Five Major Marketing Challenges Faced by Event Vendors and Ways to Cope

Special guest post by Jeff Copeland, owner of Simple Weddings and Tampa Bay Search.

I’m a marketing guy, and I’m also a wedding vendor. Sometimes the two complement each other nicely. But the wedding industry is unique in many ways and, frankly, wedding vendors are sometimes better off ignoring traditional marketing and advertising advice aimed at other industries.

Here are five major challenges faced by businesses in the wedding industry and some ways to cope with them:

1.   Marketing to a steady stream of new prospects instead of a “cycle” of repeat customers

The wedding industry is unique in that you only get one shot to market to your prospects. Generally speaking, couples only get married once. So, even if they are absolutely thrilled with the service you provided, they aren’t likely to be a repeat customer anytime soon. This fundamental difference from many other industries makes a lot of typical marketing advice null and void, and makes things like email marketing very difficult.

Ways to cope:

• SEO – Increasingly, today’s brides and grooms aren’t picking up the yellow pages or watching many television commercials. They get their news and entertainment online, and if they need something, they Google (or Bing) it. You have to be there when they search! If you have not invested the time and effort in search engine optimization, you are missing more and more potential customers every day. [Check out my "What the Heck is SEO?" series and "How Google Instant Affects SEO and What It Means for Your Website" for more info]
• Social Media – Granted, your wedding clients probably aren’t coming back. But their friends might! That is what makes social media platforms such as Facebook so powerful. If your happy clients “friend” you on Facebook, all of their friends and contacts are introduced to your Facebook profile. Some of them may be in the wedding market soon.
• Reviews – When you shop for something on Amazon, what is the first thing you read about a product? I don’t know about you, but I always scroll down to the customer reviews section before anything else, and it’s often the only thing I read before making a purchase. Your prospects are hungry for feedback from people who have already used your service…feed them! Choose a single, reputable platform (such as Google Places, OneWed, or WeddingWire) to capture all of your customer reviews and make getting these reviews an integral part of your follow-up with clients after their wedding (we have had great success by offering a free gift such as a wedding picture). And most importantly, make these reviews prominent and easy for new prospects to find and read!
• Diversify – Think of some ways you might be able to get your wedding clients to come back or use your skills  and equipment for other related opportunities . Family portraits (for photographers), vow renewals, other special events? 

2.   The long buying cycle

Brides and grooms often have a very long lead time from the time they enter the market until their wedding date. What this means for you as a wedding vendor is brides may be checking out your website, blog, social media presence, and customer reviews a year or more before their wedding day, and possibly months before they even contact you.

Ways to cope:

• Quality content – Give your prospects a reason to keep coming back! If a bride visits your website or blog, saves you to their favorites, then comes back a couple of months later only to find nothing has changed, she probably won’t come back a third time. It’s fine for your website content to be relatively static (as long as it is current and accurate), but you can always add pictures from recent weddings or stream your blog’s RSS feed to your website to keep things fresh.
• Blog – Your blog, on the other hand, needs to have a steady stream of quality fresh content. You should be posting your favorite pictures from your recent weddings, planning tips, advice, and guest posts from industry professionals on a regular basis in order to give your prospects a reason to come back on a regular basis. Remember, if nothing else, time spent looking at your website or blog is time spent staring at your logo!
• Pictures – I can’t stress enough how important it is to have high quality pictures on your website, blog, and social media presence. Brides love pictures. Let me repeat that – BRIDES LOVE PICTURES! And this is one area where the wedding industry has a leg up – If you’re not a wedding photographer, chances are you work with a few on a regular basis. Most would be thrilled to share some of their work with you for display on your website or blog as long as they are credited for the picture. 

3.   The seasonal nature of bookings, weddings, and cash flow

In most areas, January and February are the busiest time of year for wedding inquiries and new bookings (people tend to get engaged over the holidays and start their wedding planning after the first of the year). Unfortunately, the holidays and the beginning of the year also tend to be the slowest time of year for actual weddings – meaning your cash flow is probably at its lowest at the very time you need to be out there advertising to new brides!

Ways to cope:

• While it’s sometimes easier said than done, try to save some money and plan your advertising spending for maximum impact. Often, this means spending as much as 50% of your annual advertising budget from January through March in order to lock in those Spring and Summer weddings.
• Consider offering payment plans. Many wedding vendors take a deposit when the wedding is booked, then collect the remaining balance on or just before the wedding date. If a couple has six months or more between the time they book and their wedding date, consider letting them make interest free monthly payments in the months leading up to their wedding. This has the double benefit of spreading out your cash flow more equitably throughout the year, and decreasing the likelihood of cancellations. 

