Is it possible to measure the ROI of social media marketing activities?

The answer is ‘Yes’, ‘No’ and ‘Why’.  Watch this video to get a better understanding of how using social media marketing can grow your business.  This video should also give you a sense of the ROI of your marketing efforts when done correctly.

BTW- you don’t have to be a big corporation to start a social media marketing effort. In fact small businesses and entrepreneurs might have an advantage when using social media marketing.

If you are not already using social media marketing give it a try and let me know what you experience.  I think once you get started using social media to market your business you will be hooked and glad you started.

…and remember to have fun.

How many holiday cards did you get this year?

Any stand out?

Will you remember any of them in 2 weeks? Next month? Next Year?

Don’t get me wrong sending holiday cards is a nice thing to do and many would argue is a good business practice.  I think if your going to spend the time and money on cards why not do something that stands out.  Be Remarkable and do something different.  How about sending a holiday card for a holiday you made up or a holiday not normally associated with sending cards? I bet you will stand out from the crowd.

I remember my grandfather once told my brother when he was first getting started in sales “send Thanksgiving cards to your clients and prospects”.  He was a smart man.  At the time my brother didn’t know what he was talking about.

Who sends Thanksgiving cards? Now every year he sends them out. Very few people that I know of send out cards but it makes perfect sense.  Wish people well for the holidays, thank them for their business and stay front of mind and away from the crowd. Could you do better?  Sure, don’t just sign your name to a generic card but personalize each note.

Do companies honestly believe I am going to do business with them if they send me a greeting card?  Seems like a stretch especially if they just drop a bunch of generic cards with a random signature on the card.  I am a big believer in relationship building and would much rather receive a personal note without a gimmicky or cliché picture.  I know, I know, it is the holiday season and I should lighten up.

If you are going to send me a card make sure it is personalized and stands out otherwise save everyone the time.

Hope you all enjoyed the holidays.

I noticed that many first time marketers and people starting out in social media marketing often don’t understand effective linking.  One benefit of being involved in social media is the ability to build links across the internet (on your blogs, profiles, comments etc) and create your own little web while leaving a trail of backlinks to your site.

I often see the following linking format from those new to social media:

“Josef Katz writes a marketing blog.  Here is the link to his blog:”  http://josefkatz.com

The writter most likely went to the browser’s addresss bar, copied the url and then pasted it into their post.  This link doesn’t tell the search engines what is relevant to the link.  However your site will get “credit” for the link.  The more links you have pointing to your site the better (they are like votes for the search engines).

How to link with inbound or backlinks

So now you know all web-links are not created equal but they all have value.  If you are working on “ranking your site” (show up high in search results) for specific keywords try to create inbound links that use the keyword(s) in the anchor text (the words you click are also referred to as text links, inbound or backlinks).

Take this example:

1. Josef Katz writes a marketing blog.  This links to my site but without the keywords (marketing blog)  in the inbound link.
2. While Josef Katz writes a marketing blog uses the keywords in the inbound link.

The second version is going to help rank my site higher in natural search results when someone searches for “Marketing Blog”.

Note – This tip will help drive traffic to your site through search engine optimization but it takes time and involves a lot more then linking so you won’t see results overnight.

Over the last few week’s I have been asked by friends and business associates to help them get set up in Social Media so they can market their business.  Helping people market their business is my “gig”.  So I took this opportunity to show them the basics.  During the process it occurred to me that I can share this info via a free webinar so more people could benefit.  So if you are interested check out:

Grow Your Business with Social Media Marketing

Here is the description of what I plan to cover:

If you’re not using Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to grow your business—it is time to start. Implementing a Social Media Marketing strategy is the key to exponentially growing your business without breaking your budget.   If you want to set yourself apart from the competition you need to know how to harness the power of social media channels to connect with your target audience.

During this FREE Social Media Marketing Webinar learn how to:

• Use Social Media to promote yourself and your business
• Manage your online reputation
• Develop a dialog with your target audience
• Acquire new and qualified contacts for your business
• Harness Social Media to drive traffic to your company and implement effective SEO strategies
• Establish yourself as an authority in your field
• Get turned on to niche sites you’ve never heard of—which may be more valuable for your business than the major social networking sites

Register for the Social Media Marketing webinar and learn how to grow your business.

As a marketer I am probably a difficult critic of other company’s marketing. This is especially true when it comes to a new businesses whose survival is partially dependent on marketing.  In my opinion a new business owner should focus their efforts on marketing their business. Well it seems that is not always the case…A new restaurant named MocaBlue opened in my area. So being a good resident, I checked it out.  I won’t bore anyone with a critique or review (food was good, but pricey) but here are some quick marketing fixes they could implement to help them drive sales, repeat business, overall customer satisfaction and word of mouth marketing.

If you run a service or retail business feel free to take these and my other marketing tips and modify them for your situation.

• No email sign up – a new business should want to build a customer database (yes, even retail businesses)

• Grand Opening – it turned out the store was going to have a grand opening at some point in the future but there were  no signs or indications about this event.  Put a small card on the table with the dates and some reason to come back to the store.

• I’ll give them a pass on not being active on the social media front but most retailers can only benefit from having a presence in social media.

• No greeting by the owner.  The owner was walking around the store (working I am sure) but he should have stopped by every table to welcome and thank his customers for visiting his new business.  This is a great opportunity to make sure they are happy and if not, to get feedback.

• Give your customers something to remember  – it would be so easy to give every customer just  a little something unexpected for being one of the first to the store (this doesn’t have to last forever).  People love samples and remember when they get something extra and unexpected.  The marketing point here is that your customer will tell their friends.  Hey you won’t believe what XYZ store did.

