The Social Media Phone Is Ringing

May 18, 2011

The Now Revolution Social Media B2B marketing

Pick Up The Phone!

Chapter four of Jay Baer and Amber Naslund‘s book The Now Revolution starts with The Social Phone Is Ringing. If somebody calls your number or sends you an e-mail, you don’t hesitate to react and answer. So why not do the same when people try to reach you using social media, is Jay and Amber’s message.

That is exactly how I think about the interaction with customers in Social Media. I could not have said it better (ahum).

Pick up the Social Media phone!

Nothing Special

Social Media is not that special, mysterious, dangerous, sophisticated or weird medium that a lot of people think it is. It is a collection of communication tools and channels, nothing more and nothing less.

The only difference is that every thing you say and every reaction you give can reach a lot or – if you are lucky, or not, depending on the nature of your message – a very big lot of people. So you may want to be a bit careful with what you communicate.

Choice

And like your customer has been given the choice to give you a call or send you an e-mail, he can now also decide to contact you via Social Media. He can at least try it. If that is not possible, he can call or e-mail you, but there is a chance he will not like you for that and there is even a chance you will not hear from him at all.

So it is your choice to be on Social Media or not. But you should at least monitor what is being said there.

Always realize it is your customer that makes the choice between phone, e-mail and Social Media. And it may well be you are more depending on your customer than the customer is depending on you. So I think it should be clear to you what to do.

Not

But what if you are monitoring Social Media and nobody is talking about your business or products?

One of the best reasons for you to start the conversation! Because if people are not talking about you, it may well be that nobody is very interested. And that is also something you should not want to happen.

The Now Revolution

The Now Revolution is a great book. It is not so much about how to use Social Media, but more about how to arrange the Social Media activities in your business. How to listen, how to react and what to do when things go wrong.

And what I liked the moment I opened the book, are the many Microsoft Tags in The Now Revolution that link to additional information, videos and more. A very good example of how to make use of these Tags (or QR-codes). Linking off-line with on-line and that way lengthening the lifetime of the book. Because the on-line information rlated to the content of the book can be refreshed an kept up to date on a regular basis.

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Be Creative – What Is Your Pizza Box?

May 17, 2011

SocialMediaExaminer.com Michael Stelzner did this great little interview video with Ramon De Leon, the managing partner of six Domino’s Pizza franchises in Chicago. Watch the video first.

Simple

Pretty amazing, don’t you think? It sounds so simple. Ramon’s pizza box gets inside people’s homes. It is on the table in the middle of the living room. So why not use this pizza box  to do some promotion. In this case Ramon promoting his social media activities.

It sounds so simple. Yet it looks like Ramon was the first one to think about it. And to actually do it.

Same

But you can do the same. Think of what ‘materials’ coming from your company get into homes or businesses. It’s probably not a pizza box, but it can be the box in which your product is delivered. Or you can print the address of your Twitter or Facebook account directly on your product.

And I don’t know about you, but I still receive letters (yes, those white sheets of paper with text on them) on a regular basis. Letters from businesses that I already buy from and letters from companies that would like to do business with me. 99,9% of these letters have a message on one side only. That means that half of the mailing – the backside –  is not used. The same with many order confirmations, invoices and alike. Use the backside. Print on it!

Use your imagination and creativity. You may be inside your customer’s home or office much more often than you think. Use that opportunity to communicate, to inform and to connect with your customers.

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The Top 3 Statements You Are No Longer Allowed To Use In Sales

May 13, 2011

3 Things You Are Not Allowed To Say In Sales Marketing Ceekue B2B

Don't say it!

The world is changing faster than ever before. And so does sales.

When I started in sales - more than 20 years ago – our sales team agreed to send a quotation within two weeks after receiving the enquiry. If you do something like that today, you will be out of business tomorrow.

Like you are not allowed anymore to use these three statements about your customers.

1. “We have to educate our customers!”

You are no longer in a position to educate customers and tell them what to do or what not to do. This is a very dangerous statement. If customers do not like the way you want to do business with them, they do not adjust. They start looking for another suppliers.

