Tag Archives: Social Media

Situation: In traditional marketing, many marketers have been more focused on activity than results. In the digital environment, top marketing organizations need to become better at listening to their customers, watching them, and tracking their purchase decision behavior. What does this mean for the marketer? How do you leverage digital marketing?

Advice from the CEOs:

The digital world has changed marketing. The traditional marketing campaign was led by creative staff. Marketing was directed by media players and large publishers. Once a campaign was developed the pitch was “buy lots of impressions and customers will come.” During the dot.com boom and into the 2000s there was a shift to ROI – spend $x with Google, get y clicks that will yield z buying customers. This was transactional and could be expressed relatively simply.
Behavior has changed. The model has become more collaborative. A potential customer expresses interest and a need. A supplier offers a solution. The potential customer verifies and validates the offer through online communities – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or other platforms, and may eventually make a buying decision based on what they find along the way.
The buying decision today is very different from the traditional offer-driven process. All of this can happen in minutes.
For the marketer, this means moving far beyond the simple advertisement. A presence is required on multiple social media sites, in addition to their website, to woo potential customers. This is expensive and requires a different level of resource commitment. Therefore, it is important to attribute the appropriate value to each online presence that the customer engages as they evaluate their buying choices.
This requires developing complex metrics, which change real time as customer behavior changes, so the marketer can track and understand customer behavior and adapt the offer to the individual needs of the customer. As individual consumers increasingly engage and employ new forms of digital technology the challenge to marketers only increases.
The digital marketer who will thrive will develop a sophisticated, metric-driven understanding of the multiple touchpoints and social interactions of a given transaction and will adapt new marketing approaches as the marketing environment continually changes.

Thanks to Vikas Sharan of Regalix, Inc. for his contribution to this article.

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When Do You Focus on the Plan – When Do You Adjust? Four Guidelines

Situation: The dynamics of an early-stage business require balance between focus and opportunity. Both are important in a dynamic business environment. The challenge is in the balancing act. When do you focus on the plan, and when do you adjust?

Advice:

Never allow friends to become statistics. Think of your customers as your friends. Often the most loyal and vocal friends were early adopters and got the company where it is today. They remain important participants in the conversation and should always be in focus.
When using social media to communicate to your audience, remember that this is a face-to-face conversation. This is a key point of focus. Remove as much friction from online interactions as you can. Make it as easy as possible for people visiting your web site to buy. This requires both live interactions with users and attention to detail. If a question keeps coming up, answer it; put the answer right up front on your web site where it cannot be missed. We’ve all made hundreds of tweaks, each tiny. Each has removed a point of friction. As the company grows it is easy to lose sight of these details. Never lose sight of details.
Much of what businesses face is transitory. It is important to stay nimble and not get stuck fighting the last skirmish. Early in our business history we found that a subscription service was difficult for institutional users like purchasing departments in schools to understand. We focused on fixing this.
Be careful not to chase bright shiny objects – opportunities that take you outside your principal market competence. Would you try to modify a hammer to put in screws? One company’s principal product is a communication device for kids with verbal challenges. Some have suggested that it could also be a teaching device. In the future there may be room in the company’s plan for a teaching device, but this will be addressed as its own market and application when the company is large enough to diversify.

Thanks to Phil Bookman of Assistyx for his contribution to this article.

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How Do You Maximize Relationships on a Limited Budget? Three Approaches

Situation: A CEO is looking for cost-effective ways to boost her company’s marketing. They currently focus on trade shows where they can set up as many as 15 meetings per day. Their cycle for creating new relationships is typically 3-6 months. What can they do to increase client acquisition? How do you maximize relationships on a limited budget?

Advice from the CEOs:

Create a public relations campaign around your star designers.
- An example is a successful campaign created by a well-known creative director with the theme “Ads I Wish I Had Done.” Given the prevalence of social media, programs like this can attract large audiences, particularly if there is wit and humor involved.
- Consider analogous promotion for the company along the lines of: “Our designer’s favorite products.” In a promotion like this company designers would “review” good industrial or commercial designs that other designers have done.
- This is a thought leadership approach designed to compensate for the fact that the company designs for some heavy hitter brand names but is not allowed to reveal that information.
Given limitations in using referrals due to agreement with certain clients, how can these be avoided?
- While the company is limited by agreements in place with certain clients, these agreements do not forbid subtle mention of these clients in 1:1 meetings.
- Just take care that strict client confidentiality agreements are not voided. Instead of using specific company names, refer to them by industry or commercial sector.
Create and conduct your own design conference.
- Start locally to test the waters and develop a successful program and format.
- Once an effective format is developed, gradually expand the geographic reach to attract more attention and additional new clients.

