Posts Tagged ‘social marketing’

Customer relationship marketing is powerful in theory, but troubled in practice. We need to take time to figure out how and why we are undermining our own best efforts.

Perhaps we’re overlooking the fundamental elements of a good customer relationship program. With the means to connect with customers easily, maybe we’re rushing to cash in on the potential rewards, while forgetting the essentials of all relationships: intimacy and trust.

Close examination reveals that relationships between companies and consumers are suffering. U.S. satisfaction rates are at an all-time low. Complaints, boycotts and growing unhappiness with big corporations are strong indicators that most CRM isn’t working.

Ironically, the very steps marketers are taking to build relationships with customers are often responsible for destroying these connections. Companies may delight in learning more about their customers and providing services to please them, but customers are fed up. They’re tired of irrelevant survey questions, overwhelming product choices, features they’ll never use in phone plans and cars, and rebate-driven buyer reward programs.

The New Frontier: Mining the Internet

With the proliferation of online stores that complement traditional outlets, companies now have a tremendous source of information about consumers’ preferences. Because a traditional store may not always have a product on its shelves, purchase results are not always a good measurement of desires. Online stores can track consumer demand patterns more precisely, as they offer extensive ranges of products to national and global customers.

The web is more than a sales channel; it is a powerful means of collecting data in real time. The Internet is truly the new frontier in connecting with the customer, offering a huge opportunity for companies to improve customer relationships.

The New Social Marketing: Buzz and Word of Mouth

Where does marketing enter the mix? Some experts claim the old days of “push” marketing are over, where a company shoved a one-way message to customers via print or TV. Corporations are asking themselves just how much return on investment there really is from a 30-second Super Bowl commercial.

Consumers are turning away from media and, instead, tuning into each other. Engagement and word of mouth marketing are the buzzwords of this new era. Customers are doing their market research online and listening to each other. Unfortunately, many marketers continue to look at engagement in a one-sided way.

Corporate blogs have become an excellent resource for CEOs and others to connect with customers in a personal manner. In spite of the possible pitfalls in opening two-way communication between the public and employees, there is much to be gained by being personable, accessible, authentic and transparent.

Customers are already communicating with each other online about products and experiences with your company. If you can join the conversation in a real way, in real time, you’ll have an advantage over those who remain silent and inaccessible behind corporate doors.

Now there is finally a way to discover what customers want, and a way to connect with them authentically. But there are risks involved in being honest and transparent. Will you and your company take the risk?

Let’s jump right in and talk about how you can use Twitter to conduct your market research. Every business has a target market, but the simple fact is that many business owners often miss the mark because they don’t know the true needs of their market.

By using Twitter, you can easily listen to the needs of your prospects, the issues they are currently facing and the kind of help that they want.

Whenever you meet someone new on Twitter it’s a good idea to try to establish a good relationship from the start. Think like your customer. You buy from people who you trust and like. Your target market also behaves the same way. It is important, especially in social marketing that you get to know your clients and do your best to win their trust and confidence.

A good rule of thumb is to try and keep 90% of your tweets full of helpful content and try to limit your promotional ones. By doing so, you can attract more followers and hopefully customers.

Share Your Expertise

In order to show off your expertise on Twitter you will want to post quality content on your blogs, website and other sites, like article directory EzineArticles.com. Then share them with your followers.

As we talked about in the last chapter, there are a wide variety of tools that work with Twitter that will automatically check the blogs you’ve posted and share them instantly on your page. Offering educational materials, seminars, video training and networking events will also go a long way when you are trying to convert your followers into paying customers.

If you’re not camera shy, plug in your webcam and use this great service that allows you to stream live video on your Twitter page and chat real time with your followers! This will be a fantastic way to make an instant connection for you and your peeps.

You can find out more here: http://twitcam.com

There are so many different techniques that you can use to help the transition from follower to customer by using Twitter. Just remember to keep the value of your content high and the volume of your promotions low and you will begin to see more of your followers clicking on your promo links and turning into customers.

Just in case you missed it… the Web has changed.

I think a little history of the Internet is in order to grasp the big picture. Social networking began with the telephone and it’s proliferation into new media included the BBS. I ran a BBS (a computer people could connect to with dial-up) in the early 1980′s.

