Posted by Brian Snider
When tasked with trying to beat really good creative work, what is the best way to get your creative team to get breakthrough results?
Our agency brainstorms areas such as product positioning, offer, and formats for starters. For now, I'd like to focus on how the presentation of the products' key selling proposition (KSP) can offer big dividends as we just proved for one of our major clients --a Fortune 500 Insurance firm. Although we can't give out specifics (confidentiality), I can say that our new approach is giving the client a 73% lift in response!
What we can say, is that the "aha" breakthrough was in the copy approach ---using more numbers than words ---changing the strategy such as showing dollar amounts vs. percentages, that sort of thing...plus I'm sure the clean, crisp design and format had a part as well.
We also found out that shorter, straight-to-the point copy worked better as well. In creating breakthrough results, it's all about finding the right formula for driving home that unique selling proposition and getting the customer to act on your offer...and that's why you need to test...test...test!
Posted by Brian Snider
How Much is a Google Top Spot Worth?
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Chitika, search-based online advertising network, reckons that top rankings on Google is worth double the traffic of ranking in the number 2 spot, in a report announced on their blog today.
It's an important metric for search marketers everywhere, as it's the single most important consumer behavior in our business. Aside from emerging trends in social media sharing, this single behavior surrounding the top spot of Google is the most monetized on the internet.
Just think what would happen to our industry if users did actually look beyond the first set of results? Yes, that's right, we'd all be librarians. Anyway, even if you have known that being number one is important, did you know *how* important it was?
Chitika decided to find out what it was worth to them by looking at a sample of traffic coming into its network from Google and broke it down by Google results placement. The top organic position drove 34.35% of all traffic in the sample, almost the combined total of positions 2 through 5 slots, and more than the combined total of traffic to longtail positions, 5 through 20 (the end of page 2).
"Obviously, everyone knows that the #1 spot on Google is where you want to be," says Chitika research director Daniel Ruby. "It's just kind of shocking to look at the numbers and see just how important it is, and how much of a jump there is from 2 to 1."
The largest behavioral jump, measured as a percentage-change, is from the top of page 2 to the bottom of page 1. Going from the 11th spot to 10th sees a 143% jump in traffic, proving that a very small percentage of users click through to the second page whilst searching online.
This research confirms what many search marketers know or suspected already from behavioral experiments on SERPs involving heatmaps and other research. Yet it's nice to see an independent study from the webmasters point of view. Let's hope other large networks in other industry niches conduct a similar experiment.
It proves, once again, that your website really needs to be on the first page of results to get any real chance of being seen. And to build a successful business online you really need to get your website into positions 1-4 for a variety of terms - those specific Google positions, combined, command a whopping 70% of all traffic to websites!
Posted by Brian Snider
Twitter blew onto the scene with its 140 character limit to messages, offering a succinct way to stream information to anyone who chooses to read them. On the surface it seems inane. Who wants to hear about what someone fed their dog or how they can make $1000 a day by paying $39.95 to buy into someone else's system? And yes, there are loads of inspiring quotes from famous and non-famous people. These sorts of things are on Twitter, but how can they help your business?
In most cases, they won't, at least not directly. But neither will a lot of traditional media, which costs much more money. One beautiful thing about Twitter is that it only costs time. You can have someone send out a tweet once or twice a day and go on to other tasks. Once you get a feel for how it can help you and your business, Twitter can become an invaluable tool.
Here are a few suggestions about what you can do with it:
- Use Twitter to create a list of potential clients. Tweeting only about your business, however, won't usually get you too many followers. Many of the top tweeters have quotes or a catchy phrase followed by a link that encourages someone to visit a website and in turn buy a product or service.
2. Develop relationships with customers. The brevity of tweets means people have to cut to the heart of a matter, or else lose the interest of other tweople (yes, that will be a word one day). It allows you to share information about your products or services and allows customers to briefly tell you what they like (or don't like) about them.
3. Share information. It is excellent for engaging people in this digital age, and if you want to share more information, just Twit it, which will create a tinyurl out of any domain that will fit neatly into a Tweet. Thus with the push of a button you can share information directly with hundreds or thousands of people. An additional bonus is if others distribute your message for you by re-tweeting it.
