June 26, 2009

Facebook Fan Pages – Ask WIIFM

social media marketingWIIFM – What’s In It For Me – it’s the foundation for any successful marketing campaign.  However, it’s important to note that the What’s In It For Me should not in any way, shape or form be applied to your OWN selfish needs and desires.  You must maintain laser focus instead upon the satisfaction and delight of your customers and potential customers.

It’s with the WIIFM mantra in mind that I will ask the question here – what’s in it for me to become a “fan” of your business on Facebook?

Facebook Fan Pages: The Facts

Do a bit of research on Fan Pages on Facebook – and you’ll see lots of marketer’s singing it’s praises.  Among the chief selling points:

  1. It’s free.
  2. Pages contain links.  (Links to your own site – even though you can’t control the anchor text – well, hey – see #1 … it’s free.)
  3. The updates appear on every fan’s page (free publicity)
  4. You can send updates to fans – for free.
  5. A Fan Page has the potential for higher SERPS for a variety of reasons
  6. Um – did I mention it’s free.

So creating a Facebook Fan Page is FREE.  Great – free is great – when there’s value. KFC discovered that free is a powerful marketing incentive – but it’s a disaster when you offer free without limits.

There’s no doubt that a Facebook Fan page can provide GREAT value for the businesses that create them.

Ann Smarty at Search Engine Journal writes in evaluating the difference between creating a Facebook GROUP and creating a Facebook FAN PAGE:

  • Pages are generally better for a long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers;
  • Groups are generally better for hosting a (quick) active discussion and attracting quick attention.

Ok – so there are a LOT of benefits to smart marketers by creating fan pages or groups on Facebook.

Notice, I qualified the above statement – SMART MARKETERS.

Because – again – creating a Facebook Fan Page without keeping in mind the WIIFM mantra (or worse yet, applying that mantra to your OWN selfish needs and desires instead of focusing upon the satisfaction and delight of your adoring fans) – means that you won’t get much other than free links with meaningless anchor text (worth exactly as much as you’re paying for them)  from your Facebook Fan Page.

Before you create a fan page – ask yourself – WHY would anyone want to become a FAN of my business?

WHAT’S IN IT FOR THEM?

In order to answer that question – you’ve got to have a clear vision of your customer’s GDP (Goals, Desires, Problems).

Seriously – if you don’t know the answer to “what is my ideal customer’s GDP?” – pick up a copy of my book Beyond the Niche: Essential Tools You Need to Create Marketing Messages that Deliver Results

Knowing what makes your customer’s buy is the most important piece to the marketing puzzle!  If you don’t know – you need to figure it out!

Sometimes – if you’re lucky – your fans will take matters into their own hands.

One of the most searched for recipes online is the recipe for Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits.  The chain has a closely guarded secret recipe for those delightful little biscuits which overshadow every other offering on the Red Lobster Menu.  (Seafood… really, they serve seafood there too?)  The biscuits are by far the best thing on the menu so it should come as no surprise that the Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits fan page on Facebook has over 400,000 fans.

What is surprising is the fact that the fan page was not created by Red Lobster!!!

It was created by true “fans” of the delicacy – likened by the page’s creator to “the Krabby Patty on Spongebob”. A fan of the product had time on his hands and created a fan page.  The “viral” properties of a Facebook Fan Page took over from there.

Every time a fan of Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits posted a comment on the fan page – it showed up in the fan’s news feed.  Other “fans” found the page and many of the fans write disturbingly amusing love notes to the delicacy … and provide other social commentary.

The page creator posted on April 30 that he “just talked to the President of Red Lobster…. he approves of the page!!!!”

Um – if you’re a business owner, the fact that anyone can create a “fan page” for your business should cause your blood to run cold.

I’m just saying – a fan page can get ugly FAST!   Read The shit fight is beginning- should you join in? for how fast – and ugly – things can get in the social media universe.

The fact that the Fan Page not being controlled by the Red Lobster chain may be the reason it is so popular.  Even though the President of Red Lobster approves – he has to be uncomfortable knowing that one of his flagship products branding is now in the hands of a true “fan”. (The fan page is #6 on a search for the keyword by the way- well ahead of any “official” page sanctioned by the Red Lobster chain.)

What’s in it for fans of the Red Lobster Cheddar Biscuits?  Well, a recipe for the delightful treat along with a lot of witty banter.    What’s in it for Red Lobster?   Perhaps the real value of this fan page is to provide insight for the chain as to what people REALLY love about Red Lobster – and unfortunately it isn’t the seafood entrees!

Filed Under: Strategic Internet Marketing Tagged With: , ,
March 16, 2009

Selling the “Magic” of Social Media

social media marketing magicMy “twitter” stream is alive with conversation on the topic of the ROI of social media.  There are obviously a lot of people busily trying to sell “management” on the “magic” of social media.