4.   The Economy, Stupid

Every wedding vendor knows that our industry closely follows national economic trends. Let’s face it, many wedding services are “optional” and aren’t absolutely necessary to ensure a beautiful wedding. When the economy goes south, so does wedding spending by brides and grooms-to-be.

Ways to cope:

• Go where the money is - consider offering lower cost alternatives to your typical services or well-conceived discounts to brides on a budget or including more services in your current prices.
• Partner – could you package your services with those of another vendor (or group of vendors) to offer a broader range of services and increase the perceived value to your prospects? 

5.   Low cost competition

Some segments of the wedding industry have low barriers to entry. Let’s face it, anyone with good organization skills can call themselves a wedding planner, and anyone who can afford a decent camera could conceivably take someone’s wedding pictures.

Ways to cope:

• Educate your prospects and clients – many of your prospects would be shocked to find our how much your equipment cost or how much time you spend on pre- and post- wedding activities. Pull back the veil (no pun intended!) and give them an inside look at how you prepare their wedding venue or edit their wedding pictures [Note: Your blog is the perfect place to do this!]. If your prospects and clients really understand your art, they’ll value it accordingly.
• Build your brand – Imagine you are looking at two rental cars. You have to choose one for your trip, but both are under a cover, and all you can see is the hood ornament. One says Mercedes. The other says Kia. Which one do you choose and why? Obviously, Mercedes is the stronger brand, and (all other things being equal) consumers will choose the trusted brand everytime. Your brand has value. I want to stress that this has nothing to do with your logo, and everything to do with your business model, marketing, copywriting, and reputation. This takes time to build, but it serves as insurance against upstart competition!
• Find your target market – Once you truly understand your target market, the competition dwindles. This is called your unique selling position. Focus on doing one thing and doing it like no one else can. If you are truly unique, there is no competition, is there? 

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co  

15 Key Social Media Analytics Terms

1. Social Reach

The total number of users associated with a brand on different social media platforms.

(For example, a company with 10,000 Twitter followers, 7,000 Facebook fans, 3,000 blog subscribers and 1,000 YouTube subscribers has a total Social Reach of 21,000)

2. Social Reach Velocity

A percentage representing a brand’s capacity to increase its social reach over time.

(For example, if a company’s social reach was 10,000 in January of 2011 and became 15,000 six months later, then it has 50% social reach velocity.)

3. Social Profile

The aggregated shares, comments, and overall brand-related activities of a social media user.

(Social profile examples include: Twitter followers, Facebook fans, RSS subscribers and so forth )

4. Social Conversion

The percentage of visitors originating from social media who take a desired action.

(Examples of desired actions include product sales, downloads, newsletter subscriptions, membership registrations and so forth.)

5. Social Mention

The overall mentions of your brand on social media in a positive/neutral/negative context over a specific period of time.

(SocialMention.com is an excellent tool that offers four important social mention metrics: strength, sentiment, passion and reach)

6. Brand Sentiment

The ratio of positive brand mentions to negative mentions.

7. Share of Voice

Brand share of voice = (total number of mentions of you + your competitors)/ your mentions.

8. Share of Social Conversations

Brand Share of Social Conversations= Social Brand Mentions/All Relevant Conversations

9. Social Media Impressions

The number of users’ reactions to your own content on social media, including retweeting, commenting, sharing and so forth.

10. Optimal Engagement Times

The best times to share content or engage with your network on social media.

(Studies have shown that many social media sites (such as Twitter and Facebook) have peak hours: the times when it’s most effective to share updates or interact with user )

11. Content-to-Contact Ratio

The ratio between a brand content and social network expansion.

(For example, if your content-to-contact ratio is 3:1, it means that for every 3 pieces of content you publish, a new user is added to your social network.)

12. Content-to-Share Ratio

The ratio between your brand content and social network sharing.

(For example, if your content-to-share ratio is 3:1, it means that for every 3 pieces of content you publish, one piece of content is shared on social media channels.)

13. Activity Ratio

The ratio of active members of your brand’s social network versus total members.

14. Bounce Rate

The time it takes site/blog visitors originating from social media to lose interest and leave your site.

