There seems to be a growing feeling that us marketers have had our chance to ‘experiment’ with social media and now we need to start delivering real results. Customer service wants to know how those Tweets are making their jobs easier, whilst sales wants to know when they can start chasing all these Facebook fans you’ve been amassing.
Fuzzy claims about ‘engagement’ and stats on page impressions will no longer do. There’s too much cynicism around that social media isn’t the sales generating machine some of us marketers claim.
So it’s time that we started standing up to the naysayers with some stats proving that social media is worth persevering with and that it can deliver real results.
Metrics for gauging social media success
Before launching a social media campaign it’s sensible to note down all the various metrics you can use to gauge success. This includes qualitative engagements with customers (interactions, feedback and comments) and quantitative means of measurement, such as:
Mentions on Twitter and in Google
The number of Facebook fans, Twitter followers, blob subscribers, etc
Website traffic
Backlinks pointing to your website
Latest sales figures
You can then combine both qualitative and quantitative measures to gain some insight on the impact of your social media campaign’s success.
How brand success from the World Cup has been gauged
Now the final whistle has blown, marketers have been pouring over the figures to gauge which brand benefited the most from their multi-million pound sponsorship deal.
Adidas got the most blog mentions, thanks to its controversial Jabulani ball, but it’s been Coca-Cola that’s been hailed as the clear winner after gaining 1.4 million social media fans during the tournament. This represents a 20% increase, with its YouTube competition to win match tickets being seen as a big part of its success. No mention of the impact of Bavaria beer’s orange dress attired ambush marketing stunt unfortunately.
Old Spice sets the benchmark
If you haven’t heard, the marketing world is swooning over P&G’s Old Spice campaign, hailed for transforming a fuddy duddy brand into the internet’s hottest topic. The campaign’s 200+ videos, responding to Tweets and blog posts (and thriving off user participation in the process), have so far clocked up:
Old Spice’s campaign has been hailed as the new textbook way of using social media, so expect a flood of clones in the coming months. However, one statistic that has yet to be reported is the increase in sales.
Blendtec is reported to have increased sales five fold thanks to its ‘Will it Blend’ series of videos. This may well be an exceptional example – for now – but we believe that more and more increases in sales will be able to be directly attributable to social media engagement campaigns.
Social media is brilliant for enabling businesses to listen to their customers, provide outstanding customer service, and engender positive word-of-mouth recommendations. But ultimately it will be its impact on the bottom line which will propel it into mainstream adoption as the central hub around which marketing campaigns revolve.
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
Referral Marketing Tips to Get Your Customers Selling for You
It’s not uncommon to feel embarrassed about asking customers for referrals. It’s normal to hope that they will occur naturally if you continue providing a high quality service. But referrals are worth encouraging because they can be marketing gold.
Having your customers tell their friends and colleagues about your business can generate leads that are already sold on your expertise. After all, who do you trust more? The helpful advice of someone you know or the sales pitch of a corporate enterprise?
Referral marketing tips
1. Ask – It sounds simple, but just asking customers to pass on your details is a straightforward way of creating leads. You don’t have to do this in person, but can add it into your after sales process. In your email or letter, thanking them for their purchase, you can politely suggest passing on your details to anyone who might be interested in your product. Hopefully, they’ll do this for free as a gesture of appreciation, but you can always offer them an incentive…
2. Coupons and affiliate schemes – In the ideal world, customers would refer you because they value your product and think it will interest their friends. But it can help to motivate them with a discount or free gift in exchange for leads that convert into sales. This type of marketing is rife on the internet in the form of affiliate schemes for eBooks and other digital products.
3. Form alliances – This is an underutilised tactic, but one that can be highly effective if your service crosses over with other non-competing service providers. For example, if you sell potted plants you could form an alliance with a local gardener in which you both agree to promote each other to customers. This can simply mean passing on their contact details or handing out each other’s leaflets. You could also sweeten the deal by offering each other a cut from the extra profits your alliance generates.
4. Harness social networking – People are constantly recommending products and services to their friends on Facebook and Twitter. With messages potentially being shared and forwarded amongst 1000s of people, encouraging customers to post positive Tweets and Facebook updates can generate significant exposure. Consider emailing customers and subtly ask them to Tweet about your product if they found it useful.
Hopefully these tips have got you thinking about how you can integrate referral marketing into your marketing strategy and harness the power of the best salespeople around – your customers.
