Warning: U R Contaminating Your Marketing Pool!
Warning: U R Contaminating Your Marketing Pool!
Many business owners suffer the frustrating feeling of exhausting even more of their time trying to tip toeing through the learning curve and sift through the techno-geek language barrier constructed around each social media forum. For example, how long does it take for you to learn to “RT your @tweeps about #quote” or “hit your tweeples with a shout out to your new twit @MagicUSA on #followfriday”? Insane yet? Multiply that by the number of social media networks in the known universe and becoming a hermit with a dog in Florida on the beach will seem like a good idea!
What is worse than the multitude of social media that the average business owner tries to participate in during a given week is the amount of time invested without measuring the results. Now, if you are shaking your head and pointing at that little number spinning like the meter on a gas pump, then bad news is about to enter your world: UR contaminating your marketing pool!
For years, everyone has been taught that electronic marketing is about gaining the largest group of people to send a massive email to on a regular basis in hopes that 1% of those people will buy your product, ask for your services, or move on to whatever the next step is in the marketing plan.
NOTE: YOU MUST HAVE A MARKETING PLAN…on paper…with marketing options for “what ifs.” This is a truth of every business no matter what industry. If you don’t have a marketing plan, stop reading now and get one! I will wait.
Now, back to the discussion at hand—Old drip marketing theory stated that having thousands of people in your marketing pool to blast out electronic materials was the key to success. The marketing measure of ROI lists around 1% with 3-5 touches. Without a calculator and nothing up my marketing sleeves, it is easy to see that the numbers run at about 10 conversions for every 1000 and 50 for every 5000 opt-ins. The reality would “seem” to be that more equals better sales right? Wrong. This rule only holds true with a properly niche market that understands and desires the product.
In social media marketing, this widely missed marketing point equates to the big uh-oh for ROI. When the rule of niche marketing is applied to 10,000 opt-ins, the results would seem to be 100 actives as a ROI; however, the reality is that because the niche marketing pool of interested and invested potentials is diluted significantly the 1% conversion rate drop dramatically almost off of the measurable ROI chart.
There is a bonus round for contaminating your marketing pool called the Law of Diminishing Returns. The realistic problem that most business owners encounter in social media marketing using forums like Twitter, Facebook, and Squidoo is learning to use the social media in such a way that they are accepted by the group. This takes lots of time. Every business owner has just made the ultimate conversion without the need for a ROI calculator. Yes…time is money! So, when you spend two hours twittering and gain a ton of followers without any sign ups for a FREE offer or your newsletter, consider how you are truly investing your hard earned time. If, on the other hand, 5000 people sign up for your newsletter, but none of them are in your market segmentation and do not convert to sales, then you are contaminating your marketing pool with uninterested parties.
Here are four fast ways to pump up the volume on your target niche marketing pool without contamination:
Set Your Goals. Know what you want to achieve by having a presence on any social network. Are you looking for recognition? Opt-ins? Visits to your website? Whatever your goal might be, if you do not establish it now, then you will not be able to accurately measure your ROI. Worse, when you are spending time building networks that add followers in the thousands, then you will have a false sense of accomplishment and a warm, fuzzy feeling that your marketing plan is working.
Time Management. The biggest misconception about social media is that you are not spending any money to advertise or display company good. The investment of time in the management and daily interaction with social media connections, followers, and friends is transparent; however, it has to be counted in the marketing ROI because time is money for any sized business. Whether up-keeping a large company profile or providing simple outreach from a small business owner to a potential client, the expenditure of three hours a day twittering is valid and real to the bottom line. A good ROI formula for gauging marketing investment is:
For Service Oriented Businesses—Time (hrs. per week) spent on all social media (times) hourly charge for standard services.
Example: 14 hours a week (2 hours per day) (times) $50 per hour = $700 a week, $2,800 a month, or $36,400 a year!
For Product Oriented Businesses—Number of product sold in a week (times) price point of product (divided by) number of hours spent on social media.
Example: 15 ebooks per week (times) $20 each (divided by) 14 hours of social media marketing = around $21 per hour. Now backtrack, if your time expenditure is $21 per hour and you spent 14 hours doing social media, then you made less than $1 this week.
In each case, realizing the investment in a social media campaign in term of dollars helps to bring business owners a realistic picture of their ROI. And the beat goes on!
Social Media Savvy. At this point, most business owners are disgusted with even the mere mention of using social media to further their marketing efforts. Before you ditch all of your social media marketing efforts, here is the point at which we get down the meat and potatoes of WHY and HOW social networking can help businesses succeed without contaminating a marketing pool. Ready? Invest your time in social networking and social media marketing that targets your specific audience. Ideally, incorporating social media into your marketing plan is not an IF statement. Without doubt, social media and network can give you outreach to potential clients that would cost mega dollars in other venues; however, remember the earlier statement about a marketing plan? Here is where the plan becomes a reality.