This makes me chuckle warmly.

I remember way back in 1997 when I was trying to “sell” management at the company where I worked on the “value” of having an internet presence.   The topic of ROI was a popular one then and the end result of those conversations was the launch of my own consulting firm with my former employer as my first client.

However, while I delivered a very passionate plea more than a decade ago about the “ROI” of the internet, I’ve decidedly changed my tune.  Today, I will boldy declare –

There is no marketing MAGIC inherent in social media.

Time and extensive experience have taught me that there is NOT an OUNCE of marketing magic inherent in any social media application.

  • There’s no marketing magic in blogging.
  • There’s no marketing magic in Twitter.
  • There’s no marketing magic in Facebook.

I say this despite my own personal experience of obtaining THREE leads for new business over the past ten days from these sources.

So why am I not screaming from the rafters that social media is MARKETING MAGIC?

Why am I not writing about how to you MUST use social media so you can EXPLODE your business like I have used it for mine?

The marketing magic in social media lies in the marketing message and not the media used to deliver that message!

Think about it.  Lots of companies use television to deliver their marketing message – yet television advertising is not touted as ” marketing magic”.

Why would social media be any different?

Social media is merely communication – that’s all.  Just as television advertising allows you to communicate with a wide audience, social media allows you to communicate with an equally wide audience.

Social media is merely communication that has been supercharged by technology – communication on steroids so to speak.  While you need a video production crew to create your marketing message if you’re going to use television advertising, the basic rules of engagement remain the same.

If you don’t have anything interesting to say to your target audience, then social media marketing won’t create sales for your business.

What’s worse, if you have something to HIDE in your business then you’ll soon discover that Social Marketing is Like Showing Up Naked to a Cocktail Party.

The only “magic sauce” in social media is brought to the table – BY YOU!

When I say “you” I’m not speaking of a “corporate you” but rather you as an individual.  If you’re an individual employed by a company then you are being employed to share your individuality as an important and possibly irreplaceable corporate asset.  (Read more about this in Do you think you work with corporations or individuals?)

If it is your business goal is to separate customers from their money as quickly as possible and by doing as little as you can in return (read about my experience with my pest control company for a fine example of this kind of thinking) then social media marketing is going to be a DISASTER for your company.  If this is your business model, then the transparency social media provides is going to be the absolute WORST thing that can happen to your business.  Run, don’t walk as fast as you can from social media and pray that social media advocates don’t find your business for a long, long time.

Just as a poorly produced television ad won’t deliver sales, a poorly produced and delivered social media marketing campaign won’t deliver sales either. The difference is – you won’t have to PAY to air your poorly produced marketing message via social media.

If you want to use social media for marketing purposes – you’d better know why customers or clients are buying your products or services.  That’s the key to creating ANY effective marketing message no matter WHAT media you use to deliver your message.

Should you choose to “air” that marketing message via social media, you’d better provide EXCEPTIONAL customer service because you’ve targeted consumers who have already demonstrated a propensity to communicate via social media!

In layman’s terms, bloggers love nothing better than a good story – so be sure you don’t create great blog fodder by screwing over your customers.

Oh, I’ve been assuming that you have a viable business model thus far in the discussion about the marketing magic qualities of social media.  If you’re great at creating conversation but you don’t have ANY idea how to convert those people with whom you’re speaking into paying clients or customers – then social media marketing will be a huge disappointment for you as well.

If there is any “magic” in social media marketing it would have to be in the combination of  the ability to engage in meaningful conversation and converting those conversations into sales of products and services.   Which proves my point that the magic doesn’t lie in social media tools but rather the magic is inherent in the individuals who are using social media successfully.

Filed Under: Strategic Internet Marketing Tagged With: ,
October 15, 2008

Strategic Marketing is like Planning a Trip

Creating a marketing strategy is like planning a trip.  You have to know where you are and where you’re going before you can even BEGIN making a plan.

In my recent post Strategic Marketing Is Like Planning a Vacation, I wrote:

The first step of creating your marketing strategy is deciding where you are and where you want to ultimately be.   In this case, its as simple as you’re in NYC and you want to get to Miami.

Creating a marketing strategy CAN be just that easy.  However, creating a marketing strategy gets VERY difficult if you don’t know where you are (NYC) or where you want to go (Miami).

Notice how more more difficult planning your vacation becomes when you change the scenario above to read, “I live where it’s cold and I want to go somewhere that’s warm!”

So the first step in planning your marketing strategy is to determine where you are and where you want to be.  (Again, this SOUNDS a lot easier than it actually IS.)

Let’s go back to the “NYC to Miami” trip scenario.  In planning your trip, you have several options of how you’ll get from NYC to Miami.  You can:

  1. Walk
  2. Take the Train
  3. Take a Bus
  4. Drive yourself
  5. Take a Boat
  6. Take a Plane

So the first decision you’ll make as you plan your trip is basically one of whether you’ll make the trip by land, air or sea.