Measuring customer loyalty
If you wanted to gauge customer satisfaction, and the likelihood of them recommending you, then you can try calculating your Net Promoter Score (NPS). This is a simple metric calculated by asking customers to gauge out of 10 the likelihood of recommending you. You then simply deduct the percentage of those scoring 6 or less from the percentage scoring 9 or 10.
(Disclaimer notice – One of our clients is Satmetrix which supplies software around the NPS concept)
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
Foursquare can be a lot of fun, but try not to get lost
People have been predicting big things for location based social networking site Foursquare for some time. And it looks as though those predictions could be coming true after it received $20 million in funding and ramped up its marketing by sending out 1000s of ‘Clings’ (stickers to you and me) to businesses to slap on their windows.
With Facebook and Twitter already on the ‘to do’ list, is messing around with yet another social media site worth the hassle? Does Foursquare have any real marketing value to offer? Or is it just a creative use of GPRS for people who like playing games?
Big brands are experimenting
Foursquare might have a modest 2 million users compared to Facebook’s mahoosive 400 mill, but it’s already attracting the attention of big name brands.
It’s not unusual for brands to want a share of the spotlight when a trendy new ‘craze’ comes along. In this instance, Star Bucks, Bravo TV and the Financial Times have all been attaching their names to Foursquare’s rapid rise by offering rewards to users for ‘checking in’ at specific locations.
At the moment it might be a ‘niche’ service compared to FB and Twitter. But as more phones become GPRS enabled and awareness spreads, brands know it’s a safe bet that Foursquare’s 2 mill users will grow. The site also has great potential for evolving into a valuable source of local product and service information provided by real people, and being more than just a ‘game’.
How to promote your business on Foursquare
You can add your business to Foursquare by completing their ‘Add this Place’ form. Make sure you complete it fully to give users as much information as possible. You can also add ‘tips’ to your location, such as where people can park , whether you offer home delivery or product recommendations.
Perhaps the greatest marketing value comes from offering Foursquare users rewards for visiting your business. This could include a special discount or a prize to the most frequent visitor (known as ‘Mayors’ in Foursquare speak). In exchange Foursquare can provide you with stats on your visitors, their frequency and a histogram of check-in days.
Should your business join?
So is Foursquare worth bothering with? Should you get an official Foursquare ‘Cling’ for your business and show your part of the internet’s latest hip new trend? Well, it only takes a few minutes to ‘claim your place’ and then add it to the Foursquare community. And with a cool $20 million to play around with, who knows how many people will be using Foursquare in a year’s time?
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
If you haven’t heard, Bavaria beer has been basking in headlines, this week, after grabbing attention when it planted 36 women clad in orange mini-dresses in the crowd at Monday’s game. Bavaria tried something similar at the last World Cup (but with 120,000 pairs of orange lederhosen) and this is just the latest example of ‘ambush marketing’ – a tactic steadily growing in popularity and ambition as mischievous brands try to gatecrash major events for free.
The risk of brands piggybacking on the London 2012 Olympics, without being an official sponsorship, has already got its organisers worried. Ever since the bid was won they’ve been locking down advertising boards and getting laws passed to restrict what combination of words brands can say.
So is ambush marketing merely plucky opportunism? Or does it threaten the ability of event organisers to attract sponsors?
As Bavaria beer’s tactic demonstrated, ambush marketing can be an effective way of getting attention when it’s done creatively and people see it as a bit of fun. But it can also backfire and damage your brand’s image if you tread on too many toes…
Examples of ambush marketing campaigns
Nike causes an advertising exclusion zone
Nike has a long history of using mischievous tactics to steal the limelight from its rivals. Despite not being official sponsors, at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics Nike built a huge retail outlet just outside the official Olympic village and covered the city’s billboards with their advertising. They repeated the same tactic at both Euro 96 and the France 98 before both UEFA and the IOC banned anyone from advertising within a 1.3 mile radius of stadiums, forcing official sponsors to buy up all the billboard space instead.
FHM hijacks the race for London Mayor
Back in 1999 lads’ mag FHM used interest in the race for London Mayor to promote its annual ‘100 Sexiest Women’ issue. It released a series of posters featuring popular FHM pinups with cheeky slogans mirroring those used in the political race. The campaign’s final touch was to project a naked Gail Porter onto the House of Commons. Suffice to say, the stunt earned FHM mainstream coverage and the issue featuring Gail Porter sold out within two weeks.
