Five Tips from Successful Social Media Brands

Brands are trying hard to invest more in social media. As consumers we continue to get exposed to all kinds of advertising with links to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Many brands just expect the consumer to follow them or fan them. The value of a 'Like' is grossly overestimated by many brands.

Yet there are many brands who are making good inroads with social media. The key to their success is social integration. Here are five tips from successful social media brands.

1. You have to learn to listen via social media, don't just lead conversations - you need to join conversations;

2. You need to respond to queries and comments - good or bad, and do this quickly;

3. You have to keep learning & adapting your program to meet the needs of those you serve;

4. You have to set up simple measures of success;

5. You have to be as genuine as you can!

Happy Halloween!

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Are You Willing to be TRACKED to Receive AWESOME SERVICE

You walk up to an ATM and as you put your card in you are greeted in your prefered language, offered the usual amount, and even given the usual coupon to the coffee shop across the street. As you sip the coffee, the financial institution sends you a text message thanking you for banking with them.

After a long day at work you walk into your favorite restaurant. They saw you coming and brought your family the usual drinks and the first round of appetizers. As you eat the appetizers the chef walked out to inquire about last weeks meal and wanted to know what you all would like. This is exceptional service.

You stroll into a huge department store, they recognize you. Actually, they spotted your telephone - all your phones. An employee invites you to come take a family portrait since all of you are together. They even bring you some outfits to wear for the photo shoot - things that you had purchased before - the right size et al. You are in and out in no time at all.

You are helping register your child for an after school activity. You show up, sign in, and have barely sat down when one of the experts comes to talk to you about your options. Not only did they see you come in, they actually answered every question you had, even though you didn't remember all the questions. See, they simply tracked your activity on the web and made a list of the information that you were seeking.

You zip into the grocery store to pick up milk, bread, and bananas. You usually walk out with more things but were in a hurry to get home. As you come up to the register, a manager waves you to the service desk. Not only are you first in line, she also offers you the other items that you usually purchase. Talk about convenience.

You call your favorite gardening catalog spending about 30 seconds on hold. Your call is transferred to Kathy, she is the one you spoke to the last time. She talks to you about your garden, your last purchase, and offers you ideas on what you could do to tend your garden during the winter.

You have been surfing the web on options for a new car. You see a few cars online and soon proceed to your bank's web site to see what options you have to finance the vehicle. You get a call the next morning from the manager who invites you to the branch. Not only do they pre-approve you, they actually help you negotiate a better price from the car dealer. You walk in - they know what you want - they give you what you need - you drive out, happy. Now that was quick, efficient, and personalized.

Tracking transactions brings some immense advantages. It is like having a personal concierge that is always looking out for you. It allows you to leverage channels, technology, and preferences to your advantage giving you back time, money, and exactly what you want.

My question to you, "Would you be willing to share your personal information to get this type of convenient service?"

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10 Copy Tips for Interactive Media

Interactive media implies media that allows for a conversation - a two way dialogue - you can not only track where the consumer is going but you can also solicit feedback in real time. The web, email, social media, self service, & mobile are part of interactive media.

You need to communicate with clarity & creativity, keeping the consumer engaged - here are 10 tips.

First, choose your content based on the channel you are going to use. If you are using a kiosk - you need to be quick (people may be standing in line) & give the user options to choose from. If you are using mobile, reduce the content, but you can take a little more time and allow the consumer to think about a response. Email can be used to probe and serve up targeted content on the web site. Social Media can be used to solicit feedback in near real time.

Second, realize the importance of being brief. State your point, provide convenient links as needed, & think about the 'next step' or purpose of the page. Reduce your copy as much as possible.

Third, focus on your audience. Do not use big words or phrases that sound rhetorical or cool or things that are too complicated. Keeping your message focused on the audience level keeps them engaged. If you are too cool, complicated, or too serious you could confuse them or offend them.