15. Targeted Social Traffic

The percentage of social media traffic to your site/blog that results in sales compared to the overall social media traffic.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

NOTE: This glossary is not presented in alphabetical order because some terms are related to each other. So, I figured it’s best to order them in a way that will help you understand all of them without having to skim back and forth.

Achieving The Coveted:Viral Marketing

Viral campaigns yield the highest ROI... Information about your product spreads naturally, like a contagious disease... only a good one...

I once read up on the 5 C’s of viral marketing:Community, Compelling, Comedy, Charity, and Contest

Let's talk Community...

We all know that viral marketing in the social media space is all about communities. In fact, I would argue that communities play a larger role than most people think, both online and offline. They can build a brand, kill a brand, make a career, break a career, influence elections, etc. Think about it; from an offline perspective, life is community driven through PTA organizations, church groups, sports leagues, stay-at-home mommy groups, and various school organizations (sororities, fraternities) to name a few. And of course online, you have Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, Stumbledupon and hundreds of other social media sites jumping in the scene daily.

Within each of these online/offline communities consumers are talking and having conversations with each other. And, they are sharing opinions, experiences, advice, recommendations and commentary about products, services and companies usually based on real personal experience.

THIS IS VIRAL MARKETING.

The challenge with viral marketing is that it’s not always viral, if that makes any sense... Often, marketers plan for and label their marketing plans as “viral” but 9 times out of 10, it never catches on. It’s the things that just happen by accident that become viral. Remember the Diet Coke and Mentos video? At first, Coca-Cola distanced themselves from the exploding Diet Coke and Mentos viral video phenomenon, fearing it would damage their reputation and brand; however, just recently that have fully embraced the concept and now there are over 7,000 consumer generated videos on YouTube, millions of pageviews, hundreds of comments, and favored by thousands of fans. The community here is not only the millions of YouTube enthusiasts, but also the micro-communities of people and their offline conversations about these videos.

So, while I do believe it is impossible to craft a viral campaign, you can certainly try to influence one:

• Formulate your marketing message.  Think about the product or service you are advertising and create a message that communicates the benefits and uses of what you are selling.  A website is nonnegotiable.  
• Make the content on your website sharable. For example, you can allow readers to embed a funny video from your website onto their own blogs. An "email this article to your friend" link is another way information spreads from one person to another.
• Use email as a viral marketing tool. Include a marketing message about your product or service in the tag lines of your emails and also include your advertising message in auto responder emails you send to those who email you.
• Post your content on other Internet sites such as message boards and blogs. However, do this carefully; many forum managers are now aware of this practice and may delete your messages if they think it's spam.
• Incorporate your marketing message into rich media. Video clips and Flash games are very popular on the Internet, so if you have a great idea for this medium your message will spread like wildfire.
• Spread your message off line as well. Tell your friends and colleagues about your product or service and hand them business cards with the URL on them along with a catchy tag line, perhaps the same one you use in your emails.

What are you doing to boost your buzz factor?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co  

Google Instant Search and its impact on SEO

During Tuesday’s major search event in San Francisco Google announced a new search feature called Google Instant which will significantly change the way users search for information on Google Search.

Google Instant - Live updating search result page

This new interface updates as a user types in the search query. Not only will the regular search results update as a user types in letters in the search field, but elements from Universal Search (maps, news, shopping, etc) as well as AdWords ads will also update in real time. This results in a user seeing a much larger set of search results as the query is being typed in and refined. In addition, the query suggestions (Google Suggest) play a more central role in discovering possible queries and relevant websites.

Why Google Instant is cool?

• Dynamic Results  Google dynamically displays relevant search results as you type so you can quickly interact and click through to the web content you need.
• Preditions  One of the key technologies in Google Instant is that the rest of your query is predicted before you finish typing?  See what you need?  Stop typing, look down and find what you're looking for.
• Scroll to Search  Scroll through predictions and see results instantly for each as you arrow down.

To the Webmaster, Google Instant is cool because as users are shown a much larger set of search results, there is a higher chance of your pages being displayed in the SERPs.  In addition, users can now more easily modify their search which results in more specific query that will drive more relevant traffic to your website (See my post on The Importance of Longtail Keywords).  And relevant traffic means conversion!



Impact of Google Instant Search on SEO

In general this new feature won’t change the basic rules of SEO since Google’s algorithms will continue evaluating webpages in the same way as before. Webmasters should hence continue focusing on their content, traffic, and conversions.

