How to apply RFM to your database marketing

RFM or Recency, Frequency, & Monetary - these are three typical measures of how a direct marketer targets their customer. Recency refers to how long ago your customer purchased from you, Frequency refers to how often the customer has purchased, and Monetary refers to the amount of money that the customer has spent with you over time.

All three are key drivers of how lists are put together by direct marketers. This is how catalogs are typically mailed. Customers are assigned scores from 1 - 5 for each category. So a very high Monetary customer might get 5 compared to a low value customer who gets a 1. Similarly, a recent transaction might get a 5 and very frequent buyer might get a 5 with the 1's being given to those that score low.

If you are a bank or a credit union the same formula can apply. New customers and interactions equal Recency; repeated transactions equal Frequency; more than one service relationship equals Monetary. The way a direct marketer can apply this formula depends on the business.

Marketers then assign these numeric values to their customers. A perfect customer score is 5 x 5 x 5 = 125. Similarly an average customer might be at 4 x 3 x 2 = 24. The scoring of these customers drives marketing programs.

The high scoring customers are well treated and courted often. Monetary is very important and it shows the lifetime value of that customer - this is the ideal customer. As Frequency builds up it shows that the marketer is beginning to earn the business of the customer. From a one time purchase the transactions continue and the overall Monetary value adds up.

Recency is all about timing. The more recent customers are often courted with offers in attempt to drive the next transaction, followed by more, ultimately leading to the 'ideal' high Monetary customer.

Apply these simple tips to build up a simple RFM scoring model for your customers. Of course there are other factors that drive how data is stored and prospects are scored. Also, don't make the same offer to everybody - think about scoring your prospects.

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Social Media and Backyard Birding

I am often asked to explain social media in simple words and I leverage one of my passions to explain things. I am really enjoying a new hobby of backyard birding and have learned a lot over the past few months about how to attract and keep birds coming back to my yard. I got a few feeders, a couple of bird baths, and some really good bird seed to get things started.

It took a few days for the first bird to find one of the feeders. Within a few hours, many more birds showed up, and it has been fascinating as the birds start eating and chirping from dawn until dusk. I even learned a couple of good lessons – make sure the location of the bird bath feels safe for the birds & keep the feeders full, else birds stop showing up. You have to retrain them to find the food. My yard now is full of Goldfinches, Cardinals, Titmice, Mourning Doves, & the very friendly Chickadees. My next goal is to get the Chickadees to eat out of my hands.

I got this started by luring them, engaging them with food and water, and of course getting them to come back (retaining them) by making sure that the bird bath was full and clean & I had enough seed to feed the birds. I even started mixing seeds to only to learn that it keeps the birds really interested and flying from feeder to feeder.

Social media is about the very same principles – you have to attract / lure your prospect. You have to keep them engaged to make them a customer, and you have to learn how to bring them back. It doesn’t matter if you are working with email, direct mail, or even social media. The very same thing applies – lure – engage – retain – the magic mantra for your success.

Have a little reminder at your desk - attract - engage - retain. Look at every campaign and make sure you are thinking about all three elements in your marketing campaigns.

If you would like to join the Backyard Birder group, it is on LinkedIn.

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Can your airline do this?

PTE or Passenger Terminal Expo kicks off today in Copenhagen, Denmark. Hundreds of professionals representing airlines, airports, and suppliers converge to seek out best practices. Here is a suggestion - focus on the customer, focus on their experiences, focus on getting them back. Think about Emily, can your airline really do this?

Emily needs to schedule a last minute flight. The airline that 'knows' her is sold out. She searches the web for good last minute deal and is able to find the flight she needs with another airline. A first timer on this airline, she decides to set up an account.

The account set up process is simple, three simple questions, & then she is asked for her email address and mobile phone number. She sees a banner ad promoting the convenience of mobile messaging and decides to see just exactly what it’s all about. She doesn't mind trying this new interaction after noticing an ‘unsubscribe option’ if she finds the service obtrusive or not necessary for her lifestyle. Relaxed, she tells the airline a little bit more about herself.

When she arrives at the airport, she decides to check-in using a self-service kiosk that she noticed when entering the building. She is recognized, welcomed, and offered something relevant. She told them about her favorite foods & restaurants, and right there she has an offer to purchase a meal for her flight which is displayed by a banner ad next to her flight summary. It recognizes that she is flying coach, has an exit row aisle seat, and displays her proper food selections. She accepts the offer and the meal is charged to her cell phone. She is pleased that she took the time to fill out her preferences from home.

As she makes her way through security, she receives a text telling her that her departure gate has been changed to B30, where she makes a mental note and continues on.

