Conversational Marketing

Marketers’ Super Bowl strategies are locked up by now, so consider the suggestions below more of a wish list than a guide. These apply to far more than the Super Bowl, though, so print them out or save them in Evernote and use them throughout the year ahead.

 

Written by Jeff Bullas - Coca Cola has been part of popular culture for over 100 years and has been called a “Vision Brand“. Recently they have realised that their marketing strategy that has worked well for them for decades needed to evolve and as such they are moving from “Creative Excellence” to “Content Excellence”.

As part of a pilot program in select US markets, French hotel chain Accor Hotels is incorporating social media into its customer loyalty program.  Employees at those hotels identify the loyalty program members who are checking in a given month and research their public profiles on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media websites. They then select a gift to be presented to each guest by the hotel manager.

The fast-evolving world of digital marketing has undergone profound changes over the past year. 2012 will offer us some even more interesting developments.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Content will trump craftiness

Google’s recent (and arguably overdue) change to its search algorithm, or how it ranks sites, was the game-changer of 2011. Google’s older algorithm gave less weight to how frequently a company was being discussed on social platforms like Twitter and more to relevance. On the one hand, expect to see more results to be linked to timely and social relevance and less to esoteric tinkering. On the other, as its product offering becomes arguably more robust, expect a bit of backlash over Google’s keyword and site promotion offerings (have you noticed how those sponsored sites are slowly taking over the results page?). The burden of authentic, timely and relevant content on the part of companies will become ever more important.

Written by Jeff Bullas - View Comments Categories: Blog, Blogging, Content, Social Media, Social Media Marketing Why do you turn on the television? Why do you open a magazine? Why do you read the newspaper, whether it is online or folded and crumpled on your coffee table? We want to be entertained, amused and educated and the reason you open the laptop, turn on the tablet or browse on the mobile, is that we are seeking information and it is called content. Google earns $30 billion a year indexing and helping you find information and content. In an information age, creating content should become the focus of your marketing, whether it is for the consumer or for business.

Webbiquity: 1) The fusion of SEO, search marketing, social media, reputation management, content marketing and social PR. 2) Being omnipresent on the web for the search phrase that uniquely describes you or your organization. 3) The place to find help with all of this. Webbiquity – be everywhere online. Ultimately, as Olivier Blanchard has pointed out repeatedly, social media marketing has to demonstrate an ROI (though he acknowledges the questions have to be made more specific). In the b2b world, the “R” is generally leads (website call-to-action conversions) with some monetary value applied to them.

Posted by Sean McGinnis on Dec 28, 2011 in Blog, Business, Sales & Marketing | 6 comments It’s December. That means it’s time the time to give thanks for our successes of the last year and start thinking about changes we’d like to make in the coming year – both personal and professional. It’s also time to reflect back on the year that has passed and assess what worked and what didn’t. Financial and business plans are an inevitable part of this process. But don’t forget to review your marketing efforts of the past year and begin planning for next year as well.

Written by Jeff Bullas - View Comments Categories: Blogging, Micro Blog, Social Media, twitter I was talking to a friend the other day and she asked me “what is twitter about?” Well my answer went like this......

Join us as we reflect on the past year in social media: highlighting historical moments, notable achievements, new terms and alarming statistics.

I attended University a very long time ago, where I started out pursuing Graphic Design and then transitioned to an interdepartmental degree: Sociology, Industrial Psychology and Business. Art was interesting, but I was only mildly talented and there was no digital program (this was pre-internet). As I look at the state of the social web today, I am amazed at what a dynamic and interesting time we live in. I wonder what it would be like, studying social psychology and organizational development now, with the ubiquity of the social web and transformation of internet access from PCs to mobile devices.

One area of interest to me is the impact of persuasion and behaviors. Not just individual behaviors, but that of groups. Since I’m in the business of marketing, it’s an interesting intersection between my past studies and what many companies are in need of today in terms of understanding social technology adoption, social communications, knowledge transfer, community and collaboration.

Customer engagement can now be optimised through use of conversational marketing technology, enabling cross-channel, inbound/outbound and one-to-one personalised dialogues, including over Facebook and Twitter – explains François Laxalt (pictured).

Over the past few years, marketers have begun moving from multi-channel but siloed marketing techniques, towards integrated cross-channel approaches. In doing so, they have broken down channel silos and combined the attributes of multi-channel marketing with tools that manage customer information and marketing performance – extending across multiple channels, including traditional and emerging technologies, to deliver meaningful content to customers and prospects. francois-laxalt-web-manager-of-marketing-intelligence-at-neolane-2

For cross-channel marketing organisations, all campaigns, irrespective of channel, are co-ordinated and consistent, forming part of a customer lifetime dialogue. When done well, the benefits of a cross-channel strategy are clear. I can name companies that have increased response rates by 30 per cent or more following a move to cross-channel, one-to-one marketing. Companies such as Debenhams, EMI Music, Photobox and top ten European bank, Caisses d’Eparge.

BEST DIGITAL CAMPAIGNS 2011 by Gregory Pouy In this presentation, which he prepared in English exclusively for you, Greg goes beyond reporting on 11 catchy digital campaigns. He tells you WHY they excelled, and WHAT the results were. And it is all presented in an entertaining and stylish manner.

Last Thursday saw over 120 people pile into the Bench Bar at Surrey Sports Park to listen to Jon Bishop (@jonin60seconds), Head of Social Media at PayPal UK, talk about how mobile is changing our world. Jon delivered a fascinating and engaging talk that sparked an array of conversations both on and offline. Discussing mobile innovation in Africa (streets ahead!), the London riots and how communities have changed, Jon’s presentation was filled with thought-provoking facts, figures and topics. Jon has kindly shared his presentation online, so if you missed it, you can view it here: How mobile has changed your world On the evening we heard from our sponsors, CallMasterMobile (@callmastermob), who very generously provided everyone with a welcome drink – very much appreciated by the whole community! If you’d like to find out more about...

Take one look at your open rates and you’ll understand that the primary reason for your own failure is unopened email. Obviously you cannot get your message across if your audience deems it not worth listening to from the get-go. You are in a BATTLE for the soul of your targets’ highly guarded inbox.

Einstein defined insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” If your content marketing is on autopilot and you’re not getting the results you want, I wouldn’t say you’re insane, but you could certainly use some fresh ideas.

Social Marketing Science: Timing Maximizes Engagement On Twitter And Facebook

[Note from Lee: This week's guest post is from someone I've known from the Search Marketing world for a long time. Bryan Eisenberg is a Wall Street Journal & New York Times Best Selling Author, popular keynote speaker and well respected guru in all things related to marketing and conversion optimization. We serve on the SES Conference Board of Advisors together and as he's elevated his status in the business world, has always been helpful and full of practical advice. You'll see that in this pos...

A lot of the blog content planning for business blogs focuses on different ways to tell the same story about a company’s products, services and key messages. If it’s an SEO approach, then the focus is on content to justify visibility on search engines for specific keywords. Blogs are a great resource for people that are searching for answers, insight, how to’s, others’ experiences and opinion. Finding a way to create content that meets customer needs as well as achieving high search visibility for relevant business solutions is what makes blogs such useful online marketing assets.

One particularly effective way to get content ideas for blogging comes from reviewing web analytics for the kinds of questions people type in to search engines like Google or Bing that deliver visitors.

For example, with derivatives of ”social media” as a group of target keyword phrases for this blog, I noticed that numerous visitors each month literally typed in to Google: “what does a social media manager do?” and “what does a community manager do?” sending them to a post, ”A Glimpse at What a Social Media Community Manager Does” that ranked well for those questions.