marketing . web . design

e-Marketing v. Traditional (Part 1)

TTimes2 — Mon, 18 May 2009 12:00:43 +0000

The benefits of e-Marketing over traditional marketing are simple. The power of Internet-based marketing or advertising allows a company to extend its Reach, Scope, Interaction, Immediacy, Targeting, and Adaptive access to potential or current customers. These new avenues allow a company to do more with a smaller budget while providing the company with a real-time ability to Analyze. With an immediate measurement of the results of marketing initiatives, responses to and effectiveness of a campaign allows the marketer to be far more dynamic in adapting to current and prospective customer wants and needs.

Internet marketing allows the marketer to reach, interact, and provide an immediate impact to a vast customer base in a wide range of ways, enabling the ability to offer a wide range of products and services. e-Marketing includes, among other things, information management, public relations, customer service and sales.

Effectively, Internet marketing makes business hours 24 hours per day, 7 days per week for every week of the year. Generally speaking, the demographics of e-Marketing are a marketer’s dream. Savvy marketers who know where to look can quite easily find access to the niche markets they wish to target making the e-Marketing message far more effective because they are presented directly to a targeted market most likely to be interested, which creates the perfect environment for niche marketing. By closing the gap between providing information and eliciting a consumer reaction, the consumer’s buying cycle or interest is speeded up allowing marketing budgets to go much further in creating immediate leads.

Additional advantages of e-Marketing over traditional marketing are the abilities to have real-time marketing responses that can be analyzed and tweaked continuously. Combined with the immediacy of the Internet as the e-Marketing medium, expenses are minimized on less than effective e-Marketing campaigns. Maximizing marketing efficiency with e-Marketing strategies creates new opportunities to seize competitive advantages. These factors result in an improved ROI and ultimately more customers, happier customers, and an improved bottom line. With the range of new technologies becoming available all the time, this scope can only grow.

People Like Control

zacheos — Mon, 04 May 2009 15:01:55 +0000

In general, people require control over their environment. Don’t believe me? How else can you explain why a person who drives a car after consuming half a bottle of scotch will freak out if the airplane they are on experiences minor turbulence? People, by nature, need control over their surroundings – it is integral to their self concept and sense of self esteem. In a study, a group of subjects were told they would have to endure a battery of tests. Providing some subjects with the completely pointless power to control the order the tests were given actually had a substantial effect on the participant’s anxiety levels. What does this tell us about marketing? In a short, everything.

Take a moment to give some thought to this idea. What are some ways to provide your customers with control? Perhaps give them a sense of control over the buying process, offer customized payment options and return policies, and offer special protection in the event that your customers do loose control over their surroundings.

Any of this sound familiar? It should. This is exactly what the major automakers are doing right now. They are scrambling over each other to offer better payment plans, special return policies, and buyer protections to those that happen to loose their jobs.

Why did it take a global recession and near bankruptcy for the marketing teams at the major automakers to do their jobs? I guess when you spend years in control of the consumer, you forget to share your power.

Everyone Loves Chocolate

TTimes2 — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 12:00:45 +0000

It isn’t all about what you are selling but the way that the products and/or services you provide are marketed and presented. If a company’s marketing concepts/campaigns are lackluster, so will be the sales, regardless of how magnificent or mediocre a product or service is. People will settle for mediocrity so long as the company provides the consumer with an experience that allows us to spend freely and guiltlessly. The “experience” companies should strive to provide should model the exquisite first taste of a Godiva truffle that is provocatively packaged so that one finds its allure undeniably tempting. The “experience” should be intimate and personable, but creatively constructed for all types of consumers.