As she settles into her seat, Emily received an email from her smart phone of her current mileage summary as well as directions to her hotel at her destination. Again, she is pleased - she took a minute to tell her airline where she was headed, & they remembered. She does get a text, thanking her for flying the airline, an offer to take a survey, & a coupon to her favorite restaurant.

Later that evening Emily logs back into her airline account, takes the survey, and then notices a banner ad promoting that she is five trips shy of getting a free ticket. She is also offered 25000 bonus miles if she gets a credit card from the airline. The airline promises her offers that are relevant and useful.

As Emily was preparing for her meeting the next day, she could not help but be amazed by the personalization and technology that she had experienced first-hand, by flying the new airline that morning.

After her initial trip, Emily called the new airline about matching her status - they did, & she became a more frequent flier on this airline due to her rewarding experience. She continues to receive emails, mobile messages, & direct mail with personalized offers and information that is relevant to her while she is looking into new ‘hotspots’ and earning points toward her incentives.

Oh, and Emily now raves about her friendly airline to her friends on her social networks. Free publicity that was well earned by an airline that cared to listen.

Two things are going to drive the future of interaction - preferences, & presence. Your airline should know what you want and keep filling up more information about you. Secondly, your airline should allow you to access them from any channel and serve you with relevance.

Email, mobile, & social are all key drivers to achieving this interaction.

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From 1 to 5, how sophisticated is your email program?

While there are many formulas around ROI per campaign, ROI on your program, reduction in direct mailing costs, speed to launch to market, or even consumer engagement (I am sure there are few dozen more) – the best way to gauge the success of your own program is through some introspective questioning.

Here are five different stages of where people are with their email marketing program. Remember your goal stage is number five.

1 - Cheap
2 - Quick
3- Track
4- Personalize
5 - Multi-channel

1 – Cheaper than paper – your company does email because direct mail costs are higher and email helps subsidize those costs.

2 – Quick way to communicate – it is a very fast way to get your campaigns out of your door into the prospects inbox.

3 – Track effectiveness of campaigns – you are concerned about measuring success of your other channel campaigns, so you are interested in seeing what is really working effectively.

4 – Personalize your messaging – you want to track what people are doing, place them in segments, and personalize each message uniquely (or strive to) towards recipients.

5 – Ability to leverage information across channels – you are using email as a means to build preference repositories and create a two way dialogue with recipients across channel.

Assign yourself a number for each one of the bullets above – most marketers have moved from two to three and some are beginning to reach stage four. There are a few companies that are in stage five.

Usually, the higher your number; the higher the level of your sophistication.

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Once Again: 17 Resolutions for Email Marketers

Online Marketing Summit and ClickZ are hosting a day long event focused on digital marketing best practices in New York. I will be speaking on the top five drivers of email marketing success in 2011.

Here are a 17 resolutions for every digital marketer. Try to include these as part of your strategy and keep integrating email, mobile, and social as your digital interactive channels.

1 - I will redo my Welcome messaging - by creating a compelling must have message that engages the consumer from day one. I will make sure that this message is updated regularly and will include real consumer input as part of this message.

2 - I will create transactional triggers – think about specific messages for specific transactions. Create these messages and automate the sending process. Review your results weekly.

3 - I will work hard on growing my digital list – you need to set realistic goals and involve your team in growing your email, mobile, & social media lists across all channels. Remember the transactional triggers – enable them for your non-web channels as well.

4 - I will create a preference center – a real cross channel preference center that will solicit recipient preferences, update preferences based on user interaction, & keep the preference tables updated through surveys.

5 - I will watch the frequency of my campaigns – so as not to startle, or numb the recipient from the excessive barrage (or the out of the blue email) of messaging. You can make this effective by tracking your open rates per consumer across multiple campaigns and not just one.

6 - I will keep surveying the consumer - include a survey link in every email to solicit recipient opinion. Leverage other channels into collecting user preferences. Think hard about the questions too – don’t use the survey to score how well you are doing. Use the survey to connect with the recipient.

7 - I will survey the non-buyer – reach out to people that don’t buy from you and try to get their opinion. Make them a priority – you will learn something good about your program, get an opportunity to try new things on people that don’t seem to respond, & perhaps convert someone.

8 - I will work with the call center, brick & mortar channels – yes, we all resolve to do it each year. But here is what you should do – first engage them by pushing offers their way, & two show them all the different ways you can track people. The more involved they are in your campaigns the more they will support you.

9 - I will test before I launch – test each campaign before you put it out. Have three types of tests – first – a sanity test on what the campaign should do, second involve your team to see what they think will work (and let them find errors), third – test it out on a sub-section of your recipients before you send it out to your entire list.

10 - I will work on subject lines – these drive open rates and engagement. A good subject line can also be leveraged into Facebook or Twitter. Take some time to come up with them rather than just slapping them on last minute. In fact, set a goal to solicit subject lines from your peers and narrow them down with testing.

