One of the most effective Internet marketing tools that you can use to make people become more aware of your products or services online is email marketing. You really do not have to worry about spending a lot of money using this strategy because this is quite an inexpensive marketing technique. Unfortunately, not all people [...]
Forrester Research has released a new report forecasting interactive marketing spend in the U.S. for the next five years. The report, authored by Shar VanBoskirk , is available in its entirety on the Forrester Research website . The report details how certain industries currently spend, and projects how they will spend, on interactive marketing. It also offers some interesting insights for businesses trying to ensure they are either catching, or keeping up with the Joneses. VanBoskirk talks more about it on the Forrester Research blog for Interactive Marketing Professionals . Current Interactive Marketing Spend – Courtesy of Forrester Research, Inc. (Click for larger version) The chart above shows what Forrester estimates brands are currently spending on Interactive Marketing. Display advertising is banner ads and similar, standard ads on websites. The numbers aren’t all that surprising, but think about where the industry is when you think of these insights: Display ads continue to dominate consumer goods and media and entertainment, among other categories. This despite the fact consumer trends indicate ads simply don’t work as well as other interactive areas. The industries that have been using the web the longest – travel and hospitality – spend three times as much on search marketing as display ads and almost 30 percent of their overall budget on Interactive. That’s 10 percent more than any other industry. Social media spend is last or second to last in all categories except business services. Social media consultants and agencies selling social media fall into that category. Email marketing, the interactive version of cash cow direct marketing, appears to be almost an afterthought across the board. It doesn’t surprise me that media and entertainment and consumer goods industries continue to buy display ads more than other Interactive media. They’re not only conditioned to buy ads to communicate their message and under the influence of media planning and buying firms who only make money when they buy them, but they’re the final bastion of people who don’t understand consumers have flocked to arenas like social media to get away from the bull horns of traditional marketing. Are they getting better? Probably. Do they have a way to go? Yep. Travel and hospitality industries have a few years experience on these others and are spending a ton more on search marketing and a ton more total dollars. I’ll give you a hint, GPG folks … they’re onto something. While the cost of social media essentially equates to labor costs, there should still be more dollars devoted to it across the board. I say this not because I want to make more money (though I won’t turn it away) but because social media — building relationships with your consumers — is the one interactive marketing method that is sustainable and cost efficient in being such. You’re investing in the lifetime of your consumers here. The dollars will go a lot farther. And if you aren’t taking advantage of good email marketing, you need to stop what you’re doing and figure that piece out fast. Email marketing done right, delivered to the right audience and with the right message is still the best way to consistently reach people in the interactive space. These are my ideas on how companies and industries should look to change some of these numbers. You’ll have to go purchase the Forrester Report to see if their predictions match up with what I’m recommending. (Warning: Forrester Reports aren’t cheap, but do come with a three-week, money-back guarantee.) In the meantime, what do the numbers tell you? What surprises you? What seems odd? A penny for your comments … Subscribe to the blog | Subscribe to the newsletter | Follow Jason on Twitter Related articles by Zemanta Effective E-Mail Marketing (ronmedlin.com) Should We Kill The Ads Or The Metrics? (threeminds.organic.com) Top Digital Marketing Trends for 2010: Flash, Crowdsourcing, Info-Art (marketingvox.com)
From the perspective of some, it seems like Vegas was late to participate in social media (according to the PubCon panel description). However, the prominent brands on the strip have stepped up to the plate and are actively engaged in social web participation. They’re leveraging digital platforms for a variety of purposes – from customer service to promotion. This open-format panel at PubCon 2009 analyzed how Vegas marketing departments are using SM as part of their overall marketing plan and featured some of the largest names on the strip. Brands represented were: Brad Goldberg, Vice President of Marketing, Luxor Brandie Feuer, Director of Interactive Marketing, Planet Hollywood Peter Arceo, Executive Director of Casino Marketing, Las Vegas Hilton Michael Perhaes, Assistant Vice President of Marketing, MGM Grand Bryan Allison, Vice President, Marketing, Vegas.com The session moved quickly, but I was able to jot down the good bits from each of the speakers. Brad Goldberg , Vice President of Marketing, Luxor We saw successes from other brands using social media and decided