How many marketing activities do you need?

Chantal

In the last couple of weeks I’ve heard two different marketing presentations that give very different advice and I wanted to share them with you and let you decide which is right.

More is less

At the first presentation, we were shown the idea of a wheel with a number of spokes. The presenter said that the more marketing activities you have – the spokes on the wheel – the safer you are. If one of the spokes breaks – or if one of your marketing activities fails, you can fall back on the others. For example, one of your spokes might be a direct mail campaign. If it doesn’t achieve the results you wanted, it’s not the end of the world, because you’ve still got your monthly email newsletter being published, your Twitter account building up your reputation and your talks at networking events helping you sell your products and services. It was suggested that you can have as many as 10 spokes on your wheel. I currently have at least 10 – a website, a blog, Twitter, an email newsletter, networking, presentations, LinkedIn, Facebook, referrals and webinars coming soon.

Less is more

At the next presentation, we were asked to write down the top five marketing activities that bring us work, in order of effectiveness. I wrote networking, presentations, referrals, LinkedIn and email newsletter. The top three bring in considerably more business for me than the others. It was then suggested to us that we stop doing the fourth and fifth items on the list – completely. The presenter said there was no point in spending any more time or effort on activities that don’t bring in the most new business. He was actually advising me to stop sending the email newsletter I’ve been writing for 8 years and to get off LinkedIn! Later at that meeting I took on a new client. If it hadn’t been for my newsletter, I wouldn’t have been invited to the meeting in the first place.

So which way is the right way? Do you use numerous marketing activities to support each other and work as back up; or do you stick to the few activities that bring you the most business? Do you do a little with a lot, or focus your time and effort on what really works?

Online marketing may not be quick, but it’s effective

Alice

As the recession deepens (and all those BNI types who still testify that there isn’t a recession, wake up and smell the coffee), businesses are starting to appear a mite desperate. This is when marketing gets a raw deal, especially if the CEOs don’t really understand what marketing is all about.

Looking around and reading the signs, it is beginning to be obvious that companies are waking up that they need to market more online. But their lack of understanding shows that although they furiously update their websites with fancy new designs, they omit to think about the content or how they can communicate better with their customers, namely by interacting with them and getting their feedback through social networking.

If your company is still bogged down in the dark ages, the difference between marketing and sales will still be hazy, muddy and out of date. There is a new concept going about now that may not only confuse, but worry CEOs and Marketing Managers. There is this thing called customer relationship marketing (CRM), and the worst thing is that it happens over a long period of time!

But their balance sheets and cash flow statements are crying out, and the Accounts department report doom and gloom. What to do? The immediate response is to bombard the online marketing world with PPC projects, sales objectives and buy-now strategies. Money is pumped in to make a fast buck – and yes, it works! But only for the immediate future.

But they have forgotten about this CRM thing, which is apparently a real bind because it takes so long to happen. It’s may be really boring, but it is proving to be necessary. Gradually it dawns on them that marketing is a long-term affair, and communicating with prospective clients to really get to know them, understand their needs and desires, work out how they can help them, so that the company becomes a benefit rather than another faceless corporate identity, will have long-term results that can be worked on for many years.

And another thing, it doesn’t cost that much either. Certainly cheaper than a quick blast of PPC when they don’t really know what they’re doing. The ROI may be slower, but the graph is constantly rising, with no signs of those drastic peaks signifying boom and bust, or as Chantal puts it, feast and famine. CRM with its cousin data management will allow further marketing endeavours for future objectives.

And if you know more about what your customers are doing, thinking, saying or whatever, isn’t it easier to adapt your marketing strategies around this? And when the penny drops about social networking, Marketing Managers will begin to realise that here is a place to find out this data with the minimum of fuss and expense, with marketing research tactics at their fingertips and somewhere where people can exercise their natural tendency to chat, communicate, strike up a conversation and create a relationship. With all this at very little cost (except the time taken to monitor it), perhaps this online marketing lark isn’t so far fetched as it previously seemed.

Popularity, sociability and desire

Alice

The Royal Wedding has been a really ‘big’ thing during the past month, not just here in jolly old Blighty, but absolutely massive in the States. They haven’t got a Royal Family, so anything that sounds like a fairy tale appeals to those sovereign starved souls on the other side of the pond, and it reached incredible proportions as it was passed about on the web, far more than we in England have been aware of.

