Marketing Automation, Web Video and Social Media

Posted: 3/4/2010 10:16:01 AM by Kristen Prestano | with 0 comments

Customer relationship management, or CRM, is a marketing communications strategy geared toward the managing and facilitating of interactions with customers and potential sales prospects. As companies seek to increase their revenues, enhance productivity and improve customer interaction, a creative spin on relationship management has formed more integrated and organized customer service activities. CRM offers more efficient ways of nurturing customers already loyal to the company, while also utilizing technologies to introduce new customers on the Internet media platform that now defines the marketing world.

The expectations of consumers have risen dramatically. Given the immense power of the general population on the Internet, it is now up to media communicators to understand their audiences’ needs and wants and respond to them in real time. With the average rate of webpage retention of 5 seconds, partially due to all the unnecessary pop-ups on the Internet, many audiences have become weary of the content being displayed to them. Consumers are therefore looking for content tailored specifically to their needs and wants, so they do not feel as though they are simply being “sold something.” CRM offers a way to bypass this by fostering personal connections with customers.

CRM is the key to truly understanding your business’ consumer base, your most valuable audience and prospective consumers. According to Forrester Research, spending on customer relationship management is expected to top $11 billion annually by 2010 by companies, in hopes of finding, attracting and winning over new customers. There are 3 main ways in which CRM should be utilized and implemented into the communication tactics of your business: social media, marketing automation and consequently, email marketing.

Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have increased consumer advocacy in regard to the marketplace and are beginning to have a dominant impact on company and customer relationships. Since social media sites aren’t moderated or censored, individuals have created “user-generated content” where they are able to share their true opinions and experiences with various companies, products and services in an open and uninhibited manner. This not only provides marketers with the unique opportunity to gain insight on customer satisfaction with their products, but can also translate into sales by new customers who have received positive feedback on a company’s product or service. Recently, according to Inbound Marketing, over 40% of customers using Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and company blogs have generated a customer from that channel. By maintaining a company social media page, companies can respond to any consumer questions, complaints and concerns on a quick and personal level, which undoubtedly increases its reputation and profitability.

Marketing Automation is a vital tool in consumer relationship management. A part of this system controls CRM by maintaining lead and sale member status. As we have discussed in many blog posts and product offers, one key part of marketing automation capabilities allows you to track present and potential customers and communicate with them through personal, segmented messages in auto-blasts. Through the execution and measurement of multi-channel consumer marketing programs, marketing automation offers yet another way to cycle and address consumer concerns both successfully and professionally.

Email marketing is a key ingredient of marketing automation that even further maximizes the relationship with your customers. This type of relationship management offers a unique way to maintain and monitor your network of subscribers, while also allowing you to assess the clarity and success of your marketing messages. Email marketing systems, like Constant Contact or MailChimp, are valuable email marketing resources that allow you to upload all your contacts, archive mail content and send out email blasts easily and efficiently. Once an email blast is sent, these sites also provide you with comprehensive click-through and email statistics, including the number of sent, bounces, spam reports, Opt-outs, opens, clicks and forwards your email received. Since all to often consumer’s opt-out of emails they find irrelevant or resemble advertisements, this email tool allows you to assess the validity and success rate of your email blasts to your target market.

Building and maintaining an online presence in the marketing world is becoming increasingly competitive. As consumers are becoming more involved on the Internet, it crucial that companies listen and track user-generated content and provide a one-to-one marketing relationship with their customers. CRM is a key application for your overall success of marketing strategies and customer service.

 

 

Posted: 2/26/2010 10:45:00 AM by Mike Rogers | with 0 comments

Could you run your business from an iPad? That's what Internet Marketer and technologist Paul Colligan is going to do. For the first 30 days after he picks up an iPad, Paul will perform his daily work only via an iPad. He will chronicle his experience here at http://www.paulsipad.com/.

I wish him luck and am eager to learn some tips. Some of my work is programming and database driven, so an iPad certainly won't cut it from that standpoint. However, much of my daily work is spent writing technical documents and specifications, as well as using web based applications and testing web software. I think a great amount of my work could be offloaded to an iPad, potentially eliminating my need to a laptop to travel with.

Most of the travel I do is one of two types, going to a client for meetings and visiting family/vacations. When visiting clients, all I really need is the ability to take notes, show off web applications (hopefully the iPad will allow the browser to be sent to a TV for presentation purposes), and monitor email.

When I am vacationing, I primarily need to monitor email and manage staff remotely. Both tasks seem ideal for the iPad. I will be waiting for the 3G model so Paul should be at the end of his journey by then. I am certain I will pick up some good tips. 

Posted: 2/24/2010 11:37:20 AM by Kristen Prestano | with 0 comments

Public Relations efforts are beginning to take shape in many aspects of the online world. In providing better, quicker and less expensive communications, online PR is facilitating the ways in which businesses can share information, create a viable online presence and drive traffic to their site.

As opposed to traditional offline methods of PR, online public relations can help you reach the goals of driving traffic to your site in a cheap and efficient fashion. If done correctly, online PR can create a positive image for your company in the mind of the consumer, which will in turn enable you to reach a wider audience, increase your visibility and ultimately lead to increased access to your site through natural backlinks. PR is the prime tool for giving yourself an edge above competitors and will help position you and your company's website as a trustworthy, professional source for your market. This, coupled with your various social media efforts, blogs and videos will increase your network of media contacts and create positive opinions and news pertaining to your business’ industry.

Writing a quality press release is the main way to begin with online PR. If you are having trouble, there are various sources, like www.prnewswire.com, that can help serve as templates and provide guidelines for writing a press release. Make sure to write a press release with a real and creative news angle that is interesting and will generate public interest. This takes a lot of time and effort, but the results of a quality press release are invaluable for your company’s image.