Fourth, think about the message and how it ties in with the rest of the interactive screen. If you are serving up an ad on the landing page - make sure that it is contextual and doesn't draw away from the overall message.

Fifth, use an active writing style. You want both a reaction and a reply from a user. Carry out a conversation offering the benefit of your product / service rather than just stating the offering.

Sixth, organize your content to make it more effective. Headline, sections, bullets, clear icons, definitions, images, bold, italics, links - organize the information into 'chunks' of information so the consumer can find the information easily.

Seventh, you have the ability to change and adjust your message so keep testing what works best on a smaller group before releasing the content to the rest of your population.

Eighth, think about using rich media – consumers enjoy pictures and video. You need to leverage all of these ‘more than a thousand words’ channels as you try to engage the consumer.

Ninth, get your consumers to take the lead in conversations. Over a period of time, you will find that some of your consumers are active participants on your social media sites. Recognize these consumers as leaders and thank them for being proactive. Other consumers will appreciate your ‘user centric’ approach to dialogue.

Tenth, think about mixing up your messages to consumers across multiple channels. So if you start a conversation with a consumer on social media, you could send them an email, follow up with a mobile coupon, and close things off with a thank you at a self-service machine.

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Five Absolutes for Your Preference Center

It seems basic, but sometimes we forget what should be done when signing people up for our emails. Here are five things you should make sure you're covering on your subscription page:

• Tell them why - A brief explanation of what the customer should expect when they sign up for your emails. Tell them the types of emails they will get, and how often you plan to send to them.

• Ask for preferences - This will make sure that the emails you send to these customers are relevant and timely.

• Let them know they can opt out - Just a brief not telling customers they can opt out at any time, so they have comfort in the fact that if they don't like what they get, they can drop your emails.

• Send an email right away - You should send a mail to new sign ups as soon as possible, within a couple of days at the latest. This way, customers won't forget they signed up for your mails.

• Stick to your word - If you tell customers that you're going to send one message a week, only send one a week, not three a week. If you ask for their preferences, send based on those preferences.

These five basic tips will make sure that your customers have a better experience when registering and receiving your emails.

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A Few Thoughts On Social Etiquette

The consumer can experience your brand through multiple channels. They experience it when they visit your branch or store, your ATM's or kiosks, when they speak to your people, and even when they click around on your site. How you speak, what you say, & how you respond go a long way in building your brand.

Social media is no different, your online presence helps you define your brand and how consumers can experience your organization.

Consumers expect you to be consistent, they want the information to be easily available, they do not want any surprises, they want a site that is welcoming and will stick around sites that are engaging.

You can do all this through social media by making it a combination of information, entertainment, and user based engagement. Social media is dynamic - it is a back and forth dialogue. Your consumer speaks to you - don't forget, you have people in charge of execution of your social media channels and you need to help your people in how they interact on social media.

A key factor that you need to be cognizant off is that the consumer will most likely initiate the conversation with you. You really have no control over what they say or how they frame the question. So you have to be careful in how you answer and how much of the question you repeat (or rephrase) as you try and elucidate your response.

How you respond to this first leading question is not only the pathway towards your dialogue, it is what the world will find archived for your brand. So be careful what you say, what you say will stay there forever and unlike Vegas it is there for everyone to find.

Many companies have put together a social media policy, but this policy leaves a lot to be desired. You still have no guidelines for what your brand ambassadors are saying (even though they may be using their personal profiles to talk.)

Established policies cover everything from responding to user feedback, monitoring the conversation and co-branding posts that can be added alongside their own. Policies also include how to respond to feedback – ranging from simply monitoring to individually contacting those making negative comments.

Things like promptness, responsiveness, and tone - they all play a major role. Defining and adhering to a policy is really your social etiquette.

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Seven Key Considerations for Mobile Marketing Success

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

Here are seven opportunities 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.

Consumer Education - Make sure that your consumer is comfortable with the new applications that you are introducing. Many businesses have started putting out "apps" without really thinking about the base of consumers that they are serving. Businesses are really trying hard to impress with QR codes - stop and ask how many of your consumers actually understand them.