11 - I will monitor my deliverability – watch your delivered and blocks on every campaign. Don’t mess this up – keep your IP’s clean by keeping your customers and prospects on different IP’s.

12 - I will monitor my metrics – for all my campaigns. You need to look at all your numbers across channels. Innovative marketers this year will actually start measuring success across channels – start campaigns on one channel and transfer people to another. Also, share your reports with other people in your organization.

13 - I will integrate social media into my email. Social media is an effective way to engage the consumer. Integrating social into your email will help you build relationships, increase engagement, & drive some very powerful results.

14 - I will play the role of a customer. (Take a look at your campaigns as a consumer). Make a checklist of things that you like about your campaigns. See if the path makes sense, and if the marketing is up to par. Track your subscribe & unsubscribe process.

15 - I will respond to queries and comments – good or bad, and will do this quickly across channels. If I can, I will create a digital help desk to create a more engaging experience for my consumer.

16 - I will solicit input from my peers to establish success metrics and will share these metrics with everyone on a regular basis. This will keep others involved and drive useful input into my own program.

17 - I will create an inner circle! Try your best to engage your best consumers into an inner circle. An interactive dialogue with them will provide effective guidance for your marketing program.

Good luck with your campaigns in 2011. You should strive to converse with your consumers, engaging them in a timely profitable dialogue. After all, marketing is all about creating interactive conversations.

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How to write great use cases to drive engagement

You need to come up with a plan on how you can communicate with your consumers via email, mobile, & social media. To keep the user even more engaged you need to make sure that all three channels are truly driving a relevant two way dialogue. Here are five things you could do to make sure that you are communicating in coordinated fashion.

1 - List Channels & their Purpose - You use email for offers, updates, & transactional messages. You may be using mobile for offers, alerts, & transaction receipts. You use Twitter for customer service, Facebook for engagement & contests, & your Blog as a repository for information. Create a grid where you list each channel (or sub-channel) and what the purpose of each channel is - so you know where you’re making contact with your customers and prospects.

2) Who is your Consumer? (customer, member, prospect) – Ask different people in your organization who they think they serve and build a persona for each profile/ type. For instance, Jill is 30 and single; Brad is 45 and married with two kids; Ed is 65 and married. Put together information about each type including how you should communicate with them, map this information with your subscribe page, preference collections and surveys to insure you are capturing information effectively.

3) Write your Script – Think about messages to help you fulfill the purpose of each channel. Think about the person(a) and how you would communicate with that person(a) over that specific channel. Think about ways you can drive people from one channel to another. People may not buy instantly, you may need to guide them through a series of messages before you can get a sale. List those use-cases and group them together.

4) Test your Message – Will the message you’re sending appeal to your core groups? Will Jill respond, or is this message designed more for your Brads and Eds? Make sure you’re segmenting based on content/ offer epically for the top portion of your list.

5) Don’t forget about Growth – Using the combinations created; determine how to attract more consumers like them from both your existing base as well as new prospective consumers. Think about what motivated each type to give you their contact information. Leverage this information to create compelling reasons as to why your consumers should provide you with their contact information. Do this across channel. Keep it engaging. Keep soliciting feedback. Alter as necessary.

Remember to engage with your recipients as often as possible, and never forget to factor all possible places they could interact with your brand.

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Try this formula to drive your email marketing

Key metrics of email marketing programs are opens, clicks, & conversions. Opens are measured when an open pixel image is served up or the email is opened by the consumer. People open an email based on pre-established interest or preset expectations. Effective subject lines and timely emails help improve open rates. Also, opens improve over time if you continue to communicate with the consumer with relevance.

Then there is the Click - the good click & the not so good click. People may click un-subscribe and of course the marketer should seek to know why. The goal of the email should be to tell a story and drive people towards conversion by encouraging them to click through onto the landing page. Simple tips would be to create engaging content and use the 'Paul Harvey' approach to get people onto the next page.

A conversion is the achievement of a goal that has been put together for a particular campaign. This could be getting the consumer to take a survey, luring them towards a landing page, getting them to open an account or book a trip or make a purchase.

Marketers need to assign values for each category and assign a score for opens, a little more for clicks, and of course a higher score for conversions. The OCC score should then be used to create segmented lists that can drive very high responses driving extraordinary conversions.

Many marketers are still in the business of mass marketing with email because of the lower costs of the campaigns. This mass marketing leads to little scoring as the marketer watches overall metrics of opens, clicks, and conversions but does not create individual scores for each customer.

OCC scores should be automatically computed per consumer per campaign. This way it is easy to track an individual over a series of campaigns and not just measure single campaign results.

Opens, Clicks and Conversions are being tracked by some progressive email marketers. They assign scores to each consumer activity and then segment their list based on the points, higher scores are targeted with personalized offers, lower scores with bigger discounts.

