Aug
11

5 Features You Need in an Ideal Marketing Metrics Tool

This post originally appeared on the oneforty blog. It’s being reposted here as part of my blogging portfolio.

Let’s face it: you probably have not found the perfect tool to measure all your online marketing activities. True, you may have found one that was ‘just good enough’ but still doesn’t give you exactly what you need.

Truth be told, in the grand scheme of things, social media and internet marketing is generally still new. With that comes developing metrics tools that do not quite fit our exact needs yet.

The great part about being in an awesome city like Boston is that we all know we’re in it together to figure out the best ways to use social media, optimize internet marketing campaigns, hone in on our funnel, and optimize conversion rates. We all want the same thing. We all work together to help get the results we need.

A few months ago, I was searching for that ‘perfect’ metrics tool, so I went to oneforty’s Managing and Measuring Social Media LinkedIn group to find an awesome group of people suggesting many tools. After an exhaustive search through, I decided write an article on my website about the Pros and Cons of Social Media Metrics Tools to give members my honest feedback on each tool I tested.

Through the process, I tested about 20 different tools, and found a few that actually fit the bill. While I did settle for a few ideal ones, none were perfect – even when combined.

As a marketer myself, I’ve identified the five critical metrics an ideal solution should have to help you become better at your job.

  • Middle of the funnel statistics: Sure, Google Analytics can show you what referral traffic brought people to your site and your checkout system can tell you how much revenue you received – but what about in between those activities? What steps did these people take between visiting an outside link, to getting on your website, to purchasing? Did they visit the blog? Did they watch a demo video? Did they engage in a chat with a support representative? If you can figure out which activities people perform most that convert to sales, then you can optimize that funnel to get even more conversions.
  • Customizable charts and reports: If you are a visual marketer like me and/or need to report marketing metrics to your boss or your advisory board, you need an easy way to compile specific bits of data. If a tool gives you the ability to create custom reports with specific data points, great! On top of that, if they can provide you with bar, pie, and graph charts (among others) to depict this data visually, even better! The easier you can present this data to others, the better your work looks.
  • Percent changes amongst data points: Want to know how many people came to your site and purchased between April and May? Even better, wouldn’t it be great to know the increase or decrease in this traffic month to month? This can help you determine what you did right and wrong and how to optimize each channel with specific content and sales drivers.
  • Dashboard activity: Wouldn’t it be great to log onto your metric tool to see a customized page of all the data you need to know up front? Some tools I currently use do this (Raven SEO Tools for example) but not for every aspect of my marketing program. It’d be great to choose the top 4-5 KPIs (key performance indicators) they need to know at a given time and be presented with that data as soon as they log in. That would make my day SO much easier, and probably yours as well.
  • Ability to visually see conversion rates across mediums: You may have multiple tools in place that can track social media traffic conversions, email campaign metrics, and press-related data. What if there was one single tool that showed traffic, conversions, and percentage change across all these channels at any given time period? To me, this would be the absolute most critical piece of data to know. That way, not only can I better understand the overall performance of our marketing activities, but so can everyone else in a visually pleasing way.

Of course, this list can go on and can be altered depending on the industry you’re in, marketing challenges you face, and marketing programs you are running. This serves as a guideline for some of the most important aspects of a metrics tool you should look for before settling for the one that seems to be ‘good enough’.

If you have other major KPIs you are tracking and metrics features you need to correlate with them, please leave your feedback below to add to this list.

Just like in Boston, if we can all help each other figure out the main things we need to track as marketers, hopefully the ideal solution will appear sooner than expected to satisfy our needs and help us all become better at our jobs.

Jul
11

Paying it Forward: An Old Fisherman Exemplifies What Marketers Should Know

fishermanDo you ever counter certain types of people in life that give you a new perspective on something – whether it be a lifestyle, attitude, opinion, etc.? Yesterday, I had a very unique encounter with an older man who appeared homeless and fishing on one of the Charles River docks in Boston.

It was about 5pm and I had only sat down by the dock to enjoy the evening sunlight on the river for about ten minutes when this man walked up to me. Naturally, when a stranger walks up to me I tend to tense up, not knowing their intentions. However, this man was looking for something very unique.