Utility Transactions - Think about things you can do on mobile that will help out your consumer. Receipts are a natural. Starbucks mobile payment is something that is going to get more people interested. Mobile ticketing by airlines such as Delta are helping the consumer accept the technology even more.

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!

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The Right Way To Get People Off Your List

Here are some best practices related to those who want off your list – consider them as you look at your counts and consider your unsubscribe process; these tips are based on industry research and consumer surveys.

First, start by offering them the option to reduce frequency on the first page of the unsubscribe process and include the option for them to supply feedback. If they go ahead and opt-out, serve a confirmation of the unsubscribe process. Thank them for participating in your program with a simple statement like – We’re sorry to see you leave our newsletter of special and one of a kind offers.

If you aren’t selling things, you could say – We’re sorry to see you leave our newsletter packed with useful tips and valuable information. Stress the value but opt them out. Send an email confirming the unsubscribe (denote this as part of the website language).

Be sure to include: – Contact information for your organization’s customer service department (in case they have any problems) – A re-subscribe link – An Are you Sure Banner or link that includes the available specials, rates, your sales outlet or unique promotion – you will be surprised at the number of people that unsubscribe and then visit the specials section.

If you can, copy a customer service representative (CSR) on the confirmation email to the recipient. Offer the recipient the opportunity to mail you suggestions and (if the info is available) have the CSR follow up with the recipient that unsubscribed by phone. You never know what you’ll learn or if you can win them back. Don't make answering the questions mandatory. It will force people to give you an answer you don't want or make them mark you as spam.

Remember, the unsubscribe process should be as simple as possible. Offer the best customer service and serve as an opportunity to find out what really happened. Your goal is to make sure that you treat this separation as temporary so if the recipient has the option of coming back.

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Email Yogi has a new Feed Address

Please update your subscription with the new Feed Address listed:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/emailyogiblog

Note: the old one will no longer work!

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Page 2 Marketing Strategies

Once you get the attention of the consumer - what steps do you take to get them engaged further? Think about all the marketing communiqués that you put out - we spend so much time on the outside to get the recipient to pay attention. Now that the consumer has clicked on the link or opened the email or taken that first step - here are some key things to do to get the consumer to get engaged even further.

If the goal of the headline is to lure your consumer in, then goal of the copy within is to drive them to the next step. So to start things off - define what the next step is? Think about the specific goal of that communiqué. If the goal is to get the consumer to go to the next page - write the copy to get them there. If the goal is to get them to fill out a survey - give them the 'value' reasons on why they ought to take the next step. Think about ways to continue the intrigue, offer an incentive, showcase the value - if getting them to the next page is one of your goals.

Financial institutions do an effective job by leveraging the use of calculators. These calculators give the consumer an option to come up with 'what-if' scenarios. Intrigued, the consumer starts moving towards the next steps.

Once the consumer has been brought to the right page - be crisp, clear, and concise in telling them what to do next. Many retailers are challenged with how to narrow down on the offers - in a situation like this it is okay to have the navigation bar on the left or top or bottom - so the consumer is able to find other things themselves. The goal again is to make it easy for the consumer to focus in and find your offer within.

Success in mobile comes through focusing in on offers in two ways. First, do not put everything on the mobile platform; second, if you can personalize it for the consumer, you can persuade them to move to the next stage with you.

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Seven Simple Ways You Can Leverage Your Social Media

Social media gives you great insight into customer behaviour and is probably the best way for you to conduct focus groups and market research. Your customer will appreciate the attention and will be thrilled to see that you are one of them.

Here are seven ways you can use social media -

1 - To see how your customers are doing
Speak to your customers about what they like about your products and the services that you provide. See how you are doing and try to use the information to improve.

2 - To segment your list
See what interests’ people on your social media channels and use this information to segment them into different groups so you can serve them better.

