Ideas for Remarkable Online Marketing by @KunalKripalani

Preference. With greater freedom to choose, we as online marketers must enhance our targeting capabilities so that we get noticed by a larger proportion of our potential audience (subscribers, followers and fans.)  I feel like i'm stating the obvious here, but ExactTarget have provided the evidence to back it up:  People don't interact with brands in silos:

There's an overlap between channels like Email, Facebook and Twitter but different audience subsets have their preferred interaction channel. For example, it's a younger audience that is more likely to share your message on Facebook.

The report supports what we have come to accept as best practice content guidelines for engagement:

On Facebook, provide infotainment

On Twitter, it's all about what's new and keeping people informed.

How is Social Media impacting your email marketing?

As email marketers, we are fundamentally interested in finding ways to increase:

• The numbers who click links in an e-mail
• Sales revenue that is generated as a direct result of an e-mail campaign.

Image Source

Even though social network usage has surpassed email, this chart suggests that email still rules the roost.  9/10 US consumers receive promotional email, only 4/10 are followers of a brand on Facebook and only 5% follow on Twitter. However, the results are overly simplistic for 2 reasons:

1. Once customers are given the choice to hear from a business via social media in addition to or in place of email, the gap will narrow. Greater freedom in contact choice is also linked to greater loyalty.

2. Furthermore, the comparison fails to take into account the increased viral potential offered by Facebook. The average Facebook user has 130 friends who could potentially see your brand endorsement and continue to exponentially spread your message. This fact alone is compelling enough to make your social network page the hub of a promotion using WildfireApp, run an e-commerce store using Payvment or do a product launch like SPCA Petfood or Dentyne have successfully done.  With 500 million users worldwide, Facebook is a safe bet, but for data to back up a channel decision, try using Flowtown to build a social profile for each customer.

1. The most elementary of steps is to include social sharing links in your email

It's time to go beyond the default 'email to a friend' option. Here's why:

A Getresponse poll that analysed 500 million emails that included links for Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Digg found found that:

• Overall, social media links improve CTR by 30% (7.2% to 9.4%)
• A Twitter link drives the best CTR: (10.2%) than email without one.  An increase of 40%
• The more links, the more clickthrough (11.2%)
• Interestingly, the social bookmarking service that started it all, Digg, offers the lowest CTR (5.3%)

2. The next step is to create hybrid email that drives traffic to both your website and social media.

More people use social networks than email.  It's prudent for us to position ourselves to adapt to changing contact preferences. So in your email communications, you can demonstrate a compelling reason to connect with you on a social network including samples of the unique content available and remember the entertainment and social-interaction elements that people are looking for.  Balance the email with your regular product offers that customers have come to expect.  Remember, either/or options are better than yes/no options.

Your marketing team should be able to copy/paste the needed HTML code, or you could try using a hosted email marketing provider like iContact, Netsuite or GetResponse that have built-in social media features (including tracking.)

One of the key questions for a business is:

"Which social media channel should I use?"

There is a need to justify the investment of resources. The answer is to focus on the networks that your customers are already using.  Go to where they already are rather than trying a "build it and they will come" approach.  

Furthermore, this is also a way of identifying which social network is likely to be a source of new customers.  Since your existing customers are on the network, it's reasonable to infer that people like them (that like your product) can also be found on that network.  One useful tool to help identify which social network(s) you should focus on is Flowtown.  

It's easy to create social profiles for every person in your email database:

A social profile provides data on a customer's demographics and interests as indicated on the social network and can therefore be used to not only enhance your social media marketing, but also to send more relevant and targeted email communications.

An alternative to Flowtown worth assessing is Rapleaf.

I previously stated that social media is one way to disaggregate your customer database so you're not completely reliant on email. 

Your customers' habits are changing. Don't put all your eggs in one basket.

This chart from Morgan Stanley shows that social networking usage has now surpassed email usage.  Disaggregation is important.

Source: Internet Trends 2010 by Morgan Stanley
Corroborating Source: 2009 Marketing Trends by StrongMail

Furthermore, with this shift in behaviour, comes a shift in marketing budgets. Forrester estimates Social media spend of US$3.1 billion by 2014 versus only US2.1 billion for email.