4. Use it for market research. You can see what other words people are using to find out information about your area of business, which helps with choosing SEO words for websites or blogs.
5. Networking. By building a network of people in your industry, you will expand where and to whom you market. Say your business involves roofing. A sizable construction company that's been following you (perhaps even without your knowledge) sees your tweet and asks you to bid on a project. So all that time you were wasting Twittering wasn't really a waste after all.
There are numerous strategies and sub-strategies that can help grow your business, and these are but a few. The main thing is you keep at it, tweet several times a day and keep it interesting for your audience.
Posted by Brian Snider
Social media marketing is all about developing more personal relationships with customers, so on the surface it doesn't make any sense whatsoever to outsource your social media marketing efforts. You want people who know your business, who are intimately involved in it, and these same people should have a real stake in the business.
Yet marketing through social media takes time, and lots of it. Many companies until recently considered social media sites as time sinks, and it was often company policy among many businesses just a few years ago to ban employees from going onto Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, and other social media sites. That has changed as businesses realize the true scope of the marketing opportunities that social media presents.
Before exploring whether to have an employee conduct a marketing campaign through social media or getting someone outside the company to do it, a business should take a look at what they hope to accomplish through using it for marketing. Bigger businesses can utilize social media to create a friendlier image to the public and to relate on a more personal level with their customers. Small businesses can benefit too by expanding their reach without sinking a lot of money into an advertising campaign, though the time it takes for an employee to effectively market should be considered in this as well.
Big businesses can designate a whole team of people to interact with a company's customers on social media sites. They can also afford to hire people who are experts in social media marketing. A small business may find that one of their employees with experience in the area may be the best for the job.
For example, a couple hours a day will allow John, who has been on Facebook for a couple years and who has thousands of friends but who mainly just plays Mafia Wars and Farmville, to promote the business. Perhaps you can see where this is heading...
Who will more efficiently achieve a company's business objectives? That is the key question that any business needs to answer before considering whether its employees or an outside consultant should run a company's social media marketing campaign.
There are benefits and drawbacks to both scenarios. Perhaps ABC Social Media Marketing Consultants has a flashy website and an impressive clientele, but most of their staff are actually college drop outs who figured out how to grow networks but know very little else about social media, or the companies for which ABC works for that matter. Nor do they particularly care. Then suppose that Lisa, a company salesperson, has used Twitter to effectively increase her own sales. Which person will do a better job? Now, you could say that taking a couple hours a day away from Lisa's sales position could decrease the company's sales. Yet looking at it from a more long term perspective, Lisa knows the company, knows the products the company produces, and her enthusiasm for social media and the company are intertwined, making her a logical choice.
The truth is, if a business has someone who is savvy about what social media can do to help a business, they should use that person's knowledge when planning to run any social media marketing campaign. At the very least, this person should liaise with whoever ends up running the company's social media marketing campaign. If outsourcing, then the consultant involved in helping a business promote itself through social media should have an excellent understanding of the company's products/services, and know how to effectively engage with the target audience.
Yet before companies consider strategies regarding social media, they should understand what it does and can do for them. Social media is a little like online customer service that interacts with people in real time, where companies listen to and interact with their customers. Unlike customer service lines, however, where mostly people call with complaints about a product or service, social media engages consumers personally, though without any real expectations. If a company's goals for its social media marketing can be achieved through use of an expert consultant and there is no one in-house with ample experience, then outsourcing should definitely be considered. If, on the other hand, a company has a competent employee or employees with experience, who understand the company's social media marketing vision, and they have the proper amount of time to devote to this effort, then social media marketing should stay in-house.
To put it simply, when considering outsourcing or doing it yourself, it depends on what the company hopes to accomplish with any social media program and what resources are available (both monetary and personal).
Posted by Brian Snider
In the new economy, how can companies give away so much and still make money?
Today’s savvy consumer knows they can surf the web and find just about anything they need to know for FREE. Hit the search engines, and you’re off to finding your answers. With traditional media (direct mail, telemarketing, TV) it used to be, give away a watch, backpack, or DVD FREE with a paid offer. Now more and more dollars are being diverted to “getting mindshare”–getting prospects/customers to your online presence… engaging them with free content and a community experience, and then presenting them with your premium offer.
