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The following article written by a Hispanic mom raising kids here in the US shares a perspective that is shared by a large segment of the US Hispanic population.Having researched this subject over the past 8 years both here and  in South America I am glad to see that it is now being talked about more and more because the statistics are staggering. ( A Market Not to be Ignored)
The Hispanic segment of the US Population Represents the 13th largest economy in the world and are the youngest, fastest growing segment of the US population representing 60 % of overall population growth here in the US. ( America’s New Baby Boomers )
The tremendous Buying power of Hispanics is growing exponentially including a current per capita income closing in on the national average makes it important to finds ways to effectively penetrate this market now and into the future.
As a Hispanic woman raising kids in the United States, I'm especially attuned to the attitudes and challenges of moms like me. But in the past couple of years, I've noticed that a lot of big brands are tuning into our needs as well. The reason is simple: Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population grew by 43% – that's four times the general rate of population growth.And as the percentage of Hispanic households earning higher incomes also grows dramatically, marketers are beginning to realize that this is a segment they can't afford to ignore. Of course, marketing to Hispanic moms means more than hiring a Spanish translation service. We're culturally unique, with our own set of habits and preferences. Here are a few tips to help marketers understand us better.
We're not all alike
As a daughter of Spanish parents born in France, I've taken a unique journey to where I am today. Other Hispanic moms have their own stories to tell. Some moved here recently and speak little English; others were born here and live in bilingual homes. Marketers who understand these nuances will be better equipped to get their message across.
For our studies, we've found it useful to divide Hispanic moms into four distinct segments: completely acculturated (21%), high (40%), moderate (23%), and low (16%). It's important to know which of these segments will be most receptive to your message and understand their language preferences. For example, four in five completely acculturated Hispanics view themselves as American, while two-thirds of low-acculturated Hispanics view themselves as Latino immigrants. Overall, two-thirds of Hispanic moms prefer information in Spanish or Spanish and English together.
We're social
Moderate, high, and completely acculturated Hispanic moms are using the same social media as the general population, including Facebook (87%), parenting social media (50%), Instagram (36%), blogs (46%), and Pinterest (30%). Our research also shows that 47% of Hispanic moms use parenting social media for product and brand recommendations. So for marketers interested in these segments, it's definitely worth investing in bilingual social media efforts to deepen your engagement with this growing and receptive audience.
We're mobile
I love my smartphone, and our research confirms that Hispanic moms are heavy users of mobile technology: 82% own a smart phone, 72% own a laptop, and 51% own a tablet. According to a 2012 study, 48% of Hispanics access the Internet from smartphones, versus 38% of non-Hispanics. So if you want to reach Hispanic moms, optimize your site for mobile devices.
Our research also shows that two-thirds of Hispanic moms notice mobile ads, and that moderate and highly acculturated moms are most receptive to mobile ads in Spanish and English together. So be sure to integrate these two languages into your communications as seamlessly as possible.
We're looking for deals
Hispanic moms are receptive to messages from their favorite brands – especially if those messages can help them save money. Moderate, high, and completely acculturated moms tell us they're most interested in following brands on social media for coupons and discounts. They're more likely to click on an ad if it has a free sample (53%) or if it offers a coupon (57%). So be sure to include these incentives in your marketing mix, and follow up with more in-depth messages on parenting social media sites and Spanish-language blogs.Â
Throughout my own journey – from a low-acculturated mom who didn't speak English to a fully integrated, multilingual professional – I've definitely noticed which brands "get" me and which brands aren't trying hard enough. As the buying power of Hispanic moms increases, more marketers are going to have to step up their game if they want to earn the lasting loyalty of this vast and influential group of consumers.
By Clarisse Cespedes
Is personalisation really worthwhile- or are marketers missing the mark?
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When we walk into a shop or a restaurant we appreciate the personal touch, and being treated as an individual goes a long way. Now, with consumers spending more of their time online, marketers must take steps to maintain the “personal experience†across a brand's entire digital presence.
Building up a rapport without having the opportunity to meet face-to-face isn't easy, but there are ways to achieve it. The emergence of Big Data, for example, is allowing marketers to drill down into an incredible level of detail, and this in-depth understanding of who is visiting the website, mobile site or app, enables marketers to target customers with things that make the whole journey more relevant.
