Posted by: Grant Garcia, Marketing Coordinator
Facebook users can now book airline tickets through Delta Airlines without leaving the popular networking site. Delta is the first travel company to implement a social commerce channel on Facebook, opening up new possibilities for the ways in which travel is booked online.
After navigating to the “Book a Trip” tab on Delta’s Facebook page, users click on a virtual ticket window to find and book a flight. Delta Air Lines then requests permission to access the user’s basic Facebook data. This information allows the user to book tickets with friends and share their travel plans in their friends’ news feeds.
While this is a revolutionary first step into social commerce for the travel industry, Facebook has been facing privacy concerns lately, and some users have been hesitant to share their personal information on the site. This lack of trust may discourage Facebook members from using Delta’s service. We’ll have to wait and see how popular this new online ticketing tool becomes and how many travel companies follow suit.
Posted by: Grant Garcia, Marketing Coordinator
Historically, email has been a great way to effectively maintain customer contact, while also providing useful industry news and resources. However, because online marketing is evolving and becoming more competitive, inboxes are overflowing with messages that are poorly targeted and irrelevant to users. How, then, do you get your message to rise above the clutter? Incorporating social media and mobile marketing into your email programs can enhance contact with customers at different touch points, while also encouraging interaction.
Companies are utilizing social media calls to action within their email marketing campaigns but are lagging in the implementation of mobile-optimized email. Business emails often include the “Like us on Facebook” or “Follow us on Twitter” buttons, but that’s not enough. According to a recent eROI survey, 63% of marketers say that they’re not even measuring the use of mobile devices for email subscribers. In the same survey, nearly 15% of marketers said that optimizing email marketing for mobile is not important. These statistics are frightening considering that 70 million smartphones are currently in use, with predictions that they will overtake traditional phones within the next 12 months, according to Technewsworld.com.
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Posted by: Chelsea Maxwell, Senior Marketing Coordinator
We hear about social media all the time: “Twitter this. Facebook that.” It borders on annoying, but here’s the thing – it actually works. Many types of companies recognize the value of social media marketing. Non-profit organizations are no exception.
With around 500 million active Facebook users worldwide and Twitter sitting at a cool 190 million users, it almost seems silly for a non-profit organization not to dive into social media. According to a study conducted by Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D and Eric Mattson in 2009, comprised of the 200 largest charities in the United States, “Ninety-three percent of the charities studied have a Facebook profile, 87% have a Twitter presence and 65% have a blog. This new study, a longitudinal look at social media usage among the not-for-profit sector from 2007-2009, reveals that social media has become an incredibly important part of the communication strategy for US charities.”
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Posted by: Gloria Dutton, Senior Marketing Coordinator
When discussing the goals of lead programs with sales teams, we often get one message – volume volume volume. The ‘volume’ mentality has an obvious attraction: at least some of the many leads that come in the door will close. However, when we dig deeper, we all become convinced that volume is less important than delivering quality, closeable leads to sales.
So, what is the process for identifying quality leads before sending them to sales? Lead nurturing programs. They help qualify and guide prospects through the buying cycle by analyzing what offers they are interested in and the specific actions these prospects take. Through learning about prospects, we’re able to target marketing initiatives to be focused on their needs as they gather information and research, evaluate their options and ultimately make a purchase decision.
How do we identify when a lead needs to be nurtured and when they are ready for sales? Start by segmenting by preference. Provide multiple offers on your site requiring registration – everything from white papers and research studies, to pricing sheets and sales contact information.
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Posted by: Erin Wilson, Marketing Coordinator
Getting people to open and read a marketing email can sometimes feel like pulling particularly reluctant teeth. Although email can be highly effective as a marketing tool, the first (and arguably most challenging) step is getting your target audience to open your correspondence. A study by Salted Services discovered that “more than 50% of email recipients delete messages within two seconds of opening them” (BtoB), making it difficult to effectively communicate your message via email. However, this statistic isn’t reason enough to give up on email marketing; there are still plenty of strategies you can implement to increase your open and click-through rates.
Some of the most successful email campaigns utilize these key tactics:
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Posted by: Nicole Johnson, Marketing Coordinator
Most marketers are excited about leveraging social networks to connect with their audiences. Sometimes, in their enthusiasm, they forget to take a step back and ask themselves how they plan to measure the success of their new social media programs.
Your company may have 300 people who “like” your Facebook page or 500 Twitter followers, but what does that mean for your bottom line? Are those fans contributing something measurable to the success of your overall marketing objectives? These are the questions that many marketers aren’t sure how to answer.
