Conversational Media Marketing

This is a guest post by Leili McKinley, an Internet branding architect and social media marketing strategist who enjoys the enviable benefit of living in one of the most beautiful places God ever created, Maui. 

I came across Leili through a comment she left in response to one of my posts, started reading her blog and was immediately impacted by her knowledge, expert opinion and writing style. A few sentences into this post and you'll know why I felt that way. It is my privilege to introduce her to you.

Imagine stepping into an elegant restaurant. You’re prepped and ready for a night out. Dressed in your best, you have primped and preened for the affair. You even know some of the things you want to say. Actually, you realize, you have an agenda. You secretly cross your fingers. You want everything to go right.

It’s a blind date. 

Doing business as a first time customer is a bit like being on a blind date. We have trepidation. We have made ourselves vulnerable in a universe of uncontrollable variables. We have unspoken expectations coupled with high hopes. It takes courage. But we pursue the event because we need to. Whatever the outcome, we have decided now is the right time “to buy.”

The outcome, of course, is decided by one thing and one thing only. Are we attracted to who is across the table? Not just physically, but do we believe? Do we believe they will know and understand us the same, as we believe we know ourselves? Do they have our values? Do they carry the same ambitions? In other words, can I trust you because you are like me?

We are attracted to what we know and value. Does this mean we are all a bit narcissistic?

Possibly...But, at it’s core attraction is based on our aligned beliefs. I will buy what you say, what you do, and who you are as a person, company or brand based on aligned beliefs. That alignment makes or breaks trust.

No trust, no sale.

So how does a company win customers? How do you increase sales?

Be true to your core values. Show you care about those values. Demonstrate them on a daily basis. Lip service won’t work. Trumped up PR events to make you look good won’t work either. You actually have to demonstrate a bit of self-sacrifice for it to mean something. Yes, give of yourself, as a person, a company, and a brand.

That’s magnetic.

Demonstrating the willingness to sacrifice for one’s core values is esteemed beyond measure. Look at any martyr for social proof. And what do martyrs have? Believers. They are followers who have aligned themselves to the cause. Evangelists, if you will.

If you want to attract the same, then understand what would motivate such loyalty. Speak to your market about it.

Pull people in.

Ever since Buddy Media CEO Michael Lazerow said "the app is the new ad unit" (paraphrase) during a panel at OMMA Social, I've been intrigued with the notion of how advertising and social media successfully converge, or whether they will at all.

Conventional wisdom says advertising and social media make for strange bedfellows. Nobody goes to their favorite social networking site to see ads after all. At the same time, advertising is not going away, no matter how badly we wish it would.

What seems to be happening is, rather than social media adopting to traditional ad models, advertising is adapting to social media in the form or "app-vertisements."

Two companies leading the charge toward a more engaging, shall we say "creative" form of advertising, is the aforementioned Buddy Media, based in NYC, and PopularMedia, based in the Bay area.

Buddy Media creates interactive Facebook applications for large brands and PopularMedia offers what it calls Influencer Ads, which are standard ad units with a social element.

A report released today by research firm InsightExpress says, "According to the social networkers themselves, opt-in advertising works best, while behavior-based campaigns and randomly generated ads are far less successful." It goes on to state that 40% of social networkers condone the practice of opt-in advertising.

"Recognizing the rapid growth of social networks and social networking audiences, advertisers have focused on creative engagement and how to apply their brands within a new environment," said Drew Lipner, vice president and group director of the Digital Media Measurement team at InsightExpress. 

Is this the future of advertising in social media? Is it a matter of creating a better mousetrap? It the app the new ad unit as Lazerow suggests? At this point, all I have are questions, but am watching this space to see if oil and water can indeed mix to generate profitable ROI.

 

Bizzuka recently brought on a new agency partner, Daniels-Brown Communications. In an interview with the owner, Stephen Daniels-Brown, I asked how they came to find us given that they're located in northwest Washington state and we're in southern Louisiana. 

GoDaddy CEO Bob Parsons reports that "Go Daddy's 2009 Super Bowl campaign results shattered prior records for both new customer sign-ups and total orders, with 10 percent more new customers joining than last year's Super Bowl Sunday." 

Despite the salacious nature of the ads, Go Daddy knows its customer base and, in the domain name registrar bowl, it appears they are the clear winner. 

Or maybe not...

Look at this Blogpulse trend graph comparing Network Solutions, Namecheap and Dotster:

 

You'll note how Namecheap and Dotster were in a dead heat for second place well behind Network Solutions. However, thanks to their seizing an opportunity when it appeared, Namecheap was able to break out and place themselves in contention more closely to NetSol.

I had the opportunity to do a quick phone chat with , Network Solutions' "Swami of Social Media," earlier today to get his reactions to the GoDaddy Superbowl 2009 ad debaucle. 

My intent was not to sensationalize or stir up controversy, but to try and view this issue through Shashi's eyes as well as to see what lessons could be learned and best practices gleaned. 