The Internet was much different than the Web is today. There was no graphics… it was totally text based and everything was dial up. All you could do was basically post to a newsgroup, post messages on some BBS’s and send email. Internet Marketing as we know it today did not exist.

In time though – a few brave souls ventured out of the shadows and began marketing within the newsgroups. This started wars between the “Purists” and new “Marketers” that I still remember to this day.

You see, the Purists considered the Internet to be their own little playground. They viewed anyone selling something as evil. After all… Marketers had the TV, the Radio, Magazines, Newspapers, etc, etc as an avenue in which to sell their crap. “The Internet is ours” was their battle cry.

They viewed the Internet as a way for them to communicate with each other without having to wade through all the BS advertising – and they could control what was being said. When the evil “Marketer” entered the picture, this all changed – and it changed quickly.

Once the evil Marketer had discovered the Internet as a new marketing medium, the “Purity” of the Internet, newsgroups and BBS’s was destroyed forever.

The Internet was now becoming just another medium for Marketers to sell their wares. It was inevitable and only a matter of time before this happened. But the Purists fought it tooth and nail.

The Newsgroups and BBS’s were now inundated and overrun with advertising. There was so much spam that you could hardly follow a thread or make sense of it. The thread may have started out discussing a subject as “Microsoft DOS” as it’s first post… but it was hard to make sense of it as the evil Marketers would post “off topic” spam ads trying to sell their wares throughout the threads.

As we all know things have changed a lot since those “Caveman” days… the evil Marketers persevered and the Purists lost the War (or did they?)

Jump to present day…

The Purists did not really lose – they just lost a battle ten or fifteen years ago, but they have recently won the War and staked their claim on the Internet as belonging to them with Web 2.0.

Just in case you missed this “coup d’ etat” – give some serious thought to the current environment on the Web and Social Networking specifically. The Web no longer belongs to the evil Marketer. It is back in the hands and control of the Purists and they are once again controlling the conversations.

I know… it sounds like a bunch of BS, but for the most part it is true.

The difference is the Purists have discovered a way to once again “control” the conversations they want to have, while at the same time make a profit from these discussions (i.e. social networking communities).

Welcome to Web 2.0 and Social Networking.

I do not consider myself a Internet “Purist”… I’d fall more into the “Evil Marketer” category. This being the case, like you (if you are an Evil Marketer too) I have to adapt and change the way I do things or I will soon fall to the wayside and die a slow death.

Like the saying goes, “When in Rome… do as The Romans Do” was never a truer statement than it is today.

The way you sell things and market has to change – you are now in Rome.

Marketing as we know it today on the Web is dying a slow death – but it is happening fast. Only those who adapt and change will survive.

The Web 2.0 Marketer will survive this “coup d’ etat”.

Interruption Marketing has lost out to Participation Marketing and the Web 2.0 Marketer will prosper with these changes. It is no longer about forcing our messages down the throats of people – they get enough of that with all the other advertising mediums. It is all about authority, conversations and participating within discussions that other people deem important – not what you feel is important.

Seth Godin has been telling us this very same thing for a few years now – but a lot have not listened.

Why is this? Because it takes work and discipline (and change) to make relationships and participate in meaningful conversations. It is easier to do what I would call “method of the day” or “hit and miss” marketing – at least in the short run. But that is all it is… marketing for the short haul with no regard to the direction the Web is moving.

Like Seth Godin, Jack Humphrey has been telling Marketers they need to adapt and change their marketing methods for years now with Social Power Linking. Jack saw this “coup d’ etat” coming before most and began joining in with the “conversations” while most of us were still doing our marketing basically the same way as the “evil Marketers” of past (and current) – cramming and forcing our message down our visitors throats.

I have posted before on Social Bookmarking and Social Networking and the success I have had with these methods. You can view other posts on this blog and see the results I have had by simply joining in and creating “conversations”.

This is not a fad or a “method of the day”… it is here to stay.

With the direction the Web is heading (we are really already there) – Social Bookmarking, Social Networking, Conversation Participation with links from and pointing to those conversations is the key to being successful for the Web 2.0 Marketer.

So don’t rebel against the “coup d’ etat” – come on it, the water is fine.

