Matt's Marketing Digest

Social Media Strategy – key considerations & techniques

Why does good marketing planning process go out the window when it comes to social media?

Picture the scenario: boss meets a friend whose business is having a positive effect on its target audience on Facebook. Next morning, boss comes in and says "we need to be on Facebook". No thought as to objectives, strategy or content. But Facebook it is. Ever heard of cart leading the horse? Tail wagging the dog?

Last time I looked, good marketing planning starts with research, situational analysis and setting objectives; not choosing the tactics. Too many organisations select the technologies without giving prior consideration to the people they are trying to address. So here’s a few considerations as you venture into social media and explore ways to engage your target audience.

People

Find out where your customers are online using online research methods. Identify your search keywords and then employ a little role play… Imagine you are your customer and navigate the web to find out where target prospects might land up when using your key search terms. Setting up Google Alerts will help to direct you to new content on trade or competitor websites, communities, social networks etc. Where are your customers online? What is their social influence? How do they behave? What social information do they rely on?

Objectives

Once you know answers to the above and other related questions, you’ll be in a better position to decide what your online goals will be. Bear in mind, online is an active medium, not a passive one so objectives will be broadly around increasing engagement, deepening understanding. The digital toolset should be used to drive greater engagement which if mapped correctly will assist with navigating the online funnel, help to retain customers and significantly contribute to creating loyalty.

Strategy

Try to go beyond the first three months. Imagine a scenario where you have been listening on Twitter and have loads of followers. What then? What do you want social media to achieve? How can you use social media to change customer behaviour? How can you use it to increase brand relevance or resonance? (a far better metric than measuring brand awareness). How can you use it to build social proof by creating customer advocates? The strategy is the collection of tools you’ll use over a longer period to start to deliver real business value.

Technology

What should we build? Now you get to the bit most companies start with. But you’ll arrive at this point with a far better knowledge and understanding as to why you are choosing a certain technology, what you are using it to achieve and what content will be most effective in engaging customer groups. You won’t waste time and resources focussed on building technologies only to find out it has been a waste of time because actually your customers are somewhere else. Finally, you’ll be the horse leading the cart and you’re boss won’t be wagging your tail!

To learn more follow me on Twitter @matthewking or to join one of my social media workshops email mattk@mediasafari.co.uk

[POST strategy redacted from Groundswell]

 

2011: As brand communications converge digital sings its tune…

I’ll avoid the temptation to add my own take on New Year predictions for 2011 and focus on the one aspect of company communications that I’d like to see more of this year…

As organisations are now more versed in digital communications the challenge now will be to better integrate it with the core communications objectives and focus more on message and content rather than the medium. Campaigns should be centred around one focused, big idea for the brand.

Think of integration as a symphony or orchestra: better orchestration of the message where each channel (instrument) has its own unique tune (segment) collectively contributing to the overall sound (brand message).

In the age of the splinternet organisations need to seek to not only use multiple media to tell a brand story, but also that each media channel communicates a unique, complementary piece of that story. This unfolds across multiple media platforms, with each new media channel making a distinctive and valuable contribution to the whole. Think of Comparethemarket’s Meerkat campaign and how each channel (both on and off line) contribute to the story of Aleksandr.

Whilst traditional (offline) communications provides breadth of coverage (awareness), digital (online) provides the depth to deepen the understanding and level of engagement. Integration lies in the measure that the two operate in harmony with each other to generate and build relationships that result in tangible outcomes.

So, the three things you should think about when considering integration are:

1/ Consider one big idea for the brand that can be adapted to any offline/online medium without significant changes and without losing its effectiveness

2/ Map the target customer’s journey and leverage the particular strength of that medium to communicate a unique, distinct message that forms part of the brand story

3/ Focus more on the relationships (message and content), not the technology (medium)

Happy New Year.

 

What is Web 3.0?

I have been asked several times recently what Web 3.0 is all about. So here’s an attempt to shed some light on this perplexing topic.

 

The next generation of the World Wide Web, commonly referred to as Web 3.0 or the semantic web, represents a new phase in the web’s development towards more personalised intelligent search and response. Essentially it’s a web in which data is linked to allow more meaningful, actionable insight to be extracted resulting in a Web that understands.