Just like being in a clothes shop and the assistant suggesting things they think you might like, thanks to Big Data, brands can offer their customers articles, adverts or products which are more relevant to them.Â
When done right, personalisation is a win-win for both the customer and the brand. There is a treasure trove of information on people visiting a site that marketers can use to deliver an online experience that, much like a real-life service, is tailored to suit the customer.
This way, the consumer has a better experience through things like exclusive offers, or information on products that interest them, resulting in three key elements of loyal behaviour; willingness to buy more, reluctance to switch and likelihood to recommend.Â
Time wasted?Â
Personalisation has evolved very quickly. A few years ago, you’d be lucky to get a simple “welcome back†on a website, let alone a web page specific to you. By trying to transform into an integrated, multichannel business and through harnessing Big Data to learn about each online shopper, brands can now greet their customer with a site that suits them rather than just a simple “hello againâ€.
Nonetheless, despite the benefits to the customer of a personalised experience, our "Click Here: The State of Online Advertising" research found that just 23% of those surveyed find customisation valuable, which suggests brands still aren’t getting it right.
This is an important wake up call to brands and should make us question if it is a worthwhile practice, or if brands and marketers are simply missing the mark.
We only need to look to brands like RSA, one of the world's largest insurance companies, to know that when personalisation is done properly it works.
RSA is able to determine what kinds of services customers want and, in response, continually optimise online experiences. By capturing insights into its customers' interests and preferences, it is addressing its customers as individuals and the results speak for themselves. Conversion is up 2% and profits are up by almost £1 per sale, proving that personalisation can and will have value to the customer - as well as a huge impact on the bottom line.
The same Click Here: State of Online Advertising research found other brands doing it well include online giants Amazon, eBay and TripAdvisor, with their helpful product and page suggestions inevitably playing a big role in them being named by consumers as top brands for personalisation.
Creating demand
Online marketers clearly understand the benefits of personalisation, with 52% of those surveyed claiming that being able to effectively personalise content is central to their marketing strategy, and 71% claiming it has a big impact on ROI.Â
If brands want to maximise the benefits personalisation has to offer, they need customers to not just be accepting of it but to actually demand it. It is only when individuals experience and appreciate the same personal touch online as they do in-store that a strong, two-way relationship will emerge.
The only way marketers can create this demand is to do personalisation well, and for this to happen there should be a number of considerations. First, there needs to be a seamless experience for the customer across all channels, campaigns and marketing activities. Marketers can then analyse the customer's digital journey to decipher when conversion is highest, and create the personalised experience that has the most potential to grow conversion or engagement. Timing is also key in the online marketing process, and it is important to capitalise on the customer’s interest in your products as early as possible.Â
Fortunately, the technology now exists to do most of the hard work, deciding which content and offers are most relevant to the customer. But while the machines can look after most of the data and analytics, a blend of data-led and intuitive marketing often works best.
If marketers continue to improve their understanding of the individual customer, delivering what they want, when they want it, customers may join marketers in realising the real value of the "personal touch".
Tresilian Segal is head of marketing Northern Europe at Adobe Marketing Cloud.
Regardless of the business, benchmarking, measuring and being able to analyze results is important. If you do not, how will you know if, and to what extent, you are succeeding, or, worse yet, what to change if you are not? The same is true with social media, but measuring social media results is difficult for a couple of reasons. First, the field is so new that there is no consensus on which data is important. Second, there is so much data and hundreds of companies inventing tools all claiming that there tool and the data it provides are the most important.
For my money, if you're only going to track one metric when it comes to using social media for your business, it should be engagement. Tracking page likes and followers is important too, but if your fans aren't interacting with you, what's the point?
When it comes down to it, social media isn't primarily about promoting your business or your content; it's about engaging with your community. If you don't consistently monitor and track engagement levels, you have no way of knowing whether your social media strategies are working.
Following are some of the simplest ways you can track your own social media engagement. We'll start by covering cross-channel engagement, and then move into how you can measure engagement, specifically on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Cross-Channel Engagement
Larger companies often rely on complicated calculations or expensive software to track their engagement levels across the various channels they use. However, smaller businesses have tools available to them that can be very effective as well.
One of the best ways we currently have to track engagement is Klout. When you connect your various social media properties to Klout, the platform will give you various data to help you determine how well your content is performing.
