Not only is email marketing quick, targeted, trackable and extremely cost-effective, but it is supremely good at linking to content-rich and dynamic landing pages – with conversion tracking tools and linked, dedicated and monitored phone lines. This is something that traditional paper marketing and press advertising could not hope to achieve. Take Honda, Mitsubishi, Nissan and SEAT dealer JT Hughes. It’s traditional for car retailers to offer motorists a ‘Winter Check’ service during the quiet autumn quarter. Until the last few years, we would have created display ads for the local press – and hoped for the best. Now of course our efforts are more targeted. Take a look at how it works.
J T Hughes staff have worked hard, with a little gentle prodding from us, to collect email data from every customer interaction. The result is that we can now reach thousands of interested people through email marketing.
This example is a nice, simple mailer, plugging a Mitsubishi ‘Winter Check’ and MOT offer with clear calls for action. In that it’s no different from a paper mailer – although the downloads are trackable. But look more closely and your will see three new car offers. Each ‘click here’ takes the visitor to a dedicated microsite landing page (see the Targeted Landing Pages article for more information). Here details of the offer are included, together with a JT Hughes test drive video, book-a-test-drive contact page, download a model specific brochure and a link to the new JT Hughes YouTube channel – packed with even more content.
Phone numbers are dedicated, and call monitored, so we can see if there are any problems or weaknesses from the enquiry being received to completion process. Email traffic is tracked and checked. Of course all the stats gathering has another great benefit – it proves to the client exactly how much traffic we generated for them, exclusively though the campaign. Cost to enquiry and cost to conversion are clear. There’s no hiding place, or wriggle room, for either the agency or client.
Integration is the key to success. The result was a record take up of ‘Winter Check’ and an increase in enquiries on the featured models.
Positive Advertising can set up and maintain Facebook Fan pages for you, as part of your social network marketing activity. The reason why you should consider this is simple – 50% of all web users log on to Facebook every day. It’s a big market and an excellent way to find people who are interested in your brand. Use it to encourage conversations with consumers, view insights and feedback, collect fans’ demographics and interaction data. These insights are a necessary part of evaluating and assessing your brand’s marketing activities – and Fan Pages are the best way to do it. Take our advice. Watch the video, read the advice and stop regarding social media as a fad.
Why do you need a Facebook fan page?
Companies of all sizes are scrambling to reach both new and current customers with a Facebook Page: it is now the preferred method for user interaction with a brand, company or public figure. An effective Facebook Page not only attracts fans, but is ‘sticky’ so that fans keep coming back. But to do that, you need a well thought out fan page that has great applications, supported by good, relevant content.
Brands today have the incredible opportunity to interact with consumers on the ‘number one’ social network in the world – creating relationships with them that are long lasting, personal and relevant. A Fan Page is totally different from a standard Facebook page. Unlike personal profiles or groups) Fan pages can track and maintain a dialogue with customers. It is a necessary part of a brand’s marketing activity.
However, Facebook fan pages need to be well managed, and companies must learn to develop a tough hide – because they won’t be able to control their own brand. In social networking the power lies with the public. It’s their feedback that decides the brand’s fate. Moderate yes, but don’t censor. Fan pages that are just a ‘puff’ for a brand will have no credibility and lose visitors. Besides, whether positive or negative, feedback is good qualitative data – something you would otherwise have to hire a market research company to gather for you – at a considerable cost. Embrace criticism as enthusiastically as praise – how, otherwise, will you find out where the business is falling down or selling the brand short?
Before we look at fan pages in more detail, let’s look at the potential market. Here are a few facts about Facebook:
More than 400 million active users;
50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day;
Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook;
More than 5 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each week;
More than 3 million active Pages on Facebook;
More than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day;
Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans;
More than 250 applications have more than one million monthly active users;
There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.
A Facebook fan page is an excellent way to find new people who are interested in your brand. There’s no limit to what you can do on a Facebook fan page. But to get the best out of it, you need to be active. Encourage discussions, post useful links and threads and keep helping your fans with their queries. You have to basically keep their interests high around what you have to offer!
Getting the most from your Facebook fan pages
Facebook has created fan pages for commercial companies; so that they can carry on conversations with their consumers. Pages (unlike personal profiles or groups) enable brands to view insights such as fans’ demographics, number of interactions with fans, etc. These insights are a necessary part of evaluating and assessing your brand’s marketing activities.
Content is king. When you’re initially building your Facebook page, fill it up with interesting and relevant content. Content doesn’t need to be specifically about your brand. Find insightful articles that have to do with your company’s vision and perspective and post them. Add dynamic content such as screenshots of highlighted areas on your site, videos of explaining your service, stuff that people would be able to look at when they make the decision to join your fan page or not. You’ll want to make sure that before you start inviting people to your page, you’ll have good high quality content to show them. Make sure to continuously upload great content to your page on a daily basis so that fans will want to see your page on their news feed when they open up their Facebook in the morning.
