7 Tips to Mastering Facebook Advertising

Facebook advertising can be a powerful tool for increasing sales as well as for growing membership in your Facebook fan pages (again, ultimately to grow revenue).  The author goes into good detail on these seven facts, read on through to explore in more detail:

1. There are two primary destinations that can be advertised through Facebook
2. Ad costs and impressions are heavily influenced by click-through rate
3. Targeting friends of connections increases the relevance of your ad
4. Facebook advertising takes time
5. An “Action” is an in-ad Like
6. Daily budget and daily spend limit are not the same
7. You’re not the only person who can access and edit your Facebook ad dashboard

Are there other key points people should keep in mind?

 Terry Lozoff, Pres/CEO of Antler Advertising on Facebook can be a cost-effective means of bringing new people to your fan page. To truly harness the value of Facebook advertising, you’ll need to dedicate time and resources to test, analyze, monitor and tweak your ads. Do this and you may just find a sea of opportunity waiting for your brand, company or event. The biggest challenge with Facebook advertising is maximizing the efficiency of your ads … Read More

via Mike Magolnick

Email, social media, and coupons makes the CFO smile

Image via Wikipedia

While attending the Monitoring Social Media Conference I had the opportunity to listen to Mark Schmulen, General Manager of Social Media for Constant Contact (affiliate link), discuss a case study centered on the combination of e-mail plus social media.  The study focused on how Dingo, a pet product company,  leveraged Facebook plus Constant Contact to achieve impressive revenue growth.

In searching the web I found a good overview of the social media accomplishments from this campaign. However, those are but part of the story and miss the real business outcomes.  I will summarize the article and add the rest of the story to help you better understand what took place.

Their goals?

• Capture more Dingo users, adding to their existing database of power users.
• Find dog owners who haven’t tried Dingo and drive trial of their product.
• Utilize the power of Facebook to build a community in which Dingo could have easy, real-time interaction with consumers.

Their Tactics

Dingo began the campaign with 330 fans on their Facebook page and around 9000 users in their mailing list.  Dingo added the Constant Contact tab to their Facebook page and offered a $20 coupon to the first 5000 fans that joined their mailing list and liked the page. 

The Outcomes

In just three days they had passed the 6000 fan mark and their mailing list surpassed 14,000 users.  Even more important, however, than these metrics, were the sales numbers.  During the month of this campaign they grew monthly sales by 22% (3 or 4% was their normal monthly growth) and 45% of this growth came from new customer accounts.  That’s right, 45% came from new customers.  The strategy proved itself to work very well in driving revenue and customer acquisition.

After the promotion ended?

Mark did not go into the life after the campaign as he had other studies to discuss.  However, in checking out their Facebook page they now have 7,445 fans so we can see the growth rate has not continued.  The coupons plus the use of social media probably provided the largest incentives.  Also note that they are running a new campaign which ends on October 29th, pushing to reach 25,000 fans.  I’ll keep an eye on how this progresses and let you know.

John

Posh Concepts Tip of the Week: Public Relations Builds a Brand not Advertising (via Posh Concepts)

Image via Wikipedia

Interesting post.  I disagree somewhat in that I feel advertising and public relations (and customer service and sales and…) all play a role in defining your brand.  However, I wanted to share and get your thoughts.

 Posh Concepts Tip of the Week: Public Relations Builds a Brand not Advertising Public relations offers many ways of getting publicity for your company, such as the press release, the use of social networking, word of mouth (WOM) and also using the blogosphere which journalists flock to these days. Building a brand is not achieved through advertising, but rather publicity. A prime example of this is Starbucks who had spent less than $10 million in … Read More

via Posh Concepts

The infamous McDonald’s Foursquare Pilot

Image via Wikipedia

 

I came across a few post about McDonald’s recent experiments with Foursquare so I was curious to dig in and went straight to the source.  I know Rick Wion so I dropped him a note to see how he was doing and what the real story was from his perspective.  While I only know Rick informally I can tell you that, while Rick made a mistake in language when describing the pilot, it was accidental.  In trying to simplify Foursquare he gave the wrong impression leading to some very confusing data.     

However, his approach on this campaign can be learned from as a lot of great work was done that others can leverage.   