Red Bull tries to clip Monster Energy’s wings
Whilst this isn’t strictly ‘ambush marketing’, it does demonstrate how covert marketing tactics can backfire. After being replaced by Monster Energy as a drinks supplier to JD Wetherspoon, Red Bull hatched a plot to win the contract back. The plan was for ‘wings girls’ to smuggle cans of Red Bull into JDW bars and then leave them behind to suggest to managers that customers were unhappy with the change of drink. When the plot was uncovered Red Bull blamed it on ‘overzealous junior employees’ whilst JDW accused it of ‘behaving like a rejected teenager.’ Not the best publicity.
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
The World Cup’s Choice of Sponsors Sends a Muddled Message
If you hadn’t noticed from the deluge of patriotic themed TV ads, the World Cup is upon us and is set to be the biggest cash bonanza ever.
In fact, its organisers hope to swell their pockets with a sweet $1 billion from TV rights, marketing and merchandise by the time the final whistle has blown. But it’s not been all plain sailing, with their choice of sponsors coming into question.
Campaigners say that having McDonalds, Budweiser and Coca Cola is counterproductive to the World Cup’s ability to inspire active, healthy lifestyles in our youth and combat childhood obesity. And I tend to agree with them.
Whilst the Cup’s organisers are well within their rights to secure the most lucrative deals, I think they should have considered the impact having sponsors with negative associations will have on the World Cup’s brand message.
The benefits of event sponsorship
Sponsoring an event can be marketing gold. It can:
Raise brand awareness, credibility and prestige
Link the positive associations people have of an event with your brand
Reach your target audience in an unobtrusive way
Gain social currency as being seen as helping an event to take place
Capitalise on consumer interest in the event
Influence people’s buying behaviour and increase sales
Whilst event sponsorship is great for brands, event organisers should consider whether their sponsors are relevant and support the image the want to promote.
Yes, the World Cup’s organisers will reap in millions, which can go towards improving the event taking place and fund future development projects. But will having unhealthy products associated dampen the World Cup’s image in people’s minds?
When people see the McDonalds logo emblazoned on posters of football’s greatest players will it inspire thoughts of athleticism, skill and determination? Or will it conjure images of couch potatoes sat at home gorging on fast food and beer whilst watching the football?
Developing a brand message is a complicated business. Careful consideration is needed of every facet and factor that contributes to how it’s perceived. I have to wonder whether the World Cup’s organisers considered this when choosing their sponsors, or just chose those waving the fattest cheque?
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
Are You Ready for the Boom in Online Video Advertising?
Online video is fast evolving from clips of skateboarding pets on YouTube and into a mainstream activity. In January 2009 29.6 million people (8 out of 10 internet users) watched a combined 280 million hours of online video in the UK alone (comscore).
With Project Canvas, Google TV and a souped up YouTube on the way, the demand for online video content is set to explode. This offers a great opportunity for marketers to engage with customers in a highly measurable and engaging way.
The benefits of online video advertising
Online video advertising offers a number of unique benefits over TV:
Measurability – You can track every impression, click through, interaction and the amount of time people spend watching your ads. This makes it easier to gauge the success of your campaign, rather than having to rely on fuzzy metrics, such as brand uplift and message association.
Engagement – During the TV ad break you have to compete with people flicking channels, making the tea or fast forwarding your ads altogether. However, on the internet people are choosing to watch your video. This means they don’t feel like they’re being marketed to and are 100% engaged with your message.
Interactivity – Viewers can click on links whilst the video is playing for product information and they can even buy it before the ad has finished. Powerade’s The Never-ending Game world cup themed ad is a great example of how you can build interactivity into online video.
Viral marketing – Thanks to social media, people can spread videos virally and do a lot of the leg work for you. The global popularity of Cadbury’s Gorilla YouTube video, which was originally just aimed at the UK, is a textbook example.
Be innovative to get the most out of online video
Online video requires a slightly different approach to delivering 30 second commercials. If people think they’re being blatantly sold to, you’re ad is only a mouse click away from failure. So you need to provide online video’s that are interesting, funny or informative in exchange for your target viewer’s attention.
At bda we love Blentec’s Will it Blend? series of video ads. We think they’re a perfect example of how you can create cost effective ads that showcase your product and entertain viewers at the same time.
BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
Icelandic Volcano Causes Surge in Attendance at Virtual Events
When the Icelandic volcano first erupted it sent people scurrying for video conferencing rooms and looking for alternative ways of doing business. According to some reports, it caused a similar surge in attendance at virtual events, which some think could be a long term trend.