The Americans ‘play’ with social networking far more than we do. I don’t know whether it’s because of their mind-set, or even just the weather, but being sociable appeals to them on many levels, and their lack of inhibitions results in much more interaction online than us Brits. Evidence is shown in the amount of comments an ordinary blog post receives, and other social media platforms fair the same way.

It all stems down to popularity, which comes from being sociable, originating in providing what people want. Certainly Kate and Wills have done that. If you’re in business, you need to find out what your customers want, and then provide it for them. You can do this by being sociable, asking the right questions, responding to the answers, using a friendly mode of communication to find out a little more…

Once you’ve established your customers’ desires, which isn’t necessarily their need, or even what you think their need is, and you’ve fathomed out how you’re going to satisfy what they want, you still continue to socialise and communicate with them to win their trust in you.

Being sociable isn’t about telling them what you have, how wonderful your business or the product you’ve created for them is, boring them endlessly by spouting out facts about which features do this and that, it’s about providing information that is beneficial to your customers.

If you provide help and advice that makes their lives better, they are going to be thankful. Being sociable like this will make you popular, as you continue to communicate top tips that set you up as an expert in your field, and this relentless goodwill will accelerate your popularity so that when eventually a customer desires what you provide, they will immediately think of you.

Sociability leads to popularity, which results in recognition, then trust, and ultimately business. And all because you bothered to find out about your customers’ desires by being sociable.

What is Foursquare and can it be used for business?

Alice

Foursquare is basically a local service-based social network-come-game which you can play online and, more appropriately, via your smart phone. Its main purpose is to tell you where your friends are (if they’re also connected to Foursquare) and vice versa, plus a few more activities to increase the fun.

It’s based around the idea of ‘checking-in’ places, such as coffee shops, bars, restaurants, hotels or wherever, with a short message about where you are and what you’re doing. Your friends will receive that message so they can decide whether to come and join you, and it’s also good way to enable you to find your friends when you need them too.

Every time you ‘check-in’ somewhere you get points, with incentives to gain more from new places, multiple ‘check-ins’ and more, mostly obtained out of work hours to ensure Foursquare is played for social reasons. This appeals to collecting-types, because if you manage to acquire more points than anyone else within a 60-day period, you could become ‘Mayor’ of that location. Also you can collect ‘badges’ for ‘checking-in’ various new places over a time period, as another result of gaming.

How can this be used for marketing purposes? Well, not much, unless your business partakes in the Foursquare gaming side, and honours its ‘Mayors’ with incentives and ‘badges’ to encourage them to visit more often – great for coffee bars, cake shops, bars, hotels and the like. Apart from free coffees and drinks, Foursquare players don’t benefit much apart from having fun and showing their loyalty to that particular brand or company.

It’s important to remember this is essentially a social networking activity, which is about communicating and forming relationships, so the business side will become merely a bi-product from meeting up with your friends and showing off your ‘Mayorship’. You could take advantage of incentives from hotels when wining and dining clients, using their conference rooms and such like, there is always an opportunity around the corner once a relationship has been struck from using Foursquare!

How do you integrate your online marketing, to save time and money?

Chantal

The number of ways that you can promote your business through online marketing is constantly growing. It is now accepted that you need an online presence in order to market your business. I was asked to speak about this at a recent FSB IT event in Reading, so I thought I’d share with you a summary of the session. (The full PowerPoint presentation is available from the Free Stuff page of my website, if you’d like a copy.)

So What Online Marketing Can You Do?

1. Keyword Research – use to find phrases people are actually looking for online. Use keywords for your website, titles for your articles, newsletters, blogs and tweets. https://adwords.google.co.uk/select/KeywordToolExternal
2. Website – use it to give the key messages about what you do, promote your blog, tweets and newsletter; list your articles. Put Google Analytics on all the pages; do some keyword research.
3. Google Analytics – see how people use your website; see what keywords they use to find it and put more of those words onto the site.
4. Newsletters – provide regular advice and comments, promote your website, blog, tweets and articles; use keywords for titles.
5. Social Networking – keep it business. Post your articles and newsletters.
6. Networking Groups and Forums – if you go networking, do those groups have websites you can use? Post comments and advice on forums; post your newsletters and articles. Complete your profile page to promote your website, blog and tweets.
7. Blogs – provide regular comments and thoughts. Promote your website, newsletter and articles.
8. Google Adwords – research keywords for your website, titles for your articles, newsletters, blogs and tweets. Create specific landing pages on your website.
9. Twitter – daily tips and advice. Promote your website, newsletter and blog.
10. PR – submit articles and your newsletter. Promote your website and tweets. www.EzineArticles.com

Summary

The number of online marketing tools is on the increase. If you try to do everything, you’ll end up spending all your time online – leaving no time to do your actual job; or you’ll spend all your money on online marketing with nothing left for old fashioned off line marketing.