Ideally an OCC score should be assigned to each consumer and this should be how the list is segmented, offers personalized, and messages delivered. This basically means that as marketers segment they will be targeting people with high scores with more personalized offers and continue to test things out with those with lower scores.

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How to Create an Inner Circle?

An inner circle is a group of people that care about your brand. They tell you what is right, guide you when you are wrong, and stand up to support your brand. These people are brand ambassadors who provide great testimonials.

You can create an insiders club that helps promote your community by answering questions.

Why should you? A retailer redesigned their web site. They hired an agency who recruited potential consumers. The new site was phenomenal, it was built by feedback, focus groups, A/B testing, & eyeball tracking. They paid the agency $1.5 Million!

A similar sized retailer reached out to their inner circle and solicited their feedback. People were grouped into three categories – those who provided feedback for free, those who provided feedback for a whopping discount, and those who were given a gift card to spend in a certain amount of time. This retailer spent less than $20,000. The first retailer took six months to redesign their site, the second retailer took less than half that time.

Having an inner circle is vital. They are your go to group of people. It takes a little time, some effort, and honest diligence to create this group.

Here is how you do it –

1. List a ‘tell us what you think’ on every message that you send out. Not just email but across all channels. Ask people to rank your product, rank your service, and leave them a text box for comments. Use this information to update consumer preferences, and be sure that you follow up with the consumer as soon as they respond. Thank them for their answer, be genuine, and try to engage them with an email from you or a real person.

2. Offer more than what they have ordered. Rather than just sending them a thank you email for a transaction, ask them if they would like a sample from you. Now reach out to them after a reasonable amount of time and solicit their feedback on the sample sent. Add those that respond to your insiders club.

3. Use intrigue to connect. ‘How much does a family of four spend on drinks if they eat out a restaurant once a week throughout a year?’ This can lead to a calculator that is then used to help the individual come up with saving possibilities. ‘How much do you spend on gas in one year? What if you saved just 5 cents a gallon? What if we can find you a location that gives you cheaper gas?’ A question like this could lead to a site where you can find the best deals on gas.

You could run a caption contest on your social media sites as well. An intrigued consumer is an engaged consumer. The important thing in all these scenarios is to connect with the respondent with a follow up message from a real person. Next, segment them into a special list, and stay in touch with them over time. Reward them with previews, sneak peeks, and exclusive discounts (if you can). Set a goal of ‘x’ number of responses per campaign and do this across channel.

A Credit Union with a member base of 200K has about 13,000 insiders. A travel company has a list of over 2 Million, and an insiders club of 60,000 names. A retailer has over 50,000 go to insiders who give them counsel. The key is that they did it one insider at a time. Many set up real time insider clubs on social media sites like Facebook & Twitter. These people are a valuable group of followers.

Just keep in mind that when you communicate with them on social media sites you are in their space and that they are not in yours. Intrigue, engage, & thank each person who responds and watch your insider list grow! It is your ticket to success in 2011.

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Once Again: Five simple steps to improve deliverability

Here are a few simple things that you should be doing to make sure that your emails have a better chance of getting through to the consumer.

1) Monitoring – make sure you focus on your email collection process, are there checks in place to eliminate miss-keying (double opt-in), and include an automatic confirmation so that bounces don’t pollute your core list. 



2) Hygiene – Clean your list regularly, honor unsubscribe and SPAM feedback promptly, be sure to check your blacklists, monitor bounce rules and use a dedicated IP address to send your emails as blocking is usually based on the sending IP address.



3) Test – Make sure your content passes SPAM filter assessment; there are tools that verify your content and provide a score based on the message, allowing you to adjust your message as necessary.

4) Be Open - On your site, list what the recipient can do if they feel that they received an unsolicited email from you - give them contact information and a simpler opt out other than clicking on 'this is spam.'

5) Training - Next, educate your front line on how they go about capturing the email id - a proper script will go a long way in getting people to pay attention to your campaigns.

The one thing you can do to improve deliverability is to keep your list clean – remove your bounces expeditiously.

Your battle for credibility against spam is going to continue - keep checking up on what you can do to outsmart the bad guys and make sure you continue to build relationships with your recipients.

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Once Again: How to start a loyalty program

As consumers we can appreciate the extra attention, or shorter lines, or the loyalty points that add up. Businesses too, would really like to keep the consumer from going elsewhere and would like to leverage previous transactions to provide better service.

Maybe your business is ready for a loyalty marketing program – here’s a checklist to start things off, even if you don't have a big budget:

1) Survey – Ask them what is important, what they like and dislike; ask them what you can do to improve things and what will make them come back. Ask them how they would like to be rewarded. Use this online survey to convey the importance of the channel and set the precedent of how you’ll be communicating with them.