Louis Vuitton stores are masters at providing a one-on-one intimate sales experience like no other. In addition to their sales approach, they use chocolate to increase the WOW! Once an item is purchased, your personal shopper packages every item individually in a dust cover and then in its own dark chocolate-colored box and topped off with a seasonal bow or leather strap. The customer’s purchases are then placed in a signature dark chocolate bag that screams to the world where you just came from. Louis Vuitton’s and Godiva’s marketing concepts are to allow the consumer to feel great about their purchase and extending the “experience” to that of a gift. Their product presentation is that of a gift, and who doesn’t like to unwrap a gift? Louis Vuitton and Godiva both have exceptional products and they are marketed, displayed, and provided to the consumer in a manner that evokes emotion and extreme satisfaction. Even a mediocre product or service that is marketed, displayed, and presented in a fashion that creates a “memorable experience” will sell well, and likewise, a great product or service that is marketed in a plain and status quo manner will not sell well, or at all. The take away is this: package your product, refine your service, and market the experience, not the sale.

Identify Your Loyalty

zacheos — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:00:13 +0000

It is critical to identify your consumer loyalty to learn from and respond to your customer base. Are there specific products or services that show considerable loyalty, demonstrated by surveys, consumer feedback, low churn rates? Are there groups of highly loyal customers that can be identified by specific demographic characteristics? Do these customers have sufficient buying power and product necessity to expand or upgrade their relationship with your company or brand? Are these people early adopters that may be more naturally prone to accepting new products? These are all questions that you must ask, and answer, if you wish to truly unlock the buying potential of your most loyal consumer base.

Loyalty is an Asset

zacheos — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 12:00:57 +0000

Customer loyalty is a valuable asset to a company. Beyond being a asset, consumer loyalty is tried an true competitive advantage. Loyalty to incumbent brands makes it much harder and far more expensive for new competitors to enter the market. Loyalty will protect profits, drive down branding costs, and give your company command over the pricing premium of your industry’s products.

In Market Testing

zacheos — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:00:36 +0000

There is no substitute for in marketing testing of new marketing creatives. Try testing your new creatives in market on small scale samples. Real market testing has a major advantage or traditional testing: you can see it an believe it! A product moving from the shelves into the homes of your consumers is far more telling to your higher-ups than a bunch of confusing measurements provided by your market research team. Purchase likelihoods and intentions mean nothing when compared to actual sales.

Merge Markeing and Finance

zacheos — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 12:00:00 +0000

You must develop a common understanding of you company goals and metrics between your marketing and finance departments. Start by having representatives from the two departments identify things that they can agree on. This could be very broad, such as the goals of your marketing initiatives and the metrics for measuring them. Remember that your metrics will likely include quantitative and qualitative reporting. It is necessary for finance to understand the importance of qualitative measures and be on the same page with marketing when it comes time to evaluate your company’s results.

The Six Democratic Principles of Marketing

zacheos — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:21:29 +0000

Following these six democratic principles – on the part of both consumers and marketers – will lead to better marketing.

Exchange

The act of exchange between a buyer and a seller can create value for each and also create value for society. Exchanges are fair, equitable and socially responsible.

Consumption

Marketing offers consumers the opportunity to consume innovative products and services that improve the quality of life. It does not promote the consumption of products that harm consumers.

Choice

Choice strikes a balance between diversity and confusion. There are meaningful differences among choices and benefits, real and perceived, that stem from the provision of different choices.

Information

Marketers inform consumers with minimal intrusion. They make information interesting and relevant. They scrupulously protect the information they collect about consumers.

Participation

Marketers empower customers; engage them in the design and production of goods and services; the solicit, listen to and act on the information customers give them.

Inclusion

Marketers reach out to all consumers; they respect diverse values and cultures.

Excerpted from: John A Quelch (2009) “Holding a Mirror up to Marketing,” Marketing Management, November/December 2008, pp. 21.

Join the Conversation

zacheos — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 16:29:23 +0000

Before you can really get into the world of social media, your company will need a corporate blog. Your blogging strategy can grow and develop over time, that is okay. You can also take some time to really hammer out the details of your blogging strategy from the start (read The Secret Behind Good Content Strategy for more on developing a blogging strategy). In addition to posting regularly on your company blog, you also need to join the conversation online. This includes scanning the web for conversations and posts that relate to your company and industry.

