Conventional traditional paid media is dying a quick death. The old discussion of targeting consumers and buying their attention in :30 second increments is over. Twitter may be the ultimate media for the attention deficit consumer who has suffered media overload for the last 30 years. When used correctly, you can make a million with 140 characters. You just have to follow the lead of the Dell Outlet:
Out next week, but wanna welcome all the new followers based on news Dell sold $1M thru Twitter. Happy Holidays to all!
Releasing deals, one at a time to opt-in followers created a new way of connecting intimately with people who want to buy their products. It’s that connection that is the secret sauce of new media marketing in a web 2.0 world.
Social media requires an opt-in relationship, meaning it’s only going to last as long as you keep providing value. Many companies talk about their “commitment to the customer” but- what they need to be evolving to is a “commitment to the community.” Defining and nurturing that relationship isn’t a part-time job to hand to the intern either- just see what happens when a relationship is done right: Robert Scoble (who started at Microsoft and grew a community that would stay with him instead of M$)
Twitter is a way to tie your company into a community in real time. Not having to wait weeks to produce an ad and get it out into the marketplace can be a powerful tool to out-maneuver your competition.
(I’ve copied the image text into the alt text so that this searches properly and is accessible- click on the image to get his 5 stages in computer readable format.
Is well worth reading as well. The 9 ways- without their full descriptions to tease you to click on the link:
Listen to conversations in real time.
Track emotion moments.
Get link love.
Reach unreachable people.
See what’s popular/important
Introduce more people to your personal brand
Get quick answers.
Optimize your event attendance.
Read instant feedback.
There are more ways in the comments, including: build relationships with leaders in your field, track customers and competitors, but, most importantly- connect with a community.
Here is the final word on why Twitter is neither a marketing shotgun or rifle- those analogies are just as dead as the idea of conquering customers in a war for market share. You don’t buy market share, you don’t win it- you earn it, by building relationships with real people, one-on-one, in real time.
More than ever, the idea of keeping existing customers should be at the top of every marketers critical tasks list. Not only are new customers harder to acquire, but, they now have the power to tell all their friends when you fail to please.
If you doubt me, take a look at Amazon reviews in any consumer products category. You’ll find the most powerful reviews come from either:
loyal customers who have had great customer service and warranty experiences
customers who’ve owned your product and a competitors and have an opinion.
It’s time to pay more attention to keeping existing customers happy.
The other night I was talking over a dinner table with several happy TomTom customers. One of them had just had his TomTom die, and it was just outside of warranty. He contacted TomTom and they said they don’t repair non-warranty units.
Big mistake. The customer service person just released a previously happy customer out to the big wide world of GPS units and suggested he reevaluate the market. All of a sudden, he may think a Garmin or a Magellan is a better choice. It doesn’t take much to come across a comparison site.
For a better example of how to handle this same situation- I had a Sonicare toothbrush die on me after 5 years. I contacted Sonicare, and inquired about a new battery for my first generation model. They offered a sizable discount on a new model toothbrush- in a brown box that kept me a Sonicare user.
Yes, personal electronics may be made for replacement, but wouldn’t you rather customers replaced your product with your brand- instead of a competitors. Good marketers will take this lesson to heart and make sure their policies fall in line with what is best for their company.
It’s said that word of mouth marketing is the best of all- and yes, you can buy good word of mouth, with good warranty policies.
With the latest economic crisis, the phrase “too big to fail” has been bandied about as a mantra of justification for a businesses right to exist (or be “saved”) yet, something is starting to sound inherently wrong about “economies of scale” in today’s networked market.
If there is one thing that is clear from The Long Tail, it’s that focused, niche products and services can find their customers easier and more efficiently today than ever before. Communities can pop-up almost anywhere, where like-minded consumers can meet and discuss their passions, without any intervention or support by business (such a community has popped up on this site for fans of WMMS, a rock radio station that dominated the Cleveland market in the late 70’s).
So, as we watch big banks, big car companies, the titans of Wall Street falter, the question of what will survive isn’t as important as what is the business model of the future. I’m starting to think it’s not WalMart, Best Buy, or even Target- although Target has done a better job of finding a target to market to.