 

In a practical sense this means that when users search, it will understand your location, habits and behaviour and provide tailored search results based on what it knows about you. The more a user searches using Web 3.0, the more it knows. It can track data which then enables it to analyse the user’s previous searches and responses, collate them, and provide more precise answers for the user each time.

 

Although still in its infancy, 2010 will see more emerging technologies which will significantly improve personal search response making your use of the Web more meaningful and personal. This of course has enormous implications for how marketers are able to reach their audience and how companies distribute their information.

 

How does this explanation grab you?

Email Marketing - What's wrong with 'Batch and Blast'?

Email is giving marketing a bad name.

 

Yes, it’s cheap, yes it can be interactive and targeted. And yes, it can deliver more bottom line results than any other marketing method. When it comes to prospect conversion, increasing customer retention and building loyalty, it is virtually unsurpassable.

 

When you know what you are doing and can be bothered to do it.

 

The trouble is with email is that it is cheap. That’s one of the main reasons marketers use it and the main reason it gets abused. Subscriber boxes are overflowing with permission based email that is irrelevant. Because the use of it doesn’t cost the earth, the same email is blasted to everyone with no time, reason or interest if the customer responds. It’s one frantic campaign after another….sales down, send another… until some poor sod is caught in the unrelenting cross fire…

 

Clearly this no longer performs.

 

Most are now ignoring the emails (research proves it) which deflates the efforts to build the relationship and drive sales. Average open rates have fallen from 19% in 2005 to 13% in 2008. This has led to the much wiser principal of ‘farming,’ back to the good old days of data driven marketing, CRM, relationship marketing, when we had to make difficult decisions because of rising postal costs.

 

This week I am delivering a key note speech on email marketing at Best Marketing’s annual marketing conferences in the Baltic States. But if you’d like to read more, check out a book which provides a good insight into ‘Successful Email Marketing Strategies – From Hunting to Farming’ by Hughes and Sweetser.

 

http://www.best-marketing.com/index.php?lang=est&main_id=83

Does online advertising work?

A recent quote from an individual at online business at Microsoft got me thinking…

 

“Digital today is the context for all consumer behaviour; our presence in this environment doesn’t define us because it’s increasingly assumed. For the first time in advertising’s history, those practising it can no longer buy an audience; instead they have to find ways to connect to individuals.”

Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President, Online Audience Business, Microsoft

(Source Contagiousmagazine.com 17/03/09)

 

The idea of buying an audience defined largely by OTS and OTH is without doubt becoming more difficult. A multitude of reasons has contributed to the weakening of the traditional (offline) marketing model where a big budget would effectively drown out competitor noise leading to market domination.

 

But traditional media is still totally valid for broad reach and generating awareness. However, the online or digital medium is about creating depth of understanding, generating deeper engagement with end users where organisations can seek to leverage the digital toolset to connect and build meaningful relationships.

 

Which leads to the question, does online advertising work?

 

Well the latest article on Adotas seems to suggest it does. “Forrester predicts interactive online advertising, display, email, mobile, search, and social media, will experience a 17 percent compound annual growth rate, totaling almost $55 billion in spending over the next seven years.” If this prediction is to be believed online advertising spend will dramatically increase but this doesn’t necessarily mean it will work…

 

I believe the answer lies in two main areas: Digital toolset mapping and creative execution.

 

Simply using targeted interactive advertising on its own is missing the fundamental benefits of the digital environment. Traditional media needs to seamlessly link with its digital counterpart, where online ads seek to reinforce the message and reveal a new part of the story. The online ads will then link with the other tools in the digital toolset creating a homogenous journey from unawareness to awareness, awareness to comprehension and so on. 

 

Experience tells me that online ads in isolation won’t instantly translate into sales (awareness to purchase in one step) and will leave marketers wondering what went wrong. But weaving online ads into a creative and engaging journey that links the traditional and digital landscapes together will lead to improved results.

Improving results by effective use of the digital toolset

The tool bag of digital media available to marketers is steadily growing. With ever richer sources of media (e.g. streaming video and vodcasts), micro-blogging facilities such as Twitter and social bookmarking sites like digg and delicious, you’d be forgiven for not knowing which tool to use when and why.