I found out afterwards that he spoke only Russian so he could not communicate with me. This man walked up to me, handing me two plastic cups and making a water-scooping motion to me with his hands. After a second, I understood he wanted me to fill these cups with river water for him because he could not bend down to do so himself. He nodded to me and went back to his fishing area. I watched and saw him take out some bread rolls, break them up into smaller pieces, and soak them in the cup of water. I then realized he was using this wet bread as bait for his fishing pole.

Not even five minutes after he first approached me, he came back over. In his hand were three candies. He was giving me candy in return for assisting him with getting water. All he could communicate to me was “Russian candy”. Sure enough, when I looked at them, the wrapper had Russian wording on it. I thanked him, he nodded, and went back to his area.

At that point I thought to myself, “Wow, just by me doing something so seemingly minuscule for this man, he was courteous enough to pay it forward by giving me a treat.”

This made me think.

You never know what others need in life, and how much a small act like filling up water means to them. I started to think about how this relates to marketing and customer service. During our busy everyday lives, we do and receive small acts of kindness, not really thinking twice about it. Other times, we are treated rudely and/or ignored – many times by bad customer representatives. On multiple occasions, I’ve experienced this with both a bank and cable company (not naming names – it’s beyond the point).

However, what if more encounters with businesses, clients, partners, etc. were as genuine as my prior encounter? What if everyone paid it forward? Small acts of appreciation can mean the world to someone.

Some business example of paying it forward are:

  • Sending a personal thank-you email or even a gift card to a valued customer that has either been a good reference, blogged favorably about you, or has stayed loyal through ups and downs in the company’s lifetime. While they may just be great customers because they truly enjoy your product or service, it never hurts to show them it matters to you.
  • Creating a special product feature that a specific customer requests. While it may gain you little to no revenue, if it is a fairly simple and quick feature to roll out, it will mean a lot to that customer. It (1.) Shows you truly care about the needs of your customers and (2.) Demonstrates that you take in customer feedback. If a business went out of their way to do this for me and the feature simplified my daily life, I would probably be a forever-loyal customer.
  • Giving a valued customer some press exposure. I first was impressed by the idea of doing this when talking with a friend who spoke to a reporter regarding an awesome customer’s business. My friend was speaking to them not for the intent to get his business exposure, but to highlight a customer. Since the customer was running a small business, this press exposure was huge for them. I’ve since spoken to many other people who do the same thing and I have done it myself as well.
You get the point. There are so many ways you can be a truly genuine marketer, sales person, customer service representative, etc. Just by taking a step back, recognizing what is simple and meaningful in life, and acting on it can go miles towards making others happy, rewarding them, and being a genuine business person and business.
Now it’s your turn. What are some ways you can pay it forward in your everyday life? Are there any instances where you’ve already done so or others have done this for you? Please share!
Jul
05

Social Media Day- Is it The New World Media Horizon?

social media horizon

Editor’s Note: This is a contributed guest post.

Social Media Day isn’t just some vague recognition of social media. It’s actually something entirely new in human history. The human race has never been in instant contact with itself in real time before, without the limitations of nationalities, language and political boundaries. This was a unique event, where cultures could actually mix. It’s also a new sort of human interaction, “SEO for the soul”, as well as social media marketing, the newest, biggest thing in marketing.

The big day was a pretty good indicator of how strongly social media is influencing the world. Social media sites are making news in their own right now, and the response to Social Media Day was a lot bigger than the simple old broadcast cross links to other countries.

This was only the second annual Social Media Day, and it went off the scale in terms of participation.

The idea of “believing” in media is perhaps a little over the top these days, but in terms of putting social media into practice, there’s no doubt that Social Media Day was a big success. 90 countries across six continents were involved. The general meetups were more than double last year, another sign of expanding horizons in a medium which is still, let’s face it, in its very early infancy.

The truth is that social media is an entirely new medium and nobody’s really too sure what it can do.

It’s evolving in ways nobody would have dreamed possible. Nobody really knows how many people there are active on the social media sites, but it’s somewhere around at least three quarters of a billion people at the very least. That’s the biggest single demographic on Earth for any kind of media, ever. Facebook alone has more people than the entire United States.

There’s another interesting fact becoming obvious. The marketing industry is trying to get into this gigantic electronic super-power’s buying power. This is also the most mobile market on Earth.