We are past the tipping point.  Social media can be more effective than email because:

1. You can offer seamless experiences that keep the prospect on one channel and medium throughout the sales funnel, thereby reducing friction.
2. Overcome the noise associated with email marketing and reach prospects through a channel of their preference.  People who ignore your emails may listen to your message via an alternative channel.
3. The perception of a brand on a social network, is a brand that listens.  a brand that cares about me. And that asset - that social capital will deliver you customers that are worth more than those who you are not connected with on social networks.
4. It's easier for a recipient to share your message within a social network, than from an email client.
5. It's faster and easier for you to create a brief (and more easily consumable) post rather than produce a much longer html newsletter.
6. There are more relevant targeting opportunities than was possible with email segmentation, at least in the early stages of the customer lifecycle.

What's critical to remember, is that the tone of social media communications and it's approach is starkly different to email messaging. It's typically shorter and contains more rich media.  It's also a more passive message,  entertaining and has a level of personalisation that is unseen in email marketing.  It's ideally suited for targeting a niche group of subscribers who are interested buyers and / or influencers who are likely to think your message is remarkable enough to share it with their friends.

Here's how you can start integrating social media into your email marketing.

We've all read that followers of brands on Facebook spend more money than consumers who are not fans:

Why do your Facebook Fans spend more?

1. Your brand is front of mind, leading to increased frequency of purchasing and therefore a higher annual spend
2. You have more regular, yet informal contact with the brand, which as a consequence, penetrates your subconscious mind.  We have a greater affinity towards things we are familiar with. ( I studied Neuroscience at university, so I take an interest in these things : )
3. As customers, we feel like brands on Facebook are really listening to us. Since they care more about us than their competitors do, we return favor in kind.

So when situations arise when retail therapy comes to the surface, your brand wins. Triggers for increased purchase frequency:

1. Indecisive moments where you might be thinking about where to eat.  I keep thinking about Giapo Gelato when it's dessert time.
2. Idle time when you might be tempted to make an impulsive purchase. You might be browsing your newsfeed and buy a pair of shoes online that were on sale.  You could be walking down the street and see a Facebook sign in the window of a store that makes a connection to something you saw online earlier.

The Emarketer article reporting on the Syncapse and Hotspex study

The Syncapse Whitepaper describing their research methodology

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As of today, Amazon.com only has 71,477 Facebook Fans - a meager amount for a company of their size, especially when for example, Best Buy has 1,190,477 fans.  Why is this?

A jack of all trades is a master of none.

Try to be all things to all people and end up being no good to anyone.

On the other hand with Best Buy the focus is narrowed to consumer electronics.  If I choose to follow them, I know to expect electronics news and deals.  Further, it seems the more niche we get the greater the potential for community - The social object becomes clear.  For example, Starbucks, synonymous with coffee, has 7,952,792 fans. But go too niche and the audience can only get so big (which is fine too.) For example, the  Frappucino Page has about  2,000,000 followers.

The Hubspot chart above demonstrates a clear opportunity for Amazon, Ebay and Trademe on Facebook:  Form communities around specific movies, TV shows, bands, products and books like this one.

Your company can have a page, but communities also need to be cultivated for your key offerings.

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"Humans have a natural proclivity to want what they cannot have. "Greg Ferenstein,Mashable

Legitimate Concerns with Social Media in the Workplace

1. Intranet security: Malware may be inadvertently downloaded and spread.
2. Bandwidth. Potentially a significant expense:

• 6.8% of all websites visits go to Facebook. 10% of all corporate bandwidth is taken up watching Youtube Videos.

