Posted by Rainier Sky on May 10, 2011
Inbound marketing is getting all the buzz these days. Done well it can be quite efficient and effective at achieving measurable results for all kinds of organizations, but let’s not rule out traditional or outbound marketing altogether.
First, let’s make sure we are all on the same page. There have been different definitions for inbound and outbound marketing over the years, but there is general consensus for the contemporary meanings. Inbound marketing is the act of making it easier for a brand or product to be found by customers who are already seeking it, whereas outbound marketing is making your customers aware of a product they may not know they need. So, when and why would you use one instead of the other? Here’s my take on the subject.
Inbound Marketing
There is an intrinsic advantage to marketing to customers who have already identified a need and are seeking a solution. Theoretically, all you have to do is make it easy for the customer to find your product or service. This typically involves leveraging a website, blog and various other online resources that can all be managed for much less cost than traditional or outbound marketing vehicles. Our modern definition focuses on three key tactics that typically produce synergistic results when employed simultaneously.
Brian Halligan, Darmesh Shah and David Meerman Scott combined to write one of the best-selling books on inbound marketing.
- Content Generation – The first thing you need to be visible on the Web is a lot of content. Search engines prefer sites that offer a lot of information, particularly if its recent or fresh. Using software known as crawlers that visit and read sites regularly giving more credit to sites that are updated frequently. Content also comes in many forms, including blogs posts, images, videos, whitepapers and e-books. The top search engines allow users to search for each type of content individually, so it’s best to use a mix of all.
- Search Engine Optimization – SEO is the act of increasing the visibility of your content so your customers find it near the top of organic or unpaid search results. This requires content written and/or edited to increase its relevance to specific keywords, editing Website code to removing barriers that can limit a search engine’s ability to index or reading the site, and increasing the content’s credibility or authority by generating backlinks to it from other websites.
- Social Media – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace and other social media can all be leveraged to promote your content. Search engines assess your site’s authority by the number of related sites that link to it. If someone else in your industry thinks that what you have to say is important, then so will the search engines. Of course, no one is going to see your links on social media if you don’t have any friends or followers so you also have to make the effort to develop and maintain them.
By leveraging online resources we avoid much of the expense of traditional media and achieve much greater efficiency. So why not just focus on inbound marketing, well that brings us to the other half of this article.
Outbound Marketing
The challenge with inbound marketing is that you can’t expect customers to seek something they do not know they need. Most products and services require some of form of outbound marketing to build awareness. Organizations also should not overlook the long-term return on investment that outbound marketing can generate.
This report from Nielsen Analytic Consulting may be a bit dated, but contains some valuable data on how to gauge your marketing success. Click on the image above to download your copy.
According to studies by Nielsen Analytic Consulting, the average short-term return on marketing investment is a meager $1.09 for every dollar invested. Broken down by medium, online ads (which have a greater tendency towards direct response) returned an average of $2.18, magazine ads $1.12, public relations $1.05, television $.94 and newspaper ads a paltry $24. With such low responses it’s easy to see why inbound marketing is getting so much attention, but the numbers look a lot better when you consider the response on a longer term. The return on marketing investment for magazine ads jumps to $1.57, public relations up to $1.90 and television advertising up to $2.16. According to Nielsen, marketers can generally expect around 1.5 times higher long-term ROI compared to the short-term return. Why you may may ask? The reason is that these and other outbound tactics are more effective at building long-term brand loyalty which leads to repeat business, higher perception of value, greater customer satisfaction and the holy grail of all marketing – word of mouth advocacy.
Of course marketing should be both effective and efficient, and many outbound tactics are dependent on a level of volume and high dollar sales that don’t apply to every situation. Consider a television ad targeting a high income individual with significant disposable wealth. such as a spot you may have seen recently from Ameriprise, Charles Schwab or Edward Jones. These broad targeted spots may reach only a very small percentage of qualified prospects, but smart companies like these recognize a small volume can still be profitable for high ticket items like financial services. Major consumer products companies like Clorox, General Mills, Proctor & Gamble and others see value from the perspective of repeat sales that might extend over the course of an entire lifetime.
Direct marketing is another outbound discipline typically requires high volume to be efficient. Its high upfront costs also prevent many organizations from implementing programs at volumes that produce statistically valid results, so they end up learning nothing from their efforts. The average response rate with a purchased prospect list is just 1.38 percent according to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), and a quality list can cost you $400 to $700 per thousand (CPM) with a minimum purchase of 5,000 addresses. Sound targeting and segmentation can significantly improve results, but organizations may have to test several list before finding a source that performs well. Having the communications piece professionally designed and written can also improve results, but it too adds to the cost. So, you can imagine the kind of long-term return on investment that direct marketing requires.
