Biz Can Do Better

When implementing a social media plan it’s important that you’re in it for the right reasons.  It’s not something you can just slap on to your existing marketing strategy, in other words – you can’t “buy” social media, you have to “do” social media.  Successful social media involves creating relationships with people who care about your brand and turning those people into advocates who will share with others.  Below are a few of the critical factors to social media success - some obvious, some not:

1)  Establish clearly defined goals for your social media efforts

2)  Evaluate the different social media channels that can best support these goals (think about where the eyeballs are, specifically, the eyeballs you want to attract).  Doing this will ensure that your message is timely, relevant, and well-placed.  Social media isn’t just Facebook & Twitter.  

3)  Be ready to measure ROI.  This can be tricky as you need to have a consistent definition for the “I.”

4)  Remain authentic in all of your communications & listen to your customers.  You can’t fake this, it has to be part of your company’s DNA - not just an arbitrary section in your mission statement.

5)  Create great content.  That content should be at least one of the following:

·      Interesting

·      Actionable

·      Breaking

·      Exclusive

·      Funny

·      Discounts or coupons

·      Viral

·      Crowd-sourced

·      Contests and promotions

·      Evidential of social proof

6)  Crowd source a portion of your content.  Encourage customers to share their experiences with the brand both directly online and virally with one another.  Content that is produced by your customers has less of a bias and comes off as more authentic.

7)  Utilize customer input publicly.  Show the community that their voice is being heard.

8)  Maintain a conversational tone.  Be an advocate for your customers, speaking with them on the same level.  Don’t talk down to them and try to stay connected to their perspective.

9)  Enable sharing.  Foster engagement among friends.

10)  Don’t forget calls to action.  Once you hook someone on your various social media presences, get them to take the next steps!  Click a link, sign up for a newsletter, enter a promotion, etc.

11)  Turn your Facebook likes into engagement; moderate a conversation rather than a one-way dialogue.  This can be done by posting great media, asking questions, and providing exclusive opportunities on your fan page.

12)  Tie your social media efforts into the offline world.  An example of this is creating promotions online that can be redeemed in person.

13)  Communicate the value of social media across the company (or at least the department).  It’s great to have one person or even a small team dedicated to social media efforts, however the power of having employees embrace social media across the board is immense – especially in terms of brand visibility and SEO.

14)  Reach out to bloggers and build meaningful relationships.  By taking the time to do the necessary research and making targeted partnerships with bloggers you can dial into a whole new community of potential customers.

15)  Remember that social media is a mix of PR, marketing, and customer service.  That means it can be a huge part of your overall strategy.

1  Community Happiness is Key

  Regardless of what your specific e-mail marketing goals are, it’s important to also keep your community (target customers) happy.  You can do this by building trust, and looking at your community as potential leads rather than potential victims for a hard sell.  Provide them with interesting and relevant content that is free.  Ask them what kind of content they want and how often they want it.  Never use a “do not reply” e-mail address, but rather make yourself accessible & show interest in their feedback.  This feedback will prove extremely valuable later on.

2  Keep a Personal & Conversational Tone 

  Would you rather receive an e-mail from someone that looks like it was dumped off to thousands of people with the end goal of creating a sale, or receive a message that feels like it was directed towards you specifically, with information that you’re genuinely interested in?  This one is easy, yet often overlooked.  Make sure you keep a conversational tone throughout your e-mails, rather than a robotic, agenda-pushing one.

3  Segment, segment, segment

  There are numerous ways you can segment your e-mail list, all with the end goal of providing the most relevant message at the most relevant time.  Once you’ve defined your segments you can tailor the most appealing message for that segment (this includes e-mail copy, customized landing pages, offers, etc).

 Various ways you can segment include:

·Click-throughs – Segment customers who constantly click through, occasionally click through, or rarely click through.

 ·Customer Content Preference – What are their interests?

·Site Activity – Segment customers based on purchases or abandon points in the process.  Identify reasons for abandoned purchases and send customized incentives.

·Date & Time – Segment customers based on those who open e-mails at different times of the day.  Customers are more likely to read an e-mail if it’s fresh vs. those that require sifting.

·Gender – Are they male or female?

·Geographic Location – Where are they located?                

·Combine segments – While this requires the most effort, it’s also the most effective.  By combining customers who fall into specific segments and combining them you’ll have a highly targeted message delivered at the precise time.

 4  Content is King

You’ve no doubt heard this before, and it’s true.  Content is your brand, reputation, and one of the only things customers have to gauge you by online.   That said, make sure your content is always relevant, interesting, useful, and true to the reason users signed-up to hear from you in the first place.   Make sure you’re continually engaging your customers and always feel free to ask them what they’d like to see from you.  There’s not really much point in having a huge e-mail list if readers don’t care about what you’re saying.  Better to have 1,000 engaged readers than 25,000 people who couldn’t care less.

5  Subject Lines

Yes, subject lines are key.  Go look at your e-mail inbox right now.  How are you judging which e-mails you’re going to open first?  If you’re like most people, you place heavy importance on the subject line.  Far too often people in e-mail marketing choose to use subject lines like “Check out this great deal!” or “Click to save 50%!”  Listen, no one wants to be shouted at – not in person, not in e-mail, not ever.  Additionally, at this point we’ve all become rather desensitized to obvious sales pitches, so most likely we’ll ignore.  Try gleaning ideas for subject lines from news headlines, personalize when you can (but don’t be cheesy), and remember to test different subject lines as much as possible to see what works.