What will change, however, is the way users will go about finding information, how they interact with search results as they learn to use more specific search queries, and how they review the results before making a choice.

• CTR is the new ranking. The click-through rate for organic listings becomes more important than pure rankings since users will see many more search results in each session.
• Creating relevant content which better targets specific queries will drive more traffic as users learn to perform better searches.
• Experimenting with page titles and snippets and tracking the changes in CTR becomes even more important.
• Universal Search listings (images, video thumbnails, maps, shopping, etc) will attract more clicks since dense graphic elements will draw more attention in a fast updating interface.
• The traditional Golden Triangle theory regarding the users’ eye movements on search result pages is no longer true. Earlier you performed a search, sat back and studied the results and the ads before either clicking on a listing, or modifying your query. This will now be substantially different as the users’ eyes will wander up and down between the query field, listings, Universal Search entries, and AdWords ads. I’m looking forward to the first eye tracking study for the new search page.
• Searches with short queries will fall considerably since people usually come to Google with a very specific goal in mind. The now interactive search result page allows users to dig deeper into a subject until they’ve found a reasonable set of search results which better fits their intent.

For those proclaiming the death of SEO, I would actually argue the opposite.  This is definitely a game changer but it does not change the way serious SEOs have worked for a long period of time. That includes focusing on important Key Performance Indicator’s other than rankings. Instant Search is however a massive headache for those who still treat SEO as a magic formula and have been focusing on optimizing for mere nuances in Google’s search algorithm. They will continue wasting their time focusing on the petty details in the algorithms instead of working on improving the overall value of the sites they are promoting.

All in all, no matter what some people wrongly proclaim, SEO is certainly not dead - it just got more interesting.

How will you change your SEO strategy given Google Instant?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Enourmous Benefits of Blogging

I am already on record as pointing out that if you want to raise your visibility and get in touch with your audience, it’s a good idea to blog.  It does take a little chunk of time out of your agenda, but it’s probably no more than you should spend on marketing, anyway.  Also, I’ve seen many outstanding blogs….most notably by Guy Kawasaki… that are all photos and captions.  But then Kawasaki goes to really interesting places like a battle ship or Red Square.  And if he photographs something ordinary like a tech company office, you can rest assured it is no ordinary office but an incredibly creative, way out there, in a class of its own, office.

My point is, blogging can take as much or…almost… as little time as you want it to.  And if you aren’t doing it yet, perhaps you should take a look at the following:

1) Blogs initiate dialog with web visitors

Blogs start a two-way traffic with web visitors. When you write about your products and services and write with authority, as though you are the master of your business and with in-depth knowledge about your products and services, you not only create awareness of the benefits and disadvantages about the product and service you deal in, you engage people’s attention. Your blog should also have a call to action, to make the readers of the blog interact with your website.

A call to action can mean asking them to leave comments, encouraging them to speak out. Comments left by the readers of blogs might include inquiries and leads that could lead to sales.

Blogs generate a prospective about your company. It silently speaks about the culture and vision of your company and even helps in building a brand image.

2) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Benefit of blogging

Blogs peppered with targeted keywords, keyword phrases and search terms related to your business puts blogs in plain sight whenever web visitors use related search terms. Instead of using long-tail keyword phrases, targeting niche keywords will help in attracting more qualified web traffic.

3) Blogs attract more links

Blog are meant to be informative and not advertisements. Informative quality, industry related articles that provide insight or a critical analysis of product and services you deal in helps you to get more links.

Links will get better search engine rankings for your website and will help in generating more traffic.

4) Fresh, original content for blogs

Fresh and original web content is the feed for search engine spiders. Websites that are updated frequently get crawled by the search engine spiders more often. Your website gets more authority and better search engine ranking.

By now, you should have enough reasons to be seriously considering blogging. For your interest and for the interest of getting more visitors to your website, blogging is the way to go. You can get started now by viewing the following tutorial videos:

How to Create a Blog on Blogger

How to Create a Blog on Wordpress

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/  

And In This Corner...

What research is available to demonstrate the superiority of online market research versus traditional -- in terms of "soundness" and validity -- and and vice versa?

In my experience I do find that online marketing methods are more efficient than traditional marketing in terms of "soundness," "validity," and most importantly, measurability and ROI, however, I feel an integrated, 360-degree approach is really key to the marketing mix.

Here are some great statistics on the effectiveness of online marketing but it also speaks to integration as a winning approach:

http://www.clickz.com/3626795

I agree with (name ommitted) who asks whether online is really considered nontraditional at this point. However, given the current economic climate, I find online marketing the more efficient of the two.