A better approach for smaller organizations is to simply do their own direct marketing. It might not be as efficient, but it can still be effective. With a basic data base or, preferably, contact management software a small organization can build its own list with resources they may just find online or at their local library. Coupled with a valuable call to action and personalized follow-up, the DMA reports the response rate on such “house” lists improves more than double up to an average 3.42 percent.
The moral here is that no one marketing strategy is right for every organization. Give us a call. We can help.
Thanks for reading,
Kevin Bush, Principal & CEO
Rainier Sky Marketing & Public Relations
Posted by Rainier Sky on March 19, 2011
The popularity of smart phones, tablets and other GPS enabled mobile devices has a lot of marketers re-thinking geosocial networking. Individuals use these networks and other location-based services to share their location with friends, search for goods and services nearby and check the reviews and ratings of unfamiliar places. Organizations can use these networks as a form of permission-based marketing to reach potential customers with special promotions at opportune moments.
Foursquare on a Smartphone
The overall number of people using geosocial networking remains small, but is growing at an incredibly rapid pace. Just how big is the opportunity? There are more than 60 million smart phones in the United States and some sources expect that they will become the predominant means of surfing the Web within the next year or two. Nielsen projects that smartphones will comprise the majority of all mobile phones by the end of this year. Meanwhile, the number of Foursquare members grew by 3400 percent in 2010. With Facebook now moving aggressively into the space, the growth potential is staggering.
Meanwhile, a battle for dominance in the geosocial space is raging among major players that include Facebook, Foursquare, Google, Gowalla, Yelp and others. Each competitor keeps adding newfeatures and capabilities that are generating a lot of buzz and presenting new opportunities for organizations of all types and sizes.
So, is the time right for your organization to start using geosocial networking? The answer might depend on your type of business and the technological sophistication of the people it serves. Right now the possibilities look pretty good for organizations in the hospitality, tourism and retail sectors, particularly those that cater to individuals exploring unfamiliar surroundings. Yet organizations of all type can can use geosocial networking for creative promotions, such as rewards for loyal customers who “unlock” a special offer after so many visits or “check ins”.
Here’s a few more examples of how geosocial networks are being used today:
- You are walking through the mall when you pull out your smart phone and you fire up Facebook Places to help your family decide where to meet later. As the GPS on your phone pulls up a list of various locations, you notice that your favorite bookstore is offering an extra 20 percent off to the next 10 customers to check in. Well, you might want to tell the family you will need a little more time.
- You are traveling on business and you just arrive at your hotel. You pull out your iPad while the clerk looks up your reservation and you fire up Yelp to look up the nearest ATM machine. You see that your bank has one right across the street. Now you can avoid the high fees charged by the third-party ATM there in the lobby.
- You and your spouse decide on a whim to stop and check out the hot, new restaurant in town. The waiting list is too long, so you decide just to have a glass a wine in the bar. You pull out your Android phone and when you check in on Foursquare you discover your good friends are already there. One of them also has a smart phone set to alert them a friend checks in nearby and the friend comes over and invites you to join them at their table.
- You are looking for an attorney to look over a real estate opportunity, but no one you know can offer a recommendation. So you pull up your favorite search engine and two law firms nearby with Google Places listings under the keyword ”real estate attorney”. You check them out and one of them has a recommendation from your dentist with whom you have an upcoming appointment. She’s always trying to talk to you while her hands are in your mouth, so why not make it worth while and ask about her experience?
Can you imagine your organization fitting in any of these scenarios? Like most social media, geosocial networking is user friendly and relatively easy to get started. Your greatest expense – unless you go crazy with promotional offers – will likely be the time you invest setting up and managing it.
Want to give it a try? If so, here’s a few tips on how to get started.
Get Yourself a Smartphone
It’s not an absolute must for everything, but you will need a GPS-enabled device for some tasks and it sure can make managing it a lot easier. I’m also a big believer that using such a device is the only way to really keep up with this rapidly changing technology. Besides, what better way to see how other organizations are using geosocial networking to their benefit.
Claim Your Locations
Rainier Sky on Facebook Places
If you do nothing else, I recommend that every organization register their locations with every geosocial network and location-based services. Not only will it give visitors one more way to find you, but its the only way to take control of your online identity. Adding a few extra back links with each profile will also enhance your search engine optimization (geosocial sites rank pretty well these days), and most services notify you so you can respond quickly when someone posts a review.