Notice how If you’re heading from NYC to Miami, then all of these are viable options.  However,  if you’re in Alaska and wanting to find warmth on the Serengeti Plain, then some of these travel arrangements are not viable options to get you where you want to be!

Internet or online marketing is just ONE way to get from where you are to where you want to be.

Using online marketing may very well be the be the fastest, quickest and easiest way for you to take your business from where it is to where you want to be but it’s not the ONLY way to travel.  If online marketing is the “taking the plane” in our trip planning analogy, then be aware that taking the plane is only faster if you can get a direct flight and unless you plan WAY ahead, it’s definitely not the the least expensive method of travel.

I’ve got a client how has recently “returned” to the fold.  While we were working together, I kept hearing all about her “business coach” who is in name her “business coach.  In practice however, he’s a Make Money Online coach.   During the last month we worked together, I kept hearing, ” But, that’s not how my business coach says I should do it!”

So when her budget got too “tight” to continue working with me, I wasn’t surprised.  However, I WAS surprised when she contacted me via email a while ago, asking for help.

Because her coach is a MMO kind of guy who specializes in making the MINOR SALE, her “business coach” is all about Squeeze Pages.

Don’t get me wrong, a squeeze page is a great marketing tool – but expecting a squeeze page to magically attract loads of traffic is just not realistic.  Using it to try to make MAJOR SALES is definitely a case of using the wrong tool for the wrong job.

If you’re selling a product that only appeals to bloggers – such as the 8 Week Power Blog Launch – then your marketing methods are going to have to be web based.

On the other hand, if you’re selling a product that appeals to people who don’t spend 8 – 10 hours a day on the web,  then you probably should expand your marketing and advertising efforts BEYOND the web.

In the client above’s case, she LOVES performing.  Her limited funds combined with her inability to grasp the difference between an email and a web page make the web a REALLY poor choice of marketing vehicle for her business.  Instead,  I suggested she begin doing free seminars in her community to promote her business.  There are plenty of people who aren’t on the web in her home town who would LOVE to take advantage of her services if only they knew she was offering them.  However, she’s been sitting at home, waiting for her website and subsequent “squeeze” pages to deliver clients to her while her savings dwindle.

Contact your local radio station or television station rep and ask for a rate card.   You might be surprised how “affordable” offline advertising can be.  (Try running a PPC campaign and you’ll see how EXPENSIVE online marketing can get!)

If your prospective customers aren’t spending all their time on the web, maybe you shouldn’t put all of your marketing and advertising eggs in that basket either!

Filed Under: Blog, Business Basics, Marketing Magic, Strategic Internet Marketing Tagged With: , ,
October 13, 2008

Strategic Marketing Is Like Planning a Vacation

Strategic marketing is like planning a vacation and begins by creating a marketing strategy.   This may sound simple, but like most things creating a marketing strategy is easier said than done!

Chasing marketing tactics without a marketing strategy in place is a waste of time and effort!  Part of Focus to Plan Your Business is creating a marketing strategy.

There’s a huge difference between a marketing strategy and a marketing tactic!

Creating a marketing strategy is as simple as setting a marketing goal and determining how you’re going to achieve it.  Knowing what you’re selling and who you’re selling it to is a great place to start!

Once you know what it is you’re selling, the next step is to define who wants or needs what you’re selling.  The act of marketing is really just about letting people know about the products and services you offer.  The way you let others know about what you’ve got to offer are  the marketing tactics you’ll use to achieve your marketing strategy!

Here’s a word picture to help you “wrap your brain” around the whole marketing strategy vs marketing tactic discussion.

Let’s say you’re living in New York City.  It’s October, and the weather is getting cold and you start thinking, “You know – I could use some sun and fun.  I want to go to Miami!”

The first step of creating your marketing strategy is deciding where you are and where you want to ultimately be.   In this case, its as simple as you’re in NYC and you want to get to Miami.

Creating a marketing strategy CAN be just that easy.  However, creating a marketing strategy gets VERY difficult if you don’t know where you are (NYC) or where you want to go (Miami).

Notice how more more difficult planning your vacation becomes when you change the scenario above to read, “I live where it’s cold and I want to go somewhere that’s warm!”

A critical element to crafting a marketing strategy involves defining the SPECIFICS!!!!  “I’m cold and I wanna get warm” can mean you live in Alaska and want to travel to Africa as easily as it can mean you live in NYC and I wanna go to Miami.

Once you know where you are and where you want to be,  you then need to decide HOW you’re going to get there.

So the first step to creating a marketing strategy is to define where you are and where you want to go.   This is the essential first step and it’s the biggest obstacle you may have to overcome to find business success.