3 - To add products or services
Ask your customers what they think about you entering or providing new products or services. Listen to the buzz about what products or services appeal to your customers.

4 - To conduct market research
You have a great opportunity to be in a “focus” group of sorts. See your customer interests – the sites they visit, the affiliations they have, how they spend their time. Now use this information to seek out others with similar interests.

5 - To study your competition
Do what my friend Dennis Yu says, “like” your competition. You get to listen in on their buzz and also watch how their customers are interacting. You can basically track your customer behaviour with the competition.

6 - To see how responsive you are
Your team is supposed to be taking care of your social media. Tune in as a consumer, ask a question, and see how quickly your core team responds to your queries.

7 - To make friends and influence people
Join conversations, build affinities, and slowly start building up friends that can help influence your products and services.

Keep listening, keep learning, and keep making friends.

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How to Build and Maintain Customer Relationships Via Social Media

Your business is no longer a store or a website. It is a person. The most important part of bringing your business online for customer interaction is that you're creating a personality for your company and giving your business a face.

You have to build and maintain your relationships and social media can help you. I recommend getting your social house in order by applying these principles.

Five Keys to Driving Engagement

Think about your goal state. Where would you like to be on your social channels?

1 – Your first key to engagement is to realize that you may want to replicate the in-person feeling. Good one to one experiences are interactive and relevant.

2 – Think about what your brand stands for. What are reason, season, lifetime interaction opportunities between consumers and your brand?

3 – The third key to engagement is how would you let people know about your online media. Do you use an incentive or do you offer intrigue to drive people in?

4 – Think about how you would continue the discussion with your customers to keep the dialogue going. What information does your customer like to talk about?

5 – The fifth key to engagement is to leverage conversation opportunities. Customers get multiple messages from you; can you leverage those messages to move the discussion over to the social sphere?

Three Basics

Before you get started, think about the logistics.

1 – Who are you?

What is your name on social channels and does your ‘store’ name tell the customer what to expect?

2 – Where are you?

Provide clear links to all your online properties so the customer knows exactly where to find you?

3 – What can they expect?

Let your consumer know what to expect on your social channels? Think about privacy policies, and procedures so the correct expectations are set and can also be met.

One Absolute

You have to come up with concrete measures of success. Social can be measured via engagement, via a reduction in costs, and an increase in attributable-revenue. The ROI measurement is vital.

Do not forget to align your goals with your measures of success; it is the key to a clear and profitable path.

Many thanks to the NTCA for letting me be a part of their program.

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Should a business secretly monitor an employees personal social interactions?

Matt is a regular reader of this site and wanted to share this scenario with us. He has a question for you as well... This is what he sent me -----

I know of someone who works for a company that, without telling new job applicants, does a full internet sweep for everyone that applies to read as much as possible on them and consider it as part of their hiring process. The company also does periodic re-checks on employees' online activity. The company does not openly declare this anywhere and my friend only heard about the practice by accident. 



My suggestion to any company doing this would be to be as open as possible about it to everyone you intend to check. Some companies seem to think it's legal and they have the ability, therefore they have no responsibility to tell anyone. However, when employees find out after the fact, it breeds an atmosphere of fear and distrust and that will always hurt productivity. My friend works with a constant itch in the back of his mind that his employer is going to see an off-color joke a friend of his posts on his Facebook wall and fire him without even telling him why. Do you think he's as productive as he could be?



If you're up-front with it, it makes you more honest, it gives you a chance to explain why it's important, and it gives them a chance to work with you to clean things up. If you're not, then frankly, you're shady and you probably have an 80% turnover rate in your office and don't know why.




The questions...


Does your company request or expect that employees will like or friend or link to the company's social media efforts? If so, do you have expectations of how they maintain their own presence on these sites? Do you check up on them? Do you have policies for how to deal with these situations? 