6  If relevant, build an auto-responder

Auto-responder?  The very term conjures up thoughts of un-targeted and annoying sales pitches.  Despite the name, auto-responders can be used for good.  Once you’ve received a decent number of sign-ups, you’ll need to engage your list with interesting content or else they’ll lose interest and leave.  A good way to do this is via an auto-responder.  After a user has signed up, they’ll begin receiving  e-mails packed with interesting content that helps them get to know you, your philosophy, and what to expect.  It’s a nice way to welcome them into your community – after all, they signed up because they want to hear from you – right?

7  If you are pitching, do it right

So you’ve nurtured your list for a while now.  You’ve been giving them great information that’s interesting, timely, relevant, and actionable.  They’re starting to build a real trust and affinity for you.  At this point you may be ready to sell them something you’re almost certain they could benefit from.  If you’re absolutely sure that the time is right, then feel free to share your product or service with them.  Just make sure you don’t come off the wrong way.  The single most effective way to leverage the trust that you’ve gained into a sale is to pitch whatever it is you’re selling in their frame of view.  How does this person on your list view their problems and  how might they look at your potential solution?  Ask yourself that, ask them if you can, and then craft a unique message targeted at your various segments (which you’ve already done, right?).  If you can do that they’ll be viewing your offer in the context of how it’s useful to them, which can make for a much more appealing proposition.

8  Metrics

Last, and most certainly not least – know your metrics.  This means more than simply knowing your growth rate, CPC, hard & soft bounce rates, unique clicks, revenue, etc.  It means knowing which metrics are most relevant to each campaign.  Beyond that, and most importantly, it means remaining consistent in the way you’re measuring this information.  Is your click rate measured by how many people clicked or the total number of clicks by those people?  Whichever it is, remain consistent so that you can continually measure, analyze, and optimize your e-mail marketing.  Most people know their metrics, however they can sometimes mix how & what they’re measuring. 

Thanks for reading.  You can also download this as a PDF here.   Remember to follow me on Twitter or send me an e-mail and let me know what you think.

 

 

You can find numerous blog posts, articles, books, twitter accounts, and much more dedicated to the topic of entrepreneurship.  You might read that a good entrepreneur became that way based on how they were raised.  Others will say it’s the way their problem-solving mind works in anticipating trends and connecting abstract ideas.  A few will even say it’s based on training (really?) or the simple ability to see opportunity where others can’t.

Hmmm….

These very well may all be different factors that aide in an entrepreneur’s success, however none of them are the sole reason an entrepreneur will be successful.  I think the one key factor of entrepreneurial success is the power of actually doing something.  Apologies in advance if that’s not the sophisticated & dramatic realization you were hoping to hear.

Just the other day a friend of mine said that “everyone has good ideas.”  He was right.  How many times do you hear friends or family spouting off their latest idea (often based on a complaint or disdain for the way something currently is and think: “hey, that’s actually not a bad idea.”  It happens all the time.  Really, it does.  Stop being so skeptical about our ability to conceive great ideas.

Oh?

You see - what separates people isn’t their ability to envision something great.  What separates people is their determination and drive to actually do something.  So simple.  People are constantly creating barriers to prevent themselves from realizing their dreams.  I have a good idea for an iPhone app, but I don’t know how to code.  I have this great product, but have no clue how to get a prototype made.  I want to be a designer, but no one will respect me.  I think I could be good at sales, but I’m kind of shy.  That dress would probably look good on me, but gosh it’s pretty risque.  The list goes on and on.  All you need to do is listen to Nike and JUST DO IT.  Seriously.  It’s cliche but that doesn’t matter because they have it right.  You just need to f*cking do it.  Speak up.  Take a shot.  Sign that deal.  Make that phone call.  You can’t be afraid of failure or embarrassment, nor can you wait for the “right” time.  More often than not these things will only build your character and enhance your potential for success.  Your odds of achieving something great go way up when you move from the thinking stage to execution stage.  Please, please, please just take your idea, thought, want, desire, whatever it is and start working towards it’s completion.  Each time you hit a wall, reject your instinct to be frustrated, or give up, and branch out different ways you could solve or circumvent the problem.  Do some research.  Ask someone.  TRY something.  It’s a learning experience filled with ups & downs.  Einstein said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”  So how are we going to figure out the right thing to do?  By doing.

Seriously.

We’re all survivors, we all want success.  And we all have it in us.  (Actually no, some people are dumb - but they’re not reading this).  Many of us also have a little voice, or doubt, or fear, that can prevent us from realizing or at least attempting to live out our dreams/plans/opinions/businesses/love interests/fashion statements/philosophies.

So stop reading this post.  Dust off your ideas, think about what it is that  you really want, and think about what it will take to get you there.  Then write down the steps you need to take, and take a shot.  Fail, or improve your path as you go along, and eventually you’ll come out happier then before.  This doesn’t just apply to business, this applies to your entire life.  Trust me.

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