Mar 19, 2014 | Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Who in business does not carry a business card of some sort, from the standard 9 X 5 bit of cardboard to the “it” thing of a USB with a resume, and published material as well as contact details on it?
It used to be that having a business card was just a cost of being in business, just like an office, some furniture, a phone line, the sign over the door, and so on.
There is a new one, the cost of an online presence.
Like all things, some do it better than others, make it really work for them, but if you want to be in business in the 21st century, you have the entry cost of a digital presence just to keep the doors open.
At the basic level, an online presence, a website, twitter account, facebook page is a it like the old business card, it is the first reference point people have for you, but they are not much more, and can be counterproductive if not done with a reasonable level of professionalism.
Two thirds of Australian SME’s that do have a “presence” take a DIY route, using family, friends, or the office intern to create and manage their digital presence, with the attendant problems, but almost half still do not have any presence at all. None! Nada! How can that be in 2014?
There are increasingly widely available the tools to make it relatively cheap and easy for SME’s to have a web presence, the starting point of successful marketing. Services like those provided by my old” tech-head” mates at Imagehaven, who as a part of their service menu, offer a great entry level service backed up by deep technical knowledge.
Would you go to a network meeting without a business card?
Mar 5, 2014 | Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Recently I have been talking to SME’s about their engagement with digital tools, and getting some pretty disturbing responses.
Many when asked will say they are engaged, because their phone is connected to google maps so they can find their way home at 3am. Not setting out to mislead me asking the question, it is just that they do not know what they do not know.
Several pieces of research around suggest that around 40% of Australian SME’s do not have a website, and a large proportion of those who do are not using them as much beyond an electronic brochure. The “last updated” box is the giveaway, even if from the content it is obvious.
At the other end of the scale, there are a few who have just so much data and options at their disposal, and often so much conflicting advice coming in, that they are paralysed with indecision.
Somewhere along the line I recall a comment, probably by Avinash Kaushik where he said something like “given me an extra hundred dollars to spend any way I like on data, and I would choose to spend $10 on the data, the other $90 on people who could understand and use it”.
Sorting the quality insights and ideas from the tsunami of stuff coming at us is the marketing challenge of the century. Automating it is only half the task, the GIGO effect takes over very quickly, you have to really understand it.
For the beginners at this stuff I advise just two measures:
- Bounce rate,
- Conversion rate.
All the other metrics that you can develop and that are now freely available can be hugely valuable, but knowing these two is a bit like knowing where the brakes and accelerator are in your car, essential for productive progress.
Quality of visitors beats quantity every time, and these two measures together give you that insight.
Feb 13, 2014 | Communication, Marketing, Social Media
Willy said many things that have been repeated, and repeated over the years, nuggets of truth that resonate today, may of which have a place in management thinking.
“Be great in act, as you are in thought”
“In time we hate that which we often fear”
“Nothing emboldens sin so much as mercy”
“Strong reasons make strong actions”
“No legacy is so rich as honesty”
One line that conveys a message we should all remember that I stumbled across again the other day is from Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2: with Polonius telling the Queen that he thinks Hamlet is mad, but being careful with his language so as not to offend :
“Brevity is the soul of wit”
The discipline of 140 characters to convey an idea, objective, mission is a great discipline, one that we can all benefit from, and that most who use twitter could certainly benefit from. It would save me from the crap that fills my devices every day, necessitating a filtering process, that inevitably, filters out great ideas poorly communicated.
Brevity with meaning is not only the soul of wit, it is bloody hard to achieve.
Feb 3, 2014 | Branding, Communication, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
One of the questions I am most often asked is “how do we make this go viral”. To my mind it is also one of the silliest.
The objective of “social” weather it be media, or a drink in the pub, is engagement with others. The objective of viral is, well… not sure, apart from entertaining shocking, scamming ,infecting and occasionally informing people we do not know, will probably never meet, and who will have no impact on our lives.
However, the manner of the diffusion of content on the net logically has an impact on the level of engagement an individual will have with any piece of shared content.
Something that is “e-broadcast” to everyone on a list by an unknown person or institution to the individual receivers, is unlikely to have high open and resend rates, so will not go far. By contrast, something sent selectively to individuals with whom there is already a connection of some sort will have a higher open and resend rate.
It is these open and resend metrics that count, in effect an endorsement from a sender you know that it is worth your time to open the link.
The return on effort is definitely with social, not viral.
Jan 22, 2014 | Communication, Marketing, Small business, Social Media
Analytics is perhaps the buzzword of the moment, it seems to be attracting some of the same purveyors of snake-oil previously touting SEO as the saviour of all sins.
Amongst the detritus, however, there are some gems. Avinash Kaushik’s “Occum’s Razor” blog is one such gem, as is Scott Brinkers” Chief marketing technologist” blog. I am sure there are others, but the weight of numbers is with the snakes.
A mate of mine has a small business specialising in collecting data from HR environments, applying analytics and offering advice on areas of improvement. Tasks like board performance assessment are his bread and butter.
A few weeks ago in a casual conversation, he was down cast, as he had been beaten in a tender by a competitor, for the third time recently, when he knows from long experience the algorithms in his analytics are way more robust than those of his competitor. The difference in the tenders was made not by the analytics, but by the visual representations of the analytics. His competitor has invested in visuals, whereas he has continued to invest in the data integrity.
Visuals sell, as they offer simplistic answers to complex questions, but the question remains, how good are the answers.
Dec 9, 2013 | Branding, Marketing, Social Media
Mass marketing used to be about blasting messages to an ill defined supposed user base, “women 18-30” because that is about the best we could do.
With the advent of social media, we have been led to understand that the analytics behind the scene enable extremely accurate targeting of messages, just be wary, as the recipient now has the ability to trash your message, and turn it back on you.
Why is it then that brands, some big, sophisticated ones, are using social media, specifically Twitter, as a mass medium, sending huge numbers of messages.
I was browsing marketing charts when up popped this research noting that some top brands are tweeting 30 times a week.
Do the wallies driving this really think the consumers who find themselves on a brand twitter-list want to hear from them that much? Are they considering the negative reaction that much crap can bring? At the very least, it is a good reason to dump your brand of choice for one that does not annoy you as much on social media.
When was the last time you had areal conversation with a brand??
Why would you want to receive tweets from them beyond the occasional piece of genuine news, or value offer??
How much is too much?.
