I recently came across an interesting article in Advertising Age which quoted a joint study by ComScore and Facebook.  The study stated that brand posts actually reach more friends-of-fans, than fans itself which shows how much leverage social media can really have.  To use the example highlighted in the article, a Starbucks post to its fan page in May reached about 6.5 million of its 24 million fans.  An additional 11 million people were reached by fans "liking" or commenting on the post - these were the friends-of-fans.  Ad Age noted that the 17.5 million "reached" by the Starbuck's post didn't go to the Starbucks brand page, but saw the activity in the form of a news feed or friend's profile view.  Still, a tremendous result and that combined reach of fans and friends-of-fans equates to 8% of total U.S. internet users -- at zero-cost!   The link to the article is below:

http://adage.com/article/digital/a-facebook-fan-worth-depends-number-friends/228923/

                              

I've often heard that, "adults don't really use Facebook or other social media" when we have recommended using social media to clients.  While doing research for the Direct Marketing, Social Media and E-Commerce class that I co-taught in September at St. Joe's Executive Master's in Food Marketing Program with George Latella, I came across an international study from Deloitte that suggests otherwise (chart below).  As of December 2009, almost half of the Baby Boomers and more than one-third of the Matures (65+) use at least one of the major social networking sites.  While that information is now one year old, I would expect it to show dramatic increases in penetration for the older generations throughout 2010.  Imagine my surprise when I got a Facebook friend request from my 83-year-old mother-in-law last summer!  At that time, she had three friends - my wife and her two sisters. 

                              

For as long as I can remember, marketers have been applying animal or human characteristics to their brands to communicate a "brand personality".  But, I don't remember hearing that there was any real "science" behind that.  However, a recent study seems to suggest that there is something to it, afterall.  

In an article in Forbes Magazine, Chris Malone of Relationship Capital Group says, "According to a recent study of more than a thousand representative U.S. consumers, people respond to brands in much the same way they instinctively perceive and judge one another--on the basis of warmth and competence. Companies that understand what really lies behind that dynamic have a chance to win the kind of deep customer loyalty that has been elusive even for highly successful national brands." 

Recently, I had the good fortune of hearing Chris speak about how people view brands to a graduate level class in the Food Marketing Program that George Latella and I co-taught at SJU.  Chris's insights came from the research study his company conducted in July, 2010 using researchers from Princeton University.  One of the conclusions from the study was that there was a statistical correlation between how the brands in the study ranked on "warmth" and "competence" and purchase intent.  The brands in the study were McDonalds, Burger King, Shell, BP, Tylenol, Advil, Minute Maid and Tropicana.

I found this fascinating, and very promising for use in advertising and other forms of consumer marketing communications.  Does this also suggest that brands reaching out to form relationships with consumers through social media is on the right track?  I think so.  The link to the Forbes Magazine article is http://www.forbes.com/2010/09/01/marketing-brands-loyalty-bp-mcdonalds-burger-king-tropicana-tylenol-cmo-network.html

                              

This Friday and Saturday I had the pleasure to co-teach a class for St. Joe's Exec MBA in Food Marketing program with George Latella.  Over the next few weeks I'll publish a series of posts highlighting content from the class and our speakers.  I found this a very stimulating two days, and it was a pleasure working with the 30 food industry executives who signed-up. 

Our speakers were Jeff Greenhouse, who spoke about successful Social Media tactics used by food marketers. Chris Malone, from Relationship Capital Group, who enlightened us on the exciting "Warmth and Competence Model" which shows tremendous promise for brand marketers.  Eileen Acello and John Adams spoke about how important it is to be able craft messages for Social Media campaigns and shared some great examples of how their company, Acello Media, uses writing skills developed in broadcast journalism to create the relevant content needed for successful social media campaigns.

                              

Few marketing efforts are as effective as having professionals recommend your brand to their patients.  A Medical Economics study reported that 88% of the time, consumers purchase the OTC brand recommended to them by their doctor or nurse.  Pretty convincing numbers.  So how do you get a healthcare professional to recommend your brand to their patients?  We have found that a marketer can build programs to get those important doctor recommendations. 

