Archive for year 2012
iPriorities. A {growtoon}.
Feb 3rd
Join the growtoonists each Friday for a humorous take on marketing, social media, and current business events.
Kacy Maxwell is a guy who loves his work, family and a good challenge. See more of his cartoons at EverythingIsMedia.com.
Six ways to turn Yelp into your most effective marketing channel
Feb 2nd
Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.
-Jeff Bezos, Founder/CEO Amazon
Guest post by {grow} community member Kathi Kruse
How important is it for your to look your best to a potential customer? Today many companies are still ignoring what’s said about them online, both positive and negative. Some want to put their heads in the sand and wait until the Internet “just blows over.” Folks, your customer is online most of their day and night. They’re talking about you. Pretending they aren’t is a risky proposition.
Your customer loves the consumer review site Yelp. Why? It’s local and it’s easy to use. They look forward to sharing their experiences because it allows them to invest in the community … and in turn get value from the experiences of others.
For many consumer businesses, online reviews are becoming a critical component of decision-making. Car shoppers, for example, are increasingly relying on Yelp and other ratings sites. 84% of people say that online reviews influence their buying decision (Nielsen). Reviewers can also gain influence. Many of these reviews and consumer experiences also reverberate through Twitter and Facebook.
Make no mistake, Yelp can make or break many businesses. For many B2C and service businesses, Yelp may be the most important marketing channel!
What’s the best way to make sure you’re getting some customer love on Yelp?
The key is to have a rock-solid internal process for capturing and maintaining a steady stream customers who are willing to write reviews. Understandably, many of your frontline sales personnel may feel awkward about asking for a review, but you can put it in a way that makes the customer comfortable: “Our business is based on referrals. Would you take a moment to visit Yelp and refer us to your friends and family?” This is a great start to your internal process but it’s only the beginning.
I’ve developed a proactive system of capturing reviews and maintaining a consistent stream of “referrals” from your customers. Here are six ways to get your Yelp groove on:
1. Designate an Online Reputation go-to person who’ll take ownership of your implementation plan. They will be responsible for getting grassroots participation from your staff, as well as monitor and respond to the community.
2. Signage. Create awareness with your customers and your staff. Display “Love Us on Yelp!” signs throughout the store. Entryways, sales offices, customer waiting area, customer service and the cashier area. Give customers a card to take with them that reminds them you’re on Yelp. Put memos on paychecks, repair orders and invoices to create awareness too!
3. Reach out to your Raving Fans. Every salesperson has them, especially those that’ve been with you a long time. These customers go out of their way to do business with you. Ask them to share an honest review – don’t push for positive – just their honest opinion.
4. Hold a monthly contest with the staff. Nothing motivates like a cash prize! Example: if the store gets 20 reviews by the end of the month, you’ll draw a name and that person wins the cash. Have the drawing open to all employees so you’ve got everyone motivated to achieve the same goal.
5. Recognize staff members who get 5-star reviews. A gift or a nice mention during the weekly sales or service meeting goes a long way. When the other employees see it, they’ll be eager to be next.
6. Email marketing. Do a “Love Drip” campaign with a catchy subject line and a nice call to action. Provide a link to your Yelp profile so it’s as effortless for your customer as possible.
Stellar online reputations do not happen without grassroots participation from your staff. Leverage the power of your employees and institute an internal process to be proactive about your online reputation. Get your groove on and let your customers feel it, baby!
How is Yelp affecting your business? Any more ideas you can share?
Kathi Kruse specializes in automotive social media and online reputation coaching for the automotive industry. Connect with her at her Kruse Control Blog and on Twitter: @kathikruse
The Six Stages of Emotional Branding
Feb 1st
By Contributing {grow} Columnist “Social Steve” Goldner
Creating an emotional connection between customers and a brand is probably the Holy Grail of marketing. Most often, brands strive for this by being the pinnacle of something and then reinforcing that position at every touchpoint.
Maybe the easiest brand to think of in this sense is Apple. Apple is cool, the hipster of technology. And they have achieved a level of fanatiscm with their customers by being the pinnacle of innovation and design and then continually reinforcing this message.
Emotional branding goes beyond loyalty and almost creates this “I-am-with-<brand-name>-no-matter-what” mentality. Recently I was reminded of the awesome power and massive strength of emotional branding. And this story has nothing to do with a brand you might find in a store. It involves well-educated, smart people acting in what I consider to be an irrational manner … all for the their love of a brand. The people I am talking about are my friends (hopefully still my friends after this article) and family.
The brand I am referring to is Joe Paterno, the beloved, long-time head coach of Penn State University’s football team – up until the time he was fired under a cloud of child sexual abuse scandals. No, Paterno was not charged with sex abuse. But after a long career of being an icon of integrity, he was ultimately vilified because he had not alerted law enforcement officers about the horrific events when he knew of them.