"It is commercially unwise to have a bandwidth free-for-all, especially when you consider that downloading a single half-hour TV show consumes more bandwidth than receiving 200 emails a day for a year."Mark Hutchinson,Managing Director,Telindus

Evidence in Favour of Social Media in the Workplace

“People who do surf the Internet for fun at work - within a reasonable limit of less than 20% of their total time in the office - are more productive by about 9% than those who don’t. “It’s the same in the work place. Short and unobtrusive breaks, such as a quick surf of the internet, enables the mind to rest itself, leading to a higher total net concentration for a days work, and as a result, increased productivity.” Dr Brent Coker,Department of Management and Marketing,University of Melbourne

Productivity:

• If your people are still meeting their deadlines, then does it matter if they spend their down time on Facebook?
• Why do they have so much downtime?  Fair question - You're paying them to work 8 hours a day, but they seem to get their work done in about 4.  Fine, their obviously very productive people.  Give them more responsibility.  They obviously know how to increase operational efficiency and could help you do this business wide.  It's your employees who aren’t connected to the rapidly evolving business climate around them that you can't afford to keep.
• I think the issue has more to do with perception: Your peers walk past your work station and seeing you on Facebook, creating an impression that you're not working.

There's no reason to treat your people like children or residents of some military junta run state.

• When phones were first introduced in the workplace, they were banned for personal calls.
• Today anyone can pick up the phone and tip of the press.
• The point is, your people are not going to. You hired them because you trust them to do a job.  That trust needs to extend to how they conduct themselves in the workplace.
• Further, you have signed contracts with them through which they have agreed to adhere by your policies.

So you don't understand social media and you've heard that its all hype and more likely to cause sensitive information to leak out of the office and harm your brand.  Who did you hear that from?

• Well then you need to learn social media and set an example for how its used in your organisation because not engaging will do even more harm.  A very visible conversation is happening and if you're not participating, then your communications team can't manage your online reputation.

 To succeed in Social Media, it needs to become part of your corporate DNA

Win new clients and give customers a unique experience they can't find anywhere else.  To be able to create these remarkable marketing campaigns, your people need to have a practical understanding of the channel.  It has been common place to hire an agency, but unless you have some familiarity with the channel, how do you know what to look for in an agency?  The inevitable result will be paying too much, getting burned and taking a hiatus from social media.

A first step.  3 options that can streamline information sharing and enhance collaboration that is currently faciliated by legacy project management tools:

• http://www.socialcast.com/
• Yammer.com:  Your company's very own version of Twitter - with a 99% SLA
• A Wiki:  These group collaboration systems are simple, customizable and used by multimillion dollar companies.

“Since I’ve started at Google, I’ve been extremely impressed how well the internal version of Google Buzz (Google Buzz) works to facilitate routing important information to people who need to hear it, and facilitate fast reactions.” Tim Bray, Developer Advocate, Google Inc.

Launch a pilot program to prove the concept. It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

And besides, since most of us own or will be getting smartphones, we can access social media at work anyway. - Corporate policy be damned.

Take the Social Media in the workplace survey. If you're an employer: Do you have a block access to social media? Why? Answer in the comments. If you're an employee:  Do you use social media during work hours? How?  Please leave your answer in the comments section.

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Recently I was asked what I thought about using competitions and giveaways as a way to get more fans on Facebook.  Is it like "standing in a bar and giving stuff away to make friends?"  Here's my response:

It's the same way you built your email database. I think it's not the most creative of options, but it is the tried and tested method of choice.

• Remember that social media marketing offers faster and wider distribution of your message. The more fans you have, the more fans you get via news-feed stories.  For example, if I become a fan, then this is broadcast to all 206 of my friends, who may also choose to become fans. The exposure can be viral.  Also, your website link gets added to my profile as an 'interest' for all to see - so "standing in a bar and giving stuff away to make friends" is only true for one degree of separation. You could run a simple 7 day competition that gives people an exclusive coupon code when they join your fan page or simply offer them the chance to win something.

• For example: Privatebox.co.nz are giving away an iPad, capitalizing on the buzz around this new product to build their Facebook follower base.

In deciding on what enticement to use, It's important to focus on the reasons people choose to follow Facebook Pages:

Results of Source: Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Study via @briansolis

Notice that the two survey results above do not completely agree with one another, but 2 key motivations hold true:

1. Learn about specials / discounts / Exclusive Offers
2. I am an existing customer and / or showing my support of the brand (For example, 2 Degrees Mobile built up a sizeable following before even launching.)

Are you a company that cares? Social Media users are 2X likely to believe that companies are genuinely interested in them:

• 16% of respondents overall thought companies were genuinely interested in them. This jumps to 33% when we segment social media users.

