So you have been trying to blow up your company or brand on Facebook, but maybe you are unclear of the results because you have focused on driving sales on Facebook itself, and it has not achieved the results you expected. Repeated marketing studies have shown that Facebook storefronts have not been a leading source of e-commerce transactions, despite the platform’s huge user reach.
According to a study released by ThreatMetrix in partnership with the Ponemon Institute, Only 20% have purchased something directly within Facebook, despite ongoing direct exposure to products through Facebook. That this is do in large part to the social nature of Facebook. Consumers are glad to learn about, share opinions, or even be rewarded for interactions with brands they like, however studies indicate that many consumers feel that Facebook is the wrong place to be urged to complete transactions due to its more “social” environment nature, and more likely to distrust motives of brands that do.
In practical terms you could liken it to someone showing up at a gathering of friends and urge everyone to immediately buy a sweater from them, like the cool one they are wearing. Maybe the sweater is cool, and people may want to learn about it in casual discussion, to later make a buying decision. It is not the time, however, to be hawking the actual product.
A separate study, by Oracle, found that whooping 34% of American and Canadian consumers said they would never purchase products via a Facebook page, while only 10% said that they had done so. There is also concerns of security with Facebook stores as a ThreatMetrix /Ponemon Institute study show that 53% of consumers fear that Facebook stores are less secure in protecting them against fraud than typical internet storefronts. Clearly there is a perception issue here.
So does this mean that Facebook order pages and storefronts should be avoided? Certainly not, and there may be special considerations for some direct marketers as well. While Facebook stores may not be best for many brands and companies, it appears to come down to approach. Studies show that the businesses successful with Facebook storefronts are high touch businesses where customers have close relationships with the brand and commonly deal with all customer contacts on a highly personal level and have a one-on-one–relationship, which lends itself to trust. Custom services, personal/consultant type services, and “luxury” type brands are key examples of those that come out on top in studies.
So what does this mean for your business? It means that if you have intentions of selling directly to customers on Facebook, examine your business and the level of relationship with your customers and decide if it is right for you. You must first build a strong relationship, and be able to build higher than usual levels of trust where your brand has a high level of personal touch with your customers and prospects, then you can extend your relationship with direct sales on Facebook in your advertising and marketing campaigns.
Filed under Advertising, Brand Building, Internet Business, Media Buying, Social Media by on Jan 10th, 2012. Comment. 
As most marketers now know, mobile buying influence in the market continues to rise and studies show that at the end of 2011 as much as 20% of purchases occurred or were heavily influenced directly by mobile devices.
A new study also shows that consumer sentiment views tablet and smart phone devices as secure as using typical desktop or laptop computers for making purchases. According to a study by ThreatMetrix in partnership with the Ponemon Institute, 51% of consumers believe the fraud risk is the same on a smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop devices. Almost one third believe that mobile and tablets may actually be more secure. Only 19% say they believe fraud risk is higher on tablets and smart phones.
This combined with ongoing data showing the quick growth in the use of smart phones and tablets, combined with market confidence indicates that the quick growth in mobile devices with continue and that the proportion of sales is going to proportionately increase as well.
Meanwhile , smart marketers will continue to look forward in how they can utilize mobile within their businesses marketing campaigns and develop mobile specific tactics, so they can make the best use of this trend, growing sales.
Filed under Advertising, Marketing Analytics, Media Buying, Mobile Marketing, Social Media by on Jan 8th, 2012. Comment.
…but understanding how is key
This is what I mean, Ok we are all here online, we “know” about FB and social media is all the buzz,with the topic of return on investment with social media participation seeming to polarize many marketing, advertising, and PR folks, but in the end what we need to do is have our brands connect with consumers with needs we can fill.
But are we really doing this and doing it properly?
I was going over some work in my own mind when I came across a review that really crystallizes this well and brings up some things I wanted to point out.
This is what we need to be looking at when bring people to your brand or product on FB:
It’s about the customers.- You want to have contact with them and be able to form relationships with them, social media, gives you clear avenues to do this. It’s about the connections you make with customers, far more than having an outright ROI machine. These connections make customers instead in referrals and advocates for your products/services
-It’s about relationships. You you want to get to know your customers and form relationships with them, not be a one night stand. The value companies can get from investment in social media is directly tied to the relationships they build with customers and a relevant community.