The platform uses engagement metrics such as likes, retweets, shares and "+1s" to determine your overall engagement levels; in other words, how well you and your content are connecting with your audience.
For more info about using Klout see my post, "What the Klout? 5 Tips for Practicing Great Engagement (and Possibly Increasing Your Influence)."
Facebook Engagement
Using Facebook Insights, you can quickly determine how many people are interacting with your posts. When you click on the "See Insights" tab, your default view will be data from the previous week, as shown in this screenshot:
This will be your total combined engagement number for all posts during that time period. If you'd like to view engagement for your individual posts, simply scroll down the page and you'll see data for your five most recent posts (you can of course see data for all your posts by clicking "See All Posts").
On Facebook, engagement is defined by the following equation:
*Keep in mind this is the number of unique people who interacted with your posts. So if someone clicked on a link twice, it would only count once towards your "people engaged" total.
Some people may find it helpful to define engagement as a ratio for benchmarking purposes. In this case, you would use the following equation:
Another popular tools you may want to try to supplement the data you get in Insights is Edgerank Checker.
Twitter Engagement
Apart from Twitter's built-in analytics dashboard, there are many free and inexpensive tools available to help you track your engagement. Some of the more popular tools include Twitalyzer, TweetLevel and, of course, Hootsuite.
There are various metrics that can be tracked on Twitter to determine engagement. Some platforms will track and display specific metrics such as most important followers, analytics for individual tweets, and the overall reach of your tweets.
However a basic calculation of your engagement levels on Twitter can be calculated by the following equation:
Of course, this equation isn't weighted in any way, and treats all engagement as equally important (which we know isn't true). This is where using tools such as the ones I mentioned above can be helpful, as they often give a weighted measure expressed as a ratio or percentage.
Instagram Engagement
With recent research showing that Instagram beats out Facebook and Twitter in terms of brand engagement, measuring your interactions on this platform is paramount.
Instagram currently doesn't provide any built-in tools for measuring your engagement. However there are a number of free or cheap tools that can provide excellent data: Statigram, Followgram and Simply Measured to name a few.
These tools will track and provide data such as total number of likes, average likes and comments per photo, follower growth or decline and more.
A basic measure of Instagram engagement would look like this:
If you're looking for a basic (and free!) measure of your Instagram engagement,Simply Measured offers an Instagram user report that provides information, such as performance trending and overall engagement levels.
Social media engagement metrics aren't just fluffy numbers meant to help you feel good about your social media efforts. They are the one and only way we can consistently measure how well we're actually connecting with our audience.
If you aren't currently tracking your engagement levels, I'd strongly encourage you to start today!
Looking to significantly boost your engagement levels? Check out my post "The #1 Way to Increase Engagement, Boost Conversions and Gain Repeat Customers for Life."
Do you use any of the tools above? Have you ever learned anything really surprising from tracking your engagement levels? Share below!
By Kim Garst
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Follow Kim Garst on Twitter:Â www.twitter.com/kimgarst
CMO Council releases auto report indicating lack of social media leverage
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Developed in partnership with hoojook, a Silicon Valley social media intelligence company focused on the auto sector, the new report finds auto industry marketers are in various stages of adopting social marketing strategies and practices. Most see social as a potentially powerful medium for understanding and engaging consumers, but they are early in the development of marketing and business metrics, as well as processes that integrate social media data more effectively in the sales funnel.
"Social represents an important marketing frontier for the automotive industry," said Donovan Neale-May, executive director of the CMO Council. "Senior marketers recognise its capacity to deliver actionable, real-time insights that can help drive overall marketing effectiveness. They also see its value as a dynamic channel for influencing brand preference and purchase. Now they need to take the next step by integrating social more directly into the sales funnel and using it as a new platform for delivering qualified leads."Â
Social media evidence
There is plenty of evidence demonstrating the potential of social as a marketing channel across manufacturing brands, dealerships and aftermarket products and services. For example:
• 38% of consumers say they will consult social media in making their next car purchaseÂ
• 23% of car buyers say they use social media to communicate their purchase experience
• 84% of automotive shoppers are on Facebook and 24% of them have used Facebook as a resource for making their vehicle purchases
• 40% of new car purchases over the next 10 years will be made by Millennials
• 94% of millennial car buyers gather information online
• Clicks on Facebook auto ads climbed from 16% to 39% between October 2012 and April 2013
Based on interviews with senior marketers and executives from auto manufacturers, dealer networks, aftermarket service providers and B2B automotive solutions companies such as Autonation, Costco Auto Program, Nissan, Cadillac, Car MD, KIA, Aspen, Express Oil Change, Mazda, Snap-on, Dealertrack, DME Automotive, the report finds that senior marketers are highly interested in developing and using new systems and processes to leverage social more effectively for lead acquisition and acceleration. However, most say they are only in the very early stages of the process and often express caution about possible brand reputation issues when overtly marketing to individuals on social.