The Approach   

Foursquare, GoWalla, Scavngr, Facebook Places, and all the other geo-social applications are new technologies for marketers.  Heck, they are new technologies altogether.  Any organization beginning to use these solutions should take an iterative approach:   

• Learn if customers would benefit by doing a pilot, measuring check-ins. This is simple to setup and is a good starting point.
• If there is interest, setup a second pilot with a larger audience and measure revenue. Does the organization see sufficient return on their investment?
• If the metrics show value to customers and the organization than deploy fully.

As Rick told me the only goal for this first pilot was “…this was a pilot program to gauge how the foursquare community would react to our joining their community”.  Could it have been more?  Yes, but it was not intended to do more than that.   

The results   

McDonald’s achieved a 33% increase in check-ins on Foursquare Day, the day they ran this pilot.  Since the pilot the number of check-ins have increased above the previous average but have not returned to the number seen during the pilot itself.   

Revenue.  Rick could not give me an exact number but it’s fair to say that McDonald’s did not see a 33% increase in revenue, even from those checking in on Foursquare.  However, McDonald’s has seen revenues increase week over week throughout this entire year.  The real question in my mind, which cannot be answered for this pilot, is did they make a positive ROI, was the effort worthwhile?   

This was the first pilot, others will come and in those we will be able to better see if ROI was achieved.  The goals of this first pilot were clearly achieved, however, and I can’t wait to see the next round.  Rick, if you need help setting it up to measure the revenue returned, give me a call, as I know you’re on the right track.  Keep up the great work.   

Related Articles

• McDonald’s Actual Foursquare Test Numbers: 2,865 Check-Ins [Voices] (voices.allthingsd.com)
• Sorry, But McDonald’s Did Not See a 33% Increase in Foot Traffic Because of Foursquare (e1evation.com)
• The Real Story Behind McDonald’s Foursquare Campaign – (by @baekdal) (baekdal.com)
• Sorry, But McDonald’s Did Not See a 33% Increase in Foot Traffic Because of Foursquare (nytimes.com)
• Sorry, But McDonald’s Did Not See a 33% Increase in Foot Traffic Because of Foursquare (readwriteweb.com)
• McDonald’s Actual Foursquare Test Numbers: 2,865 Check-Ins (Christopher Heine/ClickZ) (techmeme.com)
• McDonald’s Foursquare Day Campaign Brought in 33% More Foot Traffic (seome.me)
• McDonald’s Foursquare Day Campaign Brought in 33% More Foot Traffic (mashable.com)
• Case Study: McDonald’s ups foot traffic 33% on Foursquare Day (econsultancy.com)
• McDonald’s social media chief: Foot traffic and check-ins are not the same (econsultancy.com)

  

Some thoughts on Constant Contact

I use Constant Contact for The Lab’s mailing list and really enjoy using the application. I wanted to share with you some of the things I like, and dislike, about the product.

What is Constant Contact?

Constant Contact is a SAAS-based email marketing management application. It manages contacts, images, emails, and the analytics around your campaigns.

What does it cost?

Constant Contact pricing is based upon the number of contacts you have stored in the system. Costs start at $15 per month for fewer than 500 contacts and rise from there. However, they offer a FREE 60 day trial which is enough time to dig in and determine if the application is right for your needs.

Creating emails

Constant Contact uses a straightforward wizard to construct your emails. The editor allows the non-technology savvy users to easily create good looking emails, inserting images, formatting text, inserting social media links. For those of you that are comfortable with HTML, however, you can easily load the email into the built-in editor and build a very robust mail message.

However, a downside of the editor is that it requires Internet Explorer or Firefox. Someone on the road with their IPad, as I am now, cannot use the email editor at all.

Managing Contacts

The contact management aspects of Constant Contact are basic but sufficient for your email marketing efforts. I really like, however, the ease with which you can customize the information you capture from people when they sign-up for your emails. A simple form enables you to define fields that you want captured and if they are required.

Social Integration
Constant Contact has done a nice job providing social media integration. Email and social media must be used as complimentary communication methods and this solution handles this need well. When emails are sent you are able to save your mail as a web page, automatically tweet links to the page, and share the page on various social sharing web sites. In my experience you can achieve impressive results by sharing these messages on mail and social channels, give it a try.

Worthernshaws Twitter Dilemma (via I Want To Be An Astronaut)

Image via CrunchBase

You cannot, or at the very least should not, ever make these types of decisions about any of your organizations accounts without putting a lot of thought into it first.