Currently your email database is probably the only way you have of contacting your customers.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket - who knows how peoples' habits will change in the future.

Going forward, I think it's important to dis-aggregate your database so you're not completely reliant on email.   You will need to leverage existing assets like your email database and product pages to build your follower base on Facebook and other online properties that are likely to become more important to recurring revenue in the future. Don't rest on your laurels.

• Email: Even if you run a Facebook competition, I suggest using your email newsletter to help publicize it. You will need to offer some bait: a prize or exclusive offers. It may be as simply as a coupon code exclusively for Facebook followers, or something that integrates a new product or category launch.  If you want to figure out what is most effective in gaining followers, try testing with some Ads on Facebook using variations in the headline and copy (like Adwords, but with much narrower targeting capabilities.) Ads that push traffic to company pages native to Facebook convert better than pushing to external pages. This is because of better continuity and relevance - a conversion optimization issue.)

• Email Database Segmentation: Flowtown helps you identify what social networks your customers are on by matching email addresses.  Within minutes, you can see what % of your audience is on Facebook, Twitter etc.  Thanks to ConvinceandConvert.com for this tip.

• Product pages: Firstin.co.nz have the Facebook Fan box widget on their website.  But now, you can simply add a 'LIKE' button to your product pages.  This way, you can turn your website visitors into a loyal fan base on Facebook. These people may otherwise have not signed up to your email newsletters and as the data below shows, people are more likely to become customers and  recommend you to friends after becoming your fan on Facebook.

Social Media helps you convert prospects and derive recurring revenue from customers who are not interested in email.

Source: Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Study via @briansolis

• Be aware that companies that have multiple product categories can end up with a Facebook page that can fall foul of, as the old adage goes: trying to appeal to everyone and therefore appeal to no one.

• A great model for style, tone, use of offers and cross-promotions on Facebook pages is 2degrees Mobile.

After all the effort of building up a respectable fan base, you will want to know how to turn your social capital into financial capital (paying customers.) But that's a story for another day.  In the meantime, here are lots of Facebook Promotion Ideas.

@kunalkripalani

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The mobile web truly bridges the divide between offline and online marketing.

• Smartphone applications like Foursquare are being used by innovators and early adopters.  Very soon, we may reach the tipping point and see mainstream adoption of location based mobile applications.

• Attempts were made to leverage mobile connectivity using bluetooth marketing, but the onus was on the user to have their bluetooth switched on and be willing to receive an unsolicited message with content that was not always compatible with their handset model. Further, bluetooth has always been more popular with business users than any other niche, severely restricting its audience.
• Text message marketing is still having some success especially with fund raising and voting.  Physical retail stores also use it as a promotional channel to customers who have opted in and the channel arguably works as well for physical retailers as email newsletters do for online retailers.

Fourquare is a clever application that uses game theory, where you earn badges, points and can become the 'mayor' of any location you visit. It is designed to be addictive, making it a powerful loyalty marketing tool and also a great source of recommendations.

• You can leave tips at nearby locations that promote your own store.  For example, anyone who looks at Foursquare tips at Skycity Cinemas on Queen Street will be reminded that you can get Giapo Gelato just 20 metres around the corner.
• As a marketing tool, retailers can use Fourquare to attract customers from surrounding locations and as a loyalty channel, rewarding customers for repeat visits and achieving mayor-hood or as an extension of an existing loyalty card program.
• Right now Fourquare is a secret club.  It has a very exclusive feel to it that retailers can use to appeal to a select group of prospects.  It's also under the radar- classic 'below the line' marketing that doesn't cost you anything, and doesn't get your competitor's attention unless you go out of your way to promote it with a press release.
• You may find that Fourquare only gets you 2 or 3 new customers, but let's remember that popularity takes time:

And it's best that you experiment with & evaluate the opportunities of this social media channel early.

Foursquare is one way you can open your social branch.

Other location based applications that are or could become important: Google Latitude, Facebook Geotagging, Twitter Geotagging, Gowalla, Loopt and Yelp.

Your thoughts? share them @kunalkripalani

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