The truth is that social media is very unlike any other kind of media, able to react quickly to information and spread the message around the world on its own terms.

Cynics may note that this means that marketing, of all things, is becoming a social media enabler, adding more commercial power to the social media phenomenon. History tends to follow the money wherever it goes. Facebook, for example, is becoming a lot better organized as the Facebook marketing companies figure out that social media is simultaneously the ultimate impulse buying point of sale and the most demanding.

Homo Consumer Sapiens can be a tough customer. Social media users are also real online users, determined to get what they want, looking for real information about their purchases, and trying to get the best deals. Social Media Day showed that there’s a new human reality at work, changing lifestyles with a few clicks. Don’t be surprised if the next Social Media Day or the one after it turns into the biggest media event in history. It’s just a matter of time.

Jun
13

“How Do I Get Involved in a Startup Company?”

get involved in startupTwo years ago, I never really knew what a ‘startup company’ was. Being from a small town in northern Connecticut, all I knew about were the large insurance corporations and chain restaurants and clothing stores. (Truth be told, it wasn’t surprising I didn’t know of any startups, as there are not that many in Connecticut). As of today, I’ve been working for a startup, Backupify, for 14 months. Did I ever see this coming? Absolutely not. Am I glad I’m here? Absolutely!

Many friends have approached me asking the exact question proposed in the title of this blog post. “So, how do I get a job at a start up company?” Truth be told, it is tough if you don’t know the right people. It took me a few months to carefully network and feel out the startup culture.

When people tell you it’s all about who you know, they are right. When a small company like a startup is looking to hire, they are very reliant on referrals and recommendations of good hires as they cannot risk making a wrongful hire.

In short, below I’ve answered the most common questions I’ve been asked regarding getting into a startup:

How do you know who to contact?

First, determine what it is you’re looking to do. If you’re into marketing like I am, start contacting marketing professionals in the area (either via email or Twitter) to make an initial connection. Thankfully, through college, I received a marketing scholarship from an organization based around Boston, so those were the first people I went to when I was looking for a job.

Essentially, network creatively. Find out what topic of interest you want to start a career in and find others who are doing just that. Get their attention either by chatting on Twitter, sending an email or attending an event and making a personal introduction. I was able to meet many very successful marketers around the Boston area by doing just that. After you’ve made your first successful networking contact, they can surely help you branch off and meet others.

How do you know what events to attend?

It’s always good to make a personal connection. If you can attend the events that admirable professionals in your industry are attending, that is a great start. You can also get recommendations about events and conferences from your first few contacts. I’ve found that some networking events are more valuable than others. Here in Boston, there are events where it is just a social gathering involving small talk and beer. Then there are conferences with learning sessions and breakout networking times. I value both for different reasons. I started going to both when I began crafting my way into the Boston startup scene. I found that the social ‘drink-ups’ as they’re called were great to have casual conversations and get your name known. You may not learn too much, but there sure are a lot of people to meet. That’s actually how I got involved being a writer for BostInnovation.

Conferences are a great way to learn and get your name out there. Conferences tend to be larger, so it’s always important to find out who is going and make a point to meet them there.

How do you know when to take a chance?

Working for a startup does involve some risk. Unlike an established brand or corporation, startups are small and often bootstrap or VC funded. This meaning that there is a limited cash runway and hard work involved to push through the competition and challenges to make it to the top. Before I accepted my job offer with Backupify, our CEO Rob May made a point to explain to me exactly what taking a job at a startup meant. It meant there was risk of failure, hard times among the good times, and long hours. Thankfully, I was up for all of that – but many are not.

I’ve spoken with many colleagues who started their career off at a standard corporation, being a number among thousands of other employees, and just living day-by-day, not enjoying their job. I’m always interested to hear how one day they snap and realize they want to enjoy their career and find a company and a job that is truly rewarding. Many times, landing a position at a startup company can be just that opportunity with exposure to almost every activity in the company including being involved with executive decisions, being challenged like never before, and having a say in the direction of the company.

I’m thrilled I took the leap into the startup world as my first career job. It has been the most rewarding, creative and challenging job I could have ever wanted.

What other questions do you have in regards to learning about startup culture? If you made the move from a ‘regular’ job to a startup, what was your experience like? I’d love to hear from you!