2) Reward them with Points – If they complete a transaction, verify information, send feedback or make a purchase, give them some recognition. These points add up and result in a snowball effect, making your customers pay more attention.

3) Send Updates – Include their points balance and remind them of the point hierarchy…you're only X points away from the next level. Keep thanking them for the business – on your website, via email, through your call center or in-store representatives.

4) Help them with Redemption – Whether it’s a percentage off, merchandise or upgrades make the process easy, make the customer feel their points are worth something.

5) Give the Intangibles – Have a special line for loyal/ elite customers, send thank you cards from the owner... mix it up across channels, this shows the customer that they are part of the family.

Loyalty marketing is true one-to-one interaction – you know everything about the customer, which are arguably easier than attracting new prospects through mass media advertising.

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How to stay in touch with a consumer that transacts infrequently?

Many companies have the challenge of marketing to customers who only make one big transaction a year; they’re unsure of what to sell and how to promote but want to make sure that they are in consideration whenever the recipient is in the market again.

My suggestion is to keep the recipient engaged with information, good customer service and useful tips. Two things to consider here - first send them information through email, mobile, & other traditional channels. Second make sure you keep your social media channels updated with relevant information. Make it a place where your customer is inspired to come check out.

There are three ways to do this - if you simply tell them about the channel, if you invite them to be a contributor, & if you keep the social media channels engaging.

Here are a few examples from different industries:

Your customer has just purchased a vacation trip, start by asking for feedback about their trip, offer lifestyle and food tips from other destinations. Make email communiqués reminiscent of the travel channel – offering a get away with every newsletter. Include information and numbers that they can call about destinations but don't force them to buy, simply remind them that you are there.

A prominent travel company allows people to set up family pages where all pictures and videos can be put into a library. They extend this by connecting on Facebook as well. Put up pictures of destinations and ask people to guess where the picture was taken. It works!

Your customer has just redone their home; follow up the purchase with a sincere thank you. Then ask them to send you pictures or feedback of how they like the new style and layout. Keep communicating with them offering design tips and ways to spruce up their home. Share stories of how other people have transformed their homes with similar/ complimentary products. Keep them in their same segment but offer smaller gifts that may be perfect for their friends and family. Again, encourage your customer to share their story on your blog or submit their pictures for a contest - it will bring them back and perhaps others too.

A customer makes a large financial investment – a bond or CD. Thank them and then keep them abreast of what is happening in the market. Engage them in a dialogue by getting them to share information about their family, their financial aspirations and how you can help them get there. If you keep them engaged they will pay attention to your communiqués including your offers.

Financial Institutions can leverage social media channels to help educate customers on products and also use these social media channels to answer questions.

Regardless of the industry or purchase, the key is to keep people engaged with content that they perceive valuable and applicable to their daily lives… regular interaction could be your answer. Write good content for your social media channels & use email to direct people in.

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Five Simple & Effective Tips to Go Viral

With the buzz around social media marketing and the need to go into the life of the consumer, marketers are trying their hardest to get included. Getting included means getting the consumer to share your brand - to go viral. There is so much talk about inclusion and about following that marketers are forgetting to look at some fundamental issues.

If you want to get included on the Facebook page of the consumer, it is very much like asking the consumer to invite you & their friends into their living room. The consumer needs to feel comfortable about including you before they open you up to themselves and more so their friends.

The same thing applies to Twitter; about getting the consumer to add you to their safe list via email; or even getting them to visit your blog. You need to engage the consumer with something that the consumer has an interest in and not just expect that the consumer will blindly follow you.

It goes back to a quote by the Chinese philosopher Confucius – ‘Marketer who wants to share something should first be sure he have something to share.’ Okay so Confucius didn’t say that, but to really keep a consumer engaged you need to learn what it takes to keep them interested.

It is all about engagement, about making connections.

Here are five simple ideas to help facilitate engagement –

1. You have to improve your segmentation


2. You have to use active copy


3. You have to achieve real personalization, name calling will not cut it


4. You have to look hard at your numbers, if something doesn’t work don’t do it


5. You have to carry on a conversation

Good copy, a good product or good service, and great customer service goes a long way in helping too.

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Strategies to Leverage Mobile to Drive Engagement on Real & Social Networks

Imagine walking into a retail store. You see a sign with an offer - you like it. You are offered a vanity number to dial in to. As a consumer you dial the number. Two things have happened. First, the retailer has captured your telephone number, second - they know what offer drove you to complete the transaction (they know your possible preference).

Mobile has helped identify you to the retailer. You now walk through the store to a display that could potentially play an extended advertisement of what you saw earlier. If you like what is on this display, you could download the offer and redeem the offer across channel.

