Archive for January, 2010

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anyone that lives their life entirely online. Each day we’re all exposed to a variety of media and marketing messages. So why do some marketers feel that they have to choose between online and traditional advertising?

Social media doesn’t have to mean writing a blog or creating a widget. When a viewer repeats the tag line from a TV spot, spontaneously sings a jingle they heard, tells a friend about their experience with a certain brand, or posts reviews online—they’re engaging in a form of social media too. Whether a brand sets out to create a social media campaign that starts people talking or something else causes lots of people to begin chatting up the brand, that public buzz, for better or worse, is social media.

You can’t control social media
Many companies have shied away from social media marketing because they’re concerned about loosing control of the message and fear what their brand message might become in the hands of the public.  By integrating traditional advertising and marketing—tactics where you can control the message, with the influence and reach of Social Media, marketers can guide the message instead of control it.  Marketers remain in control of crafting the strategy and executing the “official” version of the message; all of which sets the stage for customers to base their opinions on—opinions they may choose to share.

Defining what that brand experience ultimately means to the customer is neither the job or privilege of the marketer. It’s up to your customers. The more your brand means to them, the more they connect with it. That in turn determines their purchase decision, their loyalty, and whether they feel strongly enough to advocate for the brand in the future.

When marketers control what is said about their product, as in the case of an ad, people view it as biased and self-serving. When a third party, like a customer writes an online review of a product, it’s viewed as honest and credible, and THAT is the secret to the power of social media. In a 2009 online survey by Forrester Research showed that “people trusted the purchase advice of strangers online more than TV or print ads.”

Traditional marketing clarifies Social Media
While social media marketing can be great for spreading your message, it has a significant short fall: people don’t necessarily spread the same message you would like them to. While its authentic and honest, it may not be a message that fits your strategy and may even be detrimental. Traditional marketing can help to create the foundation of information and guide the brand message as it is passed throughout the social community. By cross promoting the contents of one marketing effort, for example TV with another like social media you increase the “volume” of the message, focus the accuracy and add frequency—thereby maximizing the effectiveness of both efforts.

In a 2008 study by Yankelovich and Sequent Partners called “When Advertising Works,” it was found that “ads that make an impression in traditional media were more likely to stimulate word of mouth than ads that make an impression in digital media.

Social media amplifies traditional marketing
Balancing the free-form messaging of social media with the control, consistency and mass reach of traditional media can offer the best of both worlds. Today the focus needs to be on building an opt-in audience in order to create community, foster loyalty and generate conversations.

A great example of this is a recent promotion by Estée Lauder. They took a free makeover promotion to an entirely new level when they used social media to drive women to participate and later bring awareness to this in-store event.  In order to attract digitally savvy women to the makeup counters at leading department stores, Estée used social media and online PR to offer free makeovers and free professional headshots. After each makeover, women would have a glamour photo taken of them (including of course an Estée Lauder logo in the background) and upload the image as their social profile photo before ever leaving the counter. By uploading the glamorous photo with the logo, the customer introduces her entire social network to the brand, a personalized example of it’s benefits and hopefully even spark a few conversations along the way.

Testimonials: the mother load of social media
In a full-page print ad in USA today, Trident made social media the focus of their ad by sharing unsolicited tweets it had received from customers (with their permission) who authentically and passionately tweeted about their new product, Trident Layers. Using testimonials to sell a product is nothing new, but highlighting  the  enthusiastic and unsolicited statements in a nationwide mass marketing print publication reinforces the shift toward integrated marketing strategies.

In each of these cases, marketers integrated traditional marketing with social media to allow the audience to communicate with the brand and with one another, generating more involvement and interest. As markets fragment, an integrated marketing strategy is quickly becoming the essential method to coordinate and focus efforts for greater marketing success.

What do you think?

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Before you review your site optimization report next time, think for a moment about how your tactics are perceived by your audience. Do viewers find answers to their search queries on your page or are they the victim of some clever SEO trick that got them to click? If your bounce rates are high, not only are you wasting time and money, but you’re likely annoying the heck out of a lot of people.

In a recent article in PC Magazine, John Dvorak claimed that the process of search engine optimization (SEO)  “ruins the search experience for users” because “every hit is some commercial site trying to sell you something”. Well guess what John, you just found the secret to the internet…it’s not really free!

While judging from the comments on the site, I don’t think too many other people agreed with him either, but I will concede that over commercialization of any medium, without offering value in return is annoying and frustrating to the viewer.  SEO is a prime example.

Viewers are looking for  specific answers to their query. They deserve to get that answer without being lured to a site that offers some irrelevant sales pitch.

Google seems to do the best job of keeping their focus on the user’s experience. They penalize advertisers for high bounce rates by charging them more for paid search keywords. Google became one of the worlds biggest corporations by giving away the best FREE service. When that service  no longer includes the best user experience—which is returning the most relevant and accurate search results—that’s when Google stops making so much money.

The fact is, I don’t know of anyone that wants to see their favorite free online content restricted to subscription only access. You know there’s no such thing as a free lunch—that goes for online content too. If the content has any real value somebody has to pay to make that information, entertainment, image, video, review or whatever available. And that somebody is either going to be viewer paying for a subscription or the marketer that runs an ad next to it.

The user experience is not limited to what a marketer has on their landing page. It’s the overall connection between their ad or organic meta description, the landing page it connects to, and how they offer and deliver whatever it is they are promoting.

If consumers want to continue to access valuable content — be it network TV shows, online magazines, games or search engine results for free, then marketing including SEO, PPC, display advertising, etc. is a must.

And if marketers want prospects to be receptive to their message, then focusing on the entire user experience is essential.

What do you think?

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