May
12

6 Ways To Improve Your Company’s Social Media Marketing

Using social media marketing can be a very good way to develop true and strong relationships with others online. Using it to develop formal and often very important informal relationships can be very beneficial to your business. Here are some points that you and others in your company should consider so that you stay at the top.

  • Minimize junk. Are you falling into the trap of putting every little detail about your life online? It is important that you keep focused on why you are involved in a certain group or medium. Remember that each of your posts needs to be important. Unless you are Brad Pitt and there is a mountain of followers drooling on your every word, make sure that you and others in your company are relevant.
  • Keep it consistent. As with every element of your company’s operations it is important that you keep standards of communication. Setting rules regarding tone and appropriateness for all of those in your company is of utmost importance. This may take some of the fun out of it, but one mistake could spread and be very damaging for your business. Perhaps you should consider those working for you have both their own personal and professional profiles.
  • Management. Some amount of randomness may be beneficial to creating and keeping interest, but using certain software programs to manage, schedule and assess the effectiveness of your company’s posting will be greatly beneficial to understanding your SEO efforts. Perhaps there are better times and better ways that your team can be collaborating (working together), and only analysis of your efforts will allow you to see this. There are several premium and free-ware options available.
  • Encourage participation. Having the technical means and the content to stir debate amongst your followers and readers is extremely important. Making sure that you have your networks set up correctly so that you have specific areas for participants to engage in, and you can moderate, are of the utmost importance. The two skills of being a good content developer, and intangible asset, and having the technical know-how, are extremely important.
  • Ahead of the curve. Learning from others in your industry can be very beneficial, however, it is those who are ahead of the curve, and dare to do something different, that often reap most of the rewards. You will need to use your imagination and creativity if you are to stand out. Respect the intelligence of your readers and understand that they are already getting used to many of the same tricks to get their attention floating around out there.
  • Keeping it real. This must be one of the all-time important factors of any company’s activities. Remember, people are not stupid, and as soon as they even get a hint that your company is not being real, they will drop you in a flash. Just because you are not communicating face to face, don’t think that they cannot read between the lines. Let them know where you stand from the beginning unless you and your people are extremely experienced in true guerrilla marketing.

It is important to not get overwhelmed with the potential and possibilities of any campaign. Some people believe in an online social Karma. Take on your company’s online activities like any other element of your business, step by step, and seek professional advice, after all it is your financial future.

 

 

Jan
07

10 Ways to Become a Better Marketer in 2011

It’s that time of year again when we’re all evaluating what our new years resolution will be this year, and wonderirng how long it will last this time. However, there is one resolution that should never fail to work: become better at your job. Social networks come and go, ‘best practices’ succeed and fail, and your company is constantly changing. What if there were some sure-fire ways to keep a resolution to always get better at your job, no matter what is going on around you?

Follow these ten tips to learn how to become a better online marketer in 2011:

1. Read. Determine which bloggers and experts in your industry you’d like to learn from. Chances are, they have a blog. Pick 2-5 expert bloggers and subscribe to them. Take time out of your day, even if it’s a half hour, to read what they have to say. By reading their posts, you’ll learn new perspectives and techniques. I take time to read Dharmesh Shah’s blog, Darren Rowe’s ProBlogger blog, and Chris Brogan’s blog. From all the other blogs I subscribe to, these provide the most value.

2. Use analytics to your advantage. With so many free analytics tools available today, from Google Analytics to Facebook Insights and free trials to many other tools, use them to your advantage. The more metrics-driven you are as a marketer, the greater the decisions you make will be. Metrics don’t lie, so if you are seeing a trend, act on it. If you need to make a case in your favor, use metrics to prove your point.

3. Use your valuable contacts. Each of your contacts, whether in your company or industry, has something to offer. Schedule a half hour coffee meetup, lunch meeting, or plan to attend an event where your contacts will be to talk with them. Find out what marketing projects they’re working on, what has led them to success and failure, and what some of their own marketing theories are. This will help you learn a wide array of marketing views which will allow you to create a customized marketing approach to your company using a variety of their ideas.

4. Keep an open mind. Never discount an idea until you can prove it won’t be beneficial. Many people become close-minded and stop innovating when they find a comfort zone in a company. Don’t fall victim to this. Instead, always keep an open mind. Whether you’re reading a blog post, attending a webinar, speaking with someone at an event or brainstorming yourself, consider every idea as valid. By not closing out an idea ‘just because’ will not help you grow as a marketer. Instead, explore new ways to market your business.