We have documented results from custom sampling programs developed for OTC products in the healthcare, oral care and personal care segments.  Each yielded a significant increase in brand recommendations.  One such example was for an oral care product where a targeted sampling program produced a 252% lift in incidence of recommendations!  Another health product program achieved a 75% increase in recommendation levels.  For both of these programs, the lift was measured by an independent third-party research company using pre and post studies.                

Here are a few sample tactics that proved effective:

• To build and/or reinforce brand awareness, be sure to include sales literature to the medical professional as part of your sample kit which highlights the key patient benefits of your product.
• Consider including a coupon or rebate on individual patient samples to encourage trial and repeat usage.
• Have an easy way for your target professionals to request additional samples if they like them.  Having them enroll, or register, for more samples allows you to grow a proprietary database.   
• Why not ask some additional qualifying questions when they enroll?    Using this information, you can then vary sampling and communication efforts to match key behavioral patterns. 

Coordinating a targeted professional sampling program with your overall marketing plan can be a strategically powerful and cost-effective tool to positively influence brand recommendations. 

                              

The last two posts explained how to use keywords and paid search advertisements to attract prospects to your website. Now that your ad has done its job of drawing qualified leads to your website, the next challenge is to keep them there.  

The landing page or homepage is the first page that the prospect is exposed to, and if they don’t see what they’re looking for, they will leave. Research shows that you have just two seconds to grab a prospect’s attention before they click away.  This is why the landing page needs to quickly give the user what they want and what they need to proceed. This is achieved by making sure the content on the landing page is relevant to the keyword that the user searches. In our last post we used the example of searching for a Phillies jersey. Let’s take that one step further. In order to convert the prospect into a buyer, when they click on your advertisement, they should be taken directly to the page containing the jerseys so that they can easily add that to a cart and checkout. If they are directed to a home page where they have to search even further, conversion rates will significantly drop off. The concept does not just apply to those looking to make a purchase. It also applies to users seeking information such as for a specific service.  

To go along with that idea, it is crucial that your main message and the most substantial information on the website, is “above the fold”. In other words, you want to make sure that the prospect has enough information to make a decision on whether or not to explore your site without having to scroll down the page. 80% of prospects’ time spent on websites is on reading the content above the fold. [1] While you want to make sure that you are grabbing attention with the copy on your page, it is important to be cautious of its length. Keep sentences and paragraphs short. If you overwhelm the reader with a significant amount of content, they will quickly lose interest. Keeping your message clear, simple and easy to find will help stop reader fatigue and will increase conversions. 

Does your landing page help prospects complete their goals quickly and easily?

                              

Last week’s post discussed the importance of keywords and their effect on the visibility of your website in search results. This week we want to focus on paid search advertisements in particular, and ways to improve clicks and conversions. Paid search advertisements are those that appear along the top and on the right side on the search engine results page (SERP). Online ads allow you to reach prospects at the exact moment when they are searching for your type of service or product. When you create an ad using a product like Google AdWords, you control how much you spend for each click, and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad. This is sometimes referred to as pay-per- click. The elements that make up an ad are the headline, descriptive text, the display URL, and the destination URL.  

When using paid search advertisements, there are several elements that you need to include in the ad to be more effective. First and foremost, you want to make sure that the keyword that you are paying for is actually in the advertisement itself. The keyword should usually be in the headline of the ad and in the description. The ad needs to be compelling enough so that prospects will click on it, and also descriptive enough so that you are not getting unqualified leads on your site. Unwanted traffic on your site will not lead to conversion and you will have to pay every time they click on your ad. The advertisement should also include a call to action with some type of incentive to motivate prospects to click. To many marketers, this may seem like a no brainer. However in a recent study conducted, out of the advertisements that were examined, 66% did not provide a call to action that conveys urgency and a reason to click the given link. [1] An example of an effective advertisement would be as follows: 

If a consumer is looking to purchase a Phillies jersey, your ad should read something like, “Phillies Jerseys for Men, Women and Kids. Save 15% off your Jersey Now”.  This has a clear incentive in the call to action, and it also specifies the product that the website will sell by including the keywords in the ad copy.  

