SMM means a whale of engagement

A Managing Editor at BE (BoomersEdge) Media asked me a couple weeks ago how her husband might go about drumming up some new prospects and customers for his small business using Twitter.  I  believe that Twitter can be a very powerful communication tool for reaching potential customers of almost any business and market.  However early market research (and surveys done) on Twitter usage show  that the vast majority of Twitter users are currently just seeking entertainment from this rapidly growing social media communications platform.   Twitter itself is a micro blogging syndication tool, and it does possess power and speed for getting a message out, as well as being able to give indications of what your potential customers and markets are interested in.

Your  Social Media Market Strategy might be greatly enhanced by incorporating Twitter, so we will be doing more research and reporting about our how’s and why’s of it’s use in the coming  months.  But since Twitter is just one of many core SMM (Social Media Marketing) tools which your business may want to deploy, we feel it is important to first understand the amount and kind of change which your business needs to be prepared for, before you start Tweeting away.  So before making specific suggestions, I first warned my friends that there can also be a  down side to using social media tools, including Facebook and others, if you are not willing or ready to engage with prospects AND customers, who may be happy to see your business is reaching out to them using this form of media.

Specifically, are you ready to answer all questions that any prospect for your product(s) or service(s) may have?  Do you have a web site that can answer most of those questions for a prospect, including packaging and pricing of same?  Do you have samples or references of your product/service benefits and value to current customers?  Is your value proposition clear, and without marketing smoke?

But perhaps most importantly, are you ready to be accountable for your business reputation?  Social media is all about building trust and reputation.  You may be able to delete an errant post, but you can’t delete a negative impression, or knock to your business reputation.  Those issues will have to be addressed, one by one, if you plan on getting up close and personal with your market(s) using social media.

Here’s a link I posted on Twitter last month to an article about the engagement factor of using social media to market your business.  There is no question about whether social media can get you closer to your customers, help find new prospects, and improve your revenues and bottom line profitability.   But you’ll need to be prepared to engage.

Social Media Engagement and Your Bottom Line http://su.pr/2F6hde

Who You Targeting Willis?

“Super sale – 30% OFF .COM domains”

Market Strategy is one thing I bet you have no time for.  Most small business owners I talk to don’t even know what it is.  Market strategy is extremely important for market leadership, but also for pure competitiveness.   So, in future articles, we will be talking much more about what specifically Mkt. Strategy can do for any business…. how it can drive a product/service to market leadership, and how a niche market leadership position can create the competitive advantage and profitability improvement that you are targeting for your business.

The example herein shows potentially 2 market niches, or target markets for the domain registrar and hosting services companny, GoDaddy.com.  It illustrates 2 media being used to reach these markets, eMM (eMail Mktg.) and the more expensive traditional media, Television Ads.  We feel it is very important to understand if your media and target market plans are part of a cohesive and complimentary market strategy, or could they perhaps be working against each other, or agaist themselves in creating leadership in any particular or critical target market in your overall strategy.

I need more domain names for my business and was waiting for a sale larger than 10% off, which happens at GoDaddy seldomly.  At least, this is the first time they have advertised a greater than 25% off domain names sale since I can remember seeing cross my eDesk, so it is time for me to take action.

It came into my email like every other staple of business communication I get.  Danica Patrick is a great spokesperson for delivery of email mktg messages to my company, because she is a very hard working entrepreneur, who has risen to the top of the world in Indy Car racing, a sport completely dominated by men!  That is what I like about Danica, not the fact that she is obviously quite attractive.

So this eMM ad was right on the spot for targeting my company, and it will result in “plus” or incremental business from my company to GoDaddy. However, eMM is a marketing media, and my company is just one target market.  eMM is dirt cheap and very effective if used strategically.  On the other hand, television ads are a very expensive form of advertising.  GoDaddy has targeted the mass market on tv during the super bowl spending millions on a single ad, and they continue to use tv ads, so this form of media must be effective for GoDaddy’s primary target market.

Who is that primary target market?  That, I can only guess on.  In my guesstimation, it is unsophisticated or first time web property owners. But in thinking of the last GoDaddy tv ad which I can remember (the tv has been off for 7 days now on purpose ), I think Parson’s (GoDaddy CEO and Founder) is actually targeting middle level male managers in larger companies.  He uses half dressed women like round announcers at a pro wrestling production, and 2 male managers in tiny office cubicles talking amongst themselves.  I forget what the ad was trying to say, because I am not in whatever market he is targeting here, and the ad is mere humor to me.

The lesson: I think it is a mistake for GoDaddy to use sex appeal in their tv ads.  But only if they are not just targeting middle level male managers who work in cubicles. I know Bob Parsons from the early days of tech marketing to the masses.  He had a great personal finance app, which competed with Intuit’s Quicken product.  I used it for a while, but the product and company soon got demolished by Intuit’s product.

Your small business may never use or even need tv ads.  But you will use eMail Marketing if you want to remain competitive.  When you do, know who you are targeting.  Know who you may be risking as potential customers if your message has an effect of “turning off” part of that audience.  If Parson’s tv ads are targeted to first time web site owners (not just men in cubicles), he may be turning off women like Danica Patrick and you, by using half dressed bimbo type characters to tell clueless men what they should be doing.

I am aware of the fact that “virality” may not be in most people’s dictionary of choice yet.  However, after choosing the word, I checked with Wikipedia to see what they might think about my choice of wording.

Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about “virality”… http://su.pr/31RrDt

I will outline the purpose and results of this test in a future article, so check back if you are interested in this subject.  My test involved the combination of 2 social media tools, Twitter (what I call a microblog syndication tool), and StumbleUpon, A Social Bookmarking Tool.  And of course, my test involved Analytics, the way we measure results of a test like this.

With about 50 Microblogs on maybe a dozen subjects of presumed interest, we were able to determine a lot of great info. from the test.  One subject, being Twitter itself, yielded perhaps a third of all click throughs, and is helping to propel this test to the 30 day, 30K click through mark.  After exactly 24 days, we have hit the 1K per day click through mark on this test.  More to come about what this all means