Posts made in June, 2009
How Firefox Got Grassroots Marketing Right
Firefox is implementing a variety of grass-roots marketing strategies to advertise the web browser rated second only to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. What are some examples of these ingenious strategies? Consider the following: FastestFirefox.com, Mozilla Campus Reps, Mozilla Community Store, Mozilla Labs, and SpreadFirefox.com.
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Hunch.com launches today – a true decision engine beyond Yahoo
Hunch decision engine assists users in doing just that- making decisions through a Q & A interface. Users can utilize questions already in the system or they can create their own. When the final result to the question arrives, users can tell Hunch whether they agree or disagree.
Read MoreWomen and their Purses
Should a man carry a woman’s purse for her? Get the male perspective on women’s purses on “That’s What He Said.”
The latest video from our Colgate Wisp series.
Read MoreMarketers, your audience has a big head start…
I attended the Philadelphia American Marketing Association meeting and award ceremony last night in Center City and met some of the most talented marketers in the area. The Keynote speaker was John Owens of ING Bank who concentrated on the importance of social media and marketing. He stressed that it is not going away and you need to be a part of it. He’s absolutely right! ING has a team dedicated to social networking and is brand that “gets it.” As marketing consultants, we have the ultimate responsibility of strategizing, managing and measuring our client’s campaigns in the most effective and efficient way possible. We also tend to gravitate towards media that we’re comfortable with. Time to step out of your comfort zone!
At one point in the presentation Owens kindly asked everyone to stand and cluck like a chicken – which most did (including me, I hate to admit). The point he was trying to make, an extremely valid one and one my father always reinforced (as a Naval Officer), was “never follow.” It’s the easiest way to run your ship aground! Of course, that’s a great life lesson as well but with regards to social media, what works for one brand might not work for yours or your audience. Your efforts must be customized. I know you’re saying “yeah, yeah, yeah, Meg…we know that…nothing new here.” Here’s the kicker, you’re not in control anymore! Your audience is. The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be. They are the driving force now and your efforts must be customized to how they want to receive information.
My best advice is to listen. If you didn’t hear that…I said LISTEN! So what the hell does that mean, Meg? It means that your customers/clients/supporters/haters are out there talking about you/your products/your industry/your brand right now. They’re praising you. Hating you. Referring you. Comparing you. You need to know what they’re saying. So listen! There are many free applications out there to do just that. Try Addictomatic.com where you can plug in keywords and see where conversations are happening relative to that word(s). Or buy a “listening” application that is more robust like Radian6 that can measure sentiment, tell you if most people are mentioning you in blogs or on Facebook or Twitter. As marketers, I don’t have to tell you how valuable this knowledge is!
In the end, it all comes down to ROI. With social networking, it’s not as easy as tracking a lead from a website to a sale and generating a cost-per-lead/cost-per-sale. With social networking, you have to determine what a “win” is for your company. Is it exposure that your company otherwise could have never afforded? Is it market research – identifying trends in your target markets? Is it driving traffic? Engaging your consumers? The ultimate “win” is a sale – no doubt – but folks, again, you need to be doing this so don’t use ROI as an excuse. Pick a win and go with it. You don’t have a choice anymore! If you build it, they will not come! You need to go to them and they have quite a head start on you!
Contributed by Meg Ferguson
Read MoreSimple Ways to Measure Your Social Media Efforts
Brands are used to tracking their results when it comes to marketing, whether online or off. There are certain methods for calculating your return on investment which are usually rather straightforward.
Along comes social media marketing and suddenly measuring your ROI is not so cut and dry. I am often asked how you can tell whether the time you’ve spent on social media activities is really making a difference. Here are some easy (and free) ways to help determine whether your social media efforts are sizzling–or fizzling.
Profile engagement: In other words, are people in your target market commenting on your Facebook wall, inviting you to join groups on LinkedIn, replying to you on Twitter, and so on?
Blog comments: This will tell you not only that your content is fresh, interesting and worthy of reading–but that readers are willing to stick around and take the time to engage you.
Blog subscribers: If readers like what they see and want to be kept informed of each time you post, you can be sure you’ve struck a chord with them–and increased the possibility that they will respond positively to offers you make in the future.
E-zine subscribers: If the visitors being driven to your site by social media are being converted into newsletter subscribers, you know that you have appealed to them enough to further the relationship with you. Getting their permission to communicate with them on a regular basis will only strengthen the “KLT” (know, like and trust) factor.
Website metrics: A free tool like Google Analytics makes it easy to see your unique visitors, time spent on the site, page views per visitor, frequency of visits, conversions and more.
Social bookmarking/social news: Are your blog posts being bookmarked or voted up on sites like Delicious, Digg and StumbleUpon?
Followers and friends: I will be the first person to say that quantity doesn’t always equal quality–but it is one indication of whether you’re being seen, heard and offering something of value.
Links from other blogs: Are other relevant sites linking to yours? This means you are providing valuable content as well as posting with consistency.
Products/services sold: The ultimate goal, of course. All of the indicators above help give you a clearer picture of whether it’s likely this goal will be reached.
So, it comes down to: Are you findable? Are you being seen as an expert? Do people want to find out more about what it is you do?
Read MoreAbout Me
Proud father, devoted husband, Founder and Chief Creative Officer of Big Fuel, a full-service marketing and communications company based in New York that takes brands from Content To Commerce.
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