Unfortunately, the traditional marketing and advertising sectors are bearing the brunt of the current economic conditions budget cuts. Emarketer reports that 59% of marketing executives initiated a decrease in spending on traditional marketing in 2008 and 65% decreased budgets for traditional advertising. Additionally, the Newspaper Advertising Association of America reports that total newspaper advertising revenues fell by $3-billion in the first six months of 2008, marking the lowest level in 12 years.

In stark comparison to the struggling traditional marketing sectors, online marketing firms have been steadily building market share for several years and are surprisingly unaffected by the current failing markets. Displaying a clear strength in a clearly chaotic business environment, both paid search and online advertising revenue have grown by over 28% since 2007. Marketing Sherpa reports that nearly half of medium to large businesses plan to increase their Search Engine Optimization (SEO) spending in the upcoming year.

I find online marketing benefits outweigh those of more traditional methods in that online offers...

1. Quantifiable Results.  Businesses who advertise online or use SEO can track and measure precisely how their company was discovered, the keywords used in a Google search, click through rates on advertisements, and direct sales results based on internet ads or searches. With this specific knowledge, tailoring campaigns to a particular market becomes easier and ROI can be easily monitored.
2. Flexible Messaging.  With traditional marketing and advertising methods, there are no second chances at making an impression or communicating a message effectively. Once an ad is placed and printed it is essentially permanent. Online marketing is a much more forgiving and flexible option. If it is shown that internet ads are not getting enough attention, companies can quickly and easily make strategic adjustments and reap the rewards.
3. A Focused Approach.  Using internet marketing, a company can hone in on specific customers that are searching for a particular product or service. Rather than convincing a customer to try their product, internet marketing works to position a company as a resource for those consumers actually seeking their specific business offerings.
4. Cost Effectiveness.  SEO and internet advertising is quite cost effective in comparison with traditional marketing and advertising.

Now more than ever it is important to think strategically about where and how a marketing budget is spent.  With online marketing options showing marketers greater value, flexibility, and insight into the changing trends of the market, we can expect to see more companies advertising online to help their firm weather succeed in the future.

What is the most important variable in your marketing mix?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
www.phantompower.co

What are your top 3 favorite social networks?

"A cord of three strands is not easily broken."

That's applicable where social networking is concerned as well. It's a matter of strengthening your social graph. Being networked with a given individual in three different places makes for a strong connection.

More and more business professionals are using social networks to build relationships, meet new contacts, and market themselves. For the uninitiated, however, diving into the virtual meet-and-greet can be daunting. Where to begin?

LinkedIn

For first-time users, the answer is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is your business suit. Developed specifically for business, the site doesn’t run the risk of blurring your professional life with your private one; and with more than 25 million users, it serves virtually every industry and profession.

While LinkedIn is not very conversational in its orientation, having a profile there has become expected. LinkedIn lends a degree of professional credibility. It is also the site that requires the least amount of upkeep.

Facebook

Now Facebook... that's business casual. Facebook allows more of a 360-degree view of you, combining both professional and personal sides. Plus, it's a more conversational platform.

Twitter

Twitter is cocktail hour. Think of after hours social networking events and you've got Twitter. It's the most informal of the three and allows for the greatest degree of conversation.

It's not enough that you have a presence on each of these sites, but that you leverage your presence to connect with others who are also present on each. Social media is about being "social." Each platform offers its own distinctive advantages, but it takes all three to build the strongest connection. Plus, it gives you ubiquity. You're everywhere!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

The Importance of Long-Tail Keywords

Those of you who have tried in vain for years to rank high for your head keyword of choice know what I am talking about. To those of you who are newly introduced to this wondrous world of SEO, I’ll say this: roll up your sleeves and prepare to wait. Or you can do the smart thing and just target long-tail keywords. You won’t have to deal with all that fierce competition for popular head keywords, and you will be a few steps closer to getting your site rank high.

It comes with one warning: the traffic volumes will be considerably lower than that from a head keyword. But then, the probability of your ranking high for a head keyword is less than unlikely, so the traffic from that keyword will amount to, basically, nothing.

It’s a quantity vs. quality argument. And when you do the math, you will find, the long-tailed keyword is the bird in the hand.