A recent study, the 2010 Omniture Online Analytics Benchmark Survey, evaluates ROI on social, mobile and video media, and shows that 55% of respondents cannot effectively measure marketing ROI from their online tactics. The study also found that 86% of respondents consider the ability to track conversions from their online marketing activities as important, but 25% of them are unable to do so.
When you develop a social media strategy, start by setting clearly-defined goals. Once you’ve decided what objectives you’d like your campaign to meet, you can start thinking about how to measure them. Having an effective strategy for evaluating social media marketing programs can give you a competitive edge, so be sure to measure, measure and measure some more.
For information on free tools that can help you measure your social media program, visit Mashable Social Media.
This week, 90octane’s Jim Grinney, Sam Eidson and Brooke Caesar attended the Integrated Marketing Summit in Denver. Sam was a featured speaker on the topic of marketing automation and lead management, and we co-sponsored the event with Eloqua.
We took advantage of the many knowledge-sharing opportunities among top marketers to put together this quick list of hot topics and key learnings from IMS:
- Marketing plans should start with the desired outcome for the organization. Once that’s established, you can outline the marketing objectives, strategy, programs and tactics (in that order).
- Keep asking “why” throughout the course of your marketing programs. Asking why specific objectives are being set, for example, provides insight into bigger business goals.
- Think performance management, not just campaign optimization, to demonstrate how you’re guiding your marketing programs to greater success.
- Communicate how your marketing success is making a business impact to the C-Suite. They’re interested in customer acquisition, retention and growth, so change marketing reports from being tactically focused (CTR, open rate, impressions, etc.) to speaking the C-Suite language (market share, customer value, category growth rates, etc.).
- Remember that, these days, consumers control your brand. From brand experiences to social media, viral content can help grow your company. Use these channels to your benefit. read more »
Posted by: Grant Garcia, Marketing Coordinator
It’s more important than ever for businesses to effectively interact with their customers using social media. Here are five tips businesses should follow when implementing social media strategies:
1. Remember transparency. Make sure content posted on social media networks is representative of the brand. Most information can be seen by anyone, including people who don’t fall into a target audience group. There are countless horror stories of companies that have posted updates to their pages without considering who was reading.
2. Create value. Posting relevant content can build a business’s reputation as a thought leader and source of valuable information. Remember that it’s important to post content that is useful for the audience, not just content that serves the brand.
3. Encourage involvement. Create an interactive atmosphere where the audience can learn about your business, while also sharing their opinion about industry news. Posting comments and engaging in conversation will increase audience involvement and branding efforts.
4. Listen. Social media channels can act as a valuable source of feedback. Genuine concerns or complaints about your company’s products or services should be followed up on. Make sure to take customer insights into consideration when strategizing and improving marketing efforts.
5. Post regularly. Maintaining multiple social media networks can be time consuming, but it’s necessary for enhancing customer relationships. Without regular posts the audience will have no reason to stay engaged.
Posted by: Kerry Houchin, Project Manager
There are two ways to generate BtoB leads using Linkedin: the expensive way and the free way. For advertisers who are willing to spend $25,000 or more, the site offers the “Linkedin Advertising Sales” option, which includes a variety of highly-targeted display ads, polling questions and more. For those with budgets smaller than $25,000, Linkedin offers a DirectAds text ad option that works on a highly-targeted pay-per-click or pay-per-impression model. While both of these options may have a place in your lead generation strategy, you may be wondering how to effectively generate leads without spending part of your precious media budget.
Linkedin is a social network where business professionals go to look for advice and make connections, not a venue where they look to be sold on a product or service. The key to generating leads on Linkedin is to first gain people’s attention and trust, and then become a thought leader in your area of expertise. Make sure to join Linkedin under your own name instead of a company identity. Next, use the search function to find the most active (not necessarily the largest) group in your area of knowledge. Then, join the conversation and, where appropriate, use collateral such as white papers or specially created social media landing pages to add value to the topic.
Remember that it can take time to gain a following on Linkedin and that leads may not be of the same quality that you’re used to seeing from other conversion-driven tactics, but with diligence and patience, Linkedin could become a great lead generator for your business.
Posted by: Erin Wilson, Marketing Coordinator
Although social media is an extremely popular marketing tool for B2C companies, many B2B companies have been hesitant to jump on board. Recently, however, more and more B2B companies are adding social media tactics to their marketing plans. In fact, spending forecasts predict that they will continue to increase their marketing budgets to include social media.
Some B2B companies may still doubt the efficacy of social media, but a recent study featured in eMarketer found that “at least once a week, 33% of active Twitter users share opinions about companies or products, while 32% make recommendations and 30% ask for them.” In other words, companies are being talked about whether or not they have a social media presence. By joining and guiding the conversation, B2B companies can more effectively position their brands and generate leads.