 

Just as in any campaign that utilises the mix of traditional media, the use of digital media needs to be coordinated in such a way as to ensure the delivery of the right message at the right time. The commonly accepted marketing funnel is now under heavy attack from user generated content which distracts your end user into online conversations and collaborations. All the while, removing the impetus usually commanded by those with bigger marketing budgets.

 

As users pass more free-time online, spending more time talking to each other, organisations need to seek new ways to connect and work with their customers online. The traditional media mix has increasingly limited reach; and with massive potential for creating a deeper sense of engagement in the digital environment, getting your digital mix right, is crucial.

 

In a concept that I have now come to call digital toolset mapping, the effective use of digital media can be enhanced by using the appropriate tool at the appropriate time in the funnel. If we define the funnel as something along the lines of AIDA to be awareness, comprehension, trial, purchase, repeat purchase and loyalty, each stage requires a distinct tool to help and accompany the customer’s journey through the funnel.

 

By way of example, viral videos (check out ‘Will it blend’ on Youtube) and social media sites are great for generating awareness. When combined with other tactics (subscription to a newsletter as in the case with the ‘Greg the Architect’ videos on Youtube) it can help to move users onto the next stage in the funnel (understanding and comprehension).

 

Having used certain tactics to generate awareness and in the process gather customer contact details, the use of mobile and email can then generate trial and sales. Finally, a wiki might then be used to develop loyalty (see www.taxalmanac.com from Intuit – this is the USA's 20th most popular wiki) to encourage users to converse and collaborate with other customers, with your brand as the central platform for that discussion.

 

I am currently running a digital marketing workshop for the Chartered Institute of Marketing and certain corporate clients on Effective Digital Campaigns where we run through this concept in detail. If you’d like to know more, drop me a line.

Review: 'Crowdsourcing – How the power of the crowd is driving the future of business'

Crowdsourcing – Jeff Howe

What is Crowdsourcing you might ask? It is essentially the ‘act of taking a job traditionally performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people.' Or more specifically, it is the concept that labour can often be organised more efficiently in the context of community, than it can in the context of a corporation.

 

Jeff Howe sets out a convincing argument for the case of crowdsourcing, one that is well supported by many good examples already well known to the digital marketing community including Open Source Software (Linux), Dell's Ideastorm, InnoCentive and Netflix Prize. It perhaps loses some of its momentum in the number of examples in the first part of the book [How We Got Here], and as a result doesn’t really get into the meat of the issue until the middle, or section two [Where We Are].

 

Crowdsourcing, (as opposed to crowdcasting which is the act of broadcasting a problem to the widest possible audience in the blind hope that someone, somewhere will come up with a solution), relies on certain ingredients to make it work. The important factors are that the problem needs to be of a complex nature, the ‘crowd’ needs to have some qualification to solve the problem and the participants in the process need to be drawn from a diverse enough pool. So evidently, this concept won’t be for everyone.

 

The idea of open collaboration though is central to any digital marketing strategy and can be interpreted in many ways. By way of an example, Media Safari has been working on the launch of a new ‘photo-networking’ website called SendPhotos. Currently the product is in BETA so the task now is to build awareness of the product and encourage feedback from the community of users to help the developers, Avanquest Software, improve the product. So at the moment, it is offering the service for free in return for comments and suggestions.

 

Crowdsourcing is not a new concept, it is simply one that has been massively enhanced and enabled by digital technologies (the tools) and the Internet (the means). The benefits of collaboration speak for themselves as two-way communication improves the quality of the dialogue, bringing a deeper sense of engagement with end users and therefore an opportunity for the marketing department to create a bond of ‘loyalty,’ which in the context of leaner budgets, is no bad thing.

 

Matt King is a digital marketing specialist and delivers training workshops on digital strategy to a wide number of corporate clients. He is also an EMEA region tutor for digital marketing for Microsoft.

A ‘word’ on keyword optimisation (SEO)

A friend recently asked me about keyword optimisation. Last year marketers began to get very excited about keyword optimisation in web copy and its ability to influence the ranking of your site amongst leading search engines like Google. Typically with any new found learning, this led to an over stuffing of keywords with every effort made to ensure your web copy was littered with as many keywords as possible.

 

Keyword optimisation is a balance.

