pr briefs

Social media is top online marketing channel for small businesses after company Web sites

According to the American Express OPEN and Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO) “Small Business Search Marketing Survey,” US small businesses recognize word-of-mouth as the top way their customers find them, followed by the Internet and search engines.

The reliance on word-of-mouth, likely along with the low cost of participating, has led small businesses to make social media their number two online marketing effort, after company Web sites. As of March 2011, 44 percent of respondents to the survey used social media marketing, vs. 28% who used SEO and 21% who used paid search. Looking ahead, more small businesses planned to add social media marketing this year than either search tactic.

(Source: emarketer.com)

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Seven easy (and cheap) ways to promote your event

You don’t have to have a huge marketing budget to promte a special event that’s open to the public; it just takes a little bit of creativity and time. Here are seven things you can do that won’t cost a lot, but will ensure your event gets great visibility:

1. Create an event “landing page,” a one-page Internet site that has all the details about the event. If you use a blog program like Tumblr to do this, it’s easy and free. Here is an example from an event that happened in the past.

2. Send out the details of your event as a “media alert” to let your area media know it’s coming. Send to those members of the media who cover community events.

3. Create a Facebook page just for your event and post photos along with all the details such as date/time/parket/cost. Invite your social media friends through Facebook and the event will show up on their pages. If your company has a business Facebook page, create an “Event” on that page as well.

4. Send out an e-vite to your email contact list. Add a link to your landing page and social media site and ask people to “Like” your page.

5. Highlight the event in your email signature, along with a link to the event landing page.

6. Consider a live radio remote on the day of the event, especially for weekend events. While they are not inexpensive, radio remotes are one of the best ways to capture consumers who are already out and about and pull them to your event.

7. Enlist the help of others. Make sure that any vendors or partners who are involved in your event have all the information for THEIR contacts.

9am

Seven tips for designing a killer e-newsletter

Over the past few years e-mail marketing lost steam as social media began to take center stage. But while they are less prominent than Facebook and Twitter, e-newsletters are still one of the most effective (and cost-effective) ways to build relationships with customers and potential customers. Here are seven ways to make an e-mail newsletter work for your company:

1. Give them a reason to open it. If your e-newsletter is an ad disguised as “news and tips,” they may open the first one but won’t be as likely to open your e-news again in the future. They may even opt-out and take away any chance of your reaching them this way again. Provide a compelling “offer”—whether it’s an exclusive discount or “insider” tips about your industry—that adds value to your e-mail.

2. Be sure they opted in to receive your e-news. Give them a good reason to want to get one more email in their in-box, and make sure that reason(s) is listed on your sign-up form. Then, make sure you provide ample opportunities for people to sign up: at your service desk, through your Web site, on your e-mail signature, at trade shows. If they see that you’re going to send them something of value to them and their business, they are more likely to sign up.

3. Send them something on a regular basis. The last thing you want to do is send out too many emails: it’s a sure way to increase the number of people who opt off your list. But stay in front of customers and potential customers throughout the year. You want your e-mails to be there when they are ready to make a buying decision. Once a month is good.

4. Pay attention to the design. Make sure it’s clean and uncluttered, with a main “story” and a few smaller tips or other items. Photos, graphics and colors should be branded so they match the rest of your marketing. Bold headlines will break up the text. Shorter bits of information are always more inviting to busy professionals. If you have a long article, put the first two paragraphs in your e-newsletter and a link to the rest of the article on your Web site.

5. Let them participate. Most newsletter software (Emma and Constant Contact are two good programs) have optional add-ons that will make your e-newsletter interactive. In my experience, e-newsletters that include these types of features always have a higher “open” rate. Polls, surveys and hot links to other information on your Web site will draw people in.

6. Grab them with your subject line. Surprisingly, longer subject lines have been proven to result in higher open rates. Use yours to highlight the most important, compelling information in the newsletter. The subject line “25 Percent Off Weekend Rates” is better than “News From Aspen.”

7. See what works. Your “open” rate (the number of recipients who actually open your e-newsletter) is an important metric. Each time you send one, take a look at which articles and tips generate the most clicks. Try different subject lines. If you look at the metrics, you’ll begin to see what your customers like.

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Don’t forget the “social” part of social media

It’s a common mistake: businesses using their Facebook and and other social media sites pages to “advertise.” When you’re trying to build a business, it might seem like a good idea to use your social media sites as an extension of the rest of your marketing and advertising. This is a big mistake, and if you’ve done it, you’ve probably experienced an exodus of friends and fans from your business social media sites.

Instead, keep in mind that the social media world is a community of people who are already bombarded by ads and sales messages throughout the day. Your social media goal is to build relationships. Today’s most compelling response triggers are based on trust and personal feedback from others that we trust. The most successful “social” businesses use Facebook and social media marketing to show the human side of their business, and not to advertise.

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Q. Is web crawling hyphenated?
Web-crawling or web crawling?
A. Web crawling
(two words, capital W).

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For the first time, more people said they receive news from the Web than from newspapers. But for American adults, television remains the top destination for news.

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Social media “lurkers” the silent majority

Heidi Cohen writes for ClickZ that the vast majority of visitors to your social channels and communities are “lurkers” who rarely if ever actively particpate. A full ”90 percent is the great silent majority. They visit social media sites to read or view what others have created and commented on. These visitors are great for marketers since they’re spending time on your content.”

To encourage them to get more involved, make sure there’s always a conversation for them to join, explicitly ask people to speak up and offer incentives such as coupons or virtual gifts to reward first-time participants, Cohen writes.

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Firm predicts customer service will become more social over next two years

MediaPost Publications reports that in the next two years, 30% of large companies will extend their online community activities to include improving customer service, compared to only about 5% in 2010, according to data from Gartner Inc. 

The article reports, “We expect the high-profile nature of social networks and social CRM for customer service to rapidly advance adoption from early adopter to mainstream deployments despite the volatile and rapid evolution of social networks in general,” said Drew Kraus, research vice president at Gartner.

But the firm also identified several hurdles slowing the shift to customer care through social sites. Despite the hype surrounding social media as a customer service tool, there is a lack of back-end technology in place to support customer service operations through online social channels. “There are a myriad of technology and process issues that arise when you go from ad hoc support to scalable and structured support,” he said.

And because social CRM is still at an early stage, the policies and procedures for handling consumer interactions this way are lagging.

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