It’s pretty obvious that deregulation came along with a total disregard for anti-trust as well. It was deemed anti-business to try to make sure that there was true choice in the marketplace.
The first place to really see the failures of this policy have been the very companies that fought regulation the hardest: the media giants. With deregulated markets we saw the elimination of competition in newspapers and the dumbing down of the press at the exact same time as we moved to an information economy. The answers of big business were to give us less info- at a time when people were virtually drowning in it. The same happened in TV and Radio broadcast, with an appetite for bigger audiences, the money believed the answers were bigger broad market programming, when audiences were increasingly able to pick and choose what fit them best.
The same has happened to mass-market retailers, who can easily be out-maneuvered by niche internet retailers, as long as the shipping costs aren’t too high, or the need to experience first hand a big part of the buying experience.
Even preferences in shopping experiences have changed from big malls to lifestyle centers, with big box “power centers” losing some of their appeal.
All of this points to a future that probably isn’t in the hands of the giants anymore- but to the most adroit marketers who have built a network of other symbiotic businesses to support each other. Working together as a loose network to promote unique experiences, products, services are going to not only be keys to business survival, but of communities, who can’t afford to trust those companies that are “too big to fail” yet still do.
The survival of social networks and open source development depends on the number of users/size of community that adopts the service and contributes. In business, the number of connections that are built, and the sharing of support functions like marketing- will work the same way.
The answer to success in this new economy is less about getting big, but in getting connected. Relationships are more important than ever and the best way to build your business may be by helping someone else build theirs as long as there is reciprocal behavior. Networks of independent businesses are part of the model of Amazon and EBay, two of the most successful online marketers. Google is making inroads by giving away services, software and social connections in return for relationships that can be exploited softly as time goes by.
While we’ve been teaching and preaching the benefits of Web 2.0 for several years, we’re just starting to push our clients to reach out and work together with other similar small businesses. If Goliath is going to fall, it’s because either he’s gotten so big as to miss opportunity- or that the guerrilla’s have organized to out network and out maneuver him.
Just as the transfer of electrons at almost no cost and high speed has changed the media markets, over time, some of our big cities may find that they are having a hard time competing with smaller walkable communities as gas prices rise, as people’s time becomes more valuable and our love of big loses its luster.
Yes, too big to fail now, may be the kiss of death very soon.
It’s time to think of your network and working on your niche.
There aren’t ad agencies bending over backwards to solve the problems of the micro-enterprise unless they want to win awards, because the value equation just isn’t there. Big clients equal big media budgets, small clients equal no media budget, and even though the media budget shouldn’t have any connection to the compensation of an agency, every one would rather have Burger King instead of Benjamins Burger Meister on their account list.
So, if you own a small business, and may want to be big one day- this post is for you. But, right now, you just want customers and have a small marketing budget and need real answers so here we go.
Branding is the most critical decision you can make. They say “what’s in a name” and the simple answer is everything. Yet, I don’t know how often little thought is given to the corporate moniker and the associated mark. This will be what you have to live with for the life of your business. The name needs to be unique, catchy, have meaning, be memorable- and preferablly spellable with out having to go to phonetics.
Here’s the short don’t list:
Don’t name it after yourself, in case you ever want to sell the business. Yes- I know it worked for Ford, Chevrolet and Chrysler and Toyota, but, there was no Mr. Scion, Mr. Lexus or Mr. Infiniti.
Don’t name it after the location- in case you ever have to move the business ie. Dorothy Lane market has three locations- none on Dorothy Lane.
Don’t make it cute using numbers for words or abbreviations- ie. Marketing4Performance or Gold4yaMouth.
Don’t limit your business by a technology or what you do- ie. “Muffler Brothers” does complete car care and “Dayton Electrolysis Center” now uses lasers to remove hair.
After naming comes the brand mark. Nike originally paid $35 for the “Swoosh” and thought it would never be as good as the Adidas 3 stripes which actually helped reinforce the shoe. Next Computer paid Paul Rand $100,000 for their logo- only to have the company last a few years.
