team reported on customer issues to cross-functional teams as well as externally on the community site. They captured the issue, a quote from the customer, a link to the customer’s post, the action taken and the learnings.
- Look at qualitative as well as quantitative feedback.
- Understand technology adoption curve of your customers.
- Understand how your products or services are being used in the customers’ environment (ie: in their office)
- Understand the ecosystem and persona of different types of users – their title, their job function, the type of company they work for, what’s important to them, how you can help them succeed.
- Strive for continuous improvement in products and processes. Go for the unexpected “wow.” Scott often met with customers to have them help prioritize new product features by asking “tell me how to spend your money.”
- Understand the difference between what customers “say” and “do.” Intuit uses Omniture to observe behavior as well as Radian6, Buzzmetrics and Google searches (which are free) to monitor what people are saying about the company.
- Start simple. Don’t try to build every feature possible.
- Learning can happen at any time. Learn => teach => learn.
At the end of the day, the best advice to truly understand your customer is to be humble and let the customer lead. According to Scott, “It is important to start simple adding only a few features at a time– and to be in a constant learning state of mind, listening to what the customer says, how they say it and the language they use.”
Scott recently accepted a new position as SVP and Social Media Architect at Edelman Digital. Edelman is the world’s leading independent public relations firm, with more than 3,500 employees in 51 offices worldwide. You can follow Scott on Twitter at skwilder.
Technorati Tags: DMAnc, intuit, Scott K. Wilder, Social Media, VOC, voice of the customer
Tags: DMAnc, intuit, Scott K. Wilder, Social Media, VOC, voice of the customer
Posted in Customer Advisory Boards, Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Thursday, January 14th, 2010
 Want to get some quick market research on how your product stacks up to a competitor? Ask the Internet.
I teach a course at San Francisco State University entitled, “Essentials of Integrated Marketing.” In that course, I have a case study that has proven to be a lot of fun as well as very insightful when it comes to gathering ”product comparison” data. The case study is called Video Game Wars and follows the exploits of the Microsoft Xbox, Sony Playstation 3, and Nintendo Wii.
In developing the case study, I needed to somehow find a way to educate the class on these products quickly. So, I turned to the Internet. My first course of action was to do a Google search on each of the products. This yielded the expected corporate-esk press releases, data sheets, and website info. All of this was helpful in building “awareness.” But I wanted more practical information when it came to comparisons.
So I tried a search variation.
I went to Google and Youtube looking for specific product comparisons. As an example, I typed in “Xbox versus PS3” and “Why buy a Playstation?” This produced an “Aha!” moment.
The search results provided a perfect example on how the dynamics of search have changed the way people gather and process information. Here’s what I mean:
- Much of the “product comparison” data I gathered was produced by users, not corporate executives.
- I couldn’t help but feel that the more “unpolished” the presentation, the more genuine the information.
- Many of these search results also included some sort of social media commentary, meaning that the material was actually being used and discussed.
Lest we think this is only useful for consumer products, I started testing this “product comparison” research tactic on a few projects I’m working on with B2B clients. I’d do the same thing: go to Google and YouTube and search on “product A vs product B”. In every case, I found very interesting information. Now, while I don’t take everything I find to the bank, I do find that the results have added to my cumultative knowledge. It’s helps to further my skills as an investigative marketer in order to discover which product differentiators are true and meaningful, and which are bogus.
Lesson for marketers
Based on this insight, it is important for marketers to consider a couple things as they are architecting their integrated marketing campaigns:
- Producing only the traditional marketing datasheets and collateral are no longer sufficient.
- There is a mountain of “awareness” information available; but customers are also keenly interested in product comparison data (see Content & the Buying Process blog post)
- Consider adding your own product comparison articles and videos. Some companies do this already, and I applaud them for it. Prospects are looking for this information. Why not provide them with short snippets of useful information? Otherwise, someone else might do it for them.
- As you develop your own marketing materials, do a comparison search to see what people are talking about. Do your expectations match up to the user community’s reality? Might be worth checking out.
Technorati Tags: Integrated Marketing, Marketing, San Francisco State, search engine marketing, Social Media, social networks
Tags: Integrated Marketing, Marketing, San Francisco State, search engine marketing, Social Media, social networks
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 6th, 2010
Share-to-social (S2S) or Share With Your Network (SWYN) is the process of incorporating widgets into emails or other online content so that viewers can easily share the information with their social network friends and colleagues. According to a study conducted by Silverpop, email social sharing achieves click-through rates several times higher than forward-to-a-friend (which is typically under 0.1%) and adds an additional 1% to open rates. Most people on social networking sites have between 150 and 200 friends. Adding share-to-social widgets into your emails can increase average reach by 24%. Additional source: MarketingSherpa
So, how do you go about incorporating S2S in your email campaigns or newsletters? There are currently two options:
1) Check with your email service provider (ESP) if you use one. Silverpop, for instance, has developed a S2S tool which inserts links to Facebook and MySpace into HTML emails. I imagine more and more ESPs will make S2S a standard feature offering in the coming year.
