BCA

By John Riley

 By now, the term social media (web 2.0) is well known, but arguably not well understood. Recently, I have had the opportunity to spend some time with several very talented gerus in the field who see social media as an engagement with online communities to share information that builds exposure and sales. Testimony to that definition is the large number of major corporations that have steadily re-jiggered larger shares of their business development budgets into this medium.

 Each instrument that plays a part in this concert has its own unique set of characteristics: Twitter, Facebook, podcast, blogs, Linked In and YouTube are the best known. According to a March 2009 survey sponsored by Social Media Examiner, Twitter is used by 94% of marketers who have been using social media for years, followed closely by blogs.

 Unsurprisingly, age is a factor in adopting and executing a social media campaign. The Social Media Marketing survey revealed that people 60 years of age and above were significantly more likely to be just getting started with social media than other age groups. The people aged 30 to 39 years were the most likely to use it.

 Shaping The Strategy

 When you read, The Social Media Bible,(2009)” a nearly two-inch thick book by Lon Safko and David Brake, you gain an insight into the growing influence of social media. The book’s précis says, “it will show you how to build or transform your business into a social media-enabled enterprise where customers, employees, and prospects connect, collaborate, and champion your products, your services, and your way of doing business.”

 The authors advocate a four pillar strategy as a basis for a successful transformation:

               Communication—many of the tools can measure effectiveness

               Collaboration—use the right mix of tools

               Education—turn expertise into content            

               Entertainment—make the content interesting and compelling

 By the time you are turning the final pages of the book, you will be familiar with social media vocabulary, have a tactical perspective on various tools and their capabilities and have an insight into creating a successful strategy for your business. The book lives up to its billing.

 Savoring The Payoff

 In the Social Media Marketing survey of 800 marketing professionals, 81% said their business gained increased exposure and 61% realized a pick up in web traffic.  Most importantly, 56% said their efforts had resulted in new business partnerships while 48% enjoyed a boost in sales leads. It was also significant that 45% of participants saw a reduction in their marketing expenses.

 As you engage with people, you are building content for your blog and connecting with many different influences you would not otherwise be able to reach. Additionally, companies are able to monitor what is being said about their products, services or company by enabling them to better shape their marketing and sales strategies. Finally, if your social media program really clicks, you create a volunteer sales force that sells your product and accelerates your ROI growth.

Plenty of opportunities remain to capitalize on the benefits of social media. Shaping a thoughtful strategy and using the right tools will reach employees, customers and prospects in a way that encourages and provokes dialogue. Therein lies your opportunity.

November 11, 2009

Gaining visibility as thought leaders

eMarketer estimates nearly 28 million US Internet users write a blog in 2009, and those bloggers run the gamut from hobbyists and part-timers to self-employed and corporate bloggers.

According to a Technorati survey of bloggers worldwide, most are men, ages 18 to 44, affluent and well-educated. About one-quarter work for a traditional media outlet in addition to blogging, and most still don’t make any money from their self-publishing activities. But there are other ways to create value.

Fully 70% of bloggers polled by Technorati said they talked about products or brands on their blog. The most common activity was to post about brands they loved—or hated—as well as to write reviews or post about experiences with stores or customer service.

Bloggers who post about products and services may get some attention from brands in the form of free items and other perks—enough to attract the notice of the US Federal Trade Commission, at least—but the visibility they gain through publishing their thoughts also helps them in less-tangible ways.

Nearly six in 10 of all the bloggers surveyed said they were better known in their industry because of their blog, and one-quarter had used their blog as a resume or sent it to potential employers.

Further, bloggers who post for a business reported even higher levels of success: 71% had increased visibility for their company, 63% had converted prospects into purchasers through their blog, and 56% have seen their blog bring their company recognition as a thought leader in the industry.

Negative personal consequences, such as losing focus on work or getting in trouble on the job, were far less common than gaining visibility or even changing professions entirely based on blogging activity.

Printed with permission of emarketer.com

Procter & Gamble, the FMCG giant, is looking to substantially increase the amount of revenue it generates via the internet, and will heighten its digital adspend to help achieve this goal.

Forrester, the research firm, reported that eCommerce retail sales reached a value of $156.1 billion in the US last year, a figure it predicts will grow to $229.1 billion by 2013.

Nielsen also estimates that only one third of Americans currently buy packaged goods on the web, although it forecasts sales levels will see an uptick of at least 20% each year in the short-to-medium term.

At present, online delivers just 1% of P&G’s annual revenues, or $500 million, a total the world’s biggest advertiser hopes to drive to $4 billion going forward.

Lucas Watson, P&G’s global team leader, digital business strategy, said “some categories see as much as 30% to 50% of their business in e-commerce. Our forecasts don’t suggest consumer products will ever work like that.”

Despite this, he argued it is “not out of the realm of possibility eCommerce will be more than 1% of our sales. Getting north of 10% would be an aggressive goal, but somewhere in between that would be, we think, within the realm of possibility.”

The Cincinnati-based company has recently started adding links to the online portals of various retailers to its own brand websites, a programme it now intends to roll out globally.

During the first quarter, the owner of Tide and Pampers also boosted its digital advertising expenditure, taking the medium’s share of its budget to 4%, TNS found, and this did not including all search, video and targeted ads.

“Whether it’s an investment in a banner ad, in a search-marketing ad or in a shopping experience … we will look at all of those and their ability to drive revenue for our company,” said Watson.