However, the shift towards conducting business over the internet has been evolving for years. Whilst conferences and trade shows can be a great for gaining contacts and meet people you’ve only known by their email address, traveling to them can be a drag. Then you’ve also got the cost: as well as flights and petrol, you’ve got hotel rooms to pay for, personal expenses and the environment is never far from the agenda.
So, along with faster broadband and online video, there are many reasons to consider running a virtual event for your product launch or training exercise.
The different types of virtual events
There are a few options to choose from for holding a virtual event:
Web conferencing (aka webinar) – The most popular form of virtual event for holding live meetings, training sessions or presentations. They’re great for talking to a large group of people at once but lack interactivity, with the host normally talking you through a series of slides or talking over a live video stream before holding a Q&A session at the end.
Virtual world you navigate with an avatar (e.g. Second Life) – Back in its heyday, many thought Second Life would be the future of how people interacted on the internet. Four years later and it still hasn’t won the mainstream acceptance its supporters hoped. The fact is that it’s just too complicated for the average user and flying around an imaginary world appeals more to some than others. Inviting clients to attend your Second Life event will more likely cause your calls to be ignored than make you seem cutting edge.
Virtual event website – Now this is what I think a virtual event should be all about and in the future I think most real world marketing events will feature a virtual element to accompany it. Virtual event websites can be used to engage with customers before, during and after an event has taken place.
Before they’ve arrived attendees can get background information, find out more about what’s going on and what will most interest them. During the event you can provide a live Twitter feed and stream video so people can follow it live from their office desk. Once an event has finished you can then upload videos of keynote presentations, download meeting notes and give people a reason to visit the virtual event website for months, or years, afterwards.
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
What’s wrong with the 2012 Olympics’ Mascots (and tips on designing your own)?
The 2012 Olympics’ mascots have been unveiled and, predictably, they’ve been met with catcalls of derision by the British public. Whilst their creators see them as ‘futuristic, magical beings’, others think the lovechildren of a CCTV camera and a Teletubbie is closer to the mark.
The mascots’ case isn’t helped when people hear that they took 18 months, 40 focus groups and a rumoured £400,000 to design (although the estimated £15 million from licensing deals and sales of keyrings and T-shirts will help to soften the blow).
So what do I think of them? Whilst at first glance they might appear juvenile and more like something out of a Japanese cartoon than a true reflection of Britain, they do achieve their designers’ primary aim – and that’s appealing to children and building their interest in the Olympics.
The mascots do, actually, tick quite a few key boxes when it comes to mascot design…except for one.
The renaissance of branded mascots
Along with your slogan and logo, mascot’s can be a powerful way of building your brand identity. In fact, they’re experiencing a bit of a renaissance at the moment as a way of giving an otherwise cold, robotic website a personality.
Mascots can be great for offline brand building too. People’s visual memory is much better than it is for text. So people are more likely to remember you when they see your mascot rather than your company name.
Mascots are also an effective way of expressing your brand values and helping you to stand out from competitors. Comparethemarket.com’s dressing gown wearing meerkat is a perfect example.
How do I design a mascot?
Mascots are designed to make your brand seem fun, inviting and friendly. So they’re typically caricatures of animals, people or bizarre looking creatures. Bizarre can often be the best option because then you know your mascot is unique and more easily recognisable, which is where the Olympics’ mascots get top marks in my book.
When designing your mascot you need to think what type of animal or person will best reflect your brand values or personality. A beaver with a tool belt, for example, is ideal if you’re a carpenter, whilst a lion is a popular choice for portray yourselves as kings in your field. Adding clothes and accessories also helps to convey what your company is all about.
As in the real world, people will gauge what your mascot’s personality is based on its expression. So it should be smiling if you want to come across as friendly and with a faraway look if you want to come across as determined. And I think this is where the 2012 Olympics’ mascots slip up – because I’m not sure how many easily you can express your personality with just one eye.
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
bda’s SEO Marketing Tips for Being Found in the Search Engines
Search marketing firm Epiphany Solutions has found that many of the UK’s top brands rate poorly when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). It seems that whilst they’ll happily spend millions on TV slots and magazine ads, the leading brands struggle when it comes to making their websites easy to find.
