Email Marketing & Blogging = Sales!

Tired of decreasing response rates to your email marketing efforts? Maybe you’re just noise like everyone else. Try leveraging a corporate blog by integrating your blog strategy with email marketing and you may find a whole new level of results. Here’s our experience:

We all receive a lot of emails in the run of a day. Next time you’re planning an email marketing campaign, think of how you use your email. Look at your own “inbox” and look to see how many marketing emails you subscribe to, and how many you open and read. I suspect the truth might disappoint you somewhat. Your customers think in a similar way.

So here’s a different approach. Continue the email marketing, but change  the message and turn email marketing into a conversation spark. Print ads are a great example; the best ads say the least, yet spark a desire in us to buy, to investigate further or in other words – take action. Email marketing tactics can be leveraged  with the same principle. The key here is understanding that email marketing is now just like a banner ad on a website, and its “interruptive” since people are online to “do” something, the Web is not passive like television – this is largely why banner ads don’t deliver good results.

Send your email, but use the principles of a print ad to create an action – the action being to drive them to the blog, not the usual Landing Page. Engage them in a conversation. Part of the reason email marketing messages fail is that as soon as you get such an email your first thought is “I’m being sold something.” So you filter them. You just know the email is going to send you to a Landing Page that’s going to pitch you a product – and you’re busy right now thank-you. It fails right out the gate for 98% of your target!

Using email to drive a prospect to a blog infers that there’s something “more” on the blog, since blogs are considered to be 2-way, the “sell” takes on a different tone. If you invite dialog on your blog, perhaps the prospect will say something there? That’s engagement, and you might also learn about a customer need, and be able to sell them more or handle an objection. So many companies send out emails today, it’s boring. Years ago businesses found high return rates over 8% from email marketing. Today email marketing is lucky to work like regular direct mail and deliver 1-3% responses.

We’re not saying stop the “direct sell” emails, but mix it up, engage the prospect. From the blog, you can drive them to relevant product pages. If they’re satisfied with the engagement in the blog, we’ve found they are 30% more likely to buy or give buying indicators. Your sales cycle is reduced, your leads are warmer and…you increase revenues! Blogs can be a powerful sales tool.

PR Crises and Social Media; What’s Your Plan?

A bad news story for your company hits traditional media. You kick in the standard damage control processes and try to move beyond the issue; it’s always worked before. Except this time a prominent or even not so prominent blogger picks it up…and it spreads. Have the rules changed? Can you move beyond the story like before?

Certainly, except it may take a little longer than before, and there may be “aftershocks”. When the Blogosphere picks up on a story it can suddenly take on a life of its own. Sometimes there’s no real need to respond, other times you must respond. There are ways to manage a crisis point with Social Media, but the issue can stay hot in the Social Media world a little longer.

In most bad news incidents, the best strategy is to acknowledge the issue, state your proposed resolution and then move on to more positive stories, knowing that in traditional media, the story will blow over fairly quickly. Bloggers and microbloggers however, can add their own opinions and what was a small issue spirals out of control. Not responding can make the perceived issue worse and carry on for weeks or months.

Deciding whether or not to respond is something you need to determine with your PR team or Social Media agency. Deciding how you respond is key, along with follow up. Once you’ve said something in the Social Media sphere, it will live on. This means you may be held accountable at a later date as someone may inquire in a few months to see if you’ve lived up to the proposed solution. If not, you’ll suddenly have another crisis, this is what we call “aftershocks.” Developing a good plan for a PR crisis should always include the Social Media angle today.

With Social Media, the vital point to remember is that a story can live on far longer and resurface at any time. Sometimes you can take the high road and not respond, deflection is still very much possible, but going about it is very different in Social Media.

The SEC Nods at Social Media: What Does This Mean?

The SEC in the U.S. has updated its guidance relating to public companies and their use of corporate websites for investor disclosure. Quite significantly, we think, they have recognized Social Media in the context of Social Networks and how groups of investors can discuss information and the impact on a company stock. The last time any such Internet related guidance was issued was 2000. Even the SEC acknowledges things have changed. Quite a lot. Oddly enough however, the new rules will not be posted on the Web until the print version has appeared in the Federal Register.

Some of the interesting points:

Sarbanes Oxley: Although as yet unclear, the SEC is saying that information posted on a website does not necessarily fall under Sarbanes Oxley rules. There is no direct translation of this in terms of Social Networks; as in do conversations need to be kept on file internally? If so,  data storage companies will be a good investment. We think this regulation needs some further clarification that may come out when it is printed and then on the Web.

Participation: The rules now cover anti-fraud and direct participation by a company or company person presenting information in a blog or other form of Social Media (presumably this covers vlogging and microblogging.) One wonders; will a “comment” or blog entry by a company representative be followed by three long legal paragraphs about disclosure warnings and statements of speculation?