You could also share the offer or what you like with your group of friends on your social network.

The same thing could apply to a meal that you are eating at a restaurant. You come in, and put your mobile number in for an opportunity to win a free lunch. Midway through your meal, the restaurant could serve up an offer for a dessert to you. You could also be asked for input about how the restaurant fared by a simple three question survey. Another opportunity for engagement.

You are looking to lock in a rate on a mortgage. You could provide the financial institution (FI) with your mobile number. The FI can now use your number to give you rate updates and also leverage the information to learn more about you and try to personalize your transactions.

Mobile has the ability to offer timely relevance, plus the consumer has the ability to access you from wherever they want. Mobile offers a great way to start a relationship, the key lies in engaging the consumer past what their immediate need is.

Brands that will succeed with mobile will be those that will use mobile to engage you across other channels.

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Once Again: How to Measure ROI on Social Media

Many have invested heavily in social media, many more are still trying to figure things out. Even the companies that are playing in the social media space are still not completely sure on how they can measure the success of their efforts. Businesses typically cite the following reasons to get involved:

'It is a way to engage our consumers.'

'That is where our consumers are.'

' Everybody else is doing it!'

While these are all good reasons and quite true, you should seek a way to measure success so you can make your engagement more effective, gain the trust of your consumers, & outdo 'everybody else.'

Here are five key principles to apply -

1 - You use social media to increase your outreach. Pick a few channels and stay focused to drive 'growth' metrics. Perhaps you are looking to find more people or raise awareness. List what you want to do and then measure that metric month over month.

2 - You use social media to let your consumer know more about your organization.That way if the consumer is in the market for a particular product or service you want to make sure that they are aware of what your organization has to offer.

3 - You use social media to go viral. If you speak tactfully and offer value on your social media channels your consumer will share what you offer with others. Keep thinking of ways to engage your consumers in a dialogue - answer their question, solicit their opinion, & make it easy for them to share.

4 - You use social media to cut costs. There are dozens of things you can do to begin cutting costs from your traditional marketing channels through judicious application of social media. This is an absolute requirement to drive social media success.

5 - You use social media to drive revenue. It is easier to measure your success in the digital world and the impact of social media can be measured easily. Pick a few programs and then use social media to try and sell those programs within your organization.

You have to save money, and drive revenue to continue any marketing program. Social media is no exception. If you are perplexed on specifics (make money & save money) - I have put together a number of specific ideas that span a number of organizations including retailers & financial institutions.

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Do you know why your consumer transacts with you?

As you prepare your campaigns and plan your communiques with your lists here is a quick recap of why people transact – (it could be why they read what you send, why they bank with you, why they make a purchase).

Broadly speaking people interact or purchase or transact because –

1. They need what you are offering,

2. They find that you offer a great value,

3. It is something aspirational for them.

If you walked into a grocery store to pick up milk, eggs, & cereal for breakfast – you are satisfying a need. As you walk through the store you may see beer or soda on sale so you decide not to pass up on the good deal (value). As you are walking out of the store you eye that water fountain – it looks wonderful and sounds so serene & soothing – you think about purchasing it sometime soon – now that is aspirational.

A checking and saving account is a need, so is a credit card. Opening a six month CD for 3.75% interest would be something of value today, planning a purchase to redo your kitchen is something aspirational.

Three basic shirts from your clothing cataloger might be a need. Picking up two more to waive the shipping might be of value. Getting the shirts monogrammed or switching to French cuffs with cufflinks might be aspirational.

The key here is that the consumer gives us these opportunities to try and connect to them. As marketers we need to watch and plan for these connections. Your digital engagement strategy should take advantage of the need to showcase value, ultimately up-selling you on something aspirational.

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The Right Way to Grow Your Social Following

Most organizations put out email campaigns with the standard tag line that asks that you join them on their available social media channels. Yes, there is an obscure button that lists all the social media sites that the business has a presence on. The expectation is that the consumer will find the link, and go join each of the social sites. This rarely drives results.

A few organizations do a slightly better job in engaging their recipients. Their message lists specific social media sites, has graphics, and requests you to join each one. They may ask you to 'Become our Fan on Facebook' or 'Follow us on Twitter' or 'Read our Blogs.'

A rare few do an incredible job! They coax people to join the social media sites. They do not give money or gifts. The power of intrigue & a little more effort works very effectively.

Try saying this -

1. Join us on Facebook to see the latest pictures from our 'special event.'

2. Follow us on Twitter, and we will send you the 'information.'

3. Offer part of the story in the message and encourage people to find the rest of the story on your Blog.

Think about specific reasons why one should come to your social media sites. List those reasons down, and try to leverage them into your conversations with recipient.