Rule of thumb- it’s not a good logo if only you would ever want to wear it. Invest in a good design.
15 years ago, the URL wouldn’t make a difference- now it does. It’s preferable to get a dot com address- even though search engines have made this really irrelevant (a good site will be found no matter what). Find something people can spell- like www.smileodontics.com as opposed to www.phonyx.com
The importance of a website that can be searched and indexed is absolutely critical- and it’s why we teach our Websitetology seminar at least once a month in our market. Small business can’t afford to either have a static website that isn’t updated frequently, or an over the top Flash site that looks uber cool but can’t be updated or found. If nothing else, make sure your business is listed in Google local.
While we could spend quite a bit of time on building a better site your website must have the following:
While having a great brand and site are a good start- the real problem is how to tell people where you are and what you do- FOR THEM. It’s not about you- it’s about how you solve your customers problems.
If you are a restaurant- what will be different, what is your value proposition, what kind of experience you will provide. This was dubbed “The Unique Selling Proposition” or USP- and today it is even more relevant. In a web 2.0 world where ideally, the consumer is all knowing of all options available, how will you convince them to buy from you? While paid media was the method of choice for the last century, recent studies are suggesting that 57%+ of internet shoppers are more likely to trust “someone like them” than a professional reviewer. Remember where we said customers need to be able to comment on your site- well, either they’ll comment on yours- or someone elses (this restaraunt lasted a little over a year).
Building links to the community isn’t any faster than building an ad campaign. No one shot silver bullet solutions- it’s a long term commitment to forging ties that connect you to your marketplace. Sure, sponsoring t-ball leagues doesn’t seem like a sophisticated marketing strategy, but for an orthodontist, it’s one way to reach kids that will probably need braces.
Mass media is failing small business miserably. While local broadcast TV used to be a viable solution- with the addition of first cable, then sattelite, then competing IPTV over phone lines- it’s becoming less of a BROADcast and more of a hit-or-miss cast. Local radio is now splintered by multiple formats, owned by a very few companies, providing very little localization. People are tuning into internet radio, podcasts and their own personal music servers (iPods). Newspapers are losing readers in droves in print- and picking up readers online- yet, the ads they serve are just as untargeted as before. Until these media build a marketing profile of their customers to gain permission to provide focused marketing in exchange for their content it’s still a hit-or-miss marketing strategy.
This one-to-one marketing relationship is the holy grail of our current media landscape. The best example of providing meaningful targeted advertising is now coming from “sponsored search” where marketing messages are keyed to the topic you are searching. Google has become a mega brand and a powerful force in media by only showing text ads that relate to the searches you are making. No pretty pictures- just words based on your words. Even though 70% of searchers ignore the sponsored ads, these may actually be the best option for small business available. Even with the spectre of click-fraud, and high cost per click, at least the ad is being served to someone looking for your specific product or service.
Ideally, you are on the first page in organic search. It can be done for any business, if you make the effort. Instead of spending time cold calling or shotgun marketing- work hard at building your site to be the “expert’s answers” to your customers problems. We provide the most complete listing of our competition for ad agencies in Dayton on our site as one way to make sure we are considered in a customers search for an ad agency. You can do the same for your local business, or join in a trade association that keeps a list.
While we’ve spent quite a bit of this post on internet strategy, old fashioned Public Relations (PR) and event marketing should also be part of your plan. Even though readership is decreasing in newspapers- there is nothing like an article on your business to build awareness. Look to become friends with local business writers and bloggers- and be available as a source. Any time there is a new development in your field, make sure to write about it on your site- to share your expertise on the subject.
Knowing your customer: We can’t stress enough the importance of getting at least a name and e-mail address from every single customer. Comment cards in restaurants can be a great tool- but only if you reward your servers for getting completed cards from every table. A simple bowl to enter to win a meal, or movie tickets can be your best source of leads for your next promotion.
If you are still reading at this point- you must really care about marketing your business and want to differentiate your business from the competition. Here is the magic that makes small business work- you have passion for what you do, and love being the best at what you do.