2) Generate the code yourself. The blog site business.com has a post with code generators for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIN and delicious. This code is then customized and pasted into the HTML email.
I tried this myself using the Facebook Share feature – located under the Facebook Advertising section.
I entered the URL for the December 2009 issue of our KickStart Accelerator newsletter and it generated the following code:
<a name=”fb_share” type=”icon_link” share_url=”http://www.kickstartall.com/documents/KSAdec2009.html” href=”http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php”>Share</a><script src=”http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/connect.php/js/FB.Share” type=”text/javascript”></script>
I pasted the code into Dreamweaver and viewed the result in a browser:
Clicking on “Share” took me to the Facebook login page and after logging in, I saw the following “Post to Profile” screen.
Just like “Follow us on Twitter” or “Become a Facebook Fan” is commonplace today, you’ll be seeing more Share-to-Social (S2S) in B2B emails in the coming year.
Technorati Tags: B2B email, email marketing, S2S, share-to-social, Social Media
Tags: B2B email, email marketing, S2S, share-to-social, Social Media
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
At yesterday’s Social Media World Forum in Santa Clara, CA, I attended a panel discussion entitled “Benchmarking Advertising on Social Networks.” The panelists represented American Airlines, Harley Davidson and Warner Brothers Records. I also recently attended a social media discussion with Dell Computer at the TechTarget Online ROI Summit. Here’s a recap on how these top brands are leveraging social media to acquire and engage with customers and fans.
How is Social Media Being Used?
- American Airlines (AA) uses social media in targeted geographies, known as “geo-targeting” to boost passengers on specific flights. They also provide travel-related content beyond flight information as a value-add to their passengers (restaurants, entertainment, lodging, etc.)
- Harley Davidson uses social media for new customer acquisition and to build a community of evangelists among its customer base.
- Warner Brothers recently brought its advertising in-house as it experiments with ways to monetize content that is often free on sites such as YouTube.
- Dell Computer uses social media to engage with prospects and customers and to track and respond to what people are saying about them. Dell uses blogs, online forums, bookmarketing/share widgits, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, flickr and LinkedIN. Through social media, Dell sold over $2M of product last year using a Dell Outlet promo code. Employees can engage with prospects and customers online and follow a code of conduct that requires them to identify themselves as working for Dell and to “use their best judgment”. (To see the largest collection of social media policies, check out the Social Media Governance website.)
Benchmarking Process
- AA benchmarks by setting measurable goals, such as the number of passengers on certain flights.
- Harley Davidson uses Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as 1) relationships (no. of fans or friends), 2) click-through-rate (CTR) on paid ads, 3) visitor engagements (number of times content was shared among friends) and 4) media value (profile visits, cost-per-click).
- Warner Bros. tracks and measures the amount of traffic that they drive to an artist’s site, and the number of Facebook friends and Twitter followers.
- Dell uses tools such as Buzzient to see the most active sources of a topic as well as Radian6, GoogleTrends, Google Alerts and TwitterSearch to measure their “share of voice” in comparison to competitors. They track changes in Twitter follower count, number of re-tweets, changes in website or blog traffic and their Twitter influence using a tool called Twinfluence.com.
Use of Facebook and Twitter
- AA uses Facebook to spur conversations among their passengers and to hook people to content, what they call “virtual hubs.” Twitter is used as a listening tool to monitor what people are saying about AA. Six full-time customer service reps monitor Twitter and reach out to people to assist them if appropriate. Twitter is used to deliver flight information as well – especially delays due to weather issues. As a result, calls to the AA customer support 800 number have dropped.
- Harley Davidson uses Facebook for initiating conversations with and among fans. Twitter is used by fans to see “what’s happening this moment” at Harley Davidson-sponsored events.
- Warner Bros. views Facebook as a place for conversations to happen. They post photos of fans with an artist and the fans will tag themselves. Twitter is viewed as a “digital billboard” to drive traffic to Facebook or an artist’s site. It also is used for scavenger hunts in which fans use clues delivered by Twitter posts to find CDs and concert tickets.