I'm curious because I'm split on the issue. Personally, I started in a PR background and understand the importance of a company's image. I don't think companies should or would want to link to employees' actual profiles on most sites and if they do, they should ask the employees to create separate profiles just for business that the employees only use for business-related purposes. But I would be curious about how different companies handle it.

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Minding your P's, Q's, and R's on Social Media

1 - Do you have a policy for your social media?
Remember, you need an internal policy for your employees, an external policy so your consumers know what to expect, and a procedure document that states who does what on your social media channels.

2 - Do you have a campaign calendar?
You need to create a plan to engage your consumers by coming up with a draft of what you are going to be doing on your social channels. Having a plan keeps you on course for engagement.

3 - What are your success metrics?
The three ways to measure success on social channels include engagement, cost savings, and an increase in "attributable" revenue. Put simple metrics together to gauge your success.

4 - Who owns your social program?
Think about whom in your organization should run social media and assign responsibility.

The "R" is very important – you have to be able to report on your measures of success as this will help you track your goals.

I originally wrote this article for ClickZ magazine. Here is the link to the entire article, 12 steps to jumpstart your social media program!

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Four Steps to Leverage Content into Your Engagement Strategy

Yesterday, we spoke about the four steps to align your consumer with your business goals. At the end of the day, your consumers connect with you because of the content. Content is key to your success. Here are four things you need to think about.

1 - What content would you use? Since you have grouped your consumers into segments, you already have an idea of the perceived interests of these segments. Now think about the type of content that would work to engage with each segment.

2 - What social channels should you use?

Think about the right social media channels for your brand. Focus on a few, aligning these channels to your consumers, your business, and the type of content that you are going to serve.

3 - How will you share your content with consumers and over what channels?

Align the content with your consumers and think about ways to attract your consumers to look at your content. Intrigue and incentive tend to attract people. While incentives can fade away, intrigue is more sustainable. Also, think about creating interactive conversations across all your channels.

4 - Think about interaction opportunities.

Think about reasons why the consumer will interact with your brand and how you can use social media to engage with that consumer. Examples include satisfaction surveys, queries about products or services, transactional receipts, and testimonials.

Avoid asking your consumers to simply follow you or join you on social media. Come up with compelling reasons that will engage your consumer.

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Four steps to align your social media goals with the consumer you seek

1 - Who is your consumer?
Think about the profiles of the consumers that you seek. Look at what appeals to these consumers and build a few personas based on their assumed likes and dislikes. An easier way to do this is to align some of your key products and (or) services with these consumer personas.


2 - Can you segment your consumers correctly?
You cannot speak with the same message to all your consumers. Ideally, you are seeking a 1:1 dialogue with each consumer. While you try to reach that stage, think about aligning your consumers into segments. I suggest two approaches to segmentation. The first approach is based on the consumers' interaction with your brand. The second approach is to group your consumers into prospects, customers, and past-customers. Now overlay the approaches to be more precise.

3 - What do you do as a business?
List the objectives of your business. Do not worry about social media at this stage. Focus primarily on your brand and what your brand is trying to accomplish.

4 - What do you want to do with social media?
Look at your business objectives and see what you can do via social media. The idea here is to align your core business proposition along your social media channels, so you can use social media to help you achieve those core business objectives.

You should now have consumer groups aligned with your business objectives and matched up with what you are trying to achieve via social media.

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Seven Steps to Leverage the Internet to Sell

Here are seven simple steps on how you can leverage your interactive digital channels. I have used this simple approach to audit what is being done today, or to start afresh.

This approach has been used successfully for selling product, selling service, and to drive some serious consumer engagement.

Step One
Define your product or service with a crisp or clean definition. Let us use a little more than Twitter-speak – 150 – 200 characters but don’t go too far over 200.

Step Two

Offer a value statement in third person. Don’t just tell the consumer how valuable the product or service is. Instead use real testimonials from consumers or consumer personas and show how these consumers are using the product or service.