Here’s a perfect example:
Comedy’s legendary Monty Python members–you know, “I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK,” the Killer Rabbit, the Dead Parrot —were tired of seeing their legendary sketches pirated and posted on YouTube, free to whoever wanted a quick laugh. So they posted their own, higher-quality versions on YouTube–also free–but let fans know that complete DVD versions were available for purchase. As a result, sales rose 23,000 percent!
There are many examples of how companies are monetizing “free” in Chris Anderson’s new book, Free: The Future of a Radical Price (Hyperion, $26.99). According to Anderson, “people are making lots of money charging nothing. Not nothing for everything, but nothing for enough that we essentially created a country-sized economy around the price of $0.00.
Bottom-line: Allure your prospects/customers with the right price ($0.00); get them to embrace your brand with helpful tips, customer forums, etc. and soon their mindshare will turn into walletshare.
Posted by Brian Snider
Today’s consumer now struggles with weighing “value” in a product or service and “values” in what they want and expect from companies –according to a recent Harris Interactive poll.
That should come as no surprise considering the bailouts, bonuses and bad business behavior that all combined to erode the overall reputation of corporate America to its worst standing in ten years. Technology remains the highest rated industry, but its reputation declined along with six other industries, with the Automotive industry reporting the greatest decrease ever.
Despite this free-fall in Corporate America’s image among consumers, Johnson & Johnson, Google, Sony, Coca-Cola, Kraft, and returning to the list of Most Visible Companies, amazon.com, all received RQ scores that categorize their reputations as “Excellent”. An RQ score of 80 and above is considered “Excellent”.
“While the overall reputation of Corporate America has never been worse in the eyes of the general public, greater understanding of and credit for working diligently to build and maintain a good reputation has never been stronger,” says Robert Fronk, Senior Vice President, Senior Consultant, Reputation Strategy at Harris Interactive. “The RQ study also validates that both corporate behavior and corporate communication play a major role in how a company is perceived.” And, this theory is also reinforced by the following definition of a brand by Scott Bedbury in “A New Brand World” –
” A brand is the sum of the good, the bad, the ugly and the off-strategy. It is defined by your best product as well as your worst product.. It is defined by the accomplishments of your best employee…the mishaps of the worst hire you ever made…the music your customers hear when put on hold…the finely worded statement by the CEO..but also consumer comments overheard in the hallway or in an online community. Brands are sponges for content, for images, for fleeting feelings. They become psychological concepts held in the minds of the public, where they may stay forever.”
“The companies that achieved RQ scores that characterize their reputations as either good or excellent have a decidedly value or comfort basis in their businesses”, says Fronk of Harris Interactive. “While the reputations of many of these companies have been relatively stable over time, there is no doubt that in the current economic environment, these two characteristics only serve to reinforce a positive reputation.
The RQ surveys more than 25,000 American consumers in a two-step process, through online and telephone interviews, to first identify the 60 most visible companies and then to rank these companies based on their reputation in six different categories: Emotional Appeal, Products & Services, Social Responsibility, Vision & Leadership, Workplace Environment, and Financial Performance.
The top 10 companies on this year’s list in order of ranking include: 1) Johnson & Johnson; 2) Google; 3) Sony Corporation; 4) The Coca-Cola Company; 5) Kraft Foods; 6) amazon.com.; 7) Microsoft Corporation; 8) General Mills; 9) 3M Company; 10) Toyota Motor Corporation. For a full list of the top 60 companies and other findings visit: www.harrisinteractive.com/RQ.
The six areas that the RQ survey focuses on that influence reputation and consumer behavior include the following, along with the companies that scored highest in these categories:
- Social Responsibility – Whole Foods, Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Microsoft
- Emotional Appeal – Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, amazon.com, Sony, General Mills
- Financial Performance – Johnson & Johnson, Berkshire Hathaway, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Google
- Products & Services – Sony, Johnson & Johnson, 3M Company Google, Kraft
- Vision & Leadership – Berkshire Hathaway, Google, Microsoft, Coca-Cola, amazon.com
- Workplace Environment – Google, Johnson & Johnson, Sony, Microsoft, Kraft
In addition to Wal-Mart and Sony, other big gainers in 2008 included AT&T, Unilever, Royal Dutch Shell, and Nike. Each of these companies has confronted reputation issues in recent years and it would appear that their efforts to mitigate these issues and rebuild a positive reputation are beginning to bear results.