-ROI is also about cost savings. Using the RIGHT and INTEGRATED social media, using the right processes to create efficiencies, often translate into better, faster, and more useful information for customers that result in cost savings (they get you now)or even more sales (easier/high conversions)
Measure what matters-the better connections your prospects have with your product or brand, the more likely those consumers will be positively inclined to buy this is how you increase end ROI
-It’s about inspiration and influence-remember in the end you want to both inspire and influence your prospects so that you have motivated them to make the right decision. This will get prospect to take faster, more decisive action, and who doesn’t want to sell more products, more often, and more quickly?
Don’t believe it? Take a look at some real life examples:
USA Today – Coca-Cola Facebook fans are two times as likely to consume product and 10 times more likely to purchase than non-fans, according to Wendy Clark, senior vice president of integrated marketing.
see http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/talkingtech/story/2011-11-08/coca-cola-social-media/51127040/1
Yahoo – Brands who sponsored content with social features increased purchase intent by 13 percent.
see http://advertising.yahoo.com/article/the-impact-of-social-features.html
eMarketer – Over 50 percent of Twitter followers are more likely to purchase from brands they follow.
see http://bit.ly/sx1dJr
Filed under Advertising, Brand Building, Internet Business, Internet Marketing, Social Media by on Dec 15th, 2011. Comment.
There is a trend that you may have noticed growing more and more in marketing, where companies are featuring real people and employees in ads promoting products. It is worth taking a notice, as a recent IBR survey indicates that buyers are responding. It showed that 69% of end consumers were more likely to buy a product or have a positive impression of the brand after watching, compared to only 21% after watching similar traditional ads.
There are some heavy hitters that are testing this move besides the well known Microsoft Windows 7 campaign that uses real consumers saying “Windows 7 Was My Idea”. This includes tech powerhouses Intel and IBM, Best Buy, pizza giant Domino’s, who has not always had luck with media and employees, and conglomerate GE. All who have used actual team members, and in many cases actual customers, to evangelize their products and tell a compelling story in major advertising campaigns.
Since this marketing tactic seems to be gaining momentum, and receiving positive response, the question becomes how can your business get in on the action.
There are 2 sides of this, first in house evangelists that believe in their company, brand, product or service. Second is the powerful voice of customers or clients within the online community. Social media greatly enhances your customers ability to talk about your products and company online. Besides popular social media sites like facebook and twitter there are countless forums, and product review sites to talk about buyer experiences, both consumer and B2B. This can work either to your advantage or disadvantage.
What you want to be able to do is take control of the conversation by being the one to start it, or at least point it in the direction you desire.
Here is how:
Know what makes your company special and why you are the only solution to your customers needs? This is a great way to spread the word so that others can find out too.
Filed under Advertising, Brand Building, CRM, Internet Marketing, Social Media by on Dec 13th, 2011. Comment.
Undoubtedly, behavioral marketing has become a staple in many a savvy company’s online marketing plans. The question becomes whether it is being used properly to achieve higher ROI, or simply increases ad costs with unclear or lackluster results.
The projected US ad spend alone for 2010 is 27 billion, and 61 billion globally, in US dollars. That is a growth of 16% from 2009. Also note, less than half is from paid search ads, indicating a growing success with banner ads and similar mediums for some businesses.
The vast majority of those ads now claim some form of behavioral targeting. Marketers embrace the concept, question is: does it just increase costs, or is it really increasing ROI in your campaigns? A very cost effective form of behavioral advertising that is becoming increasingly popular is re-targeting.
It is so profitable because re-targeting serves ads to those who have specifically already seen your website and/or performed a specific action, but not purchased. Lets face it, what percentage of your visitors buy on their first visit? The more that someone sees your product, the more likely it is that they will buy it. Traditional wisdom has told us that a prospect needs to see your product 7 times before making a buying decision.
You can regain many of these visitors as future customers, as their likely hood to buy is much higher than cold prospects. Internet consumers investigate before they make a purchase. Even if they want and like your product, they are likely to think about it, shop around, or investigate the product before you can close the sale.
By developing a re-targeting strategy you can expose that same consumer or business to specific ads designed for previous visitors, as they surf the web. Also, for products with a longer purchase cycle, re-targeting is effect because it leverages sequential advertising to reinforce your message, as the consumer goes through the process prior to completing a purchase.
You can build a large base of potential buyers to retarget, by combining re-targeting with traffic-driving solutions. For example, if you run a search campaign, re-targeting would be an excellent complementary solution to drive sales, for those that visited your site, but did not make a buying decision.
A growing number of ad networks support re-targeting as its power has become more apparent. Ad networks can make re-targeting quite effective, because they enable you to retarget visitors of countless sites across the net, rather than just one. You can also provide a custom message depending on the action the prospect took on your site, such as cart abandonment.