Many organizations still block their 'workers' from social media sites. Instead you should mentor them on the use of social media and train them to engage the customer or prospect in a cross channel dialogue. You have call centers and stores that are training their employees to direct people to social media sites. They list the question and the answer on the blog, they tweet about it, and even offer solutions on Facebook.

Social Media is here to stay. You have to learn to grow your database of contacts and plan out how you communicate with those that you connect with. Engagement has to become part of your natural conversation.

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Know Your Consumer to Connect Socially

Many organizations have a survey as a key requirement as part of the consumer engagement process. They put together quarterly, or even end of year surveys to get feedback from those they serve.

Try these tried and tested ideas as they can both help get higher responses (to the survey) and increase the validity of the information that has been collected. Surveys are supposed to provide organizations with information about the needs of their customers and prospects, the hope is that this information can be leveraged into actionable information and make the recipient’s experience more meaningful.

Many surveys are full of flaws and as a result the responses are less valuable than expected. One of the biggest mistakes made is the military-style opening – the request for name, rank and serial number right out of the gate. I’ve seen many surveys that start off by asking the user to identify themselves, the survey then progresses to a series of multiple choice questions and ends with the text box for opinions.

Think about the last time you responded to a survey, did your answers skew from the start to the end? Typically, we lose interest and start half-reading the questions and answers. Most respondents start off the survey by giving aspirational answers but as time progresses they tune out and may contradict previous answers or completely abandon your survey. In either case, the end results aren’t helpful and can be a waste of time for all parties.

A better way to engage the user is to ask them to share their opinion through a text box, keep questions interesting, engaging and try to solicit true views – do this by offering creative response options or by keeping the question types variable. These strategies will help you hold the respondent’s attention and will ultimately yield more truthful responses.

Collect your demographic information at then end when the respondent is on auto-pilot and more comfortable with providing the information. Finally, try and leverage the responses in future communications – email, social media, & print. Acknowledge that the update or change is a result of survey respondent, you’ll bank extra points with all recipients.

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Five Ways to Approach Social Media Success

Your social media site is like a large shopping mall. You have visitors that are walking through the mall. Your success lies in luring them into your 'store', engaging them, and keep them coming back for more. Here are five things you should be doing to drive social media success.

1. You need to brand and promote each of your social media sites appropriately. Let the consumer know what to expect from each site and allow them to create a personalized experience with social media. Give them the reasons they should interact with your brand and leverage each interaction to continuously identify their unique preferences so you can keep enhancing your offers to them.

2. A coupon can drive people to complete a sale. An ad in the paper can drive people to come invest in a certificate of deposit. But you can do more with social media. What if you 'Tweeted' about an article on your blog with links to Facebook where people now shared their personal experiences? You will be able to drive more engagement with this approach and drive other acquaintances in.

3. You need to nurture your social media networks by soliciting feedback - good & bad. Listen & respond to both concerns and suggestions. As you build up your opinions, people tend to pay more attention (search engines do too.) Additionally you can establish a group of experts who could turn into your go to team as you strive to respond to questions.

4. You have to build up your expertise. The consumer can find an answer to so many things from so many sources. They can do it expeditiously with social media. Your channels need to be able to answer things in even more detail. In fact, you should even consider empowering your touchpoints (including your people) with this additional data so your company looks like the expert.

5. You have to be real. This is not a reality show but it is about being genuine and helpful. You don't have to be cute, you simply have to care.

Social media will continue to evolve, your ultimate goal is consumer engagement. Look for more articles this week on how to know the consumer so you can keep them engaged.

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Five Simple Segmentation Ideas for Retailers

Segmentation Strategy is a pretty common theme among digital marketers; I’ve covered some simple strategies in other posts on the blog – buyers vs. non-buyers, leveraging preference data etc.

I would like to share a little insight from a marketing manager of an apparel company and his criteria to target buyers:

1) Recency – Check the time associated with the last order and when the recipient became a customer. Their strategy is to flag the person quickly for targeting with more personalized emails.

2) Frequency – Recipients who buy once are encouraged to quickly buy again; two-time buyers are pushed to three etc. Once the customer is over the five-time buyer mark they are put into a special category where the goal becomes creating a dialogue with this customer.

3) Average Order – They evaluate the total revenue and margin from the customer, the higher the values the higher their customer rating. Higher margin customers get five stars and are treated with a lot of respect and work hard to move the high revenue/ lower margin customers to higher margin products.

4) Geography – They realize that certain products don’t sell in certain climates or year-round so timing and geography become key factors. Geography also plays into their timing, they have seen an up-tick in sales from recipients shopping at work around 11:00AM and 3:00PM, so they release based on time zones to grab the multi-tasking worker.