we wanted to pattern the same results. While not everyone may check their emails in Vegas, many of them still check their social profiles while traveling. People are looking to what is happening right now, up-to-date. We wanted to be a part of those real-time conversations and top-of-mind for our consumer base. We want to keep it fun – staying away from “cold” messages that are too commercial. We think it’s important with regards to the social web is to maintain personality/voice. That’s one of the most important things we want to hold onto and maintain. Otherwise, it’s just another advertising vehicle. Making it easier for those interacting with your products to communicate how they are interacting with your brand is something we see as important to our future. Peter Arceo, Executive Director of Casino Marketing, Las Vegas Hilton At the Hilton, we don’t necessarily have the same resources of our competitors. So what we do is staff social media with people actively interested in what we’re trying to do – spread our brand. We try to get customers to both sample our offerings and make it social. We have a “toys for Tweets” promotion that will bring awareness to the fact that there is a Hilton in Vegas in a positive light. Our approach to get employees involved in social media isn’t to guide them, but take the Zappos approach and let them have their own voice. We want to find people internally interested in doing social media organically. We design promotions and events to get people together – not just to meet us, but to meet each other. There is a hunger and a need for people to meet each other. We want to be the connector. Brandie Feuer , Director of Interactive Marketing, Planet Hollywood We see social media as a great direct response channel. But we’re also cognizant of providing value to users. We do things like give out last minute concert tickets to our followers and promote little things that might not be worth a press release. Social media rests with PR and our interactive department, however we also encourage others to be a part of the space. All employees should be empowered, where possible. We want to move towards more of a social business model. Michael Perhaes, Assistant Vice President of Marketing, MGM Grand The MGM Grand was late to the social media game compared to competitors on the strip – we finally joined for a few reasons. The effectiveness of our email marketing was beginning to degrade a bit. The value of email has diminished in the last few years. We’ve seen sites like Facebook have taken up that role for many. We want to put content into social media that may have been ignored in email. In a few years time, social media will become an even more important network than email for our brand. We have high expectations on response for social media as a full-blown marketing channel. The people that choose to follow us on the social web have affinity for our brand and we want to be able to market to them. We have specific pages for some channels, for example we have a separate food and beverage Facebook page for that department since there are people passionate about those items. We want to engage other departments too. Most importantly, we want to find ways to make this more meaningful even beyond direct response and reach people interested in Vegas. We’re creating personas to try to build affinity with people. We read (and respond) to posts customers put up on their Facebook page – specifically things like customer complaints – in order to make their next experience better. It allows that two way communication – if someone complains about their room, we have a way to respond to them immediately. As a promotional effort we launched a “confessions campaign” on Twitter where you can Tweet your sins, and there’s a livestream of people tweeting those sins. Users can vote on sins which are forgivable vs. unforgivable. The best sins can win a free night. We’ve done advertising in LA to support it and create more buzz. The goal is to gain additional awareness on Twitter, gain more followers and experiment. Bryan Allison, Vice President, Marketing, Vegas.com We identified people internally who were passionate about social media and empowered them to get involved and answer consumer questions. The entire company is leveraging the social web. We just launched a campaign called “Vegas Experts Exposed.” This wasn’t the idea of the marketing department; rather it was the idea of some other employees in the company. We want everyone to contribute ideas across the company. We’ve done things that are both commercial and fun on social channels and we’re continuously surprised with how people interact with the more fun items. We want to have something that people will look forward to on their live feed. We use a mix of “power users” internally for promoting the product, and also customer service representatives talking to customers and alleviate their problems. There are people internally who are really passionate and want to share their workplace/what they do all day. We encourage them to do so, however to use common sense and ask us first on appropriateness if there is a questions. Many of our younger employees are already involved – use them, tap that resource. They know how to communicate and engage in these channels. We use them to help the people who may not be as experienced in social media.