- Dell monitors Twitter for both positive and negative mentions of the company or their products as 20% of Tweets mention a product name or company. They have several Facebook Pages to build fans and discussions among their target user segments.
Summary
Key advice from these brands:
- Listen first – find out where your audience hangs out online and what they’re saying about you
- Integrate social media into your overall communications mix, being consistent with content and messaging
- Set measurable objectives and monitor results
At the end of the day, social media is another avenue to build a strong community and trust among your prospects, customers, partners and investors.
For more information, check out these blog posts:
Technorati Tags: Integrated Marketing, marketing trends, Social Media, social media monitoring, social networks
Tags: Integrated Marketing, marketing trends, Social Media, social media monitoring, social networks
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 6 Comments »
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
Social media is on top of everyone’s mind. Most professionals have already set up their profile on Linkedin. While many individuals are becoming conversant with Twitter and Facebook, the jury is still out on how effective and compelling these new tools are for selling in a business-to-business environment. Yet, that isn’t stopping marketers from integrating these tools into the marcom mix. Forward-thinking businesses of all sizes are being creative and clever in their social media efforts as they find new ways to dialog with and listen to customers and prospects.
A word of warning: social media is a different type of marketing tool where control of your messaging is an illusion. To avoid any miss-steps and potential embarassment, your company should have a policy on the “how, who, when, and where” questions of social media:
These are just a few of the questions which need to be addressed. The good news is that a number of companies have already penned a policy statement for their company. The marketing strategists at the Arlington Mill Group are experts in this area and wrote a blog post which offers some good advice on establishing a social media code-of-conduct.
Chris Boudreaux (of the Arlington Mill Group) has pulled together the web’s largest collection of social media policies. You’ll find policies from small companies, enterprises, non-profits, news outlets, and governments.
To quote directly from Arlington Mill Group’s recent blog post:
The ideal policy will look different for every organization, and change as your company shifts its participation in social networks over time. While developing this type of policy is hard work, it is worth it… If you haven’t examined this area of your business, now is the time to get started!
Technorati Tags: Integrated Marketing, Social Media, social media monitoring, social networks
Tags: Integrated Marketing, Social Media, social media monitoring, social networks
Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »
Friday, July 24th, 2009
By “It”, here, I mean content. In the sense that marketers and publishers use the word, “content” means (according to Wikipedia) information and experiences that may provide value for an end user/audience in specific contexts. You may think of content as something contained on the Web, but it can be in other media as well, including broadcast media, CDs, and even print.
The key to content being useful for marketing purposes is that it must be information or an experience that can be easily:
- Captured
- Stored
- Forwarded
- Repurposed
What does content have to do with social media? Updates or announcements with associated links posted on social networks are a great way to draw users to your content! And from there visitors — the ones thinking of buying — can find their way into your sales funnel. Increasingly buyers are finding their own way through the sales cycle via the internet.
If you’re ready to give this a try, first, stop and consider what you would want social media to do. Who do you want to reach? Which social networks are those people in? What action do you want users to take when they see your social network presence? What happens next?
Nothing happens unless you make it so. When you have thought through your strategy and figured out how to move ahead, be sure you follow these basic rules:
1) Learn to write great headlines – The posted information needs to include a very short, intriguing “headline” or subject line that gives readers a good idea of what content they will see when they click the link.
2) Make the content truly relevant and valuable – When your company draws users to information that makes them more knowledgeable, you do them a service and boost your brand’s credibility. Make sure your content is related to your industry or product and will make visitors smarter for having visited.
3) Don’t push – Most visitors, still in the information-gathering stage, can be put off by advertisements pushing a product before they know enough about the subject. Let them learn at their own speed. Today’s buyers will anyway.
4) Provide a call to action – If visitors like your content and they’re ready to learn more, giving them a link to more detailed information on your products or services will encourage them to explore further. Use a simple info form (name, company, email address) to enable access to more in-depth information such as White Paper downloads. Now they’re genuinely prospects.
5) Stay open and accessible – If the content is a blog post, allow visitors to leave a Comment. Include RSS capability so they can subscribe to your blog. If they want to receive updates from you, give them a simple form to subscribe to your newsletter and emails.
6) Keep your content fresh – Develop and maintain a Content Calendar with topics, dates and contributor names. Publish new content frequently. If your website becomes stale, people won’t keep coming back. If there is something new and interesting, they’ll tune in.
Every time you post new content, by all means, tweet about it on Twitter or post an update on your Facebook page. If the content is really delightful, people will share it with others and help you spread the word.
Technorati Tags: content marketing, Social Media
Tags: content marketing, Social Media
Posted in Social Media, Uncategorized | No Comments »
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