Are you using online ads as part of your marketing strategy?

                              

When designing a website, search engine optimization needs to be a top priority. Search engines such as Google, rank websites using specific algorithms which consider keywords, relevance and popularity. The higher the ranking, the closer to the top a website will appear on the results page. Keywords play a significant role in ranking a website, no matter what search engine is used. When designing or updating your website, it is important that you are selecting relevant keywords or phrases because they will help to determine the visibility of the site when a search is performed.   

When trying to determine which keywords or phrases to select, it is important to be as specific as possible to the content on your site. Once you have a list of keywords generated you can use utilities such as the Google Keyword Tool to evaluate the popularity of the term and how frequently it is searched. Where many companies are missing the mark is in their organic search results. Billions of dollars are being spent by Fortune 500 companies on paid search term. However these keywords are not landing these companies’ websites high in the natural/unpaid search results. Over 52% of Fortune’s 500 largest companies have no organic search visibility when their keywords are queried. Organic search rankings are important because studies show that 80% of users’ clicks occur on the natural search results rather than the sponsored links.[1] 

Not only are the keywords themselves important, the location of the keywords is also a significant factor to a website’s rating. Keywords should be located in the domain name, page titles, headlines, links, copy, meta tags, etc. The specific algorithms used by search engines give different weights to the location of the keywords, and this helps to determine ranking.  

Many companies have found it useful to diversify their selection of keywords to help cut costs and to stay ranked higher than competitors. This expansion includes bidding on keywords that may be misspelled or mistyped. If a word is commonly misspelled, it might be in the best interest of the business to bid on that keyword in order to be assured that they will still appear in the generated results.  

Search engine optimization is an on-going process. Websites, specifically e-commerce and those that want to attract high traffic volume, need to make sure that their keywords and phrases are frequently monitored and updated. 

                              

In my last post, I discussed the basics of mobile marketing and the benefits it offers businesses. There’s no doubt mobile marketing is on the rise, but it is most effective when used as part of a multi-channel campaign. Based on results from research conducted by InfoTrends, more than 60% of marketing professionals have responded that they have experienced increased customer response rates, acquisition, retention and satisfaction by using multi-channel marketing. Another easy way to help integrate channels such as print and web, is by using personalized URLs (PURLs).

What is a PURL?

PURLs are web addresses that are customized with a prospects name such as RichardStocktonCollege.com/PhilKening. These can be included in the call to action on a direct mail piece or they can be sent in an email. The goal is to motivate either the existing customer or the prospect to visit the PURL. Once the user types or pastes the PURL into their browser, they are directed to a customized landing page. The landing page usually contains the users name on it and should also include targeted information specifically pertaining to their lifestyle, demographics, purchase behavior, etc. This is where the marketer can add value by using their database to really create a relevant message and connect to the customer or prospect. Any information that a marketer has in their database can be used to increase the relevance of their communication resulting in higher response rates and higher conversions.

PURLs increase relevance, raising response rates

The use of PURLs can benefit both the marketer and the customer. For prospects and existing customers, PURLs can help to increase brand loyalty by creating a unique user experience. Landing pages can be specifically tailored and customized, making the consumer feel like this offer is exclusively for them. This helps to strengthen existing relationships with customers as well as form new ones with prospects. For the marketer, PURLs can help to grow and maintain customer databases. If a business wanted to update existing information about their customers, the landing page can include a form for the user to make revisions to their own information and answer additional questions that the business might want to know. If the recipient of the PURL is not an existing customer, the landing page can serve as a way to obtain their information. This can be done by offering an incentive for filling out the appropriate sections or by asking for it in return for more information, to set up an appointment, etc. This automated data capture process can also greatly improve the quality of leads.

Another benefit to marketers is the high response rate PURLs generate. From the study previously mentioned, it was reported that compared to print only, a multi-media marketing campaign using print, email and PURLs was 35% more effective in generating responses.

