internet marketing

Social + Search = Marketing (Part 2)

This is part 2 of the Marketing basics series. After discussing the 4 P’s of Marketing in part 1, I thought it would be useful to talk about brand positioning. In particular, the basic T-C-B model is a good, simple framework to organize your thought process and approach when creating social media and search engine marketing strategies.

Brand positioning is an enormous topic in itself. Traditionally, companies tried to create a brand image for their companies through broadcasting marketing messages to their audiences through advertisements on TV, radio, print, etc. With the advent of social media, online marketing and engagement focused communications, it is suicide to sound like a traditional broadcast ad when engaging with your audience.

Traditional messaging approaches and the notion that you can define your brand for your audience do not carry over to online marketing. So it is important to understand your company’s brand positioning.

Even though you can’t tell your audience how to perceive your brand, your communications and actions do influence how they perceive it. What you say and what you do must be consistent with your desired brand image.

What is the T-C-B model?

I was first exposed to the T-C-B model while reading a Marketing book by Rossiter and Bellman. T stands for Target, C stands for Category and B stands for Benefit.

Target

It is important to understand who is your target audience. With social media, your target audience may be just one person or a small, special interest group you engage with. Whichever the case, you need to understand them on a deeper, more personal level than traditional marketing.

Category

It is also important to understand what category need your audience will get from your product, service or interaction with you. By category, I mean the type of product. For example, the iPhone’s category is a mobile phone. The iPod’s category is a MP3 player. The iPad’s category is…I’m still trying to figure out that one… If you cannot quickly communicate to your audience what your product does, why they need it or why they should care about your company, they will not pay attention.

Benefit

As touched upon in part 1 of this series, the benefit of a product to its consumers is the value your audience will receive from your product. If you understand who your audience is and what category need they desire, then the key benefit is the “thing” that will satisfy that need.

Try considering T-C-B before sending that next tweet. Who are you engaging with? What is it you’re talking about? What value will your followers get?

Victor Chan
eMarketing Strategist

Tags: benefit, brand, brand positioning, category need, digital strategy, engagement, internet marketing, marketing basics, online marketing, target audience

Future Digital Media Ninja at a Vancouver Internet Marketing Agency

The most interesting part of being an intern at Magnify so far has been participating in the process of ALERT (Assess, Locate, Engage, Respond and Track) for clients. Participating and contributing to the strategy from start to finish in all of its stages has been definitely a first for me. In my past experiences my tasks and responsibilities have been pretty much focused on one specific thing. It is very rewarding and refreshing to have a strategy, where one had a meaningful role in crafting and executing from start to finish, giving positive results for a client.

The most fun part of ALERT was participating in the team brainstorming sessions. It’s a great opportunity to get your ideas out there, as well as be exposed to new ones. Even when the ideas might not fit that specific client, they can be fine tuned and used for another project or client. The open nature of the discussions made it easy to engage other teammates and pick their brains on creative ways to use social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

The less entertaining part of the process, but probably the most necessary would definitely be tracking. The procedural nature of tracking results and stats on a daily basis can get a little bit monotonous. However, one quickly learns that it is not any less important. Monitoring the performance of the implemented strategies will allow you to react and make the necessary changes to ensure that we meet client needs and project goals.

As an amateur web developer I have been able to observe firsthand the necessity of taking social media into consideration when developing a website. In order to be able to boost quality traffic and create online buzz, the site needs to have the ability to share content. The other interesting aspect is that the content needs to tap into online culture and add value to online conversations and interactions that occur on the different social media platforms.

It’s been an awesome learning experience working at Magnify for the past few months, and I can’t wait to learn some more in my quest to become a digital media ninja.

Tags: digital media, digital strategy, internet marketing, online marketing agency, Vancouver

ALERT! 5 Steps To Creating and Maintaining A Successful Online Presence

I’m an information junkie. I read almost everything I can get my eyes on if it relates to a topic of interest – social media, television, online marketing, cooking, travel, raising a toddler. Of course the problem is, there’s way more information than there is time.

A similar challenge faces businesses today. There are far more online marketing opportunities than time and money to support them. On one hand, it’s an embarrassment of riches. On the other, it’s a pain in the posterior for businesses trying to decide which tools will deliver the greatest ROI.

When I step into a bookstore, sometimes I “lose it.” My pulse quickens as I roam from section to section grabbing books I want to read that instant. Many of these books litter my home office waiting for me to crack their covers. The reality is, I can’t get to them all, just like I can’t get to every blog, forum and tweet.

Some businesses are “losing it,” too. I’m watching as they dabble with Twitter, Facebook, blogs, social bookmarking, and shiny apps that grab their attention. Trouble is, companies sometimes sew the seeds and forget to water them. They sit dormant, like my stacks of books.