The How: The rules will apparently clarify “how” information posted on a website will be considered public. This may impact Content Management Systems and controls for corporate blogs. This may also impact the “who” for who posts information to the Web.

These new rules essentially say “Social Media is here to stay and we have to figure out how public companies can play here.” Such significant changes in SEC rules are most often driven by incidences resulting from cases where the issue in question has resulted in fines or other legal actions and inquiries. Anyone know of any significant legal cases around Social Media and public companies?

Canada has a very fragmented regulatory system, so likely any changes in Canadian practices will come from Ontari’s OSC and be adopted in various forms by other Provinces. Changes however, will undoubtedly come to Canada. Such regulations are important to protect investors and we think this is a good move by the SEC; what do you think? Will the rules let companies be more open or will they become more “closed”?

Will Social Media & Smart Phones Drive Localization of the Web?

The Web is often thought of as a place of “national” or “global” news, opinions and ideas. Search Engines continue to struggle with delivering “localized” content that is relevant to the user. Google users will find that when they enter search terms they’ll get delivered results that are mostly national in scope with a smattering of local content. This is similar to other Tier 1 engines like Yahoo! and MSN, since the advertisers are usually looking to do business with closer prospects. Yet “localization” continues to be an issue.

Social Media through Social Network channels like Facebook and MySpace however, offer a much more “local” opportunity to marketers. Local content continues to be driven by local newspapers with websites. Major cities are seeing better local content sites popping up, but they are still relatively few. In the UK, the site Potholes.co.uk endeavors to get people to lost major potholes and get their local Council to fix them. Then MyStreet.com is trying to get very local. Despite the lack of community oriented content, people are having highly local discussions, mostly through Social Networking sites.

Through our research, we think part of the solution to increased local content will come from Smart Phones in alignment with localized Web content services beyond just Social Networking sites. With Smart Phones today, GPS and applications like Twitter Mobile enable faster, instant access to Social Media with instant publishing. They are easy to use and data pricing packages are falling (albeit slower in Canada) thus opening opportunities to make content relevant.

This benefits the consumer who can quickly and easily rate or comment on local services such as a plumber or roofer. Restaurants get faster reviews…more power is in the hands of the consumer. This also represents significant challenges for local businesses who don’t have the resources to hire a PR agency or counsel if things go sour with an agitated customer.

Do you think Smart Phones and the localization of Web media and Social Media will drive increased content? Have any highly localized sites to share? What are the implications?

The New Jobs & Titles of Social Media

Social Media has definitively hit business and is slowly working its way into the ranks of  government departments at varying levels. So where are Social Media professionals coming from and what will the requirements be for Social Media professionals?

A brief search of Workopolis and Monster and a couple of other smaller and regionalized online job sites brought up several varying titles such as; Online Communities Coordinator, Manager of Web Communities, Social Media Marketing Manager, Online Communications Officer, Director of Social Media, Social Media Development Manager, Social Media Coordinator and a few others.

Quite a wide variety. I decided to look at the types of companies hiring for these jobs and salary ranges where available. What I found was of 120 jobs offered (USA and Canada) that fit into “Social Media” related, over 80% were in marketing/advertising agencies, the others were a mix of technology and Web companies and only 3 non-technology companies focused on consumer products. No business-to-business and no government. All were looking for some degree of marketing experience or public relations background. One even wanted 8-10 years of Social Media experience (I wish them luck there.) In terms of wages, they were remarkably low. From the low 20′s to mid 30′s for someone who’s going to be speaking on behalf of the company and its brand? All reported to a director or VP, and there were no senior management jobs available in Social Media (that I could find anyway.)

While this is all very anecdotal and by no means proper in-depth research, it would seem to indicate some interesting trends taking place. While businesses recognize the need for engaging in Social Media, the responsibility is being left to people with relatively minimal experience in the professional world. It would seem that senior management feels Social Media is just a “channel” and mostly for marketing (which in many cases is correct.) It would also seem the remuneration is fairly low in some cases where an individual has an incredible amount of responsibility communicating a company brand.

So we’ve seen Social Media start to ease into the corporate world through low-level functional jobs. Titles remain somewhat vague as do overall responsibilties. It would seem that Social Media is gaining traction, but in what way? In challenging financial times when many companies are laying off people, we’re seeing a whole new element of jobs opening up. New positions with previously undefined responsibilities means finding budget and defining purpose to organizational objectives – no small task at the best of times.

What role do you think Social Media will play in terms of jobs in the future? Is there a place for Social Media professionals beyond just marketing and public relations? How about with Human Resources? Will Social Media ever gain a seat at the Executive Table? Should it? A lot of questions remain.