Ways PURLs can work for you

An example of an effective multi-channel campaign might look something like this. A postcard is sent out to a prospect list inviting them to attend a seminar. Included on every postcard is a PURL with that prospect’s name asking them to visit that website to obtain more information and to register for the event. Once on the page, the user can confirm their attendance, update their contact info and can choose to opt-in to be reminded via text message 24 to 48 hours before the seminar.

PURLs can be used across all industries. In the automotive industry, you could send a personalized postcard with a PURL to customers whose lease us about to expire. Or send an email notification using PURLs to allow customers to schedule service appointments at regular intervals.

Colleges and Universities can boost enrollment by sending personalized communications with a PURL offering information tailored to the prospects known academic interests, gender, geography, extra-curricular activist, etc.

What information exists in your database that you could use to help make a more relevant communication?

Can you use that information to incorporate PURLs into your multi-media campaign?

If that data doesn’t exist, what information would you most like to gather?

                              

More and more companies today are using messages sent to consumer cell phones as a marketing tool.  This is known as Mobile Marketing.  The two most common methods are:

• Sending a promotional text message to the consumer where the phone number is known and
• Asking the consumer (whose number is unknown) to send a text message to the marketer by entering a specified keyword to the provided short code.

For example, text ‘Perks” to Dunkin (386546) to receive a coupon or text ‘Phillies’ to Google (466453) to receive the most recent score or next scheduled game. The possibilities are endless.

In the U.S. alone, more than 270 million people own cell phones, representing 87% of the population. With the growing popularity of smartphones such as the iPhone and BlackBerry, marketers have increasing opportunities to reach their target audiences. Given the growth and usage of cell phones globally, it is not surprising that marketers are shifting resources to advertise using mobile channels. From the Direct Marketing Association’s 2009 Response Rate Report, respondents indicated that from 2008 to 2009, they increased their budget for mobile marketing by 38.8%. Marketers are obviously constructing mobile marketing campaigns but what situations do they work best in?

For existing customers, mobile marketing campaigns can be used as an additional point of contact, helping to reinforce CRM.  It can add value by making the process of communicating more immediate and easier (i.e. texting a payment reminder, inviting customers to special events, sending coupons, etc.). Cell phone users literally will have access to information at the touch of a button wherever they are. But for prospects to initiate the communication, incentives such as coupons, sweepstakes, and contests can be offered. These offers can increase brand and product awareness as well as encourage trial usage and ultimately, repeat sales.If you are a retailer, could you send text messages to your customer list inviting them to an exclusive sales event at their nearest location?

Unlike other forms of direct marketing, lists cannot be purchased for mobile marketing. Because of this limitation, businesses have to either rely on their house lists or have to integrate the text-in call to action to obtain the necessary opt-in. Once a user has opted-in, their phone number can be stored in the database for future marketing opportunities. The call to action can be incorporated into television and print advertisements as well as point-of-sale and end-cap displays. For customers, it can be through an existing email database or it can be displayed on the company’s website. Many major companies have already successfully implemented mobile marketing into their marketing strategies. The following is an example of such a company.

After recently launching a new line of instant coffee, Kraft Foods wanted to create awareness of their new product by having customers sample it. They also wanted to develop a customer database. In order to reduce waste and minimize costs, Kraft decided to have customers request samples via text message. The short code and an explanation of the sample was included on Kraft’s print and televisions advertisements and customers were invited to text in to receive samples. A request form was sent back to their cell phones along with an option to opt-in to future messages. At the end of the campaign, 500,000 people sent requests for samples and more than 80,000 users opted in to receive future messages.

How else can this form of marketing be successful? What types of businesses could most benefit from this interactive communication?

If you are launching a new product, would you consider a mobile marketing campaign to offer samples, coupons, a video demonstration, etc?

Do you offer educational workshops or financial seminars that require reservations? Could this be used to make the process easier? Can you see how this application could benefit a company like yours?

The next blog post will discuss the use of PURLs (Personalized URLs) and their integration in a multi-channel marketing mix.