• No suggestion box or request for recommendations – how many times do you get a small card with your check to rate the service or give feedback.  New establishments could use this more than most.  In my case there was nothing but a bill.

• No request or promotion to tell a friend etc – I took a risk and popped into a new restaurant wouldn’t you want me to help spread the word?  If it was my store I would give every person who stopped in for a meal a coupon to save 10% or a free appetizer that they could give to their friends.

The hardest thing for a business to do is get a customer in the door.  Once you have that customer do everything you can to add value to the relationship.  You have to start a relationship at some point why not do it on that first meeting.

MocaBlue, thanks for the case study I hope you succeed and improve your marketing.

Bon Apetite.

Years ago on a job interview I was asked a questions about direct response marketing.  The question was What Can You Sell With Direct Marketing?  Being the “expert” in direct response marketing…I answered “pretty much anything” and then it hit me.  The agency had a bottled water client as well as other clients selling consumer packaged goods.  I quickly qualified my comment to exclude those sorts of products.

The point I was going to make was that if there is a defined/target market for a product or service you can find a way to market, advertise and sell using direct response media.  To make a long story short I got the job and had a lot of fun helping our clients become better and smarter database and direct marketers.

So what is my point?  The other day I worked with my son on a video. He had to “sell” his classmates on the book he read for a class book report.  We used a direct response television (DRTV) style to make his commercial.

So in short Direct Response Marketing done right can sell anything (except maybe bottled water).

Would you read this book?  Did we “sell it” to you?

In my last post Black Friday Marketing Tip I realized I didn’t address retailers who don’t have stores in malls or shopping centers.  If you run a store which is not near a major retailer who is spending thousands on advertising you still have great promotional opportunities for Black Friday and maybe even more relevant Cyber Monday. Assuming you have been in business for a while you should have a database of customers and prospects. Using some basic direct marketing strategy and promotional efforts you can generate sales and create some buzz for your business.

• Send out postcards, coupons or flyers promoting the event or sale
• Email your database at least once, but I would recommend a few times leading up to your big sale (please don’t spam your database)
• Add the promotion to your website and blog (you have both, right?)
• Create a fun insiders event that you email to your database (bring a friend and save more, wear our logo when you shop and get XYZ, you know just get creative and have some fun with the promotion) you never know who will pick this up and help spread the word.
• Post your sale and promotion to your company Twitter and Facebook Fan Pages
• Ask a few key friends or industry contacts to help spread the word (you never know who will help you out until you ask)
• Create hand outs for the weeks leading up to (or during) the sale
• Hang posters announcing the sale etc…

If you are not running major media to drive traffic to your store (or website)  your email and direct mail efforts are going to drive the majority of your sales and foot traffic.  Make sure you integrate your messaging across all your available media channels for the best possible results.

If you don’t have a customer database to email or mail, well then check back for future tips on building a marketing database and how to use a database to market to your customers.

I realize many retailers don’t want to participate in the Black Friday madness (opening up at 5AM or slashing prices on a few key items etc) but if you have a retail business and you are located near any retailers who are participating in the Black Friday promotion jump on the board and grab some foot traffic.

I am not suggesting you spend extra money on media or marketing promotions just think of a sale idea or two that you can post in the window of your store.  This is just basic merchandising.  You need people to walk into your store.  If all your neighbors in the mall or shopping center are creating buzz all those people will walk right by your shop.  Yes even your regular customers will pass you by for a deal.  Give people a reason to stop and shop.  Make sure it is time sensitive (create a sense of urgency) or  limited (create scarcity) so that shoppers are compelled to see what you have to sell.  Chances are you will sell to many new and existing customers and all you did was post a sign in your window.

I was in the mall this morning and the stores with people going in and out had promotions.  The stores without promotions posted in the windows were empty.

Remember timing is key to successful marketing.  If people are looking for sale or promotion you better have one for them or they will seek out someone who has a deal.  This time of year people are in buying mode but they want to see some great offers.

Good luck marketing.

PS – This idea holds true anytime the big retailers run major promotion.

I found this video while checking out my Twitter feed the other day.  It is  an interesting example of viral marketing, social media and cause related marketing all rolled up into one.  Overall a great job by Lands End and Sears.  The only downside of this effort is that I could not find a version of the video on YouTube.  When you watch the video you will see why but I think they could have made a version for YouTube with a minor change and it would have helped people spread the word.

WatchThe Big Warm Up from Sears and Lands End.

PS – Check out their micorsite for more info on this effort and other connections to social media.

Yes I am conducting a Free Webinar on Lead Generation.  It is time for me to share all (or some of) the knowledge in my head…

The Title is – 5 Tactics To Create Student Leads That Convert

Here are all the details:

Wednesday, November 18, 2009 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST

A major mistake that many marketers make is spending money needlessly to attain leads that end up being unqualified. Attend this lead generation webinar and learn how to locate qualified leads that convert—without sacrificing your budget with paid sources.

In this webinar I will cover:

• Different approaches to generating educational leads for your sales team that convert into paying students
• Why some lead sources convert and others are a waste of time and money
• Ways to optimize and monetize your database of older leads

Although this webinar is focused on lead generation in the education market, all the strategies will translate to most industries that are dependent on lead generation activities.  If you are in any way involved in lead generation—this webinar will give you the tools you need to reach the qualified leads you desire.

So what are you waiting for register now (it is free) Wednesday, November 18, 2009 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM EST