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Nonetheless, the report argues that the use of social in combination with natural language processing and big data analytics, along with social's ability to deliver meaningful content and commentary in context, has the potential to make it a highly effective medium for identifying, segmenting and engaging consumers based on preferences and where they are in the purchase cycle.
"The technology now exists to process and analyse social streams. Not only to understand broader consumer attitudes and reputational issues but also to identify, segment and profile individual consumers based on where they are in the purchase cycle, their preferences and needs and psychographic characteristics that influence how they want to engage with brands and service providers," said Shauli Chaudhuri, CEO of hoojook.Â
Other report insights
• Campaigns focused on cars generate much higher consumer engagement and interest than other social media initiatives, such as charitable causes
• Reputation management is seen as potentially the most critical aspect of social marketing, with consumer-generated content and commentary having a huge influence on purchasing decisions
• Marketers view social as most effective when integrated with other channels and marketing approaches; many view social analytics as an invaluable source of insight for other digital and offline marketing efforts
• Facebook is widely regarded as the most powerful social channel for automotive, but marketers say other channels can be more effective, depending on the need and strategy
BIZCOMMUNITY.COM Daily Industry News
As I prepare for our Hong Kong, Singapore, Jakarta, and Sydney workshop tour in March, I can't help but think about how few of my U.S. and Western digital marketing peers know about China and APAC in general. And I think about how much I've learned beyond the anecdotal cultural experiences, like the everyday Chinese "looggeey" spit fest or 100-year-old egg cuisine, the two-handed business card introductory bow, and my subtle but important favorite, the homogeneity of an Eastern society (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) in understanding the world is not about self but the communal good (ahem, Gen Y'ers).No, let's talk about digital and how far ahead Asia is in so many respects and how we can all better apply it, especially all those Westerners setting into their 300-meter flats in Hong Kong or Shanghai looking to build the APAC presence for their companies.
First, let's get history straight. The Western world, for nearly all of civilized man, save the opium-induced decades of darkness, has been woefully behind Eastern society. This is happening in digital, mobile, and social, too.
- Take the Terracotta Warriors, where we learned that China had steel melding and modern metal-tipped arrows nearly 1,000 years before us.
- Or China's first emperor commanding an army 10 times the size of the largest army Rome ever assembled.
- And of course the bit more trite observation of who created the pasta noodle first.
Before I jump in, allow me to give a quick "Asia for Dummies" version of the players for our Western counterparts. In short, China mainland (Hong Kong is a bit different) is always the main focus, so will use that as the example going forward. But in looking at greater APAC, remember, Australia is very much aligned with U.S./English trends, but is just a bit behind on adoption. India is part of Asia, but most, like myself, treat it as its own market, as it is so unique and so large. Indonesia is handled in the same manner. Japan, Taiwan, and Korea need to be on your radar for APAC despite the largess of China and have very similar adoption curves, yet extremely different cultural nuances that simply can't be ignored. And Singapore is a great business- and tax-friendly place to set up an APAC office, but is just a city so not a "market" unto itself worth addressing in comparison.
With all that out the way, using China as the example, here is your quick first lesson to talk the talk when thinking about Asia and its comparatives here in the U.S./Western world.