If you have ever wanted to be a fly on the wall listening to experts talk about the convergence of PR and Social Media, here’s your chance. PRSA brought together the following people to lend their thoughts about the PR (R)evolution: Moderator: Kami Watson from My PR Pro and Panelists: Deirdre Breakenridge from PFS Marketwyse, Ariel Hyatt of Ariel Publicity & CyberPR, Joseph Jaffe from Crayon and Brian Solis from FutureWorks PR. Here is the conversation as it unfolded, marked with Twitter handles. What’s next in the realm of online and how will it impact PR? @dbreakenridge – Google Wave is next for launching information and collaborating. As discussed in a panel yesterday 2008/2009 was the year of checking off a list of social media tools. Facebook – check. YouTube- check. Next, we need to evolve, connect the networks, improve the experience and understand real-time metrics. In addition, the consumer experience will be upgraded to reflect real-time pricing, etc. @jaffejuice – I get irritated when people ask me what the next big thing is. The next big thing is right now. I am really bugged by this complete fixation on Twitter. SecondLife is back in a big way in the form of Twitter. What we are forgetting are podcasts and blogging as tools for peer-to-peer communication. iPhone users only make up 3% of AT&T users, but create 70% of the data. So a big thing now is mobile. I challenge you to re-visit the checklist and ask yourself how many are hitting those items on a strategic level? @kamichat to @briansolis – What is the impact of the ‘live web’? @briansolis – Twitter is phenomenal in how it’s changed how people interact. It’s nothing short of a shift in how people interact. We’ve not seen its full reach. The full power of this is the human network. Twitter is changing how we communication (press release vs 140 characters). Twitter won’t be here in 5 years, something else will but the impact is not the tool but how it’s changing the way we communicate and participate. Today’s technology isn’t tapped into to its full potential and it’s our job (pr pros) to help increase the level of interactivity. @kamichat – What about the little guy? @cyberPR – What’s interesting is that what is next is making sure that clients understand how to use the tools with or without us (the agency). What’s always next is that we don’t leave them cold and once we leave their Twitter stream doesn’t dry up. If you are working on the corporate level, you have to convince people that the conversation is necessary and get them involved. @kamichat to @dbreakenridge – A lot of clients expect us to do the tactical implementation, how does that work in this new communications model? How does that work with client-side or agency-side PR pros? @dbreakenridge – We discuss this whole ‘who owns social media’ but we all own it. You have to have your overarching strategy. Whatever you do online it has to be tied to business goals. Don’t engage at the tactical level, start with the strategy and a big part of the strategy is to listen. What are you getting yourself into to, what is the culture of the community. If you can’t understand the different stakeholders and what they need from you, then it’s no different than pushing a message that they don’t want to hear. @jaffejuice – The message has to come from within the client; it can’t be the job of the agency. In a survey, some 60% of the companies who have listened haven’t followed through. In other terms, you can’t be half pregnant. The half hearted attempts can backfire. @kamichat – What kind of skills do the new PR professional needs to be the new architect and move away from the tactical role? @briansolis – I’ll get there, but first I have to talk to Joe. Who owns email marketing right now? Email isn’t going away and it’s going to get more social. Right now, IT owns email. The lesser aspect of social media is that no one will ever own it, but someone has to be accountable. Somewhere we got misdirected and started mass-blasting messages. However, PR is a very social activity. At some point the organization itself (PR, Sales, Customer Service) has to get social, embrace the brand and be able to represent it. PR has its biggest and grandest opportunity right now to more effectively communicate outward and be able to impact the organization in a much more valuable way. Any discussion that takes our eyes off that ball, is mute. We need to figure out how to be valuable to the organization, and be less concerned with Twitter/Facebook and more concerned about the conversations. @jaffejuice – I love what Brian said, in fact there is a tear in my eye. The only thing is this, when I first encountered the PR space I was blown away by the innovation and understanding the power of relationships. That said, the more I got to know the