Last month, Google introduced an algorithm update and many webmasters saw a drop in traffic from Google for keyword phrases that are three or more keywords long. However, Google is now able to index longer keyword phrases more accurately. It seems that Google guessed the best pages for long keyword phrases until recently based on other signals and keywords on the indexed pages. The new Google patent indicates that Google now has the computing power to index longer keyword phrases on web pages instead of guessing them.

What does this mean to you? It means that those who have taken the time to anticipate the need of their customers and Google’s customers will be rewarded.

Still not convinced? Consider this:

• Ease When you try to rank for a head keyword, you essentially go into competition with millions of websites. And the odds of your ranking high for that term are very low. For example, if you try to rank for the head keyword “online learning” you’ll have to beat at least 36 million other sites to rank high. Instead, if you use a long-tail with niche terms relevant to your site, like, “online learning in South Carolina” the competition drastically drops to under three hundred thousand. And your odds of ranking high will improve too.
• Speed Thanks to the diminished competition, you don’t have to spend nearly half your life optimizing your site and building links before you can see your site ranking high for long-tail keywords.
• Relevance Since long-tail keywords are more often than not, specific strings of keywords with a niche term; the chances of then meeting the exact search needs of users are very high. This aids the target marketing methods of your overall mix and ultimately drives…
• Conversion The fact that search users will find sites targeting long-tail keywords more relevant contribute another point to chalk up in its favor. Reports attest to the fact that users with specific search queries know exactly what they are looking for and are more likely to turn into customers.
• Exposure This is perhaps the least known advantage of targeting long-tail keywords. Using long tail keywords over a period of time will eventually help you rank higher for your head keywords as well. As your site gains authority and builds its trust quotient, the long-tail keywords will help provide enough targeted traffic and also enough ‘exposure’ to your head keywords that your attempt to target them alone won’t prove to be all that disastrous.

A great thing about targeting long-tail keywords is that you can play around with all the niche terms relevant to your site and try and rank for a series of long-tails. You don’t always have to target “online learning in South Carolina,” “online high school in South Carolina” can help send an entirely different set people swinging to your site. However, targeting keywords on your site alone won’t help you achieve all this, and I doubt if I have to reiterate the importance of building credible links with the right anchor test. Try to have your targeted keywords in as many incoming links (internal as well as external) as possible, combined with your on page optimization efforts, it will do wonders for your ranking.

What are some of your long-tail keyword success stories?

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/  

Creating Word-of-Mouse

Let's get one thing straight... NOTHING is guaranteed to go VIRAL.

There are people who will tell you that it is possible to create a viral campaign that will certainly be a hit, and there are agencies specializing in taking money and making promises.

But I’ve noticed that when organizations (and their agencies) set out to go viral, the vast majority of their campaigns fail.  It is virtually impossible to create a Web marketing program that is guaranteed to go viral; it requires a huge amount of luck and timing. That’s an important point to remember as you work on viral marketing ideas, because it’s unlike the old-rules, numbers-based marketing techniques you’re probably used to. Consider a direct mail campaign: You could always count on a direct mail piece to generate a known number of responses, say 2 percent. So if you needed to have 100 people respond, you sent out 5,000 mailers. Easy, right?

Viral marketing is much different. You just can’t count on numbers in the same way. Many efforts fail miserably, and there are countless Web sites, e-books, and videos that only their creators’ mothers and bosses have seen. However, tomorrow those same marketers might get lucky and get a million people to view their content, driving tens of thousands of people’s interest in their products and services.

View PHANTOM POWER's list of

marketing strategies that tend to yield viral success

However, this importance of timing and luck shouldn’t discourage you from using viral marketing techniques; you just need to learn how to turn the odds in your favor.

Have you achieved viral status with one of your campaigns?  Tell us about it!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Adapt or Perish: The New Dynamics of Digital Marketing

What do you do when your digital partners passionately complain that people "just don't get the new reality"—and your other agency partners assure you that the traditional notions of branding and marketing haven't really changed? You listen.

The gloom-and-doom digital prophets who foretold that the world would be unrecognizable in 10 years turned out to be premature to an extent that we still haven't sorted out. But they had a few points, didn't they? Does anyone now disagree that digital is one of the most critical components of the marketing mix?

And considering the permanently distracted nature of many of today's consumers, doesn't it stand to reason that now, more than ever, a brand needs to have a singular, well-articulated idea of what it stands for, across all media? Isn't that what branding experts have been telling us for decades anyway?

