How to approach social media...

Your social media site is like an online mall. You have visitors that are walking through your mall. Your success lies in luring them into your 'store', engaging them, and keep them coming back for more. Here are five specific things you should be doing with your approach.

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 goal is consumer engagement. You have to monitor multiple metrics and while your 'justifiable' ROI might not be immediate - keep your eyes on the goal and persist.

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What you must say after the transaction

Many marketers 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. 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.

Your customer has just purchased a large piece of furniture; follow up the purchase with a sincere thank you. Then ask them to send you pictures or feedback of how they like the purchase, how it fits with their existing décor. 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.

A customer makes a large financial investment – a bond or CD. Like the furniture purchase, 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.

Whatever your industry, start building up your social content by soliciting feedback from your consumers after they transact with you. Leverage this feedback in all of your messages as other consumers make decisions based on real feedback.

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.

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How to Create Value Exchange for an Email Id

Value exchange is your not-so-secret, secret ingredient in email marketing. Valuable information helps you earn the recipient’s attention, opens and hopefully responses and new names. Here are some successful themes I’ve seen that continue to work well:

Your $10 Coupon – Reward loyal customers and get new sign ups by offering them $10 bucks off their order; remember to include an expiration date.

The Contest – A contest can be an effective way to gather preferences on your existing recipients and acquire new IDs while generating buzz for your brand and program. Don't forget to have a few small prize winners, and be sure to make the announcement of the winner via email.

Print and Skip the Line – Bring a printed copy of our email and you won't have to stand in line. Again, you are elevating the importance of this channel and offering convenience to the recipient.

Instant Exchange – Offer something that can be accessed immediately in exchange for an ID, like a whitepaper, tips or free day-pass.

$50 in Your Account – Often used by financial institutions, this strategy is an effective way to get customers to sign up for email and electronic statements. It saves the expense of paper statements/ mailing but more importantly it allows the marketer to track what the recipient is clicking so they can personalize messaging and get recipients to pay attention.

Go Green – Appeal to the recipient’s ecological side and stress the importance of your program. People are beginning to accept digital as a legitimate channel.

Three Reasons to Sign-Up for Email – Highlight the three reasons someone should sign-up stressing the convenience of your email program, if it’s simple and clear people will respond.

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Five Steps to Convert Prospects into Buyers

Here are five best practices that work for marketers to convert their prospects into buyers, and then repeat buyers - basically fans that start following the brand with a passion.

1. Making a connection - Target people with their preferences. If they have not provided you with preferences, then give them options via an email, social media, or a direct mail piece. Watch what they prefer, and add that to their preferences. Use this information to create targeted offers for them.

2. Try to create a memory - Make sure that your copy and image are interesting enough for the recipient to remember what they were looking at. Also, make the call to action stand out. In an ideal situation the recipient will click through to purchase. If not, coax them to review your offer or even perhaps add the offer to their shopping basket which you can store for them.

3. Provide a trigger - Let people purchase a tangible asset from you. Even if this is a small purchase, it is a foot in the door. Solicit their feedback, their opinion, and seek additional preferences. So even if you don't get the sale or connection, try to get them to engage with you a little more.

4. Follow up with more - Use the information provided to create a second order. Do this within 45 days and you will be well on your path to moving the one time buyer into a repeat buyer. Leverage this information to thank them and make them another offer within a 30 day period.

5. Keep score - Look at your results in real time. Test out offers, headlines, & prices. Listen to the buzz on social media channels. Keep an eye on your numbers and use this to come up with dynamic offers.

Marketers look at Recency, Frequency, Monetary values to make offers for prospects. Recency offers a great opportunity to re-engage fans, customers, or even prospects driving them towards more from your organization.

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How to Circumvent Phishing & Pharming!

A hurricane strikes the coast leaving behind millions of dollars worth of damage and thousands of homeless people. You wish you could do something to help. Then you check your email. It’s as though someone read your mind -- there in your inbox is a request for donations through a very well-known and highly reputable charity. A picture of a family in front of their demolished home stares back at you as you type in your credit card number. The hurricane was real but the charity was being impersonated. You’ve been phished.