 Kirsty Henshaw is the most popular of the latest entrepreneurs to successfully leave the Dragon’s Den with an investment, and rightly so. With her awe inspiring and heartfelt pitch it was impossible not to share Kirsty’s passion for the Worthenshaws brand she had worked so hard to build. Since achieving triumph in the Den Twitter has been one of the key PR platforms for the Worthenshaws brand managed personally by Kirsty. However as most brands w … Read More

via I Want To Be An Astronaut

Are you getting enough from your Facebook efforts?

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Ideation Platforms: BubbleIdeas

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Keeping your web site fresh is important for growing traffic

I know, I know….  Some of you are shaking your heads now and saying I guess John has run out of things to talk about.  Seriously, we all know that you want to keep your web site dynamic and fresh.  We all know that those web sites where the content never changes are about as exciting as watching paint dry.

I have had some fun building out the web site for The Lab and I am seeing web traffic steadily increase in spite of the end of summer slowdown that is typical in the Northern hemisphere this time of year.  The formula, to date, is not perfect.  The web site itself is far from perfect.  However, take a look at some of the concepts I am playing with as you may be able to leverage some of these same concepts to keep your site fresh with minimal,and I mean minimal, time being spent in the process.

The home page

The first iteration of  The Lab’s home page was a very short description of The Lab, an RSS feed from my blog, status updates from my Facebook fan page, and tweets from my Twitter account and that of The Lab’s.  Talk about ugly…  The only pluses to this was I was able to launch it fast and it was truly dynamic.

If you look at the page now you will see:

• An explanation of why The Lab exists.  Is it perfect?  No, I keep tweaking it daily, but it does at least give users some insights that they missed before.
• It includes links to the major areas:  The Services page, the Products page, the bookstore, and The Social Ecosystem.
• Prominently displays a link join my mailing list.  This placement came from user feedback.  Listen to suggestions.
• A light-hearted but educational quick tour is available on the home page.  As you explore these links you find a mix of information about The Lab and a chance to just hang out.  Not sure what I mean, check out the tutorial pages for those that say they are just hanging out.

Note that I have adjusted language, placement, and complete sections almost every day since this site launched.  I spend 10 minutes a day, max, on this page making singular adjustments, measure results, and keep adjusting.

Free Dynamic Features

Paper.li has a great solution (in beta) that enables you to generate a daily Twitter newspaper for the content generated in your network.  Since the process of generating the paper is automated, including the automated e-mail to your community, you do not have to do any work to offer fresh content directly from your site for  your audience to view.  In fact, I have simply included my paper on The Lab’s site and I do see a solid number of readers stopping by to check it out.

My media page pulls in podcasts from my weekly radio show and includes video.  I will need to work on creating more video on a regular basis, of course.  However, even when I do so it will automatically pull from my YouTube channel, no extra work required.  The same is true of the social feeds page which pulls in blog posts from this blog and twitter updates from The Lab.  There is always something good to read.

The Spotlight

Give people a chance to earn daily value from your web site, beyond content.  Enter the Spotlight.    Members of our mailing list can enter the weekly contest to be spotlighted by The Lab.  If they receive the largest number of votes by the end of the day each Monday they will be spotlighted, having their story told.  They are able to generate free buzz, free press, which could be a win for them. In return, The Lab increases the number of people on its mailing list while those in the spotlight poll assist The Lab in generating traffic to the site.

How well is it working?  109 votes placed since Wednesday.  This is the first week of the Spotlight and this is just a baseline, of course.  These 109 votes represent 109 visits to the site and roughly 3 times that number of page views.  How much time have I spent generating this traffic?  About an hour so far.  Has it benefited The Lab in terms of revenue?  Not yet but it has generated leads that I would not have otherwise.

Will these dynamic features pay off?  They already are in terms of traffic growth and leads.  Will this continue?  Only time will tell, of course, but I will keep you updated.

John

If you need help from The Lab, give me a call.

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Do not confuse marketing tactics with marketing strategies

I could not have said it better. A very good post, don’t confuse marketing strategies with marketing tactics. Doing so is the best way to achieve failure, not results.

Marketing tactics (social media initiatives, direct marketing programs, public relations or advertising efforts) are often confused with marketing strategies. Tactics are actions that support your strategic choices; and strategy is the planning and thought that goes into defining, pursuing and achieving your mission. This suggests that marketing strategy defines the marketing goals, programs and tactics that reflect one or more overall strategic … Read More

via K3 Center Blog