The big idea seems to be that audience success can be measured by going viral with Social Media. But retaining audience interest should be the long term goal, not just for short product or service offer lifecycles.
The key is always to cultivate customer loyalty to ‘buy in’ to your brand identity. Too often, the success of marketing strategies are calculated by response to a single product or service offering over a limited time period. This simply looks at figures based on current users who alert other potential users, the average numbers who are contacted per user and the percentage requests who accept an invitation. Read more
In the daily drive to attract new business and grow your customer database, catching up with colleagues and keeping in touch with past introductions is a handy reminder of the gentle art of business networking. Often an invaluable source of ideas, leads and personal referral, reconnecting should be a regular entry in your online planner!
The influence of social media is revolutionising the “how, why and when” we communicate with each other. Embedding itself into our daily business and personal routines, it seems all is online brand identity building. In the fast world of mobile apps, and speaking to the world through smartphone and netbook, it may feel as if business is no longer dependent on one-two-one contact, replaced by online marketing, blog and newsletter.
Meeting people at network events, conferences and business dinners seems to be less important these days than the number of website hits or clicks onto your PPC ad. Traffic driving to sales conversion is the all consuming daily concern and you may have forgotten about that box of business cards, scribbled down email addresses and phone numbers from brief encounters or lively conversation from past chance meetings.
How much unused business potential is being overlooked by not keeping connected or failing to follow up over the longer term? It’s worth spending a few moments to relook at these ‘soft’ marketing strategies to tap into network possibilities:
E-mail – select who you want to re-establish contact with even if you were given a card years ago. If your receive a response, then you know there may be reciprocal interest.
Follow up – on an e-mail or call with an online network group invite, using say, Linked In, but don’t try the “cold call”! Contact by invite after a year or so may not produce a response because the recipient has little or no current context as to why you’re getting in touch. However, an e-mail resulting in a reply could mean that person has some interest in re-connecting and will know who you are when you send the invite.
Meet Up – using email, Twitter and Facebook and other social networks will help keep the ‘engagement’ going but it may be that you need to arrange a ‘coffee’, meeting face to face, as when you first met. Find a convenient time to suit their diaries.
Reminders - PC , mobile or online tools will remind you to e-mail or call an old contact, and help prevent losing touch with your network. Schedule follow-up contacts based on how close or important the contact is to you.
Remember - this is all about reintroducing yourself “as a human being” they want to relate to; perhaps consider working with on a project they might have in the pipeline. So take your salesperson’s hat off and don’t pitch yourself or your company!
If there is one thing that businesses should have learnt by now is that social media channels are transforming user behaviour. The user is king and they will decide when and where they make and receive messages.
If consumer attitudes really have changed, with the growing feeling that control of content is an entitlement, this begs the question, how can businesses ensure their email marketing messages reach consumers in the right manner?
Most recent research has shown that the momentum which had been escalating with the social media messaging explosion of Twitter, Facebook and group networking sites has finally reached a critical mass of enthusiasm for the power of the individual over content.
Surveys confirm that those companies who continue an online marketing policy of sending generic communications risk alienating consumers, 53 per cent of whom state they would opt-in to a service which allows them the choice to select the type of email messages received from their preferred brands.
This reveals that eCommerce businesses could be limiting the marketing potential of tactics such as “share-with-a-friend” (SWAF), by not giving them a choice over content. Read more
Email is still the predominant part of how daily communication takes place and business talks with each other. Though email cannot be analysed and mined for data, with the launch of Microsoft Outlook Social Connector, users can associate information and knowledge with a variety of teamwork systems like SharePoint.
Microsoft’s rethink about how information exchange collaborates, echoes Googles’s approach with GoogleWave and creates new avenues for innovative email marketing.
Revitalising email as a collaborative tool means overcoming present inability to be scanned for data to draw important insights for use again in the future. The quintessential requirement of today’s business and social media environment is to identify key communicated information and knowledge. Read more
High Street shoppers are being penalised for buying instore rather than online. Proof enough that the big commercial shift of business to the web is now established as the key cost-effective, time-efficient place where we are all supposed to be. Woe betide if you’re not!
According to shopping comparison website PriceRunner, a recent study suggests that the high street consumer may be paying a ‘high street tax’ of up to 70 per cent more for purchasing instore. The findings indicate that a staggering 95 per cent of all prices could be beaten online!
The consumer reality now is that it is cheaper to purchase online, which of course, includes home delivery of your order! Good news for eCommerce and a vindication of the tremendous time, effort and investment many businesses have made to create a user friendly website experience which secures customer conversion to purchase online.