Often times this means not taking yourself so seriously. Seriously. Have fun, make your business the place that people like to talk about, make your ads that you do run- fun, friendly and funky. We once names an electrician “Singing Joes Electric”- only to have it nixed by Singing Joes Wife. After years of struggling as the boring “Electrical Quality Services” he bought an established brand “Jahn Electric” and took over their brand. We’ve run into too many people who want to stand out- yet say they want an ad just like the competitions- don’t make that mistake.
When we do posters for the Second Street Public Market events- people steal them, frame them, decorate their room in the same color palette. When was the last time you wanted to take one of your ads home with you? What happens when customers want to wear your shirt, hang your poster up, or stick a bumper sticker on their car? Business.
We have no problem laughing at beer ads during the Super Bowl- but, when it comes to wiring a kids mouth with braces- why not make fun of it? Marketing is about building relationships- and there is nothing better than humor and fun to break the ice.
So when looking for an agency to work with your small business, look for the one that has ads that you would want to take home with you, the ads that speak on multiple levels, that interest, intrigue, inform or just instigate some sort of emotional connection between you and the brand.
You aren’t hiring an agency to spend your money on media- but to give you a message that people would want to make a part of their life. And remember, the agency can only make an introduction- it’s the execution and delivery of your product or service that will cement the relationship and be the platform for your business to grow.
Google doesn’t spend a lot on advertising, that’s what their competition does. Guess what? It doesn’t matter how much you spend if you are Yahoo, Microsoft or Ask.com, Google will continue to win.
But, kudos to Crispin Porter + Bogusky, they were able to bump Ask.com from a nobody to a better known nobody with their campaign (“Experience Instant Getification” and “The Algorithm”) more than any of the other also rans, up a whole one-tenth of a percentage point.
Guess Who Gained Search Share - Advertising Age - Digital
…scrappy little Ask was dropping millions on a high-profile, Crispin-designed ad campaign and telling everyone it had the best algorithm. So guess which company gained the most share in search this year. Yes, it was Google.
According to ComScore, Google’s share in January was 52.6%, and by October, the most recent month with available data, that number had climbed to 58.5%. Others peg its share as even bigger: Hitwise has it at 65.1% in November, up from 64.1% in January.
In the meantime, Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL all lost share, and Ask was the only gainer, up one-tenth of a percentage point. (It’s not very likely, but things still could turn around in November and December, as those returns aren’t in yet.)
“Google has really become the verb of search,” said James Lamberti, senior VP at ComScore. “It’s a combination of viral and branding power.”
Pepsi vs. Coke
“If you did the equivalent of the Pepsi Challenge and had a blind taste test of Google, Yahoo and Microsoft results, I don’t think people would find Yahoo’s results are necessarily bad,” said Ellen Siminoff, CEO of Efficient Frontier, a search-marketing-technology company. “But it comes down to branding. Google has done a heck of a job continuing to build its brand.”
Absolute search numbers tell a different story. According to ComScore, only one search engine, AOL, declined in terms of total queries. Yahoo gained 5%, Google gained 37%, Microsoft sites gained 15% and Ask gained 24%.
So should marketers be worried? As the search category — estimated at $8 billion in 2007 by Forrester — becomes an increasingly important part of a marketing plan, the seeming consumer consolidation with one player arguably gives Google more control over the search experience.
“Marketers sure would like for someone to give Google a run for its money,” Ms. Siminoff said. “There’s lots of emotional support behind Microsoft and Yahoo.” But, she said, “marketers aren’t spending on Google because Google’s a nice guy but because Google works for them.”
It’s worth noting that the share gains didn’t manifest themselves only in consumer search-engine use. They carried over into ad spending. Efficient Frontier, which has $400 million under its management, said more than 73% of that went to Google in October of this year, up from 62% two years ago.
Looking for innovation
Google is not a monopoly — yet — but luckily for paid-search marketers, even if it were, price inflation is less likely thanks to Google’s market-driven, auction-based pricing.