Remember these three things – quality not quantity; integrate it and keep doing it.

Will Facebook take over from websites?

Alice

The short answer is No. This question is asked because, with some businesses, it appears that their Facebook page is getting more hits than their website, but let me assure you these statistics appear to be deceptive.

But let’s start at the beginning. To succeed on Facebook depends on your product (and that includes services) and the kind of customer you are targeting. Certainly in the States, where social networking takes on a totally different culture than in this country, Facebook has a much larger presence and some businesses are thriving on there, but to what cost?

Facebook is an excellent medium to excite initial interest in your company and what it has to offer. As a social networking site it is, of course, interactive and new content is automatically placed on subscribers’ walls. It is ideal for defining problems, socially empathising with them, and with effective communication tactics gather a suitable following. But, as with all social media, selling and marketing is not tolerated; once you’ve captured your audience your Facebook should act like a squeeze page, directing them towards your website where the necessary marketing activities can be put into practice.

Social networking is all about forming relationships and interacting with these new connections. A Facebook page should perform as a microsite, a landing page, a community portal back to your website. It is excellent for lead generation, and your website should collect these likely candidates through its newsletter signup or whatever method you have, so you can communicate your marketing to them later over time.

Unlike your website, Facebook is only temporary. How long will it last before it disappears, changes or is taken over? Although you may have effectively branded your Facebook page to suitably reflect your corporate image, it is still not ‘yours’, Facebook owns it, hence all the adverts in the sidebars. You don’t have control over the navigation as in your own website, and you have to abide by Facebook’s terms and conditions. Your website is a medium to reflect your own image and brand, let alone market and sell your product or service, whereas your Facebook page is purely promotional, a social networking voice for interaction, networking, feedback, customer collecting and lots of fun and creativity!

Is being the fastest the best?

Alice

It is commonplace to hear that an event had received a large audience because it has been publicised on Twitter. This does, of course, depend on how many followers the Twitterer had, what time of day the tweet was sent, how many times, and what it said. And the viral element: how many times it was retweeted, which, in turn, depends on the Twitter accounts it was retweeted by, and who read it…

Social networking is notoriously fast. To those who aren’t old fogies like me, it seems incomprehensible how slow we were 20 years ago, without email, mobile phones or even the internet. Publicising an event would have taken planning, forethought and a considerable amount of legwork: getting flyers printed, distributed and posted up on show; invites sent out to likely friends, relying on the Word of Mouth (a factor now replaced by Word of Mouse); booking done via telephone, in person at a box office or even by post (heavens, not snail mail!).

Of course there are (slightly) slower versions today: texting and status updates on social media do require a bit of a time delay before you get an answer, which should allow you plenty of time to think of something suitable say (if possible). Go a step slower and blogging encourages comments on its posts which, depending on whether they are moderated or not, can become flowing conversations where necessary.

Email newsletters and similar campaigns are maybe the slowest, but booking online via clicking on a link that will direct you immediately to a Paypal or similar shopping cart certainly cuts down the lengthy procedure of finding a box office, and stimulates a more immediate response that eliminates the chance of being forgotten, overlooked or displaced by another event.

But then these slower options do allow more room for information about the event, a phenomenon that is certainly more difficult if restricted to 140 characters (SMS as well as Twitter) or the quick-fire responses on status updates on Facebook, (certainly, as in the case of my daughter, with several open all at once!). Posting up details of the event on a blog, forum, Facebook fanpage or as a discussion on a LinkedIn group will allow a bit more perpetuity than the ‘here, now gone’ scenario of Twitter, so subject to a continuous timeline forever superseding what has gone before.

How does social networking link together?

Alice

The beauty of social networking is that it has been designed to link up to each other. Nothing has been left out on a limb, as that would be social suicide. Even competitors such as Facebook and LinkedIn carefully eye each other over the wall, but they contain the same kinds of applications (even if they look different) to link up to Twitter and blogs.

The most important element you need is a RSS feed. Most blogs automatically give you one incorporated into the theme or template, and it usually is URL/feed. This enables you to subscribe your blog to social networking sites, resulting in whenever you publish a post it automatically gets fed into your social networking profiles.