In my work with clients, this is the place where most people get bogged down in trying to market and promote their business.

Stay tuned – there’s a LOT more to be said about creating a marketing strategy!

Filed Under: Blog, Niche Marketing, Strategic Internet Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,
September 24, 2008

Best Kept Internet Marketing Strategies Secrets

One of the best kept internet marketing strategies is cross promotion and one of the best ways to illustrate this best kept internet marketing strategy secret is to illustrate it  in a case study.

The basics of cross promotion are really quite simple. First, you determine your target audience. In this case study, the company in the spotlight is iThemes, founded by Cory Miller.

Cory’s company sells WordPress Themes to bloggers. A WordPress Theme allows a blog owner to quickly and easily change the appearance of a blog with the click of a mouse. To make something that EASY for the user takes a LOT of work behind the scenes.

Now, you might be wondering why ANYONE would PAY for a WordPress theme when there are hundreds of thousands of FREE WordPress Themes floating around.

Remember when I said that to make something easy takes a lot of behind the scenes work – well, a lot of times those “free” themes are full of “bugs”. Some of those “bugs” will make it so the theme doesn’t display properly. I had a case with one free theme where the pages wouldn’t display properly. The client loved the look, but the code was such a mess it wasn’t usable. There are other cases where the “bugs” on those free themes means an outbound link from your blog to a blog in a less than desirable neighborhood on the internet.

After a typical blogger tires of fighting the good fight of trying to find a well coded, non-spam free theme, the next logical step is to is to move into the realm of PAID themes a.k.a PREMIUM themes.

This is the arena within which iThemes competes.

So, iThemes target customer is someone who is already a blogger. In many cases, they’re bloggers who have done the free theme route and are ready to make an small financial investment in their blog. (All of iThemes single use themes cost less than $100 which makes them very affordable.)  Most of these customers are familiar with the concept of FTP AND the basics of blogging.

The best kept internet marketing strategies secret for iThemes is to cross promote their business with a popular blog that writes about issues related to blogging.

This is the point where most people will stop reading and run off to find a blog to use for a cross promotion strategy.  This is the virtual equivalent of a small child running into heavy traffic.

STOP! LOOK! LISTEN!!!

This best kept internet marketing strategy is not quite that simple. If it were, then THIS wouldn’t be a BEST KEPT internet marketing strategies secret.  Here’s the SECRET part of the equation – and Daniel over at Daily Blog Tips delivers the secret in his post Drop A Comment if You Want to Win an iThemes Premium Theme

Pretty much every week someone emails me to offer some kind of free product or service. Most of the times, however, you can see that it is a blatant promotional effort, where the other side is just interested in getting some exposure for his stuff. On those cases I just ignore it. (emphasis is mine)

Sometimes, however, the freebies do have a good value for my readers, and on those occasions I am glad to cover them.

Did you catch that?   He told you the best kept internet marketing strategy secret of all time.  Did you see it?  It’s right there in the last line in the quote above,

Sometimes, however, the freebies do have a good value for my readers, and on those occasions I am glad to cover them.

Daniel knows his readers.   He knows who they are and what the need from him.  That’s why his blog is so successful.   (If you don’t know who yours are or who you want them to be, then pick up a copy of the 8 Week Power Blog Launch)  Daniel’s readers are ESTABLISHED bloggers seeking information on promoting and improving their blogs.

The secret is, when someone contacts him with a win/win/win proposition, Daniel – like every other successful blogger- is happy to oblige. In this case, offering a free WordPress iThemes theme is truly a win/win/win situation.

  • Daniel wins – he’s decided to use the freebie to increase comments on his blog post.
  • Daniel’s readers win – they get a chance to win a free premium  theme which is something many of them want.
  • Cory wins – Daniel’s readers have to say WHICH iThemes theme they want to win.  In order to do so, they must VISIT THE iThemes SITE!!!  They visit the site, see the tasty selection of beautiful themes and are asked to “fall in love” with one and post that preference within their comment.

Oh, Daniel and Cory both score additional “wins” on this promotion.  Cory wins AGAIn in the fact that not everyone who comments will be a lucky winner. Those who aren’t lucky winners are now classified as “hot prospects”.

Daniel wins again as well -because when new readers find this post after the promotion is over, they are likely to subscribe to the RSS so they’re sure to be ready for the next big give away!  So promotions like these help to build Daniel’s blog and help him attract new readers.   Oh, and Daniel wins a THIRD time on this -because other bloggers – like me – will write about his brilliant internet marketing strategy, which means more incoming links.

So the best kept internet marketing strategy secret begins with knowing your target customer.  Once you know who your target customer is, then you can find win/win/win cross promotional opportunities for your product or service.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Magic, Niche Marketing, Small Business Success Secret, Strategic Internet Marketing Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,