“Marketers just want to see the innovation,” Mr. Lamberti said. “That’s why there’s buzz around Ask.”…
So even though Google spends less, their brand delivers more. Sounds like serious marketing judo doesn’t it. Here is the lesson to learn, and it applies to all those who want to effectively use Google to drive business to their site: in a land of similar products the only differentiation that you can control as marketer is the user experience - and that is what you should focus your marketing efforts on.
It’s why Apple is the only personal computing company that stands apart from the crowd; why no other online retailer has the customer base of Amazon and why Google is the winner in search. The focus is on the customer experience as much as the actual product. Google could have delivered banner ads- but at the expense of slowing the delivery of results. Amazon could have advertised, but instead chose to spend that money on free shipping. No matter what Crispin Porter + Bogusky does for ask.com, the problem is that search now depends on critical mass and massive investment on technology to refine results- and no one can catch up with Google.
Now, more than ever, there is a science to advertising: deliver answers instead of ads, experiences instead of excess, and results instead of rhetoric. Everything can be tracked and measured either by clicks or by sales, so when looking at an ad agency to deliver customers via search, think twice about the creativity and look for the science behind the campaign. You’ve already found one agency that understands how to make this work or you wouldn’t be reading this.
Remember, people scoffed at the first iPod, $500 for an MP3 player. They ridiculed the video iPod- “Who is going to watch a movie on that small screen, and pay $1.99 for a tv show I could watch the night before for free- puhlleeezeeeeee”
Well, we know what happened there. And remember, Apple wasn’t the first mover.
Amazon has taken the e-book to a new level, with constant connectivity via the Sprint high speed cell network, but, there are some hidden gotcha’s that make this book worth passing on - mostly, the fact that Amazon wants to charge you to upload your own data, or to subscribe to blogs. Eh, better luck next time.
Here is a brief description of the reader from the lengthy Newsweek article, which is well worth reading:
Amazon: Reinventing the Book | Newsweek.com
First, it must project an aura of bookishness; it should be less of a whizzy gizmo than an austere vessel of culture. Therefore the Kindle (named to evoke the crackling ignition of knowledge) has the dimensions of a paperback, with a tapering of its width that emulates the bulge toward a book’s binding. It weighs but 10.3 ounces, and unlike a laptop computer it does not run hot or make intrusive beeps. A reading device must be sharp and durable, Bezos says, and with the use of E Ink, a breakthrough technology of several years ago that mimes the clarity of a printed book, the Kindle’s six-inch screen posts readable pages. The battery has to last for a while, he adds, since there’s nothing sadder than a book you can’t read because of electile dysfunction. (The Kindle gets as many as 30 hours of reading on a charge, and recharges in two hours.) And, to soothe the anxieties of print-culture stalwarts, in sleep mode the Kindle displays retro images of ancient texts, early printing presses and beloved authors like Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen.
But then comes the features that your mom’s copy of “Gone With the Wind” can’t match. E-book devices like the Kindle allow you to change the font size: aging baby boomers will appreciate that every book can instantly be a large-type edition. The handheld device can also hold several shelves’ worth of books: 200 of them onboard, hundreds more on a memory card and a limitless amount in virtual library stacks maintained by Amazon. Also, the Kindle allows you to search within the book for a phrase or name.
My bet would still be on Apple- with a tablet style iPod Touch, or tablet Mac. Combined with the iTunes store, you have an integration that’s already proven- plus an Apple device would be able to play video- a key media tool that can’t be ignored. And hopefully, Apple won’t try to gouge you on uploading your own content- after all, it’s an Open Source world- shouldn’t you be able to upload anything you want that’s yours to your own device without paying the piper?
The big question is when does this device become cheap enough that it becomes cheaper for a newspaper to give you a reader instead of a printed newspaper? When does your choice of reading materials start serving up targeted ads? Amazon will have suggestions, no doubt- but, how will this help their partners move the sales needle?
Watch and see?
In the mean time- what do you think? And, do you want one? Even if it is butt-fugly?
Remember, people scoffed at the first iPod, $500 for an MP3 player. They ridiculed the video iPod- “Who is going to watch a movie on that small screen, and pay $1.99 for a tv show I could watch the night before for free- puhlleeezeeeeee”