Posts tagged marketing budget


The best business opportunity in social media marketing

Nov 18th

14 comments

blog

Awhile back I put forth a “success formula” to create business benefits through social media:

Connections + Meaningful Content + Authentic Helpfulness = Benefits

The more I see and hear and learn about the social web, the more I’m convinced this is spot-on.  You can see the whole article here, by the way.

I’m learning that within this formula, content is a SEVERE bottleneck for most companies.  Here’s why:

  1. Companies are piling on to the social web and are desperate to provide content that will cut through the clutter. It takes a special talent to do that. Typically, they don’t have that special talent … but are willing to pay for it.
  2. I’m sure you’ve heard stats like, “more content has been created in the last five years than in the history of mankind.”  I either made that up or I heard it someplace (or both) but I’m sure you’ve heard similarly ridiculous statements.  There is a kernel of truth in there, however.  There’s already too much freaking content for any normal person to keep up with.  And the problem is going to get worse.  In fact, it will never get better. The need for content seems insatiable. This exacts more pressure on companies to not only develop “meaningful” content, but content that will knock your socks off.  Every day.
  3. The need for “authenticity” is an artificial barrier set by the social media country club that is keeping some people from ghost blogging. (Article on how to do it RIGHT is here.)  That barrier will go down as the price companies are willing to pay for content goes up.  There will be plenty of content-whores around for everybody.  And I mean that in the most respectful way.

So here’s the business plan: Come up with a posse of technical writers/content whores who can churn out blogs on a variety of subjects (maybe organize by verticals) and fill this out-sourcing market niche.  I would do it myself but I’m far too lazy.

So there it is.  Business Idea of the Year!  Go be the Wal-Mart of content.  The Blog Super Store.  Content Whore Warehouse.  Whatever, just go do it and I’ll be the first to hire you for my customers.   See, you can’t tell me I never did anything for you. : )

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Are you using your buffalo?

Nov 6th

1 comment

When the Native Americans killed a buffalo, they didn’t waste anything. Every part was used to provide food, clothing, shelter, tools and weapons.
Are you using every part of YOUR buffalo — your marketing assets — to help you promote your business and acquire new customers?  In the social media era, this is an essential strategy.  Here are some examples and ideas:

Inventory — A customer in France made coated metal plates and, for quality control purposes, had to keep a large volume on hand in a warehouse. This tied up valuable working capital. We had the idea to use this as a rapid-turnaround stockpile. They could sell and ship material out of the warehouse for customer emergencies as a premium service — at a premium price!

People — A local company said they needed my help because “everyone was just sitting around” with their business levels so low. I saw this as under-utilized human capital. How could they put these people to use to connect to customers and discover un-met or under-served needs?  Turn EVERYONE into a sales person?  Study the competition?

Information — A client had developed a weekly email update to keep their salespeople on top of changing market conditions. A survey indicated their customers were hungry for the same type of information. Their email was turned into a premium information service to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. They leveraged information they already HAD to create a siginificant new customer benefit.

Services — I recently taught a class on recession marketing. The class content is now an asset, part of my “buffalo.” I turned some of the ideas into articles for my website and now, my blog. I promoted this content through online forums and social media. One article had more than 500 downloads in two days. These new contacts were added to my mailing list for further follow-up. The session was videotaped and edited into short topics for my website and YouTube.

How are you using the whole buffalo in your business?

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Where’s your truckstop?

Oct 30th

3 comments

This begins a new series of five articles on getting more from your existing marketing program for little or no money.
My hometown of Knoxville seems to be the epicenter of the U.S. Interstate highway system and, most logically, mega-truckstops have sprung up at the intersection of major routes. These truckstops offer ACRES of every possible good, service and convenience for the trucker: clothes, food, showers, truck accessories, parts, repairs — anything you can imagine.
I’ve fantasized that being a marketing manager for a product aimed at truck drivers must be the greatest job in the world. Think about it — all you have to do is get your product on the store shelf and hundreds, maybe thousands, of customers drive to see you every day! Wow. What could be easier than that?
Marketing your business might not be THAT simple, but there is a lesson here. Where’s YOUR truckstop? Where do YOUR customers congregate?
If you can answer that question, it might lead to important insights that can make your marketing initiatives more effective, focused and inexpensive.
Where do your typical customers gather to get their news and information? Entertainment? Recreation?
Where do they shop, dine, exercise, worship?
What Internet sites would they most likely visit? What magazines do they read?
Are there businesses similar to yours where your customers buy goods and services?  Could those “truckstops” also offer YOUR products and services in a partnership?
There are several relatively inexpensive ways to conduct this simple research and it might lead to ways to create competitive advantage through your targeted marketing efforts.
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The most important question in social media marketing

Jul 23rd

10 comments

This series of articles has been examining social media measurement strategies. So far we’ve focused on the one, true financial measure, ROI, and have started to examine more qualitative measures like impact on brand equity.Whether you work for a company or a non-profit (these days, is there a difference?), you must strive to align every marketing initiative with the organization’s mission. But I also know true financial measurement may not be feasible. And in that case, it’s time to throw ROI out the door.

Why? Because grandma always told me to deal with what is, not what we wish for. We have to be realists. Your best efforts to achieve accurate financial measurement may be constrained by technology, budget and resources. So, if you can’t get there in the near-term, what DO you measure? That’s why we’ll now turn the discussion to non-financial indicators (NFI’s) and the critical importance of selecting the correct measurement strategy for your social media marketing efforts.

There are hundreds of potential NFI’s but there is only one question you need to know to pick the right one: What behavior am I trying to drive?

Here is a great example of this concept in action. Walgreen’s has been a stellar financial performer and much of that has been attributed to its focus on one metric: Net profit per customer visit. Behavior they are driving? Spend more money with Walgreens!Think about the impact of that one metric — it would influence the store location and lay-out, product placement, product choices, advertising strategy, branding strategy, pricing decisions … literally every design, distribution and marketing decision could be made to drive that single metric ever upwards.

So you can see how powerful and critically important choosing the correct metric can be. And if you do, a magical thing will happen — Your marketing activities will begin to conform to that goal. The manner and level of engagement will rise to meet the need of pushing that metric higher and higher. If you choose wisely, the appropriate NFI will make your strategy EVOLVE!

What behavior are YOU trying to drive and how are your metrics supporting it? Sharing your ideas would help our community.

The next article in this series will examine specific options as you try to answer this most important question in marketing measurement.

This is Part Five of a series examining social media marketing measurement.

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