 

Over stuffing won’t necessarily impact on Google’s ability to search – but it does compromise your audience’s ability to understand. A balance between optimising sensibly with ‘rich’ key word content (in other words, not every single word that you can identify in the long tail) but a list of powerful key word drivers that will deliver sales; on the other side is writing copy that the reader will understand where the sense is not compromised by over using keywords – which I have also seen several times.

 

So the lesson is – we now know what keyword optimisation is and what it does – businesses and organisations need to spend some time identifying the rich keywords that deliver value.

The 14 trends all marketers need to be aware of...

In my brief review of ‘Meatball Sundae’ (Seth Godin) I indicated that there are a number of current trends outlined in the book that we all, as marketers, need to be aware of – and planning for! Here are those trends in no particular order and a brief summary of what each one entails:

1) Direct communication and commerce between producers and consumers

This cuts out the middle man – you can communicate directly – think about the advantages of permission based communications – it is an asset, not a tactic – don’t use permission marketing to augment interruptive techniques

2) Amplification of the voice of the consumer and independent authorities

Dell Hell (www.dellhell.net) – the 1% - Ben McConnell’s book Citizen Marketer cites that in any community 1% are the givers – professional journalism Vs amateur bloggers – the spread (Reddit, Diggit) – how do you flip the funnel and give that 1% a megaphone?

3) Need for an authentic story as sources increase

You can’t tell two stories – the internet doesn’t forget – stories spread, not facts. People will always find out the truth on Youtube etc.

4) Shorter attention spans due to clutter

Shorter books, shorter shows, shorter commercials, shorter ideas. In short, shorter attention spans.

5) Search engines and the long tail

Marketers create clutter with new SKUs as we reach new niches – the market demands more variety and won’t settle on 1 or 2 leaders. The Longtail has been around forever, only now can retailers cater for it due to online stores being able to carry more inventory; search engines mean consumers will find you; permission marketing means they can find products for customers (rather than the other way around); digital products are easy to store and customise; technology makes it easy to customise non-digital goods

6) Direct communication and commerce between consumers and consumers

Consumer to consumer connections – Web 2.0; social networks are becoming more powerful and consumers gravitate to each other to tell each other their stories and band together to pressurise organisations. This has given rise to businesses that would not ordinarily survive (via ebay etc.)

7) Outsourcing

Excellent economic reasons for doing this. Two paths are available to organisations:

- If what you are doing is repetitive – outsource it

- If what you are doing is homemade, insightful and filled with initiative, then charge for it.

8) The atomised world – end-to-end to component based solutions

Google has broken the world into tiny bits – no one visits a homepage anymore, they walk in the back door to the link Google sent them – Google has destroyed the end to end solution and replaced it with pick and choose component based solutions

9) Infinite channels of communication

Adwords, permission based communications, mini videos on YouTube – multiple ways to reach your audience. Simple.

10) The wealthy are like us

The heart of the mass market has changed – change in bell curve. If I don’t care enough about a product to seek out the best, then I want the cheapest. At the other end of the price scale is premium and scarcity. Who would buy the stuff in the middle? It’s over priced and under-exclusive.

11) Shifts in scarcity and abundance

What used to be scarce? Hard drive space, manual labour, overnight shipping, airtime, shelf space. Organisations are based on exploiting scarcity. But the internet has enabled many organisations to leverage this scarcity to their advantage.

12) The triumph of big ideas

A big idea in sync with the times can spread so fast and so wide that the market leader cannot stop it.

13) New gatekeepers – no gatekeepers

Word spreads through new channels, not old ones. Ignore the new gatekeepers at your peril. The decline in influence of columnists and journalists has been replaced by hundreds of bloggers and diggers. Traditional media relied on PR. New media is different because a) news is ubiquitous and b) bloggers are unpaid and passionate.

14) The shift of ‘how many’ to ‘who’

Marketing is like a funnel – attention is shovelled in at the top and over time, sales drop out of the bottom. But attention is expensive and you can’t afford to keep interrupting the disinterested. The Web is not good for interruption so don’t use new marketing as a cheap way to continue interrupting those who aren’t interested. Think of AdWords and enabling consumers to campaign for you.

A summary of the trends identified by Seth Godin.