Today it is much easier to find an alternative supplier than it was a number of years ago. It is also much easier to learn more about the reputation of other suppliers. People are talking on the Internet about the companies they are doing business with. How they are treated and what the quality of the products and service is.

So your customers are able to get a pretty good idea what supplier to switch over to, after they have said goodbye to your business.

2. “This customer is not important to us!”

Small customers – often asking more questions than giving you revenue – have never been liked. In the past you could try to ignore them, hoping they would go away and find themselves somebody else to trouble with their problems.

However, everybody you deal with nowadays is equally important to you. Also small customers. Because if they don’t like the way you treat them, they may very well talk about it on Twitter or Facebook. The whole world will know about it and their complaints are there to stay.

So if  you don’t want customers to trouble you with their issues and questions, make sure they are alternative ways to help them. For example set up a forum or user-group where you answer your customer’s questions but where your customers are also able to help each other.

3. “Don’t worry, customers will not go through all the trouble of finding a new supplier. They will stay with us.”

Nowadays a new supplier can be found as easily on the other side of the world as he can be found across the street.

And differences in quality, price and performance of many products have almost disappeared. A lot of products that where considered to be special not long ago are commodities now. Making your business a lot less special than it possibly was in the past.

Therefore I bet you your customers are gone before you are able to say … eh…!

The rules of the game have changed. Your customer is in the driver’s seat and you better make sure you don’t treat him wrong. Otherwise he will continue his voyage without you.

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This Is How You Measure Social Media ROI

May 12, 2011

ROI Social Media B2B Marketing Ceekue

What is your goal?

In my post Tuesday I was not very positive about people worrying about the Return Of Investment of Social Media activities. Never has there been so much emphasis on the ROI of marketing activities as there is now for Social Media.

I ended with saying that at the same time measuring the ROI of Social Media is not as difficult as many people think it is.

Mariam Mostamandy of Bootstrap (Marketing Done Smart. Done Fast) reacted with asking what the best way is to measure Social Media ROI. So now I owe her a reply.

Here we go. This is how I think you should measure the ROI of Social Media activities.

Clear

For most of us (in B2B marketing) it has no use measuring the ROI of Social Media activities by looking at our sales figures. Because these figures are influenced by so many different variables. Unless you are using Social Media as a sales channel, the distance between interactions on Social Media and the order – your ultimate goal – is too long.

You can look at Followers or Friends, or the number of Retweets or reactions. These may be an indication of brand awareness, engagement and whether people like your business or not. But having a great number of Follower or Friends will never be your ultimate goal. You want to lead those people into your sales funnel. You want to start pulling them in.

Why

With everything you do you have to ask yourself “Why?”. Make sure you know what you want to achieve before you start. What is your goal?

This also applies for Social Media activities. Because only if you know what you want to achieve, you know what to measure.

Measure

Make sure you set yourself a goal that can be measured. If you are not able to measure the results, it has no use. And if your goal is to general, it may be too difficult to measure or the results may be influenced by other factors than your social media activities alone.

Small

Don’t make it too complicated. It has no use to measure the success of your Social Media activities by looking at your sales results or by looking at some other high end results. Take small steps. Use relatively simple goals.

For example offer your followers on Twitter an e-book that they can download for free. Or invite your followers on Facebook to subscribe to your e-newsletter or offer them a free ticket for your next seminar or exhibition. Activities like this have clear goals (number of e-books downloaded, number of new subscriptions, number of free tickets issued) that can be easily measured.

Continue

Off course it does not end there. Because your ultimate goal – if you are not a non-profit – is to sell more.

Therefore there must always be a next step. Your e-book should for example contain a call to action. Again an action that you are able to measure. That way you build a string of activities leading your prospect through your sales funnel. From the first contact to closing the deal.

All these relatively small steps make it possible for you to do a lot of measuring, but also to identify the steps where prospects hesitate and drop out.

Easy

Doing it this way, measuring Social Media ROI is not difficult. Because you are not trying to measure your social media channels themselves.  Like you would never measure your telephone or the switchboard, but look at the calls you make instead.

In Social Media you take small steps. Each with a clear goal that is easy to measure. That is how you measure Social Media Return On Investment.

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