Re-targeted ads can be extremely successful in comparison with the an average online ad campaign targeted demographically. One study showed 10 times the number of sales conversions, and 21 times the number of info requests over an array of products.
With a lot of noise online about behavioral targeting of ads, re-targeting is one method that can clearly drive a lot of sales through your site, and improve your bottom line.
Filed under Advertising, Brand Building, Internet Marketing by on Dec 10th, 2011. Comment.
Well the official reports are in on the “holiday weekend”. Ongoing reports of a “bad economy” may now be exaggerated, as sales numbers are saying something else.
Black Friday, total visits to the top 500 retail sites increased 2%, compared to 2010. Small business did even better as overall ecommerce sales jumped 26% compared to last year according to Comscore’s report!
Some people have been asking on the sweet spot regarding time of sales, especially for the holidays. IBM coremetrics reported that the peak for Cyber Monday was around 11am PST/2pm EST.
The best news however is that Cyber Monday rose 22% from 2010, and broke the record for the largest online sales in a day at $1.25 billion, as reported by Comscore. They then report this was followed by 2 more billion dollar breaking days. These three billion dollar spending days currently rank as three of the four heaviest online spending days in history. We are at around $18 billion for the holiday season so far.
As far as take-aways for digital marketers, mobile is looking like a big way to look. Mobile is a big player with 17% of all shoppers are using mobile devices (alhough at 10.8% for cyber monday), as reported by IBM Smarter Commerce. So mobile is taking an interesting share this year. According to the attached article “If you don’t have a mobile strategy in place, get one now.” As well as showing the importance of multiple channels for ecommerce sales, as shoppers are using multiple channels now to complete their digital shopping. (More than seven out of 10 (71%) consumers surveyed by Deloitte said they would engage in multichannel shopping online (meaning looking both online and offline for products for example)
So keep this stuff in mind guys!
Filed under Advertising, Internet Business, Internet Marketing by on Dec 4th, 2011. Comment.
MSNBC has redone their site as a “one page format” so that they can stop the pageview metric, commonly used to value websites and banner advertising campaigns. They now have 30 different ad combinations, but banner ads are not among the offerings. Does this mean that they are dead, as stated by one MSNBC.com spokesperson?
Clearly some publishers have a reason to want them to be. They don’t get the fees they would like to charge on these ads, and from a consumer response perspective, many seem to have become “blind” to banner ads in many cases.
Many reasons are given for this, and we do not wish to speculate, however when several experts were asked for their opinon on banner ads, none seemed to believe that this format is dead. Instead it appears to be undergoing an evolution, and smart marketers are learning how to create responsive banner ads that viewers will click.
Savvy marketers have discovered that they are able to buy up these ads cheaply, and when formatted properly, for actual response rather than simply being “pretty,” “clever” or “creative,” are able to receive an excellent ROI.
Another perspective on this issue comes from the likes of Brendan Star, digital media director at McGarrah Media: “”Banner ads aren’t going extinct, but the ways they are used, bought, and served are.” He, unfortunately, was referring to for use in old school branding efforts, rather than actual sales and promotion, however it may turn out that these ads can have a good ROI when designed properly and used selectively.
In the mean time, don’t let anyone tell you that “banner ads are dead”, and most importantly that they do not work. While improperly designed banners may fail horribly, properly designed ads, in a properly executed campaign, can command response, and provide an excellent ROI on your marketing dollar.
Filed under Advertising, Internet Business, Internet Marketing, Media Buying by on Dec 3rd, 2011. Comment.
With online audiences becoming more sophisticated, and more jaded, it is important to keep up with current online marketing tactics to achieve the ROI you or your client needs. No where is this more true than in your email marketing campaigns. Several recent studies show however, that many companies-small, medium, and large, are not utilizing latest techniques to achieve the best results in their campaigns.
A recent report released by Strong Mail, authored by email marketing analyst and Relevancy Group CEO David Daniels, based on a survey of US and UK companies, found that they would have generated double the revenue from their email campaigns. This was achieved by doing proper targeting, comparing those that did to many that did not.
Doubling results is nothing to sneeze at, so it is important that we take a look at what some of the sins you want to avoid to keep your campaigns returns above those of your competitors. While email is a key element of any marketers tool box, as this survey shows, many are making common mistakes that are costing them lots of potential revenue.