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How Do You Create Buzz? Six Suggestions

Situation: A company wants to quickly create high profile buzz around a new offering. What have other companies done or seen that could help the company quickly create this type of market presence? How do you create buzz?

Advice from the CEOs:

Buzz is hard to measure. It is also difficult to link buzz directly to sales.
Getting press, assuming that it is positive, is often called “free advertising.”
- If a company is paying a professional public relations (PR) consultant, positive press is not free. When PR is successful and sustained, however, it arguably has a better ROI than advertising.
- Published articles, particularly those by authors not associated with the company, are viewed by the customer as more legitimate than advertising. Additionally, with the Internet, the longevity of these articles can be quite long. The reach extends far beyond publications’ off-line circulation, and search engines make the articles easy to access.
Successful companies want to do business with other successful companies. What can the company highlight to show prospective clients that it is successful?
- Substantiation is critical to getting positive coverage – assure that there is no “vaporware.” Given the power of social media vaporware can quickly destroy an offering.
One member of the group suggested that the ownership of patents might generate positive press and social media coverage.
Leverage in-house thought leaders.
Seek help from celebrities – “Hollywood” investors and individuals with substantial social media followings.

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How Do You Best Leverage Networking? Six Suggestions

Situation: A company is actively marketing to prospective clients and also engages in networking. They want to assure that they are up to speed with current trends in marketing. What are best practices for following up on marketing or networking contacts? How do you best leverage networking?

Advice from the CEOs:

Timing is everything. A prospective client may or may not have an immediate need for your product or service, but may develop a need in the future. Assure that you have a program that provides ongoing follow up via:
- Social Media
- Phone calls
- Emails
- Regular personal follow up
Initial follow up should be rapid. Ask for permission to follow-up and set the time frame when you meet a new prospective client. Ask how the prospect prefers for you to stay in touch. Do they prefer newsletters follow-up via social media, or personal follow-up?
Draft letter, email and social media communication templates ahead of time so that rapid follow-up is easy.
Use an electronic or print newsletter to stay in touch with prospects. Social media have become an increasingly important way to stay in touch with networking contacts.
- Basic newsletters are usually 2-3 pages, or a one pager with links to see full articles.
Look at contact management software: for example Salesforce.com or ACT.
- Basic sales and marketing subscriptions from Salesforce.com start at $25/user/mo. for up to 5 users, or $65/user/mo. for a complete customer relations management (CRM) system.
Quality of collateral is important. It is a face of your company. High quality collateral should have a consistent look and feel, and should remind the prospect why they were interested in you and your company in the first place.

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How Do You Generate High Quality Leads? Six Suggestions

Situation: A CEO wants the sales and marketing ream to generate higher quality leads. The company already uses referrals and networking. The CEO wants to know how other companies qualify leads before passing them on to sales. How do you generate high quality leads?

Advice from the CEOs:

The first step in a good lead generation campaign is to have a clear idea of who your customers and prospects are. Who are the current customers? How do you categorize them? Can you divide them into distinct groups?
Once you have divided your customers into distinct groups, develop a detailed profile for each group, concentrating on the most promising groups first. The profile will include demographics, potential purchase value, buying behavior, social media usage and preferred social media channels. Envision each group. Create a picture that represents the buyer and their personality profile. This is an important exercise because it shifts your focus from customers as lists to customers as people, and will boost the effectiveness of both your marketing and sales efforts.
After you develop customer profiles, rank them in terms of revenue potential to the company. Pre-qualify the high end buyer, not the low end. Target the decision-makers who can make a significant purchase.
Within each profile group, establish your own criteria for a good customer. Create questions which will help you to identify this customer.
Through social media and email campaigns, develop brief questionnaires and simple contests to help you to identify potential customers based on the criteria which you have developed. Develop a more detailed questionnaire turn leads into prospects.
- Once a lead responds to your social media or email outreach have a sales person go through the detailed questionnaire with the lead prior to scheduling or going out on a face-to-face call.
- You want to have well-qualified people making these calls.