In Web 1.0 world, we are using internet banner ads, text ads, email, newsletters as our internet marketing vehicles to drive our marketing message to our potential clients online. Today, internet had been transitioned to web 2.0, new internet marketing strategies are needed to continue be successful in internet world.

With Web 2.0, we need to consider not only the new means of reaching our online audience but also the new nature of the social Web. Weblogs, blogs, and other web 2.0 sites dabbling with social media tools such as wikis, podcasts, videocasting, photo sharing sites, social bookmarking are the key marketing vehicle to drive internet traffic to the targeted websites.

So, as an internet marketer for Web 2.0 world and to be successful in an era where customers are freely discuss your products and services, you should consider the 5 important marketing strategies below:

1. Learn about social media

Social media is one the most important “must know” knowledge in Web 2.0. Thus, the first and foremost, you should participate in and understand social media by learning about it. YouTube, del.icio.us, Flickr, digg, MySpace, and Technorati are examples of new engines that you need to understand in order to effectively use them to reach your markets.

2. Marketing Plan For Web 2.0

You should factor let your visitors to play a more important role in your new marketing plan for Web 2.0. Let your website visitors to create content on your site and pass it a long. You even can your passionate users to create promotional videos about your sites/products, then use them on your local TV channels and post them online everywhere to get maximum exposure.

3. Join & Participate In The Conversation

Social media applications are two-way streets that conversation happens between two or more parties. To get exposure, you can join and participate to these conversation groups. You can join as members to other social media groups of your niche marketing or you can add social tools and services (such as Weblogs, wikis, tagging, video blogs, etc.) to your library Web sites. Enable comments on blogs and allow users to contribute to wikis.

4. Be Remarkable

Social media is a form of viral marketing where interesting ideas and content get passed along rapidly. Hence, in Web 2.0 world, content is the king. You must have contents that attract your visitors that they can use, bookmark, share online / offline and get your content or message pass along.

5. Get Your Content Travel

Encourage visitors to bookmark and tag your content with a click of a button and allow users to repost booklists, book reviews, photos, podcasts, or videos on their own sites. Post your content on sites like Flickr and YouTube where it’s easy for users to find and share it. Make news feeds for new materials such as books, DVDs, talking books, and video feeds so that these materials can be shared by online users and get your contents spread to the internet world.

6. Be part of the multimedia wave In Web 2.0 world, images and static pictures no enough to attract internet users any more, video is the key driver for Web 2.0. Statistic shows that more than 100 million videos being download daily. So, the effective of video marketing must not be overlooked. Create short videos and post them to YouTube and other video-sharing sites.

In Summary

These are just a few strategies about marketing in a Web 2.0 world. There are still a lot of ideas for social media marketing where you can explore and integrate into your web 2.0 marketing plan.

Forum marketing or Social Marketing can truly be another great hidden source to add to you’re over all Internet marketing. It is a place were people with similar interest gather to discuss all types of topics for that subject.

How affective is it for your Internet Marketing and generating website traffic?

Forum Marketing can help in many different ways when it comes to marketing your website, here is how:

First you want to find a discussion board or forum that is targeted to your website theme. Think of it like this would you market your website about jewelry to a forum about cooking? The answer is no.

Participating in forums can help you and your website build an expert status online by posting answers to questions others have in a specific topic.

Never posted in forums before?

First thing you should do before just jumping in and posting wildly, take a look around and see what other are posting about, view the set up and feel the mood of the forum.

Once you have a good understanding of the forum then you can start participating in this targeted marketing platform.

Note: There is a sign up process for most good forums. Process is simple and only takes a few minutes. Forums normally use sign in to help better monitor the forum and protect it from spamming.

Keep in mind that most forums do not allow advertising in their post and the regular participants of these forums can smell an ad from a mile away. This way of using the forums will not make you any friends so keep your content exactly that content. Add value to the forum by providing your own unique quality copy.

Forums allow a signature line were you can place a small description about your business along with a link to your website. Here is where your link popularity can climb and climb steadily as new post creates new fresh content that the search engines love.

Search engines pick up and index forum posts high so be sure to include important keyword rich topics and content in every forum posts so they will attract targeted traffic for your website through your popular keywords.

Consider Forum Marketing as part of you Internet marketing strategies, it can have many benefits for your website and business that you may not have thought about.