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Archive for the ‘Relationship Marketing’ Category
13 Jan 2010
by Michelle O'Hagan
In case there’s still anyone out there who believes social media/social networking is:
- a fad
- for kids
- for B2C, not B2B
instead of a pervasive shift in how all people communicate with each other, now comes yet another eMarketer report, Social Network Ad Spending: 2010 Outlook , that should put those beliefs out to pasture.
One of the most important findings concerns marketing, not advertising:
According to eMarketer:
“… paid advertising in social networks—banners, text ads and search advertising, as well as the more targeted advertising being deployed by Facebook and MySpace—is only a fraction of the spending … The researcher estimated marketers spent $800 million in 2009 on social network, word-of-mouth and conversational marketing, up more than 23% over the previous year. Further growth of 35% is expected for 2010 to more than $1 billion.”
Long story short: Marketers are spending truckloads of money to create demand online in social networks, because that’s where their prospects (consumers and business people of all ages and walks of life ) are.
Demand creation using social media and social networks is no fad, and it is not exclusive to any particular demographic.
Things are looking up. 
Posted in Brand Visibility, Content Marketing, Relationship Marketing, Social Media, Strategy | No Comments »
22 Jun 2009
by Michelle O'Hagan
Why a Loyal Customer isn’t Always a Profitable One, an article in today’s Wall Street Journal, posits:
To be considered loyal, it shouldn’t be enough for a customers to feel a bond to a company, or to simply stick with the relationship. It should also require certain actions, or shopping behaviors, on the part of the customer.
In other words, loyalty and profitability are not synonymous: The proper target audience for any marketer should be those customers who actually are profitable, not just customers who visit your site often or who may have warm feelings toward your product or service.
Assuming this is true, questions arise. How do marketers encourage clients or customers to become “Profitable Loyals” and against what benchmarks or metrics are those PLs measured?
I’d argue that once a marketer can accurately label their own PLs and set benchmarks and metrics around them, it is easier for business development to target clients who may, indeed, become PLs.
Thoughts?
Tags: loyalty, profitability, profitable loyals, Wall Street Journal
Posted in Content Marketing, Metrics/ROI, Relationship Marketing, User Engagement | 1 Comment »
26 Mar 2009
by Michelle O'Hagan
One of my colleagues, Rene Ryan, called my attention to a blog post on BusinessBytes, a small business technology blog. The Death of the Elevator Pitch highlights the fact that the “elevator pitch”–the supposedly succinct description of a business offering that marketers could use to entice a prospect when time was tight–is on its last legs. The blogger blames SMS and Twitter and mentions something about the downfall of civilization.
It’s way past time for the elevator pitch to go the way of the dodo, washboards and rotary-dial telephones. An elevator pitch is too long, and allows for too much fluffing-up. That’s right–if it takes you 60 seconds to describe the basics of what you do or sell, you have some work to do.
Too many people go into this elevator-pitch exercise with the goal of describing every wonderful thing about the company, the widgets, the service, and how they relate to every single customer segment or vertical. You’re not supposed to be doing that in an elevator (”Sorry, I pushed the wrong button, I’m getting off at 3 not 6″), at a cocktail party (”Um … I’ll be right back, I see my ex-boyfriend from high school over there”) or in professional or social networks (”un-friend,” “un-connect”).
If someone wants to know EVERYTHING about your company or service, they’ll come to your website or invite you to respond to an RFP.
First, make them want to come to your website or send you the RFP. And in a world of ever-shortening attention spans and information overload, anything more than the very basics takes too long whether you’re on Twitter or in an elevator.
The BusinessBytes blogger gave a wonderful example of what I’ll call a Twitter Pitch.
- Start with the basics; noun, verb, object. (i.e. We sell cloth.)
- Add a modifier to clarify what is special about you or your business. (i.e. We sell cloth made from bamboo.)
- Add a short modifying phrase to clarify what is not only unique; but niche about your business. (i.e. We sell cloth made from bamboo that is cheap, ample and green-friendly.)
- Edit the whole thing down by a third to one half and start with the most ear-catching words. (i.e. We’re totally green. Bamboo cloth. cheap & ample.)
- Exchange email addresses.
- Hook ‘em.
Marketers who can boil their company’s offering down to eight to 10 words or a single sentence have a firm grasp on what they’re selling and how to communicate effectively with their target audiences.
Hook ‘em.
Tags: BusinessBytes, elevator pitch, twitter, twitter pitch
Posted in Brand Visibility, Content Marketing, Relationship Marketing, Social Media, Strategy | 10 Comments »
27 Feb 2009
by Michelle O'Hagan
Below is a great slideshow from Bud Caddell, a strategist at Undercurrent. It makes a strong case for relationship marketing with the ideas that: there is no such thing as a captive audience, and “fans” (not awareness) are the only thing you should be focused on, especially in a recession.
In order to be fan-focused, your organization must have three things:
- a point of view (you cannot court everyone)
- a belief in infinity (b/c fandom defies time, space and material)
- open-source relationships (b/c fandom requires exposing yourself to the mechanisms of culture)
Bud’s slideshow provides a few examples fan-focused organizations, mostly large brands you’ve heard of.
Question: What companies do you know that are fan-focused???
Tags: bud-caddell, fandom, undercurrent
Posted in Brand Visibility, Content Marketing, Custom Magazines, Custom Publishing, Digital, Distribution Marketing, Relationship Marketing, Social Media, Strategy, User Engagement | 1 Comment »