To review selected research from the Harris Interactive RQ survey, please visit www.harrisinteractive.com/RQ.
Hope this gives you some food for thought — Brian.
Posted by Brian Snider
In my last post, we looked at re-tooling the “price” - P in the marketing mix. This week I’d like to hone in a bit on the “promotion” -P.
We all know that marketing expenditures are shifting from traditional branding efforts and media to more direct ROI methods and “customer nurturing” or social media. With budgets shrinking marketers are faced with having to do MORE with LESS. So, what are some of the savvy marketers doing?
Well that depends on what industry you are in, and whether you are a B-to-B or B-to-C marketer. But, one strategy that many marketers have embraced is to focus more on RETAINING customers rather than acquiring new customers. I’m not saying they are abandoning their new biz efforts, but SHIFTING more of the marketing budget towards retention.
If you think about the old 80/20 rule (in the B-to-B world), where 80 percent of your business comes from 20% of your customers, then it really makes sense regardless of the economic climate to keep those customers loyal to your brand. Many companies are stepping up their efforts to identify and nurture the decision makers and influencers in their top 20%. It’s not enough to just focus on one or two individuals in an account, but rather anyone who has an experience with your product or service.
Another main reason is the obvious –it simply costs much less to maintain a customer than to acquire a new one. So, in a downturn when budgets are scarce, it makes sense to change your main focus to maintaining your market share vs. growing it. Some of the tactics being deployed are:
Loyalty programs: Companies that have them are enhancing and promoting them more. Companies that don’t have a loyalty program are creating them. One strategy that is also growing is the “brand ambassador” program. The brand ambassador program can be implemented with various media —direct mail, email, inserts, collateral material, social media, and by word-of-mouth. It’s simplest form is the “referral program” where your friend gets xx and you get xx for referring them. A few more expensive to implement, but bring in a positive ROI are the following social media tactics:
Tap into customers’ enthusiasm with online ratings and reviews. Many marketers have seen an explosion of new sales just because they implemented this feature in their website. One company, eBags expects to yield over $400,000 in profit from a $200,000 investment in one year!
Create a community to energize your customers. This works best if your customers have a passion for your product/service and have an affinity for each other –especially in a B-to-B environment. Constant Contact- an email service provider for small business owners is experiencing an incredible snowball effect from this effort —13000 participants -10% from it’s customer base, with 30% of the community providing referrals. That equates to an 82% growth rate for the company!
More to come..have a great day! Brian.
Posted by Brian Snider
We all know that today’s economy poses a tough challenge for companies of all sizes and industries. But through it all, many organizations will survive and even thrive. How? Simply by changing a few fundamental ways they do business– putting emphasis on creating strong loyalty to their brand and preferably, to the company’s premium brands. And to do this, they are dissecting the 4 “P”s and retooling…quickly. For today, let’s focus on one of the 4 P’s – PRICE.
How you price your product or service in normal times can be a challenge in itself. It’s all about PERCEIVED VALUE. Price too high, well you lose most of the time. Price too low, and your profit margin is compromised, plus you may lose out to higher priced competitors because your product/service is perceived as inferior. (I learned this lesson the hard way when my agency came in at 50% lower than a competitor and we lost the bid. The next time we raised our bid up 45% and won. Did we cut corners? No. We just were able to do the job at a lower cost because of our lower overhead, but our client didn’t care — it was the perception that they would get more VALUE at the higher price)!
In these tough times the game has changed. The key is to find the ultimate price point on what your customers are willing to pay, and to get them to be loyal to your premium brand. You could just simply lower your prices to gain or keep market share–but a healthier approach would be to “repackage” your offer so that profitability is acceptable and the consumer is willing to TRADE UP for your more profitable, premium brand by paying the same for the premium brand as they would for the standard version.