5. Take some time to evaluate your marketing tactics. Think back on what marketing campaigns and activities you’ve done in the past month. What worked? What didn’t work? What would you like to see done in the next month? With this, build upon your successes, learn from the failures and create new ways to improve your efforts.

6. Maintain your own personal brand. I’m guilty of ignoring some of my personal brand by using the excuse of being too busy at work to take time to write for this blog. I’ve realized that it’s always important to maintain your personal brand even though you’re busy building up the brand of your company. Whether it’s writing a weekly blog post, following up with people on Twitter, building out your connections on LinkedIn or making an appearance at a monthly event, do it. Your personal brand is something that can never be taken away from you and can make you more valuable at your job.

7. Pay attention to industry leading companies. Determine which companies are leading the industry and practicing cutting edge marketing and technological methods. Is there a company that’s doing an outstanding community management job? Follow them on social media and see what tactics they use and who they engage with. Do you admire a company for always staying innovative, using the latest technologies? Follow their blog, attend the events they do and do a weekly news scan to keep on top of what they are doing. This will give you a good sense of their work ethic and ways of finding ideas.

8. Never forget original marketing theories. Theories like “the customer is always right’, “test, test, test”, and the like are always important. Just because there are new theories and technologies to use doesn’t mean old ways don’t work anymore. Instead, the new ways, for the most part, build upon the old ideas. You also need to consider your target market. While there are iPads, Twitter and text messaging mediums, your target audience may prefer the traditional radio advertising method to learn about companies, products and services. While it’s great to know about a new technology and theory, take into consideration how your target marketing would respond. If you think they’re in their comfort zone with the traditional ways you contact them, stay that way. Eventually they will migrate to the new ways, and you can either nudge them that way or go there with them.

9. Always be a step ahead of the competition. Set up alerts, subscribe to their blogs, follow them on social media and go to the events they go to. It may even help to create a spreadsheet to track what major announcements they are making and any sneak peak insights you may have about what they are going to do. That way, you can either pre-empt what a competitor is going to do, follow along with it, or simply be aware of it. Never get caught blindsided by your competition or a surprise new competitor.

10. Keep it real. No matter the technology, medium, or method, always be real with your customers. This aligns well with point #8 as it means to never forget the voice of your company and keep it the same throughout all types of communications. If you’re company is known as a bubbly, conversational company on TV ads, magazine ads and through in-person meetings, keep that same tone and attitude while interacting with customers on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. It’s also important to always be honest and upfront with a customer. The last thing I want a company telling me is that they will be more than happy to give me a month free trial because I was unhappy and then boost up my fee every consecutive month. That won’t make me happy. If I was used to them being very accommodating, I’d be even more taken aback by this approach. Just keep it real.

I could go on and on with ways to become a better marketer, as I’m learning them every day, but I know your time is valuable and I’m sure you have some ideas of your own to share. Please leave your resolution to become a better marketer this year in the comments section!

10.

Sep
08

20 Effective Way to Increase Your Online Influence

Remember what it was like the first day of high school? You nervously walk to the bus stop, wondering who else is going to be there. Once on the bus, you cautiously look around at all the new faces, seeing if you know any and looking at others you don’t. During your first period class, you looked around to find some friends you knew, but most you didn’t know. It probably took weeks if not months to build up a good group of friends and influence within the school ecosystem.

Much like you built up your reputation in school, creating an online presence is just as valuable, if not more. Creating an online influence for yourself can help you gain valuable connections, teach others (and learn from them too), develop power of persuasion, and become regarded as a thought leader.

If you are in the marketing industry, you may idolize people like Chris Brogan and David Meerman Scott for their high influence, visibility and knowledge. I, like many of you, have sat down wondering how to become like them.

Here are 20 key tips to follow to build your online influence:

1. Don’t talk about your service or product. Instead, talk about customer problems and needs and develop meaningful content around those.

2. Be transparent. You will become more credible and trustworthy if you are honest online.

3. Follow great people.

4. Online to offline. Make connections online and continue the relationships offline at events or meet ups.

5. Start conversations with others. If someone shares your article on social media, writes about your product, criticizes you, or asks you a question, answer. That is key to building relationships.