You polish your resume and post it on a leading career site. As you hold your breath waiting for a call for an interview you check you email. In your inbox you find an amazing offer for an interview suit from your favorite clothing company. It says the deal is given as a thank you to those who sign up for the career site you just joined. You click the embedded link to check out the offer. You recognize the clothing company’s logo and slogan. It looks just like the site you’ve visited time and time again, so you browse through a handful of suits before you enter the color, style and size you want. Then you punch in your credit card number. You never receive the suit because you didn’t visit the website of your favorite clothing company. The website was pharmed and you’ve been phished

You work for a major online retailer and take pride in the fact that yours was one of the first sites to offer secure purchasing transactions. Your organization has been encrypting your clients’ credit card numbers for years, so you feel sure that your customers will never experience online fraud through any transaction they have with you. Then you find out hundred of your clients have been scammed by making a purchase through your site. It turns out that your organization’s database was hacked and the criminals stole lots of information on your clients – names, mailing addresses, email addresses and dates of last purchases. But, you wonder how they managed to get encrypted credit card numbers from your network. They didn’t. They emailed your customers an urgent message saying that there was a problem with the credit cards they used to order from your site and they need to re-enter them. The criminal provided an imbedded link that took them to a web page that looked just like the payment page on your site. The webpage was pharmed, your clients have been phished and your organization has a lot of cleaning up to do.

Top Three Ways to Help Prevent Online Fraud

1. Education

The best line of defense is informed clients. Be sure to educate your consumers in what warning signs to look for and how to report suspected phishing. One way to do that is to dedicate a page on your Web site to online fraud. The page should be easy to find on your site and include a number to call if they suspect they’ve become victimized. Such a page is also a great place to remind you clients of the age-old saying, “If it’s too good to be true then it probably is.”

Make sure ALL of your employees understand what phishing, pharming and online fraud are and what your company does to prevent them. Also, make sure your front line/customer service people know what to say to clients in the event of an attack. This can be accomplished through training sessions and/or by having a script prepared for them to read in the case of an attack.

2. Security

Email addresses are increasingly becoming as valuable as Social Security numbers. As such, your clients expect you to this information much in the same way. You should communicate with clients security measures in place to protect their personal or account information – including email addresses.

In order to recover from an attack it is imperative that your consumers know how diligently you work to protect their data. Anything that contains any customer information should have an audit trail.

3. Preparation

With phishing attacks on the rise and immunity provided for no one, it’s best to assume that your organization will get hit. You can help soften the blow by creating a crisis plan before you ever become a victim. A good place to start is in drafting an email that you could send to your clients to warn them when you are attacked.

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Online Fraud: A Real Story

One of the challenges with digital is the impact fraud can have. The data breach at Epsilon has exposed email ids and personal contact information for consumers. Businesses need to take extraordinary steps to protect consumer data and more importantly they need to respond to queries from consumers.

Hope, who is a good friend of mine (and a digital knowledge diva), is still waiting for one of the largest retailers in the world to respond to a fraud on her personal account that took place in January of this year.

I am republishing this story for three reasons - first, to highlight fraud, second, so businesses can take the time to think of response strategies, and third, to see if poor Hope can get some response from this big retailing giant.

What happened is listed below...

I met Hope on Friday January 7th at 8.30 am in Providence, RI – we were working on a presentation that pulled together converged channel best practices. At 9.37 am, Hope got an email alert on her smart phone, ‘Your order is ready for pickup!’ It was from a large multi-channel retailer. She was surprised, as she wasn’t expecting anything so she turned on her computer to look at the details.

A tablet computer worth $400 was ready for pickup in a store in Dublin, VA (700 miles away). The email provided order details and even listed a ‘Regina H’ as the person who was going to pick up the tablet. This was startling, but Hope stayed calm and we sprung into action. Hope called up her credit card provider and I called up the store.

Poor Hope, even though she is the one without the accent, she struggled with the automated phone system in an attempt to get to the right department. She kept repeating the words ‘Fraud’ & ‘Representative’ while I was put on hold by the store in VA as they were paging the manager on duty.

The store manager was phenomenal, he heard what I said and quickly summoned his electronics person to alert them about the possible fraud. I could hear him ask his sales rep to ‘tactfully delay’ the person coming to pick up the merchandise as much as possible. He then returned to the phone to tell me that he really couldn’t do much without a ‘case number’ from a police report. He gave me a number to call and I proceeded to call the police department while Hope was still trying speak to the right department at the credit card company.

I started my conversation with a very helpful Deputy ‘C’ who asked me to describe the situation, as he proceeded to fill out the police report. I provided Hope’s full name, her address, her phone number, date of birth, height, weight, hair color, and even eye color! I was stumped as to why the person filing the complaint had to provide so much information.

Fortunately, by the time we got to the end of the form, Hope was done speaking to the credit card company who had cancelled her card but told her that they would have to still work on giving her credit for the order as it had already been processed. For her to get the credit, Hope would have to provide the credit card company the case number and attest that she didn’t order or pick up the product.