The easiest way to claim and manage your locations is with your GPS-enable wireless device. Each network is a bit different, but the overall process is relatively the same. Just download the application for one or more geosocial network from your devices online market or app store. Enable your device’s GPS feature and fire up the app. Search for locations or places nearby and add yours. Your location may already be registered with one or more service, but they all have procedures in place to help legitimate representatives assume control of their location and correct any basic information. Other businesses can also show up at your address if your business is relatively new to its location or if it resides within a multi-story building.
Test a few Promotions
Whether you call it a promotion, offer or deal, most organizations will have to offer some incentive to encourage their patrons to check in at their location. It might take the form of a discount, free merchandise with a minimum purchase or even a branded chotchkie like a sticker, button or keyring. Who knows, you might even have a few items somewhere in a back room you could use for a quick experiment.
Offers on Google Places
Do you need something different for each network? There are two schools of thought. On one hand, offering unique promotions on each network is the easiest way to measure whether your customers prefer one network vs. another. It may also the only reason why an individual would connect with your organization on more than one network. On the other hand, why would you want to limit yourself if the promotion is profitable? Then again, each network likes to differentiate itself so you may have to customize your promotions for each network whether you want to or not.
Consider the following examples.
Facebook Places
Facebook uses a program for promotions on its network that it calls “Deals” and they are categorized into four basic types:
- Individual deals are one-time offers.
- Loyalty deals allow you to reward frequent customers.
- Friend deals offer incentives for users to share your promotion with their friends.
- Charity deals help develop deeper bonds through rewards that benefit the charity of your choice.
Facebook has a couple short videos that explain how Deals work for customers and how a business can make a Deal available through Places. You can also read more by downloading a copy of Facebook’s Deals Guide for Business. Deal sponsors must claim their place of business and all deals are subject to review that can take up to 48 hours. Facebook Places can also be merged with your Facebook Page to add additional capabilities and features to both. Of course, you first have to officially add and claim your Place.
Foursquare
Foursquare allows a business to set up various promotions that network members “unlock” by fulfilling specific criteria you set up in advance. The only conditions are that your promotions offer some economic value and are unique to their members. Examples include the following:
- Newbie promotions reward first-time visitors to your business.
- Flash Sales reward customers who check in on a first-come, first served basis during a limited time.
- Friend rewards encourage members to patronize your business with a group of their network friends.
- Swarm sales reward any group of customers when a minimum number of check in.
- Loyalty rewards encourage customers to be frequent customers.
- Mayors are rewarded for being the most frequent visitor during the previous 60 days.
Foursquare also allow you to share administration of a location, which can help you be more responsive and provide better service.
Google Places
Rainier Sky on Google Places
Location-based promotions through Google are the most basic. The new “Tags” program allow you to place information about an offer or coupon next to your highlighted Google Places listing that appears both in normal search and Google Maps results. Just select the locations where the offer is available, write a few lines of text and set up an expiration. Google ran a free trial of Tags for registered Google Places accounts, but it has since expired. Regardless of whether you use tags, every organization should create their free Google Places listing.
Promote Your Profiles
Check In Here
If you are going to invest the time to be active on any social networks, you want to make sure your customers know about it. Promote your participation on your website and post about on Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. You can mention it on print materials and inside your business on a blackboard or a sign at the cash register. You could even place a computer, television or even a digital photo frame in a key location to promote your participation or even acknowledge guest check-ins as they arrive. Just be aware of any limitations that may apply when using the network trademarks.
Educate Your Employees
You also have to make sure your employees know how to honor your promotions or your customers might just have a bad experience or even give you a poor review. It might just be as simple as letting your employees know how to input the promotional code in your cash register, but they will need to know how to make it work with your systems.
Of course, yous might also want to set some expectations for your employees who might just be using geosocial networks themselves. Are they eligible for the same promotions when they check in? Do you really want them to become the Foursquare mayor of your location (It’s easy to relinquish, but they will have to sign in to their account and do it themselves.).
Finally, one last thought…
Thank your guests
Geosocial networking can also present organizations with the opportunity to extend a thank you to their patrons. A quick note to ensure they had a good experience can go a long way, and may even help uncover problems that might otherwise go unreported.
Thanks for reading,
Kevin Bush, Principal & CEO
Rainier Sky Marketing & Public Relations
Posted by Rainier Sky on February 17, 2011
A good friend of mine stopped by the other day and we started talking about how we use the Internet to find information. One of his hobbies is restoring classic cars and he shared a story about finding a trick he learned online that saved him several hundred dollars. He was working on one of the cars when he decided to drove it to a nearby auto parts store. He got back in the car after making his purchase, but he could not put the car in reverse to back out of his parking space. So, he walked home, fired up his laptop and diagnosed the problem. (The brake sensor was not working, so he just put on the parking brake and started the car in neutral.)