PR industry the more I realized most were still mired in the past and grappling with how to change. If you want the lead you can have it, because you are already out there but you don’t have much time before people surpass you. @kamichat – How do we train our clients how to do this? @cyberPR – What’s interesting about the music industry is that we are the canary in the coalmine. The music we create is the first thing that can get stolen online. Our goal as an agency is to make them understand is that they same thing they do on stage – connect with the audience – is exactly what they need to do online. @kamichat – What are the skills that people need (we didn’t get this answered before) @briansolis – There really isn’t a checklist. To go back to Joe’s point, listening is what gives you all the answers. It’s the listening that tells you how to respond and where, but if you are a human you can’t help but gain empathy for those talking about your brand. @kamichat – Question from the audience: in the past, there have been 1 or 2 spokespeople, are you saying may people within the organization need to be social? @dbreakenridge – It can approached any number of ways. However, the more opportunities for a customer to get close to your employees the closer they will become to your brand. Start on the inside with training, policy and procedures or whatever you need to get buy-in and then take the conversations to the outside. @jaffejuice – I can’t agree more. BestBuy is changing the way they serve their customers because of social media. We can no longer control the message. The people you have on the front lines are your brand. If we can’t figure out how to harness employees then all the ads and billboards in the world don’t matter. @briansolis – I’m nodding my head. Before you come to the table as a PR person, come as a consumer. You talk when you like something, you talk when you don’t. Ultimately you have to find the right people and there is no amount of media training that can make someone genuine. @kamichat – What I’m finding is that clients are having internal battles over social. Do you find there is a turf war? @jaffejuice – There isn’t a company on the planet where all departments play nice together. PR & Advertising are often still oil and water. Consumers don’t follow your org chart, the brand is the brand to them. The problem is we can’t move quick enough. Turf wars are at least good because at least somebody is trying to take ownership. It is worse if social isn’t even part of the conversation. @kamichat – Part of this is really all about training internally. How are hooking training in and appealing to them? @cyberPR – Now that Oprah is on Twitter, it’s getting easier. Society is making it easier for any of us trying to drag client into this arena. Do as they do helps tremendously. It’s more difficult to train clients if you don’t have a presence on the sites yourself. Show them how it’s benefited you or others. @kamichat – We have come into this era where a personal brand is important and perhaps employed by a brand. @briansolis – This is a really powerful time as both a brand and an individual. You, as the individual, have the opportunity to create influence within your community. This will become a job requirement in years to come. The question about personality is whether you should be you or you at X company. In Twitter and Facebook you are creating contextual networks where you might have a client and your mom commenting on the same page. I’m a big proponent of separating your personal and professional brand. @kamichat – Question from the audience: If companies are starting to ask employees to have a social presence, how do we deal with those that block Facebook, etc at work. @dbreakenridge – It’s not ideal. The best scenario would be to open it up, train people and let them be a proponent of the brand. @jaffejuice – If we believe that companies will become more open, we’re going to have to train IT. It’s going to get worse before it gets better. The upcoming workforce may start to push back and withstand working for organizations who block their ability to connect. @kamichat – How do we go from building social campaigns to commitment by the organization? @jaffejuice – If you want to go and invest money in a 30 second campaign to get friends on Facebook, you better have a plan for what you are going to do with the friends. On the other hand, the commitment can create a campaign as well. If you build and nurture slowly with empathy and care, you can leverage that community at any point in time for something that is more focused and socialized. Conversations are not magic beans. You can’t just plant a message and expect it to grow. Slow and steady OR fast and figure out the rest later? Both can work, but have a plan.