Joe Paterno was the Penn State University brand. The passion and emotion of alumni toward Paterno is unbelievable. Many of these alumni are people from my own network – tons of friends and family that are so emotionally tied to PSU and Paterno, that they refuse to let the scandal tarnish the brand. This is the acme of emotional branding — a bond so strong that even the most heinous blunder cannot deter the support, love, and admiration for the brand. I am not emotionally tied to the Paterno or PSU brand and I cannot fathom how bright, intelligent people refuse to move from this irrational, emotional connection. But there it is.
And while the example I highlighted above consists of repulsive allegations, it does represent a situation brands would legitimately want to aspire to – establishing such a bond with your audience that they will stand by you, and defend you, no matter what.
So are there any positive lessons about emotional marketing that we can learn from the Paterno case? Create brands where winning is a shared experience and then reinforce it. How does your ideal customer win with your brand? Incorporate this ideal into every aspect of your product or service. When building emotion into your brand, think about leading your customer through a continuum:
Emotional Stage 1 – How you get someone interested?
Emotional Stage 2 – How do you get someone to consider a purchase?
Emotional Stage 3 – How do you continually reinforce that their purchase decision was absolutely the right decision, the “winning” decision?
Emotional Stage 4 – How do you create a loyal customer such that they want to continue to buy your product and/or are most receptive to cross selling and value add purchases?
Emotional Stage 5 – How do you create a brand ritual (www.brandrituals.net) so that your brand becomes part of your customer’s life?
Emotional Stage 6 – How do you get your audience to be your cheerleader?
You could literally create a blog post on every single one of these steps and it would certainly be a fascinating concept to explore. But on the social web, where consumer emotions can turn on a dime, doesn’t it make sense to start building loyalty in a truly emotional way?
Steve Goldner is the Senior Director at MediaWhiz where he leads the social media practice. Steve has been a marketing executive for the past 20+ years and engaged in social media for the last 4 years. You can follow him on Twitter @SocialSteve and visit his own blog at http://socialsteve.wordpress.com .
Creating an inclusive social media event
Jan 30th
A few years ago, I was speaking at a social media event in New York. A student wrote me and said, “I would love to come to meet you but I can’t afford the $375 ticket!”
I ended up working out a “scholarship” for this young person to attend but I started thinking about the chronic problems on the social media event circuit:
- The tickets are so expensive, excluding many students, young professionals, and those in career transition who really need to attend the event. And because the events are usually in New York or L.A., the travel and hotel costs can also be significant.
- Networking opportunities were limited. The speakers took the stage and then escaped to their lounge or the airport.
- It seemed like every event had the same people over and over again. Chris Brogan. Guy Kawasaki. Gary V. Aren’t there any new voices we need to be hearing from?
- There is a “glass ceiling” on the circuit. Unless you are an A-Lister or conduct an aggressive popularity campaign to get voted on to a SXSW panel, you simply had no opportunity to be invited to speak at a major event, no matter how worthy your ideas.
I just don’t think that all social media events should be so elitist. So I decided to do something about it. With the help of dozens of volunteers and the extraordinary efforts of the Social Media Club of Knoxville, I helped found Social Slam, an inclusive social media event. It has been a tremendous success. In our inaugural year we sold out three weeks before the event and had 430 attendees from 17 states and Canada. This year we are raising the attendance level to 600 — and I don’t want you to miss this event on April 27!
This is what is different about Social Slam:
- This is the best social media educational value in America. By far. Every person involved in the event — including the speakers — is volunteering their time. That allows us to keep our costs low and offer a rock bottom ticket price of $79, a fraction of what you would pay anywhere else. This is a conference built from the heart, not to fatten a wallet.
- But that’s not all. With the help of our sponsors, for that low ticket price you also get breakfast, lunch, an after party, a free book, and other valuable benefits. We’ve even created a special $99 hotel deal. So you can literally drive or fly to Knoxville, stay over night to enjoy our parties, and attend this event for less than it would take to buy a single ticket to any other event!
- Networking is a priority. The speakers are generally available to meet all day. Time is built in to the program to meet new friends and share ideas.
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Knoxville TN, Home of Social Slam 2012
We are featuring world-class speakers including Mitch Joel, Gini Dietrich, and Tom Webster (and you might even hear from me!) but we’ll also feature some amazing, fresh new voices like multi-media whiz Stephanie Wonderlin, blogging sensation Stanford Smith, and content marketing tornado Marcus Sheridan. Where else will you hear inspiring presentations on the spirituality of social media, or how social media saved a bankrupt business?
- The event is held in a park-like setting (actually it IS a park) at the beautiful Knoxville Convention Center. Everybody gets an electrical outlet and the wifi will work!
The Internet was built by volunteers. Our favorite apps like Wikipedia were built by volunteers. Now, the best social media conference in America is built by volunteers too. Come see for yourself. I can’t wait to meet you there!
Everything you need to know is here: www.soslam.com
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You’re in marketing for one reason: Grow.
Grow your company, reputation, customers, impact, profits. Grow yourself. This is a community that will help. It will stretch your mind, connect you to fascinating people, and provide some fun along the way. I am so glad you’re here.
-Mark SchaeferFollow Mark
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