I do have some sympathy for them though, because SEO can be a confusing and complicated business. But there are some tried and tested methods you can use to maximise the chances of your website reaching page 1:
Keywords – People are more likely to be searching for product keywords than your particular brand. So it’s sensible to be optimising your website for keywords that are relevant to your industry. Google’s Keyword Tool can tell you how frequently keywords are searched for and offer suggestions on alternatives. It’s a good idea to choose 4 or 5 primary and secondary keywords, which you can then mix and match in your content.
Content – It’s widely believed that keyword density has little bearing these days. Instead you should aim to feature your keywords in your headings and subheadings (using H1-H3 tags in html speak) and ideally in your domain name.
Blogging – Google’s success relies on its ability to return the most relevant and up-to-date information. So it tends to push websites which are regularly updated to the top. This is one of the reasons why a blog can be the engine room of an SEO campaign – they keep Google fed with new content and, if given time and attention, can attract links from other relevant websites.
For blogging software look no further than Wordpress – it’s free, easy to use and has a great collection of plugins for maximising its SEO power.
Backlinks – Another key factor in SEO is backlinks, which are links from other websites pointing back to your own. The key is to build up links from relevant websites with a high Page Rank. Page Rank is Google’s ranking system for defining a website’s authority – you can check a website’s Page Rank by installing the Google Toolbar into your browser.
To attract links you can try commenting on popular blogs in the hope of being noticed so they read your posts and, hopefully, publish a link. Other tactics include writing articles and publishing them in article directories and writing online press releases with links back to your website.
Analysing – Once your SEO campaign is up and running you’ll want to watch the results. Google Analytics is far and away the most popular website analytics software. It’s free and gives you a wealth of information on what visitors are clicking on and what’s making them leave. With it you can find out how to gradually improve the amount of time people spend on your site and its success in generating enquiries.
The proof is in the pudding
We applied these principals to a website we launched three weeks ago for our client Misys. We worked hard to generate backlinks by posting links to relevant LinkedIn Group discussion forums and on Twitter – and the results have been spectacular. To date we’ve attracted 1,250 unique visitors (260 of whom have visited the site more than once) 63 visits via Google and according to Mike’s Marketing Tools the site already ranks 14th on Google for the search term ‘the future of banking’ – making reaching the magic ‘top 10′ tantalisingly close.
Hopefully these tips should get your SEO campaign rolling. But if you’d like to find out more, Econsultancy has a long list of popular SEO articles you might like to have a read through.
BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
What Twitter and Rupert Murdoch Can Teach You about Marketing
How do you persuade people to pay for something they’re used to getting for free? This is the problem faced by many service providers in the internet world, with both Twitter and Times Online trying to solve it in different ways.
Twitter’s ‘promoted tweets’ ad system has been met with a mixture of relief and caution. Many are pleased to hear that it will finally be monetizing itself, whilst others are already complaining about floods of unwanted ads clogging up their feed.
So will the new ad system work? Well, according to some estimates, Twitter’s owners could pocket a sweet $100 million from sponsors. But these figures still rely on a small proportion clicking on the sponsored tweets. And therein lies the problem…
How do you charge for news?
For years now, newspapers have been watching their circulation and profits dry up as people bin their papers for good and get their news fix online for free. Whilst the leading broadsheet websites attract over 10 million readers every month, not enough visitors are clicking on the ads to keep them in the green.
Rupert Murdoch has been on the warpath blaming Google for allegedly stealing his content whilst defending his decision to throw up a paywall around Times Online.
Murdoch argues that “when they’ve got nowhere else to go they’ll start paying.” But the problem for Murdoch is that there are plenty of places people can get mainstream news for free.
But David, what’s this got to do with marketing?
Cynicism over Twitter’s ad system and the Times Online’s paywall both highlight the problem brands face when it comes to advertising online. The fact is that people aren’t clicking on ads because they’re not interested in or have become oblivious to them (admittedly, people do click on ads in the search results but that’s when they’re actively looking for a product or service).
What Twitter and the news portals also highlight, however, is that people are using the internet to find content they find interesting or useful. So, you’re your online marketing budget could be better spent on providing engaging content rather than pouring it into ad clicks.
After all, the internet is a platform for finding information, not advertising. Which is bad news for Twitter and Murdoch, but good news if you’re a business wanting to engage with content hungry customers.
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BDA (Buckingham Design Associates) blog – real people giving real opinions, and a complete lack of agency waffle. BDA deliver an exciting blend of design and creative marketing for the Oxford, Milton Keynes, Northampton and London region.
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