Establishing a web presence is now the norm. As the demand for website accessibility expands into the mobile internet and eReader platforms, no one can afford not to keep up with the fast forward march of emergent, communication channels. Read more
SMEs and company business owners have long been wanting to know exactly how social media networking will bring benefit and added value to their monthly bottom line. The launch of Promoted Tweets – paid messaging – similar to Google Adwords, shows Twitter committing towards online business advertisers and its users.
In one of April’s blogs, we announced the launch of ‘Promoted Tweets’ – Twitter’s answer to Google Adwords – in which a Twitter user searches for a word an advertiser has purchased, and the promoted message is brought to the top of the results, even if it was created and ‘tweeted’ much earlier.
For many eCommerce and small online businesses, who have to be yet to be convinced of any meaningful and measurable ROI in the explosion of social network messaging, the new service will now likely appear to make more sense. At least, when planning an online marketing campaign, the immediate traffic driving value, overhead costs and projected outcome can be calculated and budgeted with the ability to check website analytics for visitor response and conversion rates. Read more
In 2010, if you’re not adopting social media practices into your business, you’re not part of the conversation. Expect to be bumped down Google rankings by RealSearch results anytime soon. If you’re ready to engage then planning begins here!
Proper planning and execution is the key to integrating social media into your online marketing strategies. Drafting a policy is no longer good enough — you need a plan to put your policy into place.
Key areas you must identify are : Read more
Applying yesterday’s marketing strategiesto today’s online social mediasphere will not work! Most businesses are keen to engage and immediately see the benefits of Google first page ranking. In their obsession to reach No.1, they are displaying old style thinking and short term vision. They are also blowing all their marketing budget!
It’s a compulsion based on a misconception. But the addiction is hard to break. Yet the truth, as most of us know, is that ploughing all of your advertising money only in to PPC ( Pay-Per-Click) and paying to be top of the SERPs page ( or positioned on the right-hand side column) is not an online marketing campaign that will drive any more significant traffic to your website. Read more
RealTime web developments flying in fast and furious! Following hot on the heels of impending Twitter launch of their Google-style adwords service, Google announces a searchable timeline of every Twitter message published! Are you keeping up ? Your potential customers may expect to find your website faster and easier than before!
RealTime search is hotting up! Your online marketing may soon need to adapt to the latest development to keep your brand identity visible and easily found, minute by minute, by the millions of messagers! Launching the enhanced service in the next few days, Google intends to group every single Tweet by topic, which will allow users to see when tweet activity was highest for their search query. When a date is selected, the messages will pop up in the form of a scrolling list.
The benefits for highly targeted online marketing strategies are immediately obvious. At present, users have found the limits of Twitter’s own search page to be limited. The results are often grouped around trending topics, or simply lack any form of organisation. Read more
The announcement from Twitter on April 13th of the launch of their own Adwords version, is recognition of successful mass online marketing penetration by the microblogging service that all businesses must now engage with if they are to keep up with the evolving web.
The new keyword-based advertising, built upon the billion-dollar Google PPC business model is called ‘Promoted Tweets, which will display ads containing SEO keyword links advertisers have bought when Twitter users search for those keywords. Read more
The emergence of RealTime search is placing pressure on businesses to not lose traffic to market competitors. The integration of RealTime results with word search means that pay-per-click and search engine optimisation strategies will have to change.
Businesses, especially eCommerce, cannot afford to miss out on providing potential customers quicker access to minute-by-minute product or service status and availability.
RealTime search means being able to look at content instantly as there is no delay between it being created and published. Search engines are rapidly moving towards the goal of delivering the most up-to-date, relevant content on the web, indexed and ready for display, higher in the search results!
Essentially, this means that the bar has been raised in competing for word search visitors, customer capture and maintaining maximum website accessibility. According to a recent report, it’s estimated that as much as 40 per cent of all searches today have a RealTime component. The static results generated by traditional search are no longer enough to satisfy users’ desire for up to the minute information. Read more
Web development is steering the mobile internet centre stage as the growing use of smartphones means that website accessibility on the move is opening up the opportunity for instant, cost effective mobile marketing.
It has been suggested by analyst firm, Morgan Stanley, that within five years, more users will connect to the internet via mobile devices than desktops! AdMob, one of the world’s largest mobile advertising networks, reports that in January 2010, Android and iPhone users spend about 80 minutes a day using apps.
Although mobile internet is still an emergent technology, it is an intrinsic social media tool and the possibilities for developing marketing strategies to instantly capture search visitor-to-customer conversion traffic is potentially huge! Read more