5) Payment Method – Customers purchasing by check or PayPal are treated differently than those who pay by credit card (and not all credit cards are created equally.) Just a few items to think about while developing the right mix for you to create interactive conversations with your customers…

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You have to segment - segmentation is vital to your success

Digital marketing is an effective way to control costs costs and measure ROI. One of the easiest ways to start making your campaigns stand out is to segment your list. The more effective your segmentation, the more you can focus. With better focus, you can drive better results.

Segmentation is truly an art; if you’re not careful you could simply be slicing and dicing your list without even realizing it. Don’t get me wrong, random splits play their part, but for effective segmentation you really need to incorporate elements of relevance to the recipient.

For starters you need to target prospects and customers differently, the same formula should be applied to those who are engaged and those who are not responsive. But to really reach the next level, you have to learn to get personal.

Well segmented campaigns have to meet the needs of the recipient, incorporate their preferences, continuously seek their survey responses, follow their behaviors by watching how the consumer responds, and then make an effort at responding to those needs.

Ultimately your recipient is no different than any of us – we spend only a few seconds looking at marketing messages (if we open them.) We check our personal email after work, while the TV is on or we take a quick glace while multi-tasking at work. We’re distracted, we’re fickle and we want to know that you are paying attention to us. Think about your inbox, are there messages that truly spoke to you? Was it because it struck a chord of relevance?

Ask yourself these questions and think about what you would like to see when you’re creating your campaigns and applying effective segmentation to your list.

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Mobile for Banking

Many financial institutions (FI's) have got concerted efforts underway to capture mobile numbers for their prospects, customers, & members. Their first step is to grab the number, next introduce the recipient to the FI, & then perhaps convince the consumer to access the FI's mobile banking platform. When a connection is made, the consumer has access to the FI's site & the FI has access to the consumers information.

The key now is to leverage the telephone number to only communicate with the consumer when it is really important.

The consumer may access the FI's site from their mobile device at any time. The opportunity for the FI is to ensure that the information presented to the consumer is easy to find, succinct, and consequently useful for the consumer. If this is accomplished the FI can build up trust with the consumer and leverage this trust to lure the consumer with relevant offers.

Outbound contact represents a big dilemma for many marketers including financial institutions. They are trying to use the consumers number and 'trust' to offload all the consumer communiqué's - but the consumer does not want to be overwhelmed. In our survey of consumers in 2010 more than half of those that were surveyed did not want their mobile device to be used for 'marketing-only' offers.

This presents three opportunities for the marketers.

First, start building up a repository of preferences so as to leverage this within conversations.

Second, use the consumers visit to your mobile site to serve up relevant messaging or cross-sells.

Third, remind the consumer to look within their other channels for valuable offers from you.

Of course, you can always ask the consumer to tell you what they are interested in and then with their permission serve it up to them via mobile messaging.

FI's can create the best relationships with their consumers on mobile devices, their challenge really lies in limiting the dialogue and driving relevant conversations.

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Five Key Hurdles Facing Mobile Marketers

Mobile offers you the opportunity for real time engagement. With smart phones becoming smarter - mobile merges email, & phone. Additionally, it gives the consumer instant access to social media channels. This means that a business can connect in real time.

Here are five issues to consider.

Consumer Acceptance - Mobile has the ability to target people one on one, yet there still exists the 'horde' marketing mentality. 'Horde' translates to as many offers to as many people most of the time. Instead the focus should be on extreme personalization (which might be hit or miss and you can learn from it) driven through preferences.

Emerging & Transitioning Technologies - Old mobile was designed for the flip phone. New mobile is being designed for the smart phone. The phone is becoming 'smarter' and consumers are just getting to what is available. Applications being built for both environments – the old flip & the smarter phone; and in some cases being delivered without any real testing. Keep in mind that testing here needs to be done to ensure that they work correctly and are mobile friendly. You will get fewer second chances to make first impressions with mobile applications.

Cost of Usage & Bandwidth - While incoming is free in many parts of the world - many US providers make a lot of money on incoming messages. Hefty fees on the transfer of data coupled with real network bandwidth challenges (my 'smart phone' goes blank for long periods of time in New York City) are going to be the gauge on driving user engagement. The cost will have to come down, bandwidth will have to increase, and the applications will have to be more efficient to keep users engaged.

Regulation & Laws – Do you know about the Telephone Consumer Protection Act? Before capturing user preferences businesses need to make sure that the consumer has opted-in to receive mobile messaging. There are a number of companies that are offering to get the consumer opted-in to your marketing messages via SMS, yet their methodology opens up a can of ethical worms.

SPAM – You have to be wary as this is the easiest way to increase regulation, choke bandwidth, increase costs, flood the consumers in-box, consequently reducing consumer acceptance. A few large companies with top notch programs are ‘unaware’ that their ‘local brick & mortar places’ have their own mobile messaging initiatives!

Mobile can do a lot for the marketer.

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