In LinkedIn this appears as a headline link and the first paragraph, the same format with a thumbnail of your blog’s homepage is provided in Facebook, whereas due to space constraints only the title and the tinyurl of your blog post appears in Twitter. And there are now applications which enable readers to share the blog post in social networking sites, such as Tweetmeme and the share-save links to the social sharing networks so often found at the bottom of blog posts (see the bottom of this post!).

Sharing isn’t confined to the ‘big three’ mentioned above, there are social sharing websites such as Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Mixx, Tumblr, Delicious and about what seems a hundred more! These are primarily voting media, thriving on members sharing good blog posts with their friends, and recommending them to others, all driving traffic and ultimately the search engine spiders to index these blogs. The result is large peaks in the visitors stats and a lot of ‘retweeting’ and sharing on the social networking sites.

Linking and sharing are extremely valuable pursuits in social networking circles. Links are like portals for the search engines to enter and leave your sites, as well as satisfying human curiosity, so owning and creating new ones should be paramount to search engine optimisation for your blog and your status in social networking.

Links also benefit from being associated with up-to-date keywords, which again are associated with the search engines as that is what people are looking for at this moment in time, resulting in a prominence that is vital towards staying ahead of the game.

Is tweeting a waste of time?

Alice

To the uninitiated Twitter may be considered a useless pursuit. The idea of reading these little ‘messages’ that rapidly zip past your eyes, all seemingly unconnected with each other, blathering on about nothing in particular, would seem like a waste of time.

Until you analyse why people do twitter. Social networking is about being sociable, and forming relationships with each other. It’s about spreading news, sharing information, meeting new people, learning what’s happening, finding out what others are doing or have achieved, reading what others have written – all enabling you to engage without the expectation of gaining.

You could trundle along with your business totally unaware of what is happening outside your doors, or you could, from the comfort of your computer chair, be alive to all that activity online. It can be focused within certain areas: local issues, your niche, a particular subject, your competitors, your friends or enemies, your hobbies, political news, the latest gossip – and you aren’t expected to be able to follow everything, or it will drive you mad!

So how does it help your business? Of course raising your company’s awareness online is always good, and you can feed your blog posts onto Twitter to reach a larger audience, link up to your website to bring in more traffic, and connect from your other social networking sites (Facebook, LinkedIn) where you can write more than 140 characters. You can undertake market research by asking questions or following trends and topics, tweet your problems to receive immediate solutions or a link to relevant resources, find out the latest news before it breaks, and learn about other people’s thoughts and aspirations on particular subjects.

But all this twittering would be a waste of time if you didn’t have a focus (this is true for all marketing activity). Are you using it for brand awareness, or for research purposes? Do you want more visitors to your website, or to increase the subscriptions to your blog or newsletter? Are you curious enough to keep an eye on your followers, or just chancing on interesting conversations? Many networking meetings have been arranged through Twitter, with business formed from the results. Many conferences and workshops have gained increased attendances through focused twittering, and skills and expert statuses raised from poignant and relevant tweets.

So who now says tweeting is a waste of time?

How do you succeed in Twitter?

Alice

Twitter, as with all social networking, is only as good as its player. How you use it depends on your mind-set, goals and aspirations, friendly and sociable disposition, altruism and willing to share, natural curiosity and having some time to spare.

Of course, if you look at it in the wider perspective, how much does your one little tweet matter amongst all the rest of the babble? That depends on what you have to say, how it is presented, whether it is relevant to subject matter or trends that are poignant at that moment, to whom it is addressed, who will be around at that time to read it, whether it will be retweeted or not, or whether it commands an answer.

You don’t have to read every tweet that passes through the timeline, either manually updated or relying on various Twitter applications to automatically refresh the stream. Frequent Twitter attendees learn scanning techniques to catch tweets that interest them as they fly past, and columns and lists help trap worth-while contributions whenever they are posted.

Participation is paramount on Twitter if it is to succeed for you. Those accounts that only include statements, with no evidence of interaction or conversations, will not gather followers, even if the posts link to valuable sources elsewhere. Social networking means being sociable, communicating to receive a response, passing on and sharing information, commenting on another’s post or retweeting something that you want others to read too. Acknowledgement is an unspoken requisite, as it also contributes to the social factor; nobody bothers with people who aren’t polite enough to thank anyone.

Twitter has been likened to a cocktail party to which everyone is invited. It is here you will be able to rub shoulders with all kinds of people, but it is up to you to choose who is worth listening to, asking a question of, sharing a discussion with, or however you want to communicate in this ever-increasing online social world.