Tagged: Marketing

With unemployment rates reported at 8.5% in March (the highest it’s been since 1983), it’s a sobering time for business and a back-to-basics time for marketing. Everywhere I turn, experts are touting a return to simplicity in order to weather the recession-storm.

Several months ago, when some of us may have still somewhat been in denial about whether we were even actually in a recession, I came across a great banner ad for JELL-O on a consumer magazine website. The ad messaging made no bones about times being tough:

Even when you’re on a budget
You can still feel rich
and chocolatey too.

While consumers are watching their food budgets and heading back to basics (NPR reports that cooking lessons are on the rise, with more people trying to prepare meals at home), businesses also need to spend smarter by focusing on fundamentals like ROI. And there’s no better way to watch the numbers than to focus marketing dollars on digital, where click-throughs, test pages, and conversions are clearly quantifiable.

It’s true that necessity breeds ingenuity, and SolutionSet has the right blend of digital marketing experience and creative design to do a lot with a little. It’s what the Haggin Marketing family calls “BrandActional.”

One of our clients wanted to update their site in an effort to drive more conversions, but needed to justify the cost of making site enhancements. We engaged with them and installed user tracking software (ClickTale) to be able to quickly (and at low-cost to the client) track and understand how users were interacting with their site. This exploration coupled with reviewing and analyzing their site analytics allowed us to come forth with recommendations that were based on data and user behavior, making it easy for our client to prove the need for these optimizations. The end result was that we were able to suggest straightforward site enhancements that would lead to the client’s end goal of more conversions and ultimately positively impacting the bottom line.

[Thanks to Paige Kobert for providing the above ClickTale success story.]

A website is an organic entity.  A lot of effort goes into the creation of the website, from the strategy, through the design and development leading to the launch.  However, once launched an equal amount of effort (at least 50% of the launch budget) needs to be allocated to the support and evolution of the website.  This is something that is often omitted from website planning efforts.

The plans and budgets for an initial website launch will be constrained by several factors according to the scope/purpose of the site. The constraints may come from scope, budget and/or availability of content, but will nevertheless force the marketing/web team to focus on the necessary elements within their control to be able to launch the site.  The simple fact is that there is never enough time or money to launch the “perfect” site and that a pragmatic approach to the scope will ultimately lead to success.

Once the site is launched, there will be several items (features, content, etc.) that did not make it into the launch.  Many of these items will be known, but an equal if not greater number will be unknown as the website has to evolve with the business.  When launching a web property, careful attention should be paid to developing a roadmap to further evolve the site.  This roadmap will vary substantially according to the nature of the site.  For simple sites, it will primarily be a content roadmap further expanding the content on the site.  For others it will be a long list of features which were not addressed in the initial site.  For all sites, it will be the ability to adapt to the business, revenue and marketing goals of the business.

Thus, we need to think of a website launch as the beginning of a journey, rather than an end in and of itself.

In November 2007, when the Facebook community revolted against the launch of Beacon in response to the sharing of Facebook users actions when they visited participant’s sites, there was more to learn about that event beyond the fact that the Facebook ad strategy needed a little bit more tweaking. On the face of it, people reacted to issues around privacy. Who wants their friends to know what pharmaceutical drugs they were buying or self help books they are reading? But you can’t blame Facebook for trying. They were attempting at finding an organic way to bring advertising to their successful social community. And while the Beacon backlash brought a public outcry, it’s clear Facebook will be successful in finding the right advertising model.

The real story is how the Facebook community reacted. They responded as any regular person would when one of their friends gave away a secret they confided them with. They were betrayed by their friend Facebook.

Nevertheless, it seems everybody wants to be in on the social media action. While some may view this as a passing fad, many forward-thinking and entrepreneurial agencies and marketers are working hard to capture new expertise to be able to launch social media strategies for their clients. They are attaching social media elements to their otherwise traditional campaigns as a check off for tapping into the social network goldmine.

Social media is in its infancy. It is feeling its way around, bumping into a few tables along the way, as evidenced by the backlash over Beacon. Nevertheless, the social media space will become a cornerstone channel for all brands to reach their audiences. In the meantime, it will take some growing and change on the part of the marketers and audiences to come to an agreement on how they will coexist together in this new age of the digital world.

It’s ironic, actually. The more advanced we’ve become with our technologies, the closer the web has come to mirror social rules and human behaviors. In the face of these new innovative and complex technologies, the space is actually becoming simpler to navigate, not more complicated. People control the web; we make it what it is. So, it naturally will become an extension of all of us.

Micro before macro

The new digital world before us today is a social one. It’s about relationships. People and Brands alike need to connect on a social level.

The only thing macro about social networks is that you can create these relationships in large numbers and quickly. That’s why it’s so appealing. The secret is in the micro.

Launching a successful social media program boils down to one simple concept – Building relationships one at a time. People don’t make friends en masse. Friendships are formed via commonality, mutual respect, understanding, entertaining, compassion, loyalty, trust and reciprocation. You never win friends by marketing or advertising yourself to them. That’s what you call pushy. You do what regular people do to make friends. Be real.

Let’s break down a successful social media program:

Yelp.com is a social media based publishing site launched about three years ago. It includes reviews on all things from bars, restaurants, shops and interesting places submitted by real people. Yelp is definitely not the first in its space. Citysearch.com has been around for a much longer time (since 1995 as a matter of fact). Yet Yelp, in just three years, has emerged only slightly behind Citisearch and significantly ahead of Zagat.com. The reason why Yelp has been so successful is that is has so cleverly allowed the best qualities of between friends to be mirrored on their site.

• Personal – All reviewers have profiles and identities. If you like one person’s taste in restaurants you can actually look up all of their reviews to see what else they like.
• Trust and Transparency – Yelp is very restrictive with advertisements. They clearly mark and review any advertisements not are not from the community.
• Entertaining – The community allows for a breadth of personalities who contribute to the reviews which make the experience that make more rewarding.

Yelp.com passes the friend test. They didn’t do anything that a good friend wouldn’t do.

So the next time you think about creating a social media campaign, try approaching it from this angle. Test your idea on the varying aspects that make up a good friendship. You’ll be surprised how many friends you and your brand can make.