Hope finally called the big retailers store and provided them with the case number. The store confirmed that they were now empowered to block the transaction and officially call the deputies to apprehend the perpetrator (Regina H). Hope inquired about how she could freeze her ‘dot com’ account with the retailer. The store manager was very courteous and helpful but he insisted that the store had no way to reach their ‘dot com’ department.

So Hope got back on the phone to try and sort out the situation with the ‘dot com’ group. After many futile attempts with their automated voice activated system Hope finally got through to a person in sales who helped her reach customer service. Hope had to explain everything that happened yet again, but was promised prompt follow up.

Still Hoping For Answers

It has been a few months and Hope is still waiting to hear back on a number of fronts. Good news first. They arrested the primary perpetrator, apparently the cops had been trying to catch this gang who has used stolen credit cards and hacked accounts to buy and sell expensive electronics. It was our diligence and urgency that helped the police show up in the store on time to catch the gang’s leader.

Hope’s credit card was cancelled, and a new one was issued. The store has even offered her a free cup of coffee. The big retailers store continues to empathize with Hope that their ‘dot com’ group is very hard to reach.

Here’s more bad news. Hope still has no idea as to how her account with the big retailer was hacked into. She is also not sure how her credit card (which wasn’t used in a while) was compromised. She had used the same credit card with the big name retailer before but was promised that her credit card information would not be stored. Hope has also received a call from an investigative agency in Virginia telling her she might be subpoenaed to testify in person. She is unsure about how she is going to go or who is going to pay her expenses. The ‘dot com’ has still to return her call and she is still struggling with many questions and no answers. She is concerned that the crooks know her name, her address, and many other personal details.

The Irony

Hope’s online activity on her credit card companies site and the big retailers site has resulted in her getting a number of targeted banner ads on both sites. These ads continue to add insult to injury as both companies ‘people departments’ have yet to respond. Hope even received an email from the big retailer trying to up-sell her on accessories for the product she did not purchase. The big retailer is already seeking her feedback on the purchase on their Facebook page. She is being asked to write a review. The biggest irony is something I mentioned in the beginning of the article – we were working on some case studies of converged channel best practices!

Isn't 2011 About Trust and Security?

Yes, 2011 is the year of trust and security. Consumers like Hope prefer the convenience of converged channel shopping and are willing to provide businesses with their personal information. However, there is an expectation that businesses will protect the information and that the channels will come together to serve her with convenience. Businesses need to make sure that their channels are coordinated, that their channels are aware, and that their channels are responsive. Here is the article on what consumers expect from businesses in 2011.

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25 Articles to Boost Your Social Media

1. 17 Resolutions for Email Marketers
2. 11 Simple Tips to Make a Winning Video for Social Media
3. 2011 is the year of...
4. A Few Ways to Measure your Social Success
5. How to Write Great Use Cases to Drive Engagement
6. How to Create an Inner Circle
7. How to Measure ROI on Social Media
8. 5 Simple and Effective Tips to go Viral
9. Strategies to Leverage Mobile to Drive Engagement on Real & Social Networks
10. 5 Ways to Approach Social Media Success
11. Some Really Good Headlines (Email, Mobile & Social!)
12. Selling Seats & Engaging Fans: Lessons for all of us!
13. Successful Case Study Series: How to involve your entire team to grow your digital assets
14. The Right Way to Grow Your Social Following
15. Why Should I Sign Up for Your Digital Engagement Program?
16. Nine Ways to Identify Twidiots and Social Nincompoots (TSNs)
17. 2010 Was the Year of Preferences
18. Cops and Robbers: How we helped bust a cross-channel heist
19. Some Bad Stuff on Social Media
20. How Casinos can Engage with Social Media
21. 10 Considerations for Email, Mobile, and Social
22. 7 Steps to Building Social Capital
23. 5 Ways to Spruce Up Your Social Presence
24. 10 Ideas to Go Green
25. How to Build A Loyalty Program

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Beware: Data Breach and Spear Phishing

The consumer allows you to capture their interaction with you, they expect you to remember their preferences, but most of all they want you to safeguard their data.

I have credit cards from Citibank & Chase, an online account with Best Buy, a credit card from Target, and the list goes on. All these businesses know me; I trust them with my information. In return, I expect great service and my information to be stored securely.

The news about the big Epsilon data breach is of grave concern. The information stolen from Epsilon included email ids and names. ‘Not much,’ is what some experts are saying, but the thing we need to be careful off is that this information doesn’t get used against you in the form of personalized spear phishing.

What is Spear Phishing?

In the world of online, spear phishing is where a spammer leverages legitimate information to trick the recipient. Their bait can appear to be from a recognized person or company. Or you could get an email addressed to you asking you for additional information. If the sender can target the email to your needs, include personalization and grab your attention, they can trick you into doing a lot.