A pitch letter can also be utilized to your websites benefits. This type of PR is similar to a press release, however a journalist is asked to cover a story relating to your business. The content of this piece is usually related to a specific type of product or feature, which eventually becomes more of a review type article. Having another individual write on behalf of your company is very beneficial in creating a trustworthy image. Since these sources of PR are not generated from the specific business or website itself, consumers are more willing to listen to the article’s content because they do not feel as though they are being sold something.

Blogs are also becoming the new paradigm for online PR. They provide business/website owners with the ability to reach their key audience, gain direct feedback and build a positive image. PR’s main goal is to ensure that each message is delivered to a company’s target market and building an effective blog does just that. Blogs allow you to not only track the number of specific individuals actually reading your content, but provide you with direct feedback based on the number of posts read and comments from your audience. With this information, you will be able to start gearing your stories toward these target readers. This will ensure that you build and maintain a positive PR message, which can be crucial to the success and image of your company.

After you have researched and written your press release, it is then time to find specific, local media channels or outlets to which you can submit your press release. A good place to start is by looking up local town or county newspaper and magazine websites. These communication channels are particularly useful because you can contact an editor or writer directly and pitch the story to them through a simple email. One plus is that many of these local websites also allow you to submit a press release for free, so it is not only quick and easy, but cost efficient. In terms of quality backlinks, a few positive pickups from these types of online PR sources can give you them the very beginning. This can eventually translate into a pickup of larger media outlets and other niche blogs and sites, which will even further establish backlinks for your website.

Online newspapers, magazines and niche media outlets are not the only places to reveal your press release; your very own website is! In previous articles relating to web videos, we have discussed the utilization of quality back links in every online source related to your business, including your website, blogs and videos. It is important that you do the same in regard to your PR efforts by creating links on your website that can send consumers to a source of your online PR and then back to your original site. Remember to include these links in your blogs and videos as well. The main use of public relations is to build and maintain awareness about your company. Continually updating, writing and adapting PR to the online world will not only raise awareness of your site, but also create natural backlinks, name recognition and enhance your SEO status.

Posted: 2/24/2010 11:34:30 AM by Kristen Prestano | with 0 comments

On YouTube, where 1.2 billion videos are streamed worldwide per day (techcrunch.com), there is an increasing competition regarding video content for businesses. Although this may seem overwhelming, there are a few important ways to optimize the rankings of your video and ultimately drive traffic to your site.

The first important way to effectively increase your video rankings on YouTube is to understand ranking analysis within Youtube itself. The following are all important factors to consider: title, description, tags, views, ratings, playlist additions, flagging, embeds, shares, comments, channel views, and subscribers. Although the standard SEO rules apply, there are additional ways in which YouTube ranks the videos within its website. First, Youtube has its own built-in search feature, which relies on keywords in the title, keyword tag and description of your video. In order to be found by individual searchers, you must therefore include keywords in all 3 of these features. Second, YouTube indexes its video content first by search engines and then places them into their database. This makes your keyword choice more vital than ever because major search engines, like Google and Yahoo acquire some of its content from Youtube. This is yet another reason why keyword rich information is extremely important in attracting proper viewers.  It is important that you think holistically and integrate many of these elements while working on optimizing your video and site. These are only a few minute changes, however they can increase the traffic to your YouTube video in powerful ways.

While keeping this in mind, you must also remember the 3 main factors YouTube uses when indexing material on its website, which include: votes, bookmarks and viewings. Encouraging viewers to rate your video in the form of votes is invaluable to your video success and experience with the YouTube community because it allows you to track its quality and make sure consumers understand exactly what you are offering. This will allow you to assess how well you have captivated your audience and how clearly your video expresses the benefits and offers of your site. If your video is unclear, it will be evident in the number of votes your video receives.

 

The number of times that your video has been bookmarked by other users is important for your video because it determines the average rating of your video. This thus shows the video's acceptance level, which stems primarily from your votes, ratings and comments made by users. Since this is all user based information, bookmarking is an important feature to utilize in order to gain feedback and understand how important customers find your products and services.

The number of video viewings by users is also vitally important when considering the impact of viral marketing on consumer awareness. In order for the right types of consumers to gain insight on your products and services, they must first be able to easily hear about it. On YouTube, this is done primarily through the sharing feature on each video page. Sharing and discussion posts on websites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter are great ways of creating buzz and ensuring that consumers are engaged in key aspects of your business. The lesson here is to never underestimate the impact of social media. If your videos are shared and recommended between users, the number of people who will see your video on Youtube will grow at an unprecedented rate. 

After the creation and post of your video, simply putting it up and waiting for responses is not the way to increase ratings. You must be proactive in continuously checking your videos status and effectiveness, while also analyzing your results. A feature known as YouTube Insight is one such tool that is available on YouTube and provides pertinent information regarding consumer access to your video content.  Always make sure to remember the general SEO tricks we have discussed in previous blog posts in order to make sure consumers know where to find you and your URL because this will also help give you a boost on YouTube Insight. By incorporating all the elements above, you will be able to create more valuable content, build a network of trust with potential customers and ensure optimal YouTube ratings for your video.

Posted: 2/18/2010 9:11:24 AM by Mike Rogers | with 1 comments

Creating video content is the new tool that can be used to facilitate customer interaction and ultimately drive sales. It can not only promote your business and have a positive effect on both online and offline sales, but can also create a more professional image in the mind of the consumer. When done correctly, you can dominate video search results by focusing on your target market, providing quality information and publishing regularly. Did I fail to mention that having multiple videos on your site builds credibility and encourages people to listen to more of what you have to say? By publishing frequently, people will start to see multiple videos in their search results, which will finally attract the attention your business deserves.