Respecting traditional branding ideas in the face of an increasingly interactive marketplace may best be described as "Tradigital." It's a very real and very practical approach to managing your brand communications and getting the most out of your team and your agency partners when building digital properties. Frankly, it strikes me as the only logical adaptation to an environment where the consumer is demanding more and more interaction with, and control over, your brand—especially the type of control you should by no means simply hand over.

Here are four ways you can make traditional and digital values work within your own organization.
1. Tell the truth

If digital isn't your strength, that's OK. You've employed an agency for that reason. But in the long run you'll want to take a hard look within your organization. Is your commitment to digital obvious by how you staff? Are you identifying and deploying appropriate project leads? Be honest about your capabilities and intentions. This isn't a place where you want to fake it.

2. Share

Make sure all your partners are sharing information, ideas, and expertise. If your digital team isn't included in the process of understanding and defining the market and your brand within it, it will be relegated to a strictly tactical role—a pair of hands creating digital content that may be disconnected from the big idea.

Keep in mind that agencies may not always prefer to play nicely together (even when they say they will). It's not uncommon for agencies to promise "full service" to their clients to keep profit in house. But all involved must understand that the needs of the brand come first.

If you like a little healthy competition between agencies, which may be OK. But don't expect them to work out the hierarchy on their own. You'll need to make the decisions and let them know how you expect them to work together to best serve your digital needs.  

3. Question analytics

At this point, everyone knows they're supposed to be measuring something. It's just not always clear what that "something" is. Become familiar with what the industry values. Identify your key performance indicators. As a colleague once told me, effective analysis is a "hardcore skill set."

This is a function you may want a specialist for, or someone willing to become one. Ultimately, though, you'll want to appreciate that not everything meaningful can be measured, and not everything measured is meaningful.

4. Be tech-agnostic

Challenge yourself and your agency to understand the limitations and the capabilities of several digital platforms. Assign a competent technical director who has a working understanding of the latest technologies and trends.

It's all too common for developers to get comfortable with one platform, either because they've invested in the licensing of it or because they have simply gotten complacent about evolving. Relying on only one platform will substantially limit your digital potential.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Marketers Rank B:B Challenges

What are the greatest challenges that B:B marketers are facing? From generating high-quality leads and a high volume of leads to generating public relations buzz, see which challenges topped the list.

Today's Most Significant Challenges for B:B Marketers to Overcome 

The call from the sales force is not "Give us more leads" – it’s "Give us better leads." As you can see in the chart, marketing teams are aware of this issue and are responding to the challenge. 

Depending on your lead generation process, lead quality may be the result of either the original state of the lead or of a nurturing process to determine if and when the lead is sales-ready. The latter case – a nurturing process – also addresses the second most significant challenge shown in the chart above: marketing to a lengthening sales cycle. 

A strategic nurturing process not only identifies when a lead is sales-ready, but can pinpoint at which stage of the buying cycle the prospect is in, to forecast timely opportunities.

When the quality of a lead is dependent on its original state, it usually means that all but the most obviously disqualified leads are handed off to the sales force as they are generated. Surprisingly, this practice is still very common in B:B marketing.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

The Most Effective Viral Marketing Methods

I struggled with the title of this blog post.  I wanted something kitchy, something to subconsciously imply this is indeterminable... because anybody who tries to sell you a viral marketing campaign should set up shop with an SEO expert who tries to sell you the #1 SER.  It is just not possible to guarantee.  Doesn't mean you can't try...

By far I find narrowcasting activities have proven the most effective for me in terms of generating a viral campaign.  Below are 3 such activities I've implemented over the past year that generated lots of sharing.

Writing 'Special Reports'

• Special Reports work great because they allow you to go into more depth about the Topic or Problem in question where you'll then be able to lead them to how your Product or Service (or Affiliate product) can fix there current problem.
• They give you Instant Credibility, which builds trust in your customer that you are knowlegdable in your industry.
• Website owners are always looking for quality "Free Stuff" to give away or offer to there Visitors and/or Subscribers.
• And your Contact Information will always be inside, no matter what. Meaning, as your report is being passed around the Internet you'll always be able to lead your potential customer back to your website where they could sign-up for your newsletter and/or read up more about your Products or Services you offer.

Putting Together A 'Free eBook'

• Free eBooks work great as well and have the same benefits as I outlined through the special report. The only difference using this approach is, you can put together a free ebook in less time then it would take to produce your special report simply because it doesn't even have to be your own material inside, it can be someone else's.
• And they also allow you to target more then one Product or Service inside because free ebooks are usually a compilation of related articles targetting a particular problem leaving you room to diversify.

