Where’s The ROI In Social Media?

January 27, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Marketing Strategy 

Does Social Media Produce ROI?

If your business is going to put the time, effort, and attention into social media marketing, it would be nice to think we’d actually get some sales out of it.

In other words, we want a return on our investment.

Everyone is looking for how to improve the ROI of their social media marketing.

Social media marketing is never going to produce an ROI. No marketing will.

What’s the point of even doing marketing if there’s not a return on the investment?

Organizations create entire processes around the idea of measuring this performance index, all so that marketing professionals can “justify” their activity.

The truth is, marketing will never produce an ROI.

Marketing will never produce an ROI because ROI = A positive gain from investment – costs.
A pure definition of ROI is simple to quantify.

The problem for marketing professionals is that marketing activity is not an investment.
An investment is an asset that you purchase and place on your financial statements. Like an office building or a computer system. It’s something you could sell later if you didn’t need it any more.

Marketing is an expense, and goes on the Profit & Loss statement.

Unless your organization is cheating on its balance sheet every marketing effort you pursue is an expense in time, money, and resources … it’s not an accounting asset.

But the bigger question is why do so many people use the term ROI and marketing together? The answer to this question provides insight into how an organization views the role of marketing.

What is the ROI of email?

Quick, calculate the ROI of using email within your organization. Not email marketing, but just the emails you send back and forth to get things done.

If you are like most, you don’t know. You probably don’t care.

But the absence of email in your organization would lead to more harm than good. Its “gain” is not so much a measurement of return but an implicit cost of being in business.

Unfortunately, this is not the same view shared by people who use the term ROI when they’re talking about marketing.

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  • Back-end analysis, marketing metrics Google Analytics, Market Samuria generates revenue & interest via email marketing, SEO, SEM and social media
  • Can target local business landing pages on Twitter, Facebook, Google Places, Google AdWords and other social networks and track results from coupon offers
  • Accelerates sales by tying email campaign and website tracking to CRM system data
  • Creates and executes marketing strategies that support business goals
  • Lead generation and capture and marketing plan development

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NEW USPS Mobile App

January 18, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Direct Marketing Mailing 

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Postal Service has launched a new mobile application for iPhone users that allows them to use the device’s camera to scan barcodes on shipping labels for quick, easy and convenient tracking of their packages and other mail.

The application stores the label numbers so customers can easily recheck the status of their shipments. The scanner function is available on iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and iPad 2.

“Whenever and wherever they are, customers can check the delivery status of their shipments by simply scanning the barcodes on their shipping label receipts,” said Kelly Sigmon, vice president, Channel Access. “Millions of Americans are making mobile devices a part of their daily lives, and we’re providing solutions that meet their needs.”

Users also can use the new app to schedule a free next-day carrier pickup of their packages. “After scheduling a next-day pickup, customers will get an email confirmation when the request is made, when the package is picked up, and when the pickup request is modified or canceled,” said Sigmon.

Since launching in Oct. 2009, the Postal Service iPhone application has been repeatedly ranked as a top-10 free business application. The latest version has a new home screen with icons directing customers to available services. In addition to tracking packages and scheduling free package pickups, customers also can order free expedited shipping supplies and view retail and online prices.

When ordering free expedited shipping supplies from their iPhones, customers can choose from Express Mail and Priority Mail boxes and envelopes, select quantities desired and save a record of the transactions.
For added convenience, the new mobile app allows customers to access to their saved contact lists on their iPhone or iPad device.

These new features build on services already available through the Postal Service’s online mobile technology, including the ability to locate nearby Post Offices and find a ZIP Code. Postal Service mobile apps also are available for BlackBerry and Android. More than 3 million people each month use Postal Service mobile apps. Go to usps.com/mobile to learn more about these mobile solutions.

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Data Mining

January 12, 2012 by · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Direct Marketing Leads 

Data mining is a minefield and social networking sites are still replete with veins of consumer-insight gold.

Marketers should extract that treasure, but carefully some tips on how to get the most form data mining social networks.

Respect privacy, even if their profiles are publicly visible. Opt in or double opt in is always best.

Social networkers are often so honest in their profiles because they have an expectation of a certain level of privacy. While the information disclosure benefits marketers, marketers should interact with people they know or use information without names and identifying features to create pictures of their ideal customers.

Use the data to create prospect profiles. Marketers should collect aggregated, anonymized data to understand what consumers like or dislike about a particular product or service. Employ a list from a data solutions firm with good penetration at the individual level, this can help marketers leverage what they learn online where they formulate strategies and get an idea of what the typical person looks like and where they are.

While the main source of data mining may come from Facebook, YouTube viewers and video uploaders can find plenty of data by simply clicking on the “views” button and expanding it.

Append social media data to house files. Lewis says there’s always the possibility that marketers take Facebook’s advice and invite their friends—by uploading their e-mail lists, no more than 500 addresses at a time.

With the new data mining techniques direct marketers can take their in-house customer relations management data and reverse append it. What he does is “reverse append it to a Web-based location, using the up to 50 different social platforms—from Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr, Picasa, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, all these interesting areas that have open social graph data.

Know the quality of followers, friends and connections. and always befriend influencers. Once marketers figure out which fans of their brand are influencers—those with the highest number of Twitter followers, YouTube subscribers, LinkedIn connections, Facebook friends, etc.—marketers should get to know these VIPs, Lewis says.

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Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

January 3, 2012 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Email Lists 

Testing is essential in direct marketing and you should always be testing something new.

Everyone says that testing is important, but most marketers avoid tests until some later date but testing should be done every time you plan a new campaign.

Email marketing makes testing super simple, accurate and fast. Results come back in 24 hours. Avoid these mistakes that many email marketers make when testing. Here are six of them:

When you change more than one item in one version of an email and test it against your control, you won’t learn much.

If you have two versions of an email are completely different in terms of layout, promotions, copy and even products.

Any one change might have helped or hurt response, but by putting them all together you can’t tell what was doing what. One change might have helped the open rate increase, while another change in the same email might have reduced clicks. The rule is to test only one element at a time.Looking only at conversions.

the subject line so they open the message can have a large impact on open rates; they like the way the salutation greets them when they open; the copy is interesting and the offer stimulates them; and they click on a couple of links and finally order a product.

A weak subject line, bad salutation, uninspiring offer, faulty link, poor product or pricing, or confusing order form can make your email fail at any time. Which of these elements was responsible for the low conversion rate? You may never know if you look at the conversion rate by itself.

Test each element separately. First, select a subject line that works better than others. Then get your best salutation. Now you’re ready to try different versions of copy. You also need to test pricing and your order form. Nobody ever said testing was easy, particularly if you neglect testing elements separately.

Direct marketers have tested direct mail pieces that offer readers two or more choices against a mail piece that offers only one possible answer. One choice always beats two or more choices. This becomes too confusing to determine a true winner.

Let me use my researched methods that have been proven to work, implementation know-how, and optimization expertise to boost your company’s marketing ROI and sales performance.

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  • Back-end analysis, marketing metrics Google Analytics, Market Samuria generates revenue & interest via email marketing, SEO, SEM and social media
  • Can target local business landing pages on Twitter, Facebook, Google Places, Google AdWords and other social networks and track results from coupon offers
  • Accelerates sales by tying email campaign and website tracking to CRM system data
  • Creates and executes marketing strategies that support business goals
  • Lead generation and capture and marketing plan development

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