Weibo = Twitter
Alibaba = Amazon (x 10)
Baidu = Google (for China); Google is still big elsewhere and Yahoo! for Japan
WeChat = WhatsApp
Renren = Facebook
Tencent QQ = Mobile app meets IM, with social gaming plus online shopping
Let's start with simple dollars (or RMB) and cents. Alibaba on its biggest shopping day saw $5.75 billion of transactions. The entire U.S., on its biggest day, saw $2.29 billion on all trackable e-commerce sites. Now, many of us are trying to determine the mobile implications and best practices. If you look at the fact that 41 percent of all shoppers buy their mobile device in Hong Kong, you'll quickly get a peek at what's coming our way in the U.S. and Western world.
It reminds me of a trip to Tokyo nearly seven years ago, where I was awestruck by nearly everyone looking down at their phones and texting while walking on and off a very busy subway stop in Roppongi. Literally, I thought... are these people addicted to their phones or just plain crazy?! And here we are today in the U.S., and anyone who has taken the 3 train across town in New York, nearly ran over a pedestrian in a crosswalk in San Francisco, or just looked around any given street, would see nearly the same. Point of the matter, Asia was and still is a great sneak peek at what's to come in adoption of digital, social, and mobile. And when you look at research showing us a 31 percent increase in digital/search advertising spend, and massive retargeting adoption, one must pay attention to how that ripples back to the U.S. market, which is heading in the same direction.
Quick note: If you are not retargeting today, stop reading this article and go set that up on Facebook and Google Display Network.
Now take a look at adoption; Twitter being in the limelight today seems like a good example. Last year only 15.1 percent of consumers said they use Twitter to share information, whereas in China more than 91 percent use Sina Weibo to share. Incredible, right? Maybe time to reconsider buying some Twitter stock, let alone looking seriously at how to leverage Twitter to get the following and awareness before it gets super competitive.
See these concepts in action at ClickZ Live New York 2014:
- Beyond the "Like": Social Media Tracking, Testing & Targeting
- The Marriage of Social Media & PR: Making it Work for Your Brand
So, if you are looking at Asia, China, and APAC, there is no option but to get engrained in social and mobile. If you are in the U.S., it's just one more wake-up call to remind us, Rome was not the first great civilization from which the world could learn its lessons - China and greater Asia was. Let's use its lessons to our advantage in our efforts to grow market share online.
By Aaron Kahlow
Empowering Woman Entrepreneurs During Woman's History Month and Throughout The Year
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Although Women’s History Month only comes once a year, year round the SBA works to improve our outreach and services for women entrepreneurs, and to identify opportunities to empower women entrepreneurs to start and grow businesses. As a part of this effort we continue each year we counsel and train roughly 500,000 women through SBA’s extensive resource partner network, including our Women’s Business Centers.
We are ready to hit the ground running with several key events for Women’s History Month and invite you to join the conversation:
- Twitter Chat on ‘Office Hours’ - March 12 from 2-3pm ET
- Twitter Chat on ‘How to Sell Online’ - March 19 from 2-3pm ET
- Twitter Chat on ‘STEM and Growing Hi–Tech Firms’- March 24th 2-2:30 ET
To address these challenges, SBA continues to work with the National Women’s Business Council to identify opportunities to empower women entrepreneurs as they access capital, access markets and to take their businesses to scale. Let’s start with access to capital. SBA continues to help provide access to capital opportunities for women. More than 25 years ago, women still needed a male relative to co-sign a loan for commercial credit. We’ve come a long way. Between January 2009 and December 2013, SBA made 57,831 loans worth $17.2 billion to women-owned businesses. In 2013 alone, SBA made $3.8 billion in capital available to women, a 31% increase since 2009. SBA has also improved its policies around underwriting loans worth $350,000 or less, which will allow for more loans to women-owned businesses.Â
This is important because among nascent women-owned firms with employees, over 50% started with less than $10,000 in capital. When looking at self-employed women (i.e., those without employees), that percentage soars to 89%. Across all women-owned businesses, this averages out to 84% that start with less than $10,000. However, among women-owned firms that received loans from the government, only 25% started with less than $10,000. And among firms that received government-backed loans, such as SBA’s 7a program, only 10% started with less than $10,000. Women are accessing more capital, but we can still do better.
Although we’ve worked hard, there is more to be done. We look forward to leading the charge to help even more women entrepreneurs by bridging the gaps and creating more business-to-business partnerships that support entrepreneurship for women. Women’s History Month is an important celebration and we are thankful to the many strides women have made. However, we plan to make this a commitment that goes beyond the celebration of one month.