Here’s an example:
Say you have three kinds of hand lotions – regular, advanced and premium. They sell for $4, $5, and $7. They are all packaged in 16 oz containers. The price/oz. is $0.25, $0.3125, and $0.437 respectively. Quite a big jump from standard to premium. But, if you price them all at $4 each and repackage the advanced in a 15oz. bottle and the premium in a 14oz. bottle, the price per oz. is now $0.25, $0.26, and $0.28 –not a big difference in the eyes of the consumer. Now the consumer can buy the premium for the same $4 as the standard–and probably will even though they get 2 oz. less. You will take a smaller profit margin then usual, but you are achieving your objective of maintaining your market share and developing loyalty to your premium brand.
We all have our own pricing models whether they are subscription-based or per project or per piece. I’m sure that you can find creative ways to find the ultimate “P” to help you win in this economy and in good times ahead.
Part 2 of this series will examine another strategy that is a MUST for any organization.
I welcome any comments, views, concerns, topics you’d like to hear about… Have a great day! Brian.
Posted by Brian Snider
In today’s tough economy there are still ways for creative marketers to achieve remarkable results without having to make a major investment —here are two examples:
- Social media – YouTube: Blendtec, a manufacturer of high-end blending machines is one of several great examples of how this medium can yield incredible results –in fact it achieved over a 20% growth in revenue from a $ 300 investment!!! The skinny is this– the new marketing director was amazed at how the blender could grind up wood in the testing center and thought it would be great to show the world a demo of it’s power. With that, he thought of putting “extreme blending” videos on the web. Initially they put the videos up on their website and linked with Digg. Then on to YouTube. Then the explosion took place– 6 million views in the first week! Soon fans on YouTube were suggesting things to grind up –such as the iPhone …and Blendtec obliged. The result: over 60 million views plus appearances on The Tonight Show and The Late Show with Jay Leno.
- Partnerships. Here’s where you really need to think out of-the-box. Customers, suppliers, other organizations in your industry, etc. all have their own market reach that could be tapped with little or no cost. Here’s an example…
The marketing director of a large magazine approached one of their retail advertisers with this promotional concept: promote a sweepstakes contest that would drive the consumer to the magazines’ website to register for a free e-newsletter and to enter into the sweeps contest. The advertiser agreed and paid for the floor banners that were place in the isles of their retail stores. The publisher gave the advertiser exclusive sponsorship and appropriate online exposure. The results: Several thousand folks signed up for the free e-newsletter that has become a revenue generator for the publisher. The retail advertiser increased it’s brand awareness. The revenue generated from this campaign was not divulged, but regardless the cost to the publisher was ZERO since the web work was produced in-house.
Do you have any such stories? Have a great day!
Brian
Posted by Brian Snider
If you’re like me, when you first started hearing about social media (web 2.0) you probably thought it was just a passing fad or something that you didn’t need to deal with. Well, the fact is that it is by far the fastest growing media right now — (I know, most of you bloggers out there already know this, but hey –give me a little slack here–I’m catching on very quickly).
I want to give a little plug for an amazing book I’m reading called “The Groundswell” by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. For anyone who is serious about understanding the business implications and the correct way to approach the Web 2.0 opportunity, this book is a MUST READ.
For those of you who rather not read it, but just want the topline, here goes:
- Know your objectives before you DO ANTHING. That’s right. Don’t just set up a website, Twitter, Blog, etc. without clear objectives of what you want to accomplish. Why? Because you can waste big bucks and time executing the wrong tactics.
- Research your customers/prospects and their “social media behavior”. According to Messgrs Li and Bernoff, you need to identify and dissect the different groups of people and adjust your strategies accordingly. For example, there are 6 categories that make up their Social Technographic profile: Creators- who publish content, Critics -who react to online content, Collectors –who tag and organize content, Joiners –who maintain Facebook pages, Spectators- who consume what the rest produce, and Inactives -they go online but they are not into social media.
- Find an agency partner who has a proven track record in producing successful and measurable campaigns and that can grow with you as your communities take off. Also make sure they begin with your objectives in mind and a clear understanding of what constitutes a successful campaign.
- Make sure upper management is involved. Whatever progams you implement will be a major change on how your organization communicates with your customers. Implemented correctly, it can reap big rewards. A wrong turn, can be devastating.
Cheers!
Brian