For some reason, quite likely a combination of reasons actually, businesses are experimenting online without applying much thought or resources. When it comes to building an online presence, I’m all for experimentation. In fact, it’s necessary. But, that doesn’t mean playing fast and loose with your brand.

Perhaps it’s because many CEOs still dismiss the Internet as a frivolous frontier where their teenagers hang out and play games, where singles search for mates, serious types read news, and a whole lot of people watch porn. Perhaps, when it comes to engaging customers online, the barriers to entry are so low and so unregulated that it’s too far outside the costly and complex world of traditional marketing and advertising to make these opportunities seem credible … or comfortable. Whatever the reason, after fifty years of business obsessing about brand, it is remarkable that so many companies are throwing caution to the wind and jumping online without so much as a whiff of a plan.

That’s why we created A.L.E.R.T. It’s an acronym that spells out the five steps to creating and maintaining a successful online strategy. It’s a philosophy and for the Magnify team, a comprehensive system.

The core concept goes like this …

A.L.E.R.T. – ASSESS. LOCATE. ENGAGE. RESPOND. TRACK.
Assess – You need to know where you stand before you can figure out where you are going. This stage is all about figuring out what people online are saying about your brand, product or service, and what the conversations are about your competitors. It usually means paying attention to how users are finding and interacting with your website, too. And the websites of your competitors.

Locate – Where is your audience hanging out online? Once you start to find them, listen. Learn where they cluster, what matters to them, and how they like to engage in terms of platforms and communication style.

Engage – This is literally and figuratively the pivot point. It’s the most creative and often the most comprehensive part of the plan. How are you going to engage your target market? A paid advertising campaign? A simple blog? An aggressive Twitter and Facebook strategy? Quirky or eye-popping video? Games? Quizzes? All of the above? Whatever the plan, ensure you have the resources to make it thrive.

Respond – Listen more than you speak. It’s not a bad mantra for life and a darn good rule of thumb online. Monitor what is being said about your brand online. When someone asks a question, offers a compliment or throws a flame, a timely and authentic response can go a long way toward turning feedback into opportunities and critics into champions.

Track – Be sure to track your results each month. Dig into Google Analytics, Hootsuite, and the myriad other free monitoring tools. The only way to ensure ROI is to pay attention to the trends. Tweak the initiatives that aren’t working and amp up the ones that are.

Whether your company sells shoes or dreams, this process will help you build and maintain a successful online presence. It pays to be ALERT!

- Moyra

Tags: Business, facebook, internet marketing, online marketing, ROI, Social Media, Twitter

Social + Search = Marketing (Part 1)

The internet marketing, social media and search engine marketing scene in Vancouver is changing at a rapid pace. The industry, as a whole, is moving even faster. In the excitement of trying out the latest new gadget, developing a new profile and making that next connection, it is easy for a business to forget the basics.

Social media marketing, search engine marketing, internet marketing or online marketing all have one thing in common, and that boils back down to marketing. Frameworks have often been created to organize the thought process to help companies identify the best strategy to market a company.

Getting back to the basics may be the key to developing that next biggest and greatest campaign. I thought it would be useful to write a series on Marketing basics. In part 1, I will discuss the 4 P’s of Marketing.

4 P’s of Marketing

The 4 P’s of marketing are Product, Price, Place (distribution) and Promotion. It is important to have a clear understanding of each of these elements for your company and how these elements could work together in your marketing strategy. Here are some questions to consider.

Product (goods and/or services):

• What is your product?
• Can your product be changed to better fit your target customers?
• What is the single, most important benefit* your target customer gains from buying your product?

*NOTE: There is a clear distinction between a feature and a benefit. Your customers are not interested in product features. They are interested in the benefits they can get from a product. For example, cell phone plans with unlimited calling to a certain number of friends is a feature, being able to speak to your best friend anytime, all the time, without a massive phone bill is, in the customer’s perspective, the benefit.

Price:

• How does your product price compare with that of your immediate competitors?
• Would you offer price promotions?
• Would you offer different pricing strategies depending on your sales channel?

Place (distribution):

• Where can your customers purchase your product?
• Can a good or service you offer be more efficiently provided online? (Eg. after sales services).
• Is there an additional good or service you can offer your customers online to provide them added value?

Promotion:

• What is the key message you want to convey to your target customer?
• What perception do you want your customers to have of your company?
• Through which communication channels will your target customer be most receptive to to receiving your message?

This is only a sample of questions to consider when thinking about your marketing strategy. The 4 P’s is a basic framework, but is still applicable in the online environment. Do you agree?

Stay tuned for more of the Marketing Basics series.

Victor Chan
eMarketing Strategist

Tags: 4 P marketing, basics, internet marketing, marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media, Vancouver