Then I shared my story about fixing my son’s Playstation 3. As an early adopter of technology, I had bought one of the first 20-gigabyte PS3s when they first came out. We use it regularly as both a game and entertainment system and I am a huge fan. It stopped working a while back, so I searched the Internet found that others with similar symptoms had diagnosed it as a problem with the Blueray drive – a component you could buy online for roughly $90. Sony wanted $75 just to look at it, and parts would be extra if I wanted them to fix it. So, I bought the part online and replaced it myself with help of several amateur videos I found on YouTube that walked me through the process step-by-step.
My friend was surprised. He thought YouTube was just for watching videos of goofy kids do crazy stunts and half-clothed pop stars that dance better than they sing. On the contrary, I told him, I visit YouTube regularly for professional development — another revelation.
YouTube is a great source of information on just about any subject. In fact, its the second largest search engine on the Internet based on the overall volume of queries. I subscribe to several channels to help me keep pace with the constantly changing world of eMarketing. Here are some of my favorite channels:
The Google Business Channel on YouTube
This channel features videos that teach you how to take full advantage of all the free tools available to help you advertise online with Google search and its display network. Check out the video titled “Getting Started with AdWords“.
It can be a powerful tool showing you how your Website performs in any number of ways, but first you have to know how to use it. While you might have to sift through some of the videos, like the the Q&A series with Vinash Kaushik & Nick Mihailovski, I have found many golden nuggets of information. Start with “Beginning Analytics: Interpreting and Acting on Your Data“.
Want to know how to make better use of your website? This channel features videos that teach you how increase organic search traffic by correcting crawling, indexing and other common errors and improving its overall performance. The video titled “Google Webmaster Tools” offers a good overview.
The Official Facebook Channel covers a variety of topics of interest to users, page masters and developers. Want to know more about deals, sponsored stories or even the latest security features. Take a peek at “Building Your Brand with Facebook.”
This is probably one of the weaker channels on my list. LinkedIn has yet to fully take advantage of YouTube for teaching company profile managers and advertisers how to make better use of its service. The few videos that are here, however, do have some good tips on how to network on LinkedIn. I like the example featuring Darrell Rheah, CEO of Cheskin, titled “LinkedIn Users – Consulting Agency.
This channel covers a lot more than marketing, but any business leader who has ever picked up a copy of Harvard Business review will find value in this Channel. While most of it is tied to content and events related to the publication, you will find playlists that cover managing people, leadership, strategy, innovation and more. I like the video titled “The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy.”
No list of marketing videos would be complete without a nod to Common Craft, a Seattle-based company that produces simple videos to explain complex subjects in ways that elementary school students can understand. Some of their videos are commissioned and owned by various clients, but this channel features several to which I refer folks all the time. One of my favorites is “Social Media in Plain English“.
To what channels do you subscribe? Let me know by placing your choices in the comments. You can also follow this topic on Quora.
Thanks for reading,
Kevin Bush, Principal & CEO
Rainier Sky Marketing & Public Relations
Posted by Rainier Sky on February 16, 2011
What does it mean when we talk about results that you can measure? Well, the answer varies based on what we are trying to accomplish.
Let me explain…
The goal of every marketing effort is to affect a specific outcome, such as a sale or a change in behavior. Of course, it often takes more than a single interaction to affect an outcome. Thus, most marketing tactics are designed to make an impression that causes its target audience to take the next step in a defined conversion or sales process. We all subconsciously go through these steps with every purchase decision we make, but they are typically easier to recognize when there is a perception of greater risk.
Orbit Tropical Remix - My favorite midday snack
Think about the last time you purchased an impulse item. Perhaps you found yourself waiting in line at your local retailer when your eyes caught the bright orange and neon green packaging of the new Orbit chewing gum. The television spot made it that Tropical Remix flavor look and sound appealing and, what the heck, the kids will probably like it even if you do not. At that moment, you measured the low cost of the product versus its high appeal and the next thing you recall a pack was riding down the conveyor belt on top of items that were actually on your grocery list.
Now let’s compare our impulse purchase to the steps we might go through before making a bigger purchase, such as a new television. The item is more expensive, hopefully longer lasting and our final decision will be subject to greater scrutiny by our friends and family. In other words, the risk is greater and it is easier to recognize the thought process that most of us learned back in Marketing 101 based on the acronym A.I.D.A.
