Marketing Strategy

Free Your Brand

My favourite quote of the day:

“…Old Spice parent company Proctor & Gamble exhibited incredible bravery in allowing his team to write marketing content in real time, with little to no supervision.”

I love this quote because I think that is the future. Companies must start easing up on the tight controls they’ve historically had over their brand. If you need to control every word that is spoken and written about your brand – forcing writers to submit every word they write for scrutiny, you’re doomed. Not to say you should let writers run wild with your brand, but creativity is so quickly quashed when the pen can only write one of 12 “approved” words to describe a product.

Honest exchange, meaningful engagement and worthy interaction in social media comes when speed (aka: real time) is a part of the equation.

Picture this: someone poses a tough question on Twitter to a company (well, hopefully a *person* with a name and a head shot, representing that company). Two days pass and no one has responded. It’s not because the tweet wasn’t noticed. It’s because the person managing Twitter for that company needs to get approval on the response before they can post it. In the meantime, the person who posted the question has grown increasingly frustrated and is now bad-mouthing the company due to the lack of timely response. It even starts to appear that the company is trying to ignore or dodge the tough question.

It may be the most counter-intuitive to let up on brand control.. but the wild success of the Old Spice online campaign proves that if you’re brave enough, and trust enough, it can pay off in ways you never imagined.

If you disagree – let me hear it.

FYI: the quote came from here.

Erin.

Tags: brand management, branding, engagement, interaction, Social Media

Social Media Strategy? Spare Me

A friend of mine quietly sent me a slideshare presentation yesterday.  It was created by a long established advertising and interactive agency in town.  She sent it to me quietly because it was entitled “Why You Don’t Need a Social Media Strategy”. I guess she thought I should know I might soon be out of work, if word of this got around.

I enjoyed going through the slideshow.. and I didn’t entirely disagree with its point. However, there is an “it all comes down to semantics” argument to be made against it. Let me explain.

The presentation stated you don’t need a social media strategy.  Instead, you need an engagement strategy, or an influence strategy. My take on the presentation was that it was capitalizing on the nausea widely experienced when hearing the ubiquitous phrase “social media strategy”. Fair enough.  However, in our shop, engagement and influence are key parts of every strategy. Doesn’t that go without saying?  Perhaps what the slideshow was trying to get at is the fact that it is vitally important to venture deeper than social media when designing an online plan. Mobile, website content, optimization, online advertising are all important, sometimes more important than social media depending on the business objectives for the strategy.

There is no question “social media” is getting way too much airtime. But for people new to the concept of having an integrated online strategy, this term can really help get them in the right line of thinking, despite its shortcomings.

What do you think? Do you agree or disagree?

Tags: digital strategy, engagement, influence, Social Media, strategy

How to Create a Facebook Schedule

Photo Credit: theogeo

With Facebook’s 400 million users, companies are flocking over to Facebook to setup a Facebook Page for the company. However, with everyone’s busy schedules, these Pages are often neglected and never fully leveraged.

Similar to the Twitter Schedule and Flickr Schedule I blogged about earlier, here is a Facebook Schedule to help you maintain an active and valuable presence on Facebook. To note, each company’s plan and investment on its Facebook Page will be different. This schedule is geared towards small businesses.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

Victor
eMarketing Strategist

Tags: facebook, guide, how to, pages, schedule, Social Media

How to Create a Flickr Schedule

Flickr is one of the most popular photo sharing networks. According to Compete.com, Flickr received over 26 million unique visitors in January 2010. Tapping into this network can be both fun and beneficial for your company. However, many of us are caught in our busy schedules and simply can’t find the time to engage on Flickr. After creating a Twitter Schedule, I realized that making manageable schedules is a great tool for engaging, interacting and maintaining an active presence on any social network.

In many cases 15 minute a day is all you need. Like they say, 15 minutes a day keeps the cobwebs away…well maybe “they” is just me.

Each person’s individual schedules will vary, but below is my proposed schedule for engaging on Flickr on a consistent basis.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes. Improve your “Flickr” life.

Victor
eMarketing Strategist

Tags: engaging, flickr, guide, how to, schedule

Social + Search = Marketing (Part 3)

Photo by: The Rhumb Line

This is part 3 of the Marketing basics series. After discussing the 4 P’s of Marketing in part 1 and brand positioning in part 2, I will now discuss the customer sales cycle. It is very important to first understand what the sales cycle is and then to identify where you want to meet your potential customers. What online channels you use and how you engage with your potential customer will change depending on the sales cycle phase.

The sales cycle can be broadly broken down as:

• Phase 1 – Awareness
• Phase 2 – Search and Evaluation
• Phase 3 – Purchase
• Phase 4 – After-sales

Phase 1 – Awareness

Customers in the Awareness phase either do not know that your product exists or do not yet desire your product. The marketing objective when targeting customers is this phase is to make your product readily available so that when the customer is ready to find your product, they will be able to.

Sample online channels: Organic Search, PPC Search, PPC Display

Phase 2 – Search and Evaluation

Customers in the Search and Evaluation phase know they want your product or a competitor’s product, but must decide which product to buy and where to buy it. The marketing objective when targeting customers in this phase is to provide them with as much information as possible in a convenient and easy to use interface.

Sample online channels: Company website, Facebook Page, review sites (eg. Epinions.com)

Phase 3 – Purchase

Customers in the Purchase phase have finally decided to purchase your product and now need to physically make the purchase. The marketing objective when targeting customers in this phase is to facilitate the customers’ purchase, make it as easy as possible, make it stress free and make it a positive experience.

Sample online channels: Company website, mobile app, Facebook app

Phase 4 – After-sales

Customers in the After-sales phase have purchased and are using your product. The marketing objective when targeting customers in this phase is to create loyal customers by offering them value. It is an investment because a happy customer will be a returning customer. Selling to a returning customer is much easier and cheaper than trying to gain a new customer.

Sample online channels: Company website, Twitter, GetSatisfaction.com

Victor
eMarketing Strategist

Tags: after sales, awareness, basics, evaluation, loyal customers, online marketing, purchase, sales cycle, search marketing, social marketing, strategy