Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’
Last Friday and this past Monday the stock market took major hits. Yesterday it came back. One of the biggest losers was LinkedIn which some say was overvalued. While I am not all that knowledgeable when it comes to company valuations I have been using LinkedIn more and more and with great success.
The main reason I consider it a success is that people respond to inquiries on LinkedIn more than any other social networking portal I have used.
An article in DM News http://bit.ly/pMMuZF highlights increases in LinkedIn’s revenue – and it was from Friday August 5th shortly before the stock took a pounding.
My work in developing our China business requires expertise far beyond that of my regular circle of contacts. LinkedIn has offered me a way to engage total strangers by asking for help, offering help and simply offering my opinion on something they might have written or said. What continually surprises me is the rate of return on what I consider to be a very minor investment.
Of course not all my inquiries are responded to. And I know I need to be careful since there is a rating system on LinkedIn such that if enough people complain about being spammed or contacted inappropriately you can be blacklisted from making outreaches to people you don’t know using a feature on LinkedIn called ‘Inmail’.
But I am here to tell you that if you are not using the Premium or Pro access on LinkedIn you are missing out on opportunities to connect with people in way that has never before been possible. However I do wonder how long this open-networking will last. If people begin to be deluged with requests from all over the map the opportunity conduit that LinkedIn offers may well become unworkable and unusable.
In case you are wondering I try to be as open as possible myself when it comes to answering questions posed to me on LinkedIn. I also receive offers to Link In with people I don’t know but my policy is to not Link In with total strangers. Yet answering a question for a total stranger (provided it is a relevant question and something that I can help with) is something I always agree to do.
I believe LinkedIn is the best of all the social networks in offering a value proposition. Yes better than Facebook and better than Google+ (which is on the rise as far as I am concerned).
How about you – are you getting everything out of LinkedIn that you could? Or do you think it’s too much trouble and a waste of time?
Despite all the talk about marketing via social networks, mobile marketing and digital display, the ‘traditional’ consistently performing channel – good old direct mail – continues to grow. While mass mailings of the 1980’s and 1990’s have diminished (I still recall the days when we would print more than 10,000,000 mail pieces for some of CGSM’s clients), 1:1 print marketing has flourished.
How can this be? Weren’t digital advertising and social media going to be the death of direct mail? To paraphrase Mark Twain – ‘Rumors of its death are greatly exaggerated’. Winterberry Group’s Bruce Biegel recently reported that in 2010 direct mail spending in the United States was $ 45.2 billion. More than any other single direct response channel.
The primary reason direct mail is growing once again is that it works. There were declines in 2007, 2008 and 2009 due to economic concerns and the general business climate. But the fact is that people trust direct mail more than online offers. Highly targeted direct mail via the use of sophisticated personalization resonates with consumers. There is also a perception (correct I might add) that direct mail requires a greater investment on the part of the marketer when compared to digital marketing techniques such as display or email marketing.
There are initiatives floating around the U.S. Congress such as ‘Do Not Mail’ and ‘Do Not Track’. The ‘Do Not Mail’ initiatives stem from the perception that trees are being harvested to send people mail they would rather not receive. The Direct Mail industry has to do a better job of adopting consumer choice initiatives in order to not send people mail who do not want to receive marketing messages.
As for ‘Do Not Track’, clearly people have privacy concerns when it comes to the use of their personal data for marketing purposes. The digital marketing community also has work to do in order to educate and assure people that individual behavioral and purchasing data is not being passed around from marketer to marketer. This debate has supplanted the ‘Do Not Mail’ debate in Congress which is yet another advantage for direct mail marketing.
Customer prospecting via direct mail remains challenging but not impossible. Financial institutions like banks and insurance companies continue to refine their efforts to acquire new customers through direct mail. And direct mail as a contact management strategy is an extremely effective tool to build a relationship and move an identified prospect to becoming a customer.
I still look at the mail every day that I am home to see what we’ve been sent. Yes some of it is not relevant to me but it might be to other members in my family. We only have one mailbox after all, unlike email, text or mobile messages.
So don’t abandon all your direct mail efforts for the hot new channels of today. While social media marketing, digital display, search engine marketing, mobile marketing and word-of-mouth marketing are all great new channels, tried and true direct mail should be an integral part of your marketing toolkit.
Do you look at the mail as soon as it arrives? Do you like receiving mail?
According to the “State of Inbound Marketing Report” from Hubspot, as reported by Marketing Charts, inbound marketing is continuing to grow in importance at the expense of outbound marketing. This is good news and further validation that paid search, SEO, social media, blogging really resonate with consumer as well as marketers. For a copy of the pdf – http://bit.ly/aewfHr
With so many marketers looking to employ social media and other non-traditional outlets the report should serve notice that attracting interest in products and services will become the dominant method of marketing. And I could not be happier.
I posted last October that my hope was with the passing of pitchman Billy Mays http://bit.ly/anfWYD the shouting might finally stop. In an article by Stuart Elliott in today’s New York Times http://nyti.ms/9CQlR9 companies like Proactiv are also getting the message that fast and loud is no longer the way to promote products. When the giant infomercial and marketing firm Guthy-Renker tests a less ‘noisy’ approach, that’s big marketing news indeed.
Eliminating in your face direct marketing come-ons still will take time. And don’t think for a second that there aren’t consumers out there that don’t respond to FREE, and ACT NOW. There are many of them out there and the older you are the more accustomed (ok inured) to the blast and hope approach. They continue to be effective but if you look closely you can see the tide is changing.
Why do I think it’s better to attract? Mainly because it offers the prospect/consumer to choose to pay attention what interests them and to disregard messages that they individual feels are irrelevant. The result should be a deeper level of customer engagement since it’s THEIR choice to engage. It does present a major challenge and shift in thinking for marketing agencies. That shift has already begun and there is now a mad scramble in the agency world to show understanding, performance and measurement for social media campaigns in particular.
I’m both intrigued and excited at the direction things are heading with regard to attracting more interest as opposed to promoting it. To give you an example we have a client that wanted to send out text SMS messages to ‘opted-in’ teens promoting music in mall stores. While that can work (and we are planning to test) we suggested signage in the malls noting the number to text to in order to receive free music at the store. We are in development of the campaign right now.
Which do you think will work better?