Six Steps to a Social Media Strategy

zacheos — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:58:26 +0000

There are a lot of people that want to develop a social media strategy, but have no idea where to begin. This article provides a Six Step guide to developing a social media strategy. Of course, a fully developed social media marketing plan would be much more in depth, but this guide will get you off the ground and provide a solid foundation for future social media campaign expansion.

Challenge

Supplement an existing PR campaign and lead generation strategies with new social media tactics, and track the results.

The Campaign

This is a six step guide to entering the world of social media to drive visitors, increase lead conversions, and expand your company’s brand awareness. The results will be analyzed in correlation with traditional metrics, such as uniques visitors, bounce rates, leads, sales, and pipeline results.

Step 1 – Create a Blog and Join the Community

In addition to posting regularly on your company blog, you also need to join the conversation online. This includes scanning the web for conversations and posts that relate to your company and industry.

There are a number of tools available to help automate this process, these scanning tools include:

• TweetScan, for following Twitter posts
• Google Alerts, for following industry related news and articles
• Boardtracker, for following technology forums and message boards

When articles, Tweets or forum posts match for your industry related keywords or company name/products, you should visit the sites and join the conversation. Notice, I am suggesting that you “join the conversation.” This is far different from posting SPAM links to your site or in anyway posting links that do not contribute to the conversation. You must be careful here, as you do not want to annoy webmasters. Rather you want to help them contribute to their audience by providing supporting facts and expanding on the topic.

Step 2 – Create a Twitter Profile

There is no avoiding it, Twitter is currently the hot thing in social media. Twitter allows you to supplement your company blog by posting more frequent updates that may be of interest to your consumer base.

Your company Tweets could include:

• Notices of new blog posts
• Webinar announcements
• Trivia questions
• Prize giveaways
• Focus group questions
• Poll of Twitter followers
• Etc…

In general, Twitter users do a lot more complaining than traditional bloggers. So it might be a good idea to keep an eye on what people are saying about your competition. If people are talking your competitors products negatively, this may be a great opportunity to chime in and let them know how your product differs.

Step 3 – Create a LinkedIn and FaceBook Group

Create a group to discuss topics related to your products, services, and industry – not your company directly. If you design websites, don’t create a group centered on your company – instead create a group to discuss best uses of CSS in web design.

Get your staff involved. Have staff members join the group and help start conversations. Encourage your staff to post industry news, interesting articles, and links to other articles on the web.

Step 4 – Modify Your PR Campaign

Try shortening the length of your press releases and include more links. The blogosphere is far different from typical media and off-line journalism – in general, it is lazier! If you want your PR to get syndicated and published on blogs, you need to make it easier for bloggers to re-publish your news.

Depending on your industry, you may also want to experiment with different release times and different distribution sites (check out my list of online PR distribution sites in my Top 100+ List). You may find that bloggers in your industry are night owls. If this is the case, try releasing your most controversial news later in the evening.

Step 5 – Promote Your Network in Company Touch Points

Work your social media involvement into as many company touch points as possible – no touch point is too small! Add social networking badges to your website, blog, email signatures, on hold messages, press releases, direct mail, everything. Encourage your audience to follow your company everywhere!

Consider adding your company’s Twitter feeds to your website and encourage your readers to discuss your company online.

Step 5 – Track Your Results

Track everything you can! Monitor your blog readership, RSS suscribers, Twitter followers, LinkedIn and FaceBook friends and group membership, etc.

Keep tracking your typical metrics, such as web visitors, conversions from AdWords, leads from search traffic, etc. Then compare your traditional metrics along side your new social media metrics. Look for correlation between the campaigns. If you have an article on your blog that gained a lot of viral attention, and see a spike in sales that same week, this may indicate a correlation. One example is obviously not enough to prove cause and effect, but if you continue to track your results over time, you will begin to see real results.

Your turn… Join me in conversation below!