Last month, Social Media Explorer’s first report, Customer Twervice: Exploring Best Practices and Case Studies In Customer Service Efforts Using Twitter , gave us a look at how many brands are turning to social media for customer service and service recovery efforts. Apparently, I wasn’t the only person interested in the topic. My friends at the University of Louisville and Murray State University , namely Professors David Faulds and Tom Peterson (marketing professors, UofL ) and Glynn Mangold (marketing professor, Murray State University) have started an interesting academic research project around service recovery via social media. Specifically, the professors are looking into companies using the social space for the specific reason of correcting failures in service to retain a customer’s good standing or good will. (And yeah, I’ve already told them about half a dozen case studies off the top of my head.) According to Professor Faulds, “The objective of the research is to investigate how social media venues can be used by both consumers and organizations in correcting service failures. We are exploring the use of social media across a variety of environments including profit and non-profit organizations, as well as producers of services and manufacturers of consumer products.” What the professors need is your help. If you know of a service recovery example, case study or company practicing the active pursuit of service recovery using any social media method (not just Twitter ), please let us know. And we would love personal stories and anecdotes, not just the name of a company doing it. If you’ve personally Tweeted your disgust in service at a restaurant or store and someone reached out to you, tell us about it. All your stories are important in this project. Please reach out to us with the information by any of the following methods: Post a comment with the name of the company and explanation of what they are doing below. Email Professor Faulds with the information at djfaul01– at — louisville.edu. Email me at jason — at — socialmediaexplorer.com and I’ll forward the information. Any and all information you can provide will be appreciated. We’ll do the follow up calls and work to gather the information. We just need to cast a wide net and find as many examples as possible for the research. And don’t limit your suggestions to the big names. (We know many of them.) Give us small businesses, too. And don’t forget email marketing, blogs, Facebook and other methods besides Twitter. Any and all points in these directions will help. While we’re not 100-percent certain, we suspect this research project will wind up being one of, if not the first of its kind from the academic perspective. And I’ve been promised I can share the results here when they’re ready, so we can all benefit from the knowledge. Thanks for your help. Now tell us your service recovery story in the comments. Related articles by Zemanta Lots of interesting new social media research statistics (stuartbruce.biz)
The quality of email content is one of the core factors in determining whether an email marketing campaign succeeds or fails. But successful email copywriting is an art — rather than a science — making it differ from most other forms of business writing. To start out on the right path, consider these 5 tips for effective email copywriting: 1. Focus on the subject line. The subject line may be the shortest piece of content to write, but it’s one your campaign’s most critical elements. The challenge is to create excitement for a special offer, provide enough information to be clear about purpose and convey a brand’s essence – all in 50 characters or less. When writing your subject lines: Create a sense of urgency. Include timely information to encourage subscribers to open the email. Include the most important information first. It’s essential that subject lines don’t exceed the character limits of email servers. But prioritizing the vital information first will ensure that, in case the subject line does run over, the primary message will be conveyed. Look to others for inspiration. Read newspaper and magazine headlines for ideas. Consider the email campaigns that you receive. Which ones were you intrigued enough to open and what can you deduce from those subject lines? Go with what works. Look to your own past successful email campaigns and replicate the subject lines that produced the highest open rates. Also, test out different subject lines within the same campaign to discover what generates the best response. 2. Include a mix of promotional copy with informational copy. Even if the goal of a campaign is to promote a new product, announce company news or introduce a special offer, complement that information with non-corporate information. For example: Supplement a new product announcement with a thought leader interview from a supporting industry. If a seasonal offer is being promoted, include tips or a checklist pertaining to that particular season. 3. Involve your readers. Consider the success of blogs, forums and social networks. Those interactive channels are effective because users feel involved and engaged. Build off that premise with email copywriting by keeping subscribers engaged and making them a part of the content. Consider including: Reader polls Reader case studies Q&As with customers User-generated content 4. Make the call to action crystal clear. With too many calls to action, email marketers run the risk of confusing or overwhelming subscribers. When customers are presented too many options, they may be less likely to purchase. Instead, focus your calls to action and limit the effort it takes to act. Consider these quick tips: Rely on size and placement position to emphasize the call to action. Write call to action copy that tells subscribers exactly what they can expect. Use copy that reinforces to subscribers that taking action will be quick and easy. 5. Put yourself in your subscribers’ shoes. When it all boils down, an email campaign will only be successful if it addresses subscribers’ needs. Email marketers should look at their campaigns from subscribers’ perspectives. What’s important to them? In a ClickZ blog post on email copywriting, Pat Friesen talks about the importance of understanding an audience: Visualize subscribers, whether they are mothers of young children or a corporate executive. Picture where subscribers are reading the email copy, whether it’s on a computer at work, on a laptop at home or on-the-go from a mobile device. Imagine the distractions subscribers face when reading email copy. Beyond simply visualizing subscribers, study their open and click-through patterns, and consider their demographic information. If you’re still unsure of what subscribers want, use a reader survey to ask them. What other tips do you have for effective email copywriting?
If there is one direct Internet advertising tactic that is effective in letting Net users know about your service or product, it is email marketing. Just like other online marketing strategies, using email as a promotional tool is very affordable. The only reason why many businesses, both big and small, are experiencing failures when it [...]