I gave a talk today at the Sales and Marketing Executives meeting in Baton Rouge on the topic of using the web to maximize your marketing dollar and presented some cost-effective strategies to market through the recession.

At the conclusion of the meeting an attendee, , asked if I had blogged this information. I responded with no, but will before the day is over. So, Kent, here it is.

I started out by talking briefly about two current trends...

Marketing budgets are tightening. That's news to no one. Bizzuka CEO told me several weeks ago, "Paul, you are our marketing budget." I'm sure companies much larger than ours are scaling back. That's what all the emails I get from various sources indicate.

Money is moving from offline to online. Newspapers are losing revenue hand over fist. To a lesser degree, the same is true for radio/TV/print media. The single winner in all of this is online media, and that's not growing as fast now as hoped.

Given the current economic climate, there is a need, particularly for small businesses, to maximize their marketing dollars and I'm here to trumpet the Internet as the place to do so. Here are the five ways I suggested.

1. Put yourself in the "findability" business

At the New Marketing Summit last October Todd Defren, Principal of Shift Communications, said, "You are no longer the marketing department. You are now the 'findability' department. What I think he meant was that Google is the new yellow pages and if your business can't be found there, for many people you don't exist. PPC/SEO are two ways to get there. My second point elucidated another.

2. Think of yourself as publisher and your Web site as a media property

What I'm referring to here is content, content and more content. Content is STILL king!

David Meerman Scott said companies should consider hiring people with the skills of a journalist to churn out content, which can come in many forms: video, photos, podcasts, blog posts, articles, press releases, etc. And they don't have to all live on your own site. It's good for link love and Google Juice purposes to have them on third-party sites as well.

It doesn't have to be expensive either. At Bizzuka, we use every one of those tools. With the exception of press releases syndicated via PRWeb, everyone one of them is free. If we can do it, you can too!

And it's given us a lot of presence on Google. A reveals returns from , , , PRWeb, , Blog Talk Radio, blogs and on and on.

An added benefit is ubiquity. You're everywhere! That's something I think carries with it social capital and credibility.

3. Participate in social networks

Social networking via (your business suit), (business casual) and (the networking cocktail party) are places you should have profiles established and where you should, to the degree time will allow, be actively participating. It will pay off over time. We're seeing the fruits of it here. Again, if we can do it, you can too.

4. Get closer to your customer

Marketing strategist John Moore says there are three ways companies can increase revenues:

• Raise prices
• Get new customers
• Sell more stuff to the customers you already have

In a recession, raising prices is out of the question. It costs more to get new customers than to keep the ones you already have. Therefore, getting closer to your customers and upselling them on new products/services is the preferred route.

While nothing beats an in-person, real life connection, via your Web site, blog, email, social networks and online communities the Web can serve up a digital handshake to help keep you top-of-mind with customers.

5. Start a tribe

Seth Godin's latest book, Tribes, talks about how people form communities around leaders, brands, products and services. These are often self-forming groups in which the brand may be a non-participant.

I often use the idea of "getting a seat at someone else's table" to describe how brands should find communities of interest wherever they may exist and join as co-participants. I also suggest it's not a bad idea to "set a table of your own" and start such communities.

A great example is Vertical Response, the small business email marketing software company. They built a customer community, VR Marketing Lounge, using low-cost social network platform Ning that numbers several thousand members.

While that may be only a fraction of their total customer-base, it's still significant. Just think of the feedback that group can provide and the potential for word-of-mouth growth that can come as a result of increased tribal affiliation.

So, there it is -- five ways to maximize your marketing dollar via the Web. If you found the post helpful, let know. It was his suggestion... and a good one it was.

If you are at all interested in social media marketing, especially as it relates to branding, there is a blogger you should be reading, Leili McKinley.

asked the question last week, Is social media the same as marketing? 

A newly released survey done by Marketing Executives Networking Group of top marketing trends of 2009 indicates that "twice as many marketers are 'sick' of hearing about Web 2.0 and related buzzwords such as 'blogs' and 'social networking' compared to last year’s survey."

The survey goes on to say that "marketers still admit they don’t know enough about it" and that " 67% of executive marketers consider themselves beginners when it comes to using social media for marketing purposes."

This represents real opportunity for true social media marketing consultants, so long as they can make this stuff palatable and speak in layman's terms.

One person who does this very, very well is , a veteran marketer who recently started her own agency, Harte Marketing and Communications. Beth has the good sense to see where social media fits into the overall marketing spectrum, and I believe her's is a well-reasoned, studied approach. (Doesn't hurt she's an adjunct professor at a local university.)

In a recent post, Beth asks, "Is social media the same as marketing?" To which she answers...

As you can tell, Beth has some strong opinions on the subject and I highly recommend you read the post referenced above. Whether you agree with Beth or not, it will spur some critical thinking.

Another thing you should consider doing is joining us tomorrow, Friday, January 9, for User Friendly Thinking Radio, where Beth will be our guest. We're going to discuss this and other issues of importance to marketers today. The show airs at noon central and lasts for 30-45 minutes.