Writing 'Articles'

• Writing Articles is probably ONE of the Best and Most Effective Ways to produce a wave of Viral Traffic to your website because every website owner needs FRESH content to feed to there visitors and/or subscribers.
• They also allow you to Target your audience's problem specifically that they're dealing with.
• And at the end of the article you have a spot called the 'Resource Box' to insert your personal Bio and/or Website information. Just imagine if your article were to be picked up by some Newsletter Editor with a large list or High Traffic website and they use it as a 'Featured Article' in there publication, you could see an INSTANT surge of targeted traffic to your website overnight. That's where your 'Resource Box' comes in.

Package a 'Kit' on a Landing Page

• Just using the word 'Kit' sends a message that your prospect is getting something of value. 
• If you package your content of value into a downloadable package that you can store on a Landing Page, you've just exchanged a potentially viral offerings in exchange for lead data.

Perhaps you've noticed what these 3 'viral' methods all have in common...

They're in HIGH demand by website owners.

They're HIGHLY Targeted.

They give You INSTANT Credibility in your industry.

They are all INBOUND MARKETING tactics.

They have YOUR Contact Details leading to Your website.

...they're all FREE!

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/

Customer Data Is The New Black

Few assets are more valuable than a company's customer base. Yet most companies are more systematic about managing their office supplies than their customers.

According to a recent study conducted by eConsultancy, 98% of marketers use at least three channels to deliver messages to their customers, but more than half still store the data they gather from each channel in separate, siloed locations. In the same study, only 35% of marketers report that they collect data from different sources and store it in a single database. And when asked about the challenges of multichannel marketing, 71% cited maintaining high-quality data as a major challenge.

A company's customer base should be managed like an investment portfolio. Like good investment advisers, Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service all share responsibility for maximizing the performance of that portfolio. And that requires a single source of reliable customer data that fuels the operations of each department.

That's why it's so important to manage information about every customer interaction in a shared business system that all customer-facing employees can access and use to communicate with and serve the customer. The customer can then be treated appropriately and consistently because Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service are all aware of her needs, interests, previous purchases, and value.

Such a single view of the customer not only makes it easier for employees to make smarter marketing decisions and interact with customers more effectively but also creates a better experience for the consumer.

Integrating cross-channel data in a single database creates an invaluable corporate asset and accelerates the ability to interact more effectively with customers in real time.

Customer Growth Requires Data

The primary job of Sales and Marketing is to attract and grow customers. Doing that successfully requires using customer data to support customer engagement strategy, interactive marketing technology, and sales and marketing operations.

In B2B marketing, for example, customer growth occurs via account penetration. That means identifying and connecting with more and more individual buyers within the account. In this context, think of the account as a network of multiple sites, composed of multiple buying groups and specific people with responsibility for specific applications—applications for which your products or services meet the customer needs.

Marketing to those very people who make or influence purchasing decisions is mandatory. But businesses tend to assign differing sets of responsibilities to people with roles that look identical from a functional-title perspective alone. As a result, reaching the right people inside an account is difficult, complex, and expensive. Relying on relationships within buyer groups is necessary for identifying other buyer groups and generating referrals.

That complex set of relationships can be visualized as a cube, with account plans being driven from decoding and mapping the relationship network.

Serving Has Become The New Selling

If account penetration is about achieving customer growth by selling your products to more buyers within an account, product penetration achieves growth by selling more products to each buying group. Product penetration is about more than short-term revenue enhancement. It is about creating sustainable customer relationships that are based on delivering value by serving the customer better.

To truly serve customers better, companies must learn to market to a "segment of one," because today's customer wants more control over the content that is being delivered via email, mobile, social media, and website channels.

No longer is it appropriate or acceptable to guess what information or offers the customer wants. In fact, it is destructive to the customer relationship. The recent Subscribers, Fans, & Followers research conducted by ExactTarget found that 90% of consumers unsubscribe, unfan, or unfollow when the communication received from brands is too frequent or the content is irrelevant.

When companies "unsilo" their old single-channel marketing strategies, commit to understanding individual customer needs and interests, manage that insight in a single database, and use it to deliver timely and relevant content, they don't merely sell more: They also create a community of brand advocates who become some of the company's most effective marketers.

PHANTOM POWER
Marketing by Design
http://www.phantompower.co/