6. Be early in the news cycle so you share information that people are looking for and haven’t seen anywhere else. If you are able to write about or share breaking news, people will come to you more for industry leading breakthroughs.

7. Share good content consistently. When people come to expect you to share and post content regularly, and it is good content, they will keep coming back to you.

8. Let your passion shine. The more devotion and passion you show in your work, the more others will see it and believe it. This will bring them into your content and will entice them to engage with you.

9. Talk about others. If you can praise others, discuss great companies, review an outstanding product/service, etc. people will recognize that, appreciate it, and perhaps return the favor.

10. Repeat your tweets. I will always remember what Guy Kawasaki said about retweets: It is a good practice to RT an article about four times over the course of a day for it to get noticed and shared.

11. Understand your audience and build content around that. If you are a lawn mowing manufacturer and know your audience is interested in lawn care, write about that.

12. Don’t try to be all things to everyone. Instead, master one niche. It is best to focus in on one particular topic (for me it is internet marketing) and share your expertise. Don’t try to write about five different topics; people will get confused about what you stand for if you do this.

13. Be active on other people’s communities. If you want to be seen and noticed, you have to go find other people, not hope that they will come to you. If your audience hangs out on a niche social network site, get involved there and in turn they may come into your community if you build effective relationships on their site first.

14. Listen, then engage. If there is a breaking news story in your industry, a massive online attack on your brand, or a common theme to your listeners’ questions/comments, understand them and then engage.

15. Network with other influencers. Once you have become influential in some degree, begin speaking with others that are already there.

16. Share your ideas. Long gone are the days where we secretly held in every trade secret. Today, it is best to share your knowledge and help everyone around you grow and improve. If you help your industry as a whole improve, then you are in turn helping yourself and your business.

17. Make friends. The more you can enhance a friendship online (and continue it offline) the better you will fare online. If you appear to just be networking for the sake of getting fans and retweets, people will quickly pick up on that and be turned off. However, if you are genuine and building friendships, people will like you and want to talk to you.

18. Give more than you get. The more you can share news and expertise, the better. If you can help your audience, they will appreciate that and that appreciation can go miles towards building your online influence.

19. Use social media to compliment existing message channels. Just because social media is hot now doesn’t mean you should abandon your traditional ways of reaching others. If you are used to interacting with your audience via forums, email, podcasts and events, keep doing those. You can use social media to continue those relationship and gain new ones.

20. Make something worth talking about. David Meerman Scott calls this a ‘worldwide rave.’ If you can create novel, interesting content, others will talk about it and share. If you are simply reposting content that others already put out, you won’t attract many viewers.

What are some ways that you have built your online influence? Have you implemented any of the above 20 methods? If so, which worked best/worst for your or your company?


Mar
16

A Guide to Using a Full Set of Conversation Tools to Reach Customers

Kristin Dziadul a guide to business communication

Engage. Converse. Sell! These are three terms that a marketer and salesperson alike know all too well. However, they are easier said than done. Yes, you can develop great website content and blogs, but are you managing public relations? You can develop a great product, but are you promoting it in the appropriate communities?

There are many sales, marketing and PR activities that must be done to ensure you engage, converse, and sell correctly in order to be a successful company, but your business truly needs the full set of communication tools in order to be effective.

There are eight (you may add more) conversation tools I find very important for almost any business to employ today:

1. Product Development: The product communicates what the brand stands for and what kind of value the company will provide to its customers. This is a non-verbal aspect of a business that cannot be understated. Ensure that your mission translates into the finished product so consumers see a mirror image of the stated mission layed out in the final product. Developing the right product at the right time for the right price is critical to any business’ success, and it communicates a lot about a company’s business model and potential for success.

2. Developer Relations: Good relationships with those in your supply chain is also crucial for implementing a successful brand. If the developer and you are aligned with both mission and layout of the actual product, there is a much higher chance of success. Also, the more reputable you are with companies in the supply chain, the higher chance you will have of being a respected member of the business community.

3. Ambassador: Be a true ambassador of your product. If you cannot 110% back up your product claim and speak fluently and expertly on all of its benefits and customer values, then you are not a true brand ambassador. Potential clients and customers can see if you do not fully understand or believe in the product, so ensure that you are marketing the right product and can back it up, be enthusiastic about it, and transfer that enthusiasm to your prospects and leads!