Step Three
Offer education or guidance. Keep it short with links to lots of detailed content. Train your touchpoints (real & self service) on how to respond to questions. Encourage your touchpoints to show the consumer where more information can be found. Remove the channel bias (if you can) – many in store or in branch transactions discourage the consumer from completing the transaction online.

Step Four
Try to mimic how the purchase or transaction takes place in a real environment. The consumer gets to touch & feel the product. The consumer gets the attention of your associate. Additionally your associate can watch the consumers’ emotions and this can be leveraged into the transaction. Now think about social media – your consumer is a social being – they want to feel, sense, and get feedback from others. Give them an opportunity to "check things out" on social media channels. Of course, there are negatives about real environments as well – you have longer lines, limited inventory, and less information. All three can be improved through the internet. With mobile you can make it real time, and social media makes it true word of mouth.

Step Five
Build a phenomenal search tool. Advertise on your site as if it was a bill board on an interstate – people should be able to glance through and find their information quickly. Let them find the testimonials, mix up the testimonials too. Allow the consumer to go through your maze with ease. If they still cannot find what they are looking for – make it easy for them to contact you. (And if they do, make sure you follow up with them quickly.)

Step Six
Remember what people did, who they are, plus what they like and dislike. You have to build up a preference repository for segments, products or services, and individuals.

Step Seven
Ask the consumer to give you their feedback & most importantly keep seeking the consumers’ expertise (through testimonials). Invite them to become part of your panel. Consumers prefer input from other consumers and this is how transactions are completed.

Engagement over the internet is easier if done correctly. It is about preferences, empowering consumers, & creating interactive conversations with those you seek.

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A few ideas on perfecting your personalization strategy

I walked into the perfect restaurant. In addition to their standard menu, they allow you to pick your meat(s), your vegetables, your condiments, & how you want it - all to try and please you. They have impeccable service and they actually check up on you at least three times during every meal.

First it is your server, next it is the manager, then it is back to your server before they bring you your check.

As usual, it was a wonderful dining experience, superb food, excellent service and tons of variety.

They stay busy, they have a lot of repeat business, & a lot of word of mouth marketing. Their personalized touch offers lots of lessons here for online marketers.

Typically when I first sign up for emails from a company there’s a sense of curiosity about the offers I’ll receive, the more targeted and personalized they become, the more I like it. I love for the company to personalize, to interact regularly and dive deeper through surveys. You can kick it up a notch by making offers relevant to the consumers browsing and purchases – tie the offers to your web analytics so you can see what categories people are visiting on your site.

The more a consumer clicks, the more you know, add purchase data to the mix, and package all of this to create a very personalized approach to email marketing. There are other companies are on the opposite end of the spectrum, I signed up for emails from a coffee company after purchasing three of their blends. I filled out the paper survey (included in the shipment) telling them which of the blends I liked and didn’t. Unfortunately, I don’t think the results were incorporated into their marketing mix, because I still get the same emails targeting their top blend (which I liked the least)… why ask if you aren’t going to use the information?

So the three things to think about when you think personalization - first, make sure you are grateful your consumer has come to you - thank them for the purchase, & learn as much as you can about them. Next, apply this learning to personalize what you are sending them. Third - be tactful as you ask them for referrals, check up on the consumer - see if they are happy with what you have provided. Do this throughout the lifecycle of their purchase and they will appreciate it. Now, don't be bashful about asking them for that referral on Facebook.

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How and when to leverage consumer engagement opportunities

There are endless opportunities to gather customer insight, feedback and strengthen relationships with your consumers. Businesses need to take advantage of these opportunities to engage the consumer in a dialogue.

Here are a few opportune times to engage the consumer:

• During the initial engagement or signup

• The 'tell us what you think link' (within each email & every transaction)

• If they stopped in between - an abandoned cart, an incomplete booking, or a half filled form

• After a transaction - could be a call, a visit to your branch, a purchase, an inquiry...