“The ability whenever the consumer raises her hand and says, ‘I’m ready to buy,’ to connect her directly to a purchase rather than have her wait and go to a store, we think of it as providing better service,”  he added.

Moreover, Watson suggested marketing mix models have shown digital advertising is providing P&G with a strong return on investment, even though “many people predicted it would not happen that way.”

Printed with permission of the World Advertising Reseach Center

Data sourced from AdAge; additional content by WARC staff, 09 September 2009

TOKYO: Less than two months since its launch, Japan’s first so-called ‘marketing cafe’ – where consumers try out skincare, beauty or even mobile phone products while sipping their frothy coffees or having a meal with friends – has been deemed a resounding success.

Based in the heart of the trendy Shibuya district, the Lcafe has already persuaded more than 2,000 young, affluent women to exchange their name, age, address and mobile phone details in return for free items.

So far, food, drink, toiletry and electronics manufacturers have offered free samples in return for personal data; allowing them to contact prospective new consumers via their mobiles at a later date.

Aimed specifically at women in their 20′s and 30′s, the Lcafe was devised by Sample Lab as an innovative way to talk to influential consumers about products new to the market.

In the view of Yuhi Hori, spokesman for the event promotion division of Dentsu, there is, among many marketers, a “fresh interest in samples” at a time when mass market advertising costs are continuing to climb.

Data sourced from the Wall Street Journal; additional content by WARC staff, 25 August 2009

Sony is targeting social media to promote its consumer electronics in the US and is signing up ‘blogger dads’ to stimulate consumer conversations on the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

Many firms in the US use ‘blogger moms’ as part of their marketing efforts but Sony is launching DigiDads which aims to get fathers to use its products and write about them.

But, unlike products distributed to journalists in traditional media, it is specifying the projects the dads should work on and is also asking for them back afterwards.

The campaign is being run with blogger Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs. Brogan is an advocate of ‘sponsored’ conversations on the internet, and as such has attracted the ire of other bloggers. Last year he was involved in a campaign for retailer Kmart through sponsored conversation specialist Izea, where he is a director.

“Anyone can do blogger outreach,” says Brogan, “we’re aiming to tell a story rather than just say ‘here’s some stuff, write about it.’” Digidads projects will include ‘Summer of 100 faces’ where dads and their kids will take 100 portraits and the use of GPS-equipped video cameras to map out historical video tours of a neighbourhood or record a tour on vacation.

Bloggers signed up so far include Michael Sheehan of HighTechDad.com, Max Kalehoff of AttentionMax.com, CC Chapman whose blogs include DigitalDads.com and CC-Chapman.com and Jeffrey Sass who contributes to Brogan’s blog, DadoMatic.com.

Marcy Cohen, senior manager of communications at Sony Electronics, says the aim is “to engage customers in conversation and share the insights we gain with engineers, product developers and designers. The feedback is going to be invaluable. It’s an easy way to speak frankly and directly.”

Data sourced from AdAge; additional content by WARC staff

By John Riley

In 2008, small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) spent over $6.8 billion online according to Borrell Associates in a report released in March 2009. This dovetailed with a poll of US marketers by Bredin Business Information early this year which pointed out that SMBs are having to do more with less and that is moving them into the digital world.

Marketers point out that the outlook for small-business marketing has changed this year. Local online activities are becoming more prevalent and focused which has helped SMBs improve their targeting of customers with segmentation research. But other challenges remain.

Funding of new projects, increasing awareness of their business and growing the business with limited resources remain the major challenges. With local online efforts now representing 11% of all SMB marketing spending including Website development, it’s clear these activities will play a significant role in helping create the awareness necessary to grow the businesses.

By John Riley

Rapidly changing market conditions are nothing new to marketers, but now they are faced with a more ominous challenge: a long term shift in demographics.  The consequences between now and 2020 are that the United States will experience very minor growth in per household spending and after that spending on consumer products is expected to fall through 2050.

 This is the conclusion of the Nielsen Company in a report prepared under the direction of Doug Anderson, Senior Vice President, Research and Development.

 According to Mr. Anderson, “an aging population, a declining birth rate, and growing ethnic diversity will change the face and the spending behavior of consumers. Gaining share among population groups that most marketers do not reach today, older and ethnic consumers, will require shifts in focus, tactics and products.”

 He points out that since the 1970’s birth rates in the United States have been at least 40% lower than at the heights of the baby boom.  When a falling birth rate is combined with a very large generation like the Baby Boom, the effect is a gradual aging of the population. The number of persons who reach retirement age of 66 will increase by over 100,000 each year throughout the Baby Boom retirement years to 2030.

 “Aging populations place stress on an economy in two ways”, Mr. Anderson says.  “First, if the generation is sufficiently large, retirement can lower the size of the labor force lowering overall productivity.  Second, is the cost of caring for a large number of retirees.  Medicare and Medicaid will deplete their trust funds in about ten years and will be the largest component of all U. S. government spending by 2030. Additionally, many privately funded pension plans are underfunded.”

 The report goes on to point out that as the Baby Boomers continue to age, and birth rates remain low, household sizes will decrease. Many aging Boomers will live alone or with one other person while the number of children per family will get smaller. When the most economically disadvantaged market segments are included, pressures on per capital spending will be like nothing the U.S. has experienced in modern times.

 Bottom line for marketers: growth will only come from increasing share against completion.

 The opportunity:  by 2025, over half of all families with children will be multi-cultural, but Marketers who can navigate diverse cultures, tastes and languages will succeed.