We need women entrepreneurs to thrive with their diversity of product in the government market space, we need them to grow with additional opportunities for access to capital and we need them to scale their businesses to create jobs and fuel the American economy. Please join us this month and throughout the year as we move the needle forward on empowering and growing women entrepreneurs as they strengthen America’s economy.
This blog is by Erin Andrew, Assistant Administrator for SBA's Office of Women's Business Ownership
Fear is one of our most primal emotions, instilled from infancy. When my dad said I better stop crying or he’d give me something to cry about, do you know what I did?
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I shut the hell up.
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Yes, our natural instinct to avoid danger or harm is a powerful motivator and influencer of behavior. Always has been, always will be.
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Not surprisingly, marketers caught on to this fact decades ago, whether they were selling financial services or personal hygiene products. And while many marketers took a respectable approach, others went straight for the gutter.
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For example, in this 1932 advertorial, Listerine tried to make women feel like they would end up with a dog instead of a husband because of bad breath. (Image courtesy of Duke University Libraries)
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On the other hand, you’ll probably remember this legendary and hugely influential anti-drug message, which also spawned its fair share of spoofs:
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The Three Basic Steps of Fear-Based Marketing
Scientific studies have been done to evaluate various approaches to fear-based marketing, but appealing to someone’s fear typically involves three steps.
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1) Present a risk or threat that arouses fear. The risk or threat has to be realistic and severe enough to motivate your audience to act. This is why you need to do your research and know your audience instead of making assumptions.
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2) Show how vulnerable your audience is. If you try to scare someone with sensationalistic claims, you’re being manipulative. Instead, discuss the real consequences of not acting.
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3) Explain how you can protect your audience. Convince your audience that the risk reduction or threat removal is worth the effort and cost involved with using your product or service.
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This is when most marketers screw up. They revert to marketing-speak, going on and on about how wonderful their product is.
A critical part of the third step is building up your audience’s self-efficacy – the belief that they’re physically, mentally and emotionally strong enough to take action. If someone feels they can’t control their fear, they won’t act.
In other words, you’re not just selling your product as the solution. You’re empowering your audience to face and overcome their fear.
Helping People Overcome Fear to Make Positive Changes
In a previous post, I discussed the power of pain point marketing. Like pain point marketing, fear-based marketing doesn’t exploit people’s desperation. It also doesn’t have to involve a life or death situation.
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Are financial advisors being evil if they warn people of the consequences of failing to save for retirement?
Is a doctor being evil by telling people that drinking one can of soda per day can dramatically increase their chance of chronic illness? True, by the way, according to a recent study.
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There’s a big difference between persuasion and manipulation. Fear-based marketing can be a perfectly acceptable and ethical approach to marketing, as long as it’s based in reality, and especially when you use marketing to build trust and establish yourself or your company as an authority.
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When delivered powerfully yet respectfully, fear-based marketing does more than motivate people to buy products and services. It can motivate people make positive changes in their lives.
Many people tend to bury their fears and pretend they don’t exist. They allow their emotions to cloud the cold, hard facts and refuse to admit they’re afraid of anything. A fear-based marketing message can help people accept reality and face their fears.
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The Verdict
Some marketers believe any negativity is poison in marketing, and tapping into someone’s fear is the equivalent of emotional blackmail.
Unfortunately, real life isn’t all pretty flowers and rainbows. Marketing should reflect real life, complete with real fears and real problems. Imagine the sense of relief someone would feel if you empower them to overcome their fear and neutralize a genuine risk or threat.
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As marketers, we’re not being evil. We’re doing our job.
by Scott McKelvey
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Taking care of the people that take care of you can reap big rewards when showing your customers and employees that you care for and appreciate them. There is no better or more economical way to accomplish this than with an onsite social community that can be successfully accomplished in any organization.For example Lululemon produces sports apparel for women that is fashionable, environmentally friendly, and as technically advanced as sports apparel for men. The company spends virtually nothing on advertising. Instead, they build product awareness and forge ties with local communities through the community portal on their website.
They are encouraged to apply to become Lululemon ambassadors, “unique individuals … who embody the Lululemon lifestyle and live our culture.†The company now has over 200 stores, and sales soared from US $40 million to US $1.37 billion in eight years. In the US alone, sales grew 40 percent in 2012.