4. Marketing: Marketing conveys the brand image and values to the public. This is the main communication tool on a mass level that will let everyone and anyone know what you stand for. Ensure that you tailor the perfect message to fit the product image, reach the appropriate target market, and convince them that your product is THE one for them.

5. Public Relations: With the emergence of social media, the lines between PR and marketing have been blurred, but the pure essence of PR cannot be forgotten. Interact with the media, talk to other businesses, deal with any issues professionally and appropriately, respond to negative feedback in a timely manner, and always keep in mind that the customer is right and the reason that the company is in business is for the customer, so keep them happy and solve their problems.

6. Customer Service: Social media can be used as a form of customer service, but ensure that you are still employing the general principles of customer service. Always try to calm them down if upset, apologize, try your best to fix their problem, emphasize the business’ 100% care for customer satisfaction, and do what you can to keep them a loyal customer. Remember, even if they had a bad experience with your product or service, you can still turn it around by giving INCREDIBLE customer service that will make them talk about your great response.

7. Community Relations: Developing a community around your product and nurturing it is critical today for enabling engagement and brand loyalty. If you can develop a ning community or place on your website or social media site where people feel like a valued member, you will dramatically increase loyalty and retention rates. Employ a community manager to execute these exact tasks by reaching out to the right people, giving them a space to talk to your company, and respond to them as a valued customer.

8. Blogger Relations: If you are in the Internet or technology industry, this is a MUST. If your customers share information a lot and there are many bloggers covering different industry topics, you must be watching those blogs and developing a positive rapport with them. This means commenting on their site, reaching out to them via social media to develop relationships, and even asking to guest blog, and vice versa. This will increase your chances of having them speak well about you on their blog or to their blog’s readers.

This list may be daunting to a small start-up or a company with limited PR, sales or marketing capabilities, but implementing them on a small scale may only take a few hours maximum a day and will be more than worth it. Making your customers feel valued and confident that their voice is heard will go miles to driving positive business and customer relations.

Please add a ninth, tenth, or even eleventh element of communication that businesses should employ if you have found one to be very effective for you.

Jan
08

Information Overload for Generation Y!

Generation Y consumers are said to be the most technologically advanced and informed of all the generation segments today. This can be a good and bad thing for companies and marketers. Most of my friends and I have smart phones, laptops, iPods, Facebook accounts, cameras, and much more. We have almost TOO much technology at our hands, so we do not always know how to process all of the information. In addition to having all of these products, we are then bombarded by new products/ad/services, etc to add onto our already overloaded set of technologies.

Ads come to my phone (through Twitter text messages, ads on my iPhone apps, and other random advertising messages). They also are all over the internet, no matter what site I am visiting. We are constantly being targeted by Apple, if we already have one of their products, to get more accessories, or the most updated version of their products. Then, when we go to socialize with our friends online on Facebook, we get notifications from them about their new applications and there are also side ads on every page.

So, how do we filter all of this information? We ignore it! I personally just tune out all ads I see when i am overloaded with information, or not in the mood to investigate a new products or service. However, I find Twitter is a great way to reach Generation Y consumers in an intrusive yet acceptable way.

Twitter allows consumers to come to them, which is a great example of pull marketing. If a consumer wants to follow a specific company or person, they can. This means they agree to receive the messages, links, videos etc. that they post, and can decide whether or not they will read or watch what is posted. I personally follow a lot of businesses that I shop at, Dunkin’ Donuts in particular. I am interested to see what they are up to, and occasionally click on the links that they post to learn more.

I believe that Twitter is a great solution to the information overload that Generation Y is experiencing. However, there is a set back. The more people or companies that a person follows, the more information and posts they will receive every day. Twitter users do have the ability to create lists and ‘unfollow’ someone, so they can control the amount of information they are given.

If you can’t tell by now, I am a huge believer in what Twitter does. At first I was a skeptic, but after being on it for many months and interacting with several people and businesses, I have concluded that it is the perfect solution for this generation’s issue. Now all Twitter has to do is get more of these consumers to create accounts since hardly anyone I know even knows the purpose of Twitter, nor is even considering creating an account.

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