• If they want to drop off your list

Once you collect this information, try to leverage it into your dialogue. Most businesses do not even acknowledge the consumer who provided this additional insight. A sign up via email should receive an email thank you. Same thing with Facebook & Twitter - send a message, and try to personalize as much as possible.

Don't treat your recipients like carbon copies - especially if they have provided you with information about themselves. The fastest way to engage your recipients in a dialogue is through the application of relevant personalization and preferences, the easiest way to gather that information is to survey your consumers at one or more points in the recipient communication lifecycle.

When your consumer joins you on your Facebook page, or signs up for your email program, or follows you on Twitter - don't forget that they have invited you to converse with them! Think of ways to facilitate the dialogue, so you can continue the conversation.

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10 Ways to Leverage Cause Marketing this October

Brands across the globe leverage October to promote awareness about breast cancer. Awareness of the cause helps in many ways - it leads to check ups that could be timely, it helps in soliciting donations that lead to research, and it gets the consumer involved. Pink ribbons come out to raise awareness and organizations across the globe get involved.

Many marketers are sincere in their messaging as they promise to donate a percentage of their revenue towards the cause. Cause marketing does work. Here are 10 things marketers could do to truly leverage cause into their marketing mix:

1 - Make sure the cause is visible. Don't make the callout to the cause hard to find within the message. If the consumer can't see it nothing will happen.

2 - Make sure your organizations contribution is clear. Tell the consumer what you intend to do even if it is just that you are simply raising awareness.

3 - Make sure your messaging is empathetic. Remember you have to connect with the consumer and be intriguing enough to grab their attention.

4 - Make sure you dedicate prime real estate on at least some of your messages. Many organizations will slip in a pink ribbon into some corner of their campaigns and it is very hard to see that.

5 - Make sure you test your cause landing page for intuitiveness. If people click through to the landing page, make sure that they know what to do next.

6 - Make sure you follow up after the 'click-through' or 'donation.' Send the consumer a thank you message thanking them for their involvement towards the cause.

7 - Make sure you keep them updated on your 'cause.' Start by segmenting those who have clicked-through or expressed interest into a 'keep abreast' category. Now try to stay in touch with these consumers about how you are doing with your cause. Use significant milestones as a means to let the rest of your consumers know about your progress as well. This might get more people to contribute towards your cause.

8 - Make sure you do this across all your channels. The web - email, your site, social media; your store or branch and your people; your self-service kiosks (airlines need to start making people aware at the check in kiosks, even thought their flight attendants are selling 'pink' drinks for a premium).

9 - Make sure you do this throughout the year. Your organization surely makes philanthropic contributions and you need to highlight your 'softer' side to your consumers throughout the year.
10 - Make sure you get your team involved. Ask other members for their ideas and stories. Real stories are empathetic and can drive engagement.

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15 emails in one month is a terrible strategy!

I read an article on an email marketing blog that detailed how a prospect ought to be targeted – they detailed a three-step process for ensnaring, first the prospect should be tracked for three communiqués.

Once their preferences are captured the prospect should be targeted with seven offers, if the prospect clicked on any link within these offers, they should be sent specials on the items of interest.

This strategy suggested targeting with a total of 12–15 emails within a month to convert them into a buyer, if the recipient succumbed to the trap they should then be moved into other relevant streams. If the prospect wasn't converted, they should be given a breather and re-targeted after a month. This email-only strategy included the promise of great ROI.

While this communications barrage may be awesome for a short-term, it’s important to realize the need for a long-term relationship with your prospects. The customer is expecting a dialogue and it is important that you create a conversation with them, coaxing them to read your messages, buy your product and visit your site or locations. Rather than target them with offers only, consider mixing in lifestyle information, surveys and offers across email and additional channels. It might cost you a little more but your ROI will be much better.

Rising costs have made many companies pay greater attention to their ROI, email continues to gain importance because of its inherent agility, track-ability and low cost. Unfortunately, email can also become an intrusion – focusing on a short-term gain makes it difficult not to step on a prospect’s toes and dash your long-term goals.

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