Savvy spear phishers add a multi-channel twist incorporating calls, verifying your address (or where you bank, where you shop or kid’s schools), they send the promised follow-up email, incorporate letters – anything to get your attention.

Try to avoid phishing by maintaining consistent branding in your communiqués, stick to a few from fields, give your recipients a way to audit your transmissions and, most importantly, train your front line to answer questions about your email program.

Remind the consumer that you will not solicit secure information like social security numbers, account numbers, or credit card information from them via email.

Finally, keep in mind that spammers continue because people routinely fall for their tricks - education is key, so do your part for your recipients.

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A few ways to measure your social success

Many who step into social media expect quick results, dramatic gains, and are extremely concerned about all the negativity that could be spoken about their brand. The reality is that for you to be successful you have to realize that social media needs to be integrated into your various channels.

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.

Success can be measured in different ways - a reduction in direct marketing expenses, driving attributable revenue, an increase in followers, an increase in engagement, improved brand recognition, and a reflection of sentiment about customer service. The key here is to take small steps, have a concerted focus, and keep adjusting your strategy to suit your brand.

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How can people tweet this stuff?

The following is from real people, working at real companies, and proudly wearing their company brand on their pesonal Twitter handle….

1. I really can not think straight. I'm worse off than a goldfish. I need to get tested, this is bad...


2. too bad the xanax REALLY wants me to close my eyes.


3. O....M....G.... 7 Kahlua Mudslides last night = REALLY bad headache this morning!

Three Successive Tweets (in order) from a Big Online Retailer (their CEO is an avid Tweeter) -

1. Long walk to the restroom, long line at the restroom, really long flight, still in line...


2. Had a ham and cheese sandwich at the ATL airport. Awesome stuff here…


3. Oh, I did wash my hands…

Five personal tweets from a person running Corporate marketing for a respectable company...

1. Watched all three videos, can't decide - my vote for the idol is ….


2. RT @xxxxxx Yes, bitches, there is a new Bxxxxx 2nite. D reveals his fool proof system for getting any woman. #Bxxxxxnite I am assuming she was still at work, because her next tweet said...


3. Home from work…did nothing...but I do have a really bad headache. But I am glad she started working again, because...


4. How much money does your company budget for digital spend? I am trying to figure it out here….


5. Back to the grind tomorrow. Ding-Dong, Klutz to call… Could watch videos all day, Thank God for YouTube…

I like the way she mixed up business and personal tweets. Her Twitter description tells you where she works!

Five tweets from a Cataloger selling dog food & accessories

1. Join our dog days of summer sale (link….)


2. Great treats for your furry friends (link….)


3. Make the dogs happy with our great grooming products (link….)


4. For your pooch, poodles, & little pets add a little style (link….) & then the dramatic finish…


5. Great doggy styles, check out our Facebook page (link….)

No wonder, people get concerned about Facebook.

Two Tweets from a Financial Institution -

1. Our rates come with a guarantee - lock this in for the next 30 days, 4.9%... Within five minutes, the rate changed...


2. We have great loan rates, really low, 5.3% The real reason this happened is because two people were tweeting from the same handle without talking to each other. Tweeps!

Three tweets from another Financial Institution -

1. Learn more about money, demystify your finances, get approved on the first attempt, keep your credit scores high, keep your loan rates lower (140 characters…)


2. Join us on Thursday March 11, at our Newberry location from 4.00 pm to 6.00 pm for education, fun, & low interest loans to get what you want (140 characters…)


3. Call Megan at xxx-xxx-xxxx, ext xxx to sign up for this special event, please do not reply to this message as this mail box is not monitored (140 characters…)

So I called Megan, even though I was upset I couldn’t tweet back an RSVP. She had no idea about the workshop, and put me on hold, I waited five minutes, my call got dropped, so I called back - got her voicemail, and never got a call back from this FI. Not sure what happened, but a classic case of left hand not knowing what right hand was doing. I tweeted back to the FI handle, that wasn't responded to either.

From someone who applied for a job -

I asked her if she knew about Twitter. She said she did, shared her Twitter handle with me during the interview. We pulled it up, this was one of her most current tweets.

• I make mistakes, speak without thinking, act without knowing, drink so much I can barely walk. I'm a fantastic lover though, & good friend..

She nonchalantly replied, 'I'm honest too!' To be successful on Twitter you have to engage. You also have to be prudent and careful. The web doesn't offer you an eraser, and you have to learn how to walk a fine line between your personal and business tweets. If you have other fun tweets you would like to share, please post them.

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