Awareness
Whether we catch a television spot for a new Samsung HDTV, stumble on a Toshiba banner ad on CNET‘s homepage or visit our neighbor who desperately wants to show off his new home theater system, we start thinking it may be time to upgrade.
Interest
A new television might just be what we want, but it’s a big purchase and it will have to be a smart decision we can defend to our neighbor. So, we start our homework by searching for reviews on the Internet, go back and talk to our neighbor and ask a few more questions about his system, and maybe pick up the latest copy of Sound & Vision magazine.
Desire
It’s been a few weeks and the big game is coming up. We have gathered our information and narrowed down our choices, and we hear there are suppose to be some big sales this time of year. We cannot help thinking about it every time we turn on the old television.
Action
We stop in the local strip mall and – hey, look, there’s a Best Buy next door. We’ll just pop over and take a look. Then, before we know it, we are the customer that everybody looks at with envy as we haul that giant box out to our car with a big grin on your face.
Now keep in mind that this is a generic example of the sales process that varies with each product or service. What we know, however, is that we can measure the efficiency of every marketing tactic and its efficiency in moving us through this cycle. This is what allows us to measure our success and adjust our tactics or overall marketing program accordingly.
Tactics involving traditional or offline media are often measured by the phone calls, response cards or in-store traffic they generate. Other times they can be measured by online actions, such as Website hits, emails or online conversion forms. In some situations, however, measurement requires an investment in primary research that even the smartest business leaders may forego just so they can invest more money in the tactic itself. Perhaps not the best idea, but it happens all the time when we make assumptions or, as is sometimes the case, the cost of measurement is disproportionate to the cost of the tactic.
Online tactics tend to be much easier to measure, because marketers can follow so much of our activity and monitor our responses at a fraction or no cost at all. Google Analytics is a free tool you can use to measure much of your customer’s online activity and when coupled with Google Adwords you can track customers throughout the entire conversion process. Microsoft AdCenter offers a similar tool it calls Campaign Analytics that allows you to set goals and track conversions.
I sold insurance during one summer break back in college and they taught us that you had to make x-number of calls in order to make a sale. Every call got you another step closer to a sale. Of course, the number of calls we had to make to generate a sale was affected by a number of the factors they failed to mention such as our own ability, the actual needs of the customer, the quality of the product or the reputation of the organization. Smart marketers know how to account for these influences and build accurate measurements of their success.
Thanks for reading,
Kevin Bush, Principal & CEO
Rainier Sky Marketing & Public Relations
Posted by Rainier Sky on February 13, 2011
The Washyourhandsington Banner Ad
Have you ever wondered how an Website knows to serve you an Internet ad targeted to your location? The answer could be any number of things. It might be that your Internet Protocol address is registered near your physical location, you might have a cookie on your hard drive that reads your Web search history or, like the New York Times, you could tell them when you register to use their site. All of these and other actions help individual webmasters and users of Google Adwords, Microsoft AdCenter and other campaign tools target you by location.
Here’s an example…
This morning I was searching for a video to check out another passion of mine – soccer. I read a post on by a friend on Facebook about Wayne Rooney’s incredible bicycle kick goal giving Manchester United a 2-1 win against Manchester City early this morning and I had to check it out. I also administer a Facebook page for Federal Way United, a local select soccer club, and I am always looking for content to share. So, I Googled “Wayne Rooney bicycle kick” and the link to the Times was at the top of the results. I clicked it and there I found the banner ad above.
For some reason the banner ad directed me to the web page for the WashYourHandsingTon campaign, but they do have a nice landing page and they should probably be using it. Landing pages are suppose to answer your most immediate questions raised by the ad and direct you to more information in a quick, concise fashion. The home page of most websites are not necessarily designed for this purpose.
This public information campaign was launched by the Washington State Department of Health to encourage citizens to wash their hands regularly as a way to stave off an epidemic of H1N1 flu. Its clever, catchy-tuned creative is running as radio spots, a YouTube video, bus cards and billboards, and now they are targeting Washington state visitors to the New York Times online edition.
The art work is reminiscient of an old apple crate label and I accidently let the YouTube video play long enough that damn tune is once again stuck in my head.
The Washyourhandsington PPC Landing Page
Have I not suffered enough? I half-jokingly included the Washyourhandsington campaign in the disfavorable section of my recent post titled “Five Advertising Campaigns I Love and Five I Hate“.
Now why would they be advertising in the New York Times? Maybe they are targeting young kids and other soccer nuts from Washington state whose behavior they might actually change. Now that would be smart.
O.K. I admit it. This campaign is starting to grow on me.
Thanks for reading,
Kevin Bush, Principal & CEO
Rainier Sky Marketing & Public Relations