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How Do Social Media Change Client Interactions? Six Ways

Situation: A company wants to upgrade its presence in social media to improve client interactions. Before engaging in this exercise, they are curious as to how others are successfully using social media as part of their overall marketing and client service strategies. From your experience, how do social media change client interactions?

Advice from the CEOs:

The Web and the emergence of social media have enabled a much broader range of communication and collaboration options with clients, vendors, and others in any marketplace. In contrast to classic “push marketing” the Web and social media enable interactive marketing tailored to the individual needs, likes and dislikes of individual customers.
One of the most important changes is the opportunity for customers to post feedback and opinions about a company’s products and services. In the new reality, if you don’t have a place where customers can post feedback – both positive and negative – they’ll find somewhere else to post it.
Web 2.0 is generally defined as interactive, dynamic web sites that get updated frequently. From a consumer standpoint we think of eBay and Amazon.com. However, this also includes web-enabled collaborations between company members or company and client, for example collaborative project management.
Using cameras and built-in microphones that now usually come built-in with new monitors and laptops you can communicate less expensively and with higher quality than with traditional telecommunications. Web-enabled team meetings are virtually the same as being in the same room.
Through your web site you can provide digital video content at different levels of sophistication to potential and, with password protection, verified customers.
An underutilized resource which is truly win-win is available through local colleges and universities that can provide state-of-the-art expertise in web enabled communications through student projects in internships.
Special thanks to Dean Lane of the Office of the CIO (http://www.oocio.com) for his insight and input to this discussion.

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How Can You Use Web and Mobile Tech to Bridge Different Worlds?

Interview with Jason Langheier, MD, MPH, Founder and CEO, Zipongo

Situation: The Internet and social media provide opportunities to bridge seemingly distinct worlds through common interests. For example, grocery chains that sell healthy foods and health insurance companies might be brought together through a common interest in healthy eating habits. How can you use web and mobile technology to bridge these two worlds?

Advice from Jason Langheier:

Interests and industries which are at first glance distinct can be brought together using the power of the Internet and social media. For example, Let’s Move and the Partnership for a Healthy America have nudged national food retailers and grocers to improve the health of their offerings in an effort to fight childhood obesity. Success here can benefit health insurers because obesity leads to increased healthcare costs through its link to diabetes and other complications. The potential of subsidies from health insurers to promote and generate healthy food choices is interesting to food retailers, but requires new incentive and recommendation systems.
We want to help people harness their motivation to build lasting new eating and activity routines. We do this through rewards based commerce, supported by social networks and gamification to help reach one’s health goals. We focus on choices that people make in daily living like grocery and restaurant choices and physical activities. We highlight alternatives, create simple recommendations, and make it easy to act on those recommendations. We encourage repetition of positive choices through a feedback loop which is tailored to the individual.
Commitments made within a social network are more likely to stick than promises to self. We leverage existing social media networks and offer incentives for referring friends. Friends help friends make better choices by encouraging them to read labels and buy healthier foods at the moment of purchase.
It is important to keep the user interface simple, especially at first. Many of the most successful applications initially present simple yes-no choices. From a tracking standpoint, this also minimizes variables and improves data measurement. Featuring high contrast action buttons on our site also helps prompt decisions. There is a sweet spot on a commerce site between presenting an overwhelming array of options, and too few choices – which we assess through A-B testing. By starting simply and building complexity slowly we build a baseline control scenario, then vary choices simply off the baseline to improve results.
The entrepreneur seeking to truly achieve a social mission must plan for both the short and long-term. In the short-term, it is critical to build milestones which will demonstrate financial feasibility and sustainability for potential investors. However a long-term perspective is also essential, particularly when one is interested in long term behavioral and economic impact.

You can contact Jason Langheier at j@zipongo.com

Key Words: Internet, Social Media, Food, Insurance, Health, Common, Interest, Software, Bridge, Entrepreneur, Partnership for a Healthy America, Incentive, Tracking, Reward, Commitment, Behavior, Change, Friend, Simple

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