Not targeting your customer and their specific needs
This is key if you sell more than one product or service, or if your prospects’ needs vary through the customer life cycle. It may seem like you are doing everyone a favor by sending a general email blast to customers letting them know about current offerings. The reality is that you can increase interest and exponentially increase revenue by targeting customers specific needs. If your customer needs widget xyz , don’t try to market them widget abc. If they have specific needs provide that specific group of customers valuable content and information to those with that specific product or service need. Know what your customers’ specific needs or wants are and target those customers in segmented groups. This can also change in the sales cycle or in the customer life cycle. This was the factor that doubled revenue for companies in the Strong Mail survey.
You will also greatly reduce unsubscribes and other negative connotations from being developed by customers regarding your lists, by providing them exactly what they need.
Ignorance
It is important to know what the current best practices are, and also what your list is doing. Some businesses look at email as a send it and forget it campaign, without knowing what their customers are thinking. As in the above example, knowing what is going on with your customers, what they think of being on your list, and addressing them specifically can all have a huge impact on your bottom line.
This also includes not ensuring that prospects can easily and quickly unsubscribe. A recent report showed that around 4-5% of retail customers unsubscribe requests failed. Besides Can-Spam legal issues, there is the fact that those customers still have value, and possible interest if unsubscribed. That can quickly turn to anger, however, if they are unable to do so easily.
Improper Timing
Many businesses fail to realize that the timing of your message, that is when in the sales cycle, as well as the day and time of the message, have a major impact on response rates. This is just as important as the message itself and who receives it.
Numerous studies seem to show a consensus that messages sent Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, have the best chance of being opened with many direct marketers finding Tuesdays best for new offers. Most agree that time of day has a great impact on if it is opened or not. Some say 10-11am is good, others say that around 2 is best. There does seem to be debate over what is best, and likely varies from market to market.
A lot of thought should be put into when messages are sent, with day and time tracked closely.
Not properly utilizing advanced techniques
To those that use them, it is known that advanced or trigger based segmentation can achieve much higher results than typical email campaigns. Despite this, a survey from Econsultancy reveals that only a minority of companies use this and other advanced tools that impact email campaign revenue.
Multivariate testing is another valuable tool, that is frequently either ignored or mis-implemented. For those unfamiliar, multivariate testing provides results based on multiple variables within a campaign, and how they interact with one another in effecting results. Not to be confused with more simple split testing, this may include multiple copy versions, subjects, day, time, customer list segment, and more all in a campaign. While testing is obvious in theory, proper implementation of multivariate testing sometimes can become the issue, when improperly set up. This is according to a SiteSpect whitepaper, indicating that implementation can be complicated for some, and results sometimes surprising. It is, however, an important tool in understanding your campaigns and achieving proper results.
Ignoring the trend towards IP/domain reputation
There is a clear new trend in email filtering and delivery. Many major ISPs are putting in place domain based reputation systems. This is a major shift in delivery and email marketers need to prepare. It is already estimated that less than 70% of emails reach their recipients. It is important that the domains or IP through which your messages are sent are whitelisted and have low bounce and spam complaint rates. “Trust” of the IPs and domains are going to be an important factor in delivery. This is a major issue all onto itself and is important to understand and prepare for.
Confused how to handle social media
Many marketers have been unsure with how to handle social media, with regards to their email campaigns.
The question is often if it should be ignored, or if its style and message should be replicated to hopefully increase response.
The answer proposed by Econsultancy, along with Adestra in their in their fourth annual Email Marketing Industry Consenus, is to use it as an enhancement or complement to the email campaign. The report found that 37% of companies are using email to encourage prospects and customers to engage on social networks. About a third at 31% claim that they have plans to integrate social media, and only 21% say that they use email to promote customer ratings and reviews.
This leaves a large amount of mind share available within social media for most businesses. Those that integrate first will have the best opportunity to capture mindshare, and improve not only email response, but often general marketing ROI.
Not noticing new regulatory trends
There appears to be a strong sentiment towards much more regulation online and direct marketing in government right now, both at the FTC and in Congress. Some of this may be good, but some is quite business changing in how things are to be done. Recent changes in the past year include new rules changing and limiting automated voice message delivery, testimonials and product marketing restrictions, email, privacy, blogging and referral requirements, continuity/recurring charges/retention program restrictions from visa, and much more. The FTC is becoming more aggressive and this trend looks to continue. Staying on top of all these changes even BEFORE they happen will give your business a competitive advantage. It helps cull weaker players, and the winners are the ones with clear ideas on how to proceed in new regulatory environments. Keeping a watchful eye will keep your business not only ahead in email, but all online marketing campaigns, and out of potential legal issues.
In the end, keepings all these points in mind, and aware of coming changes will help your business achieve maximum results and stay above the competition.
Filed under Advertising, Email Marketing, Internet Business, Internet Marketing by on Nov 27th, 2011. Comment.