The following article by Michelle Killebrew, Are You Ignoring Your Best Brand Advocates?, Â tells us what empowering your employees can accomplish for your organization and the growing need to recognize all the things that they do and can do for your organization.
One reason this is such a powerful strategy is that it provides you with a way to leverage your entire customer and employee base. One of the most powerful ways to spread your message on social networks is to get customers to share news of their purchase from you. The message may be delivered on the social network, but it originates on your site. Community provides an effective mechanism on your site to encourage purchase-sharing and by showing your customer and employee centric culture.
If you limit your social strategy to the social networks, you are missing the chance to leverage Social when it will help you most. You know that many of your shoppers are also going to your competitors’ sites. Why wouldn’t you give yourself the advantage of showing those shoppers that their friends, friends of friends and neighbors shop with you?
An onsite community strategy is all about connecting you with the social networks to improve the shopping experience for your customers and the bottom line for you. To fully deliver on the value promise of social networks, the information needs to be able to flow in both directions.
William Cosgrove
Bill Cosgrove Straight Talk
Experimental Marketing; Creative Ideas from Vanity Fair and Frito Lay
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 Challenge: Customers want to be actively involved in their own brand experiences. To meet this demand companies are developing innovative experiential marketing campaigns utilizing the virtually limitless opportunities of multichannel engagement. These new strategies are giving both existing and new customers a reason to take action.Though most viewers may have been focused on the dresses and the winners pulled from those closely guarded envelopes, Vanity Fair magazine saw the Oscar Awards as an opportunity to engage its readers through an experiential event known as “the Vanity Fair Social Clubâ€. The virtual event was created to allow more than 120 bloggers and online reporters to connect with customers using the specific event hash tag. The magazine plans to use this type of experiential marketing strategy for other major events.
Vanity Fair is on the right track because today’s customers want more than traditional push marketing interactions, this according to a new report on Experiential Marketing from CrossMark and MarketingWerks.
• 88 percent of shoppers say that if they enjoy an experiential interaction with a product they’ll add it to their shopping list.
• Eighty percent said they prefer brands that “interact†with them over those that just “advertise†to them.
• Seven out of 10 shoppers say they’ll share a positive brand experience.
ERDM Voice of Customer (VoC) research has confirmed this finding. Across the last 12 months, there has been a consistent trend that has emerged from thousands of hours of research conducted for major Fortune brands;
• Today, the starting point for marketing campaigns should be to understand how your customers define high value Customer Experiences with your specific brand.
Last year when Frito Lays asked customers to “Do us a flavorâ€Â over 3.8 million people said yes in just 12 weeks with entry submissions. The goal of the campaign was to turn around a 6 year decline and connect with younger consumers. The campaign was based on insight that consumers wanted to create, share, and get recognized. So a contest was created to demonstrate to customers that their voice indeed mattered. An engagement tool from start to finish, the contest allowed customers to submit new flavors, share them on Facebook, vote on the finalists and then pick the ultimate winner by purchasing samples of the 3 finalist flavors in stores.
Through the Do Us a Flavor campaign the company achieved;
• A 1%+ increase in household penetration
• And, a 2%+ increase among millennials.
5 Takeaways:
Here are 5 strategies that Frito Lay used to keep customers engaged:
1. Understand how your customers want to structure their buying experience and the level of involvement they demand within that experience.
2. Be committed to doing the research necessary to identify engagement “unknownsâ€Â that may have been previously overlooked such as media avenues, social interaction, and in-store experiential marketing.
3. Realize that today’s multichannel consumer is in more places (often simultaneously) than ever before. Be accessible in cross media avenues.
4. Always look at what you are doing through the eyes of your customer. Let both existing customers and prospects identify with your brand. Make them feel understood.
5. Look at both your current and future audiences in order to connect with the audiences that will continue to support the brand down the road.
Author:Ernan Roman     Ernan Roman on the Web Ernan Roman RSS Feed
Ernan Roman is recognized as a Customer Experience innovator and was inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame for creating three transformational methodologies: Voice of Customer Relationship Research, Integrated Direct Marketing, and Opt-in Marketing. He was also named by Crain’s B to B Magazine as one of the "100 most... View full profile
This article is an original contribution by Ernan Roman.
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