Finding people that are interested in your brand means making sure they know your page exists. Doh! Find your relevant audience and let them know that you’re there. Once you have a suitable size fan base, then you can start to open things up. Create live discussions on your page by utilizing the status feature and also the discussions app. Get your fans involved in discussions, ask for their feedback, show them you care about what they have to say. Enable a free flow of conversation even if you don’t like to hear what is being said. Use this opportunity to listen to what people have to say and take control of the conversation. Be happy for the opportunity you’ve been given to win them back as customers. Always make sure to be attentive, patient and answer as quickly as possible. That means you can’t start it and come back a month later – Facebook doesn’t sleep, so stay on top of it constantly. Utilize the information to learn more about how to lead your brand forward.
Excite people about your brand again and again. Invite interaction by creating frequent contests, and special campaigns for fans to take part in – and reward them for their participation. In other words incentivise.
Welcome new fans to your home on Facebook by creating a Welcome Tab to express the benefits of joining your page, promote any special campaigns you’ve got going on at the moment.
Mine the data with Facebook’s Insights. One of the main reasons for having a fan page is data analysis. Find out how many interactions you had with fans this week. See how many people commented on your posts. Discover where your fans are located.
Promote your Facebook fan page on your email signature, your homepage, in other social networks, on all outgoing materials to ‘bloggers’ and journalists. Let your employees and customers know about your page so that they can become a part of the conversation.
It’s not easy and it’s certainly a lot of work, but if your competitors aren’t doing it yet, they soon will be. There’s a lot to be said for medium to large size companies hiring a social networking guardian – someone who will stay on top of (and moderate) all social networking marketing, Twitter, blogs and web content and make sure they all work together.
Next Step
Positive Advertising can set up and maintain Facebook Fan pages for you, as part of your social network marketing. You provide the content, technical information and funds – we provide the expertise.
Suppose, like Salop Leisure, you are the regional Mr Big – with a huge selection of new and used caravan holiday homes, touring caravans and motorhomes. But there’s a recession on, and these products are high ticket. So be bold, we said. Host a big show at the beginning of May, to kick-start the season, and in October to bring it to a close. In order to increase variety, and add interest, invite outside exhibitors to the show – offering everything from spas and hot tubs to jet skis and boats, towing cars, 4×4 vehicles and much more.
You may think that it’s all a bit risky, with no guarantees. But experts say that, during hard times, the successful companies will be those who are lined up ready for the start of the race; raring to go on the B of the Bang. In fact the really smart ones won’t wait that long – they’ll go while the starter is still having breakfast, deciding which tie to wear for the race and wondering where he left his blanks.
Of course the key to success, for these shows, would be savvy marketing. Traditionally, you would blow a bit chunk of your budget on full-page local press ads. Only it’s a bit of a blunderbuss – everyone who reads local press will see it, but not everyone will be interested and newspaper reading is in decline. It makes more sense to go directly to motivated buyers – existing customers and people you know are interested.
So a mailer is ideal. But how will you know how many are coming and won’t the cost be prohibitive? Not if you use a combination paper mailer and e-marketing.
First stop, and always rule number one, is to work your existing customer base. It costs six times more to win a new customer than to keep (and do business with) an existing one. So each existing database customer received a personal promotional letter, inviting them to the show – with an attached eight-page glossy show brochure. To ensure that they felt valued, the invite also contained a VIP ‘credit card’ that entitled them to a £500 discount on purchases of new or used caravans, motorhomes or caravan holiday homes over the value of £5,000. The print run was 26,000 for each event.
Although entrance was free, we created a sense of urgency by getting people to download a ticket to avoid disappointment. That gave us a good indication of how many people were coming, as well as collecting valuable data capture information. A regional radio campaign then targeted the general public.
Finally, 4,000 follow up emails acted as a last minute reminder. It’s a great idea! It’s B for Bang bold. So how did it perform?
Well, we had lots and lots of complaints! The local tourist board complained about the sudden influx of accommodation bookings across Shrewsbury and Telford; reducing capacity for other visitors. Complaints came in about traffic levels on the roads around the showroom. We had complaints from the client about having to put aside an extra field for visitor parking overflow and from the staff who were run off their feet, both during the shows and from processing the unprecedented number of new leads and sales paperwork – and from dealing with all the telephone enquiries.
Complaints like that we can live with. Nearly 30,000 people attended both events. In a recession it’s a question of finding a positive angle. Do that and you too could beat the gun, get off to a flying start and leave the recession ‘surrender monkeys’ behind, still stuck in their blocks.