Every good marketing plan will include several elements like goals, target audience, SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and distribution plan. The key to social media marketing, at this stage, is to successfully identify your target audience and reach toward those people in your social network most affected by your message. In short, if your target audience is women who are mothers, then your general target audience on any social network, like Twitter, should be women who are mothers with the same goals. Even more to the point, if your target audience is career women, then use specific career women oriented forums to build a network.
Spend Time on Success. Once you have built a strong social network with a base of followers, interact with them using strong information that will benefit their business or life. Constantly trying to sell someone something is the quickest way to lose followers. With a modest investment in time in your targeted marketing niche networks, your network will grow as others seek you out for information and recommend you to their followers. The most important thing to remember is that social networking is an investment in time and money. So, when you find your tweeps, invest in them and give them a reason in tweet about you!
Any business owner will readily agree that they would rather have 50 hot leads than 1000 cold leads. With these tips, business owners will be able to make the most of out of their efforts to participate in social media and build a robust following in every social platform.
Most of all, know when to say when! If you need help or it becomes too costly for you to maintain your social media network, then find a marketing company that specializes in social media marketing or a VA that will help you. The intelligent choice is not whether or not to commit to a plan of social media marketing. The real choice what is the best way to plan a social media campaign that does not waste your time and jeopardize your ROI! This is the way to work smarter...not harder!
Tweet’cha later.
Warning U R Contaminating Your Marketing Pool - To learn more about this author, visit Diana Bourgeois's Website.
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In the everyday race for place and space in the online social marketing world, many business owners are getting caught up in the quicksand of believing that pure numbers equal ROI (return on investment). In truth, watching the numbers add up can be a natural high that screams from the Academy Awards podium Sally Fields style, “You like Me, You Really like Me.” Dazzling lights and little golden statues aside, let’s really evaluate those numbers and how they convert into actual marketing numbers for your business.
Many business owners suffer the frustrating feeling of exhausting even more of their time trying to tip toeing through the learning curve and sift through the techno-geek language barrier constructed around each social media forum. For example, how long does it take for you to learn to “RT your @tweeps about #quote” or “hit your tweeples with a shout out to your new twit @MagicUSA on #followfriday”? Insane yet? Multiply that by the number of social media networks in the known universe and becoming a hermit with a dog in Florida on the beach will seem like a good idea!
What is worse than the multitude of social media that the average business owner tries to participate in during a given week is the amount of time invested without measuring the results. Now, if you are shaking your head and pointing at that little number spinning like the meter on a gas pump, then bad news is about to enter your world: UR contaminating your marketing pool!
For years, everyone has been taught that electronic marketing is about gaining the largest group of people to send a massive email to on a regular basis in hopes that 1% of those people will buy your product, ask for your services, or move on to whatever the next step is in the marketing plan.
NOTE: YOU MUST HAVE A MARKETING PLAN…on paper…with marketing options for “what ifs.” This is a truth of every business no matter what industry. If you don’t have a marketing plan, stop reading now and get one! I will wait.
Now, back to the discussion at hand—Old drip marketing theory stated that having thousands of people in your marketing pool to blast out electronic materials was the key to success. The marketing measure of ROI lists around 1% with 3-5 touches. Without a calculator and nothing up my marketing sleeves, it is easy to see that the numbers run at about 10 conversions for every 1000 and 50 for every 5000 opt-ins. The reality would “seem” to be that more equals better sales right? Wrong. This rule only holds true with a properly niche market that understands and desires the product.
In social media marketing, this widely missed marketing point equates to the big uh-oh for ROI. When the rule of niche marketing is applied to 10,000 opt-ins, the results would seem to be 100 actives as a ROI; however, the reality is that because the niche marketing pool of interested and invested potentials is diluted significantly the 1% conversion rate drop dramatically almost off of the measurable ROI chart.
There is a bonus round for contaminating your marketing pool called the Law of Diminishing Returns. The realistic problem that most business owners encounter in social media marketing using forums like Twitter, Facebook, and Squidoo is learning to use the social media in such a way that they are accepted by the group. This takes lots of time. Every business owner has just made the ultimate conversion without the need for a ROI calculator. Yes…time is money! So, when you spend two hours twittering and gain a ton of followers without any sign ups for a FREE offer or your newsletter, consider how you are truly investing your hard earned time. If, on the other hand, 5000 people sign up for your newsletter, but none of them are in your market segmentation and do not convert to sales, then you are contaminating your marketing pool with uninterested parties.
Here are four fast ways to pump up the volume on your target niche marketing pool without contamination:
Set Your Goals. Know what you want to achieve by having a presence on any social network. Are you looking for recognition? Opt-ins? Visits to your website? Whatever your goal might be, if you do not establish it now, then you will not be able to accurately measure your ROI. Worse, when you are spending time building networks that add followers in the thousands, then you will have a false sense of accomplishment and a warm, fuzzy feeling that your marketing plan is working.
Time Management. The biggest misconception about social media is that you are not spending any money to advertise or display company good. The investment of time in the management and daily interaction with social media connections, followers, and friends is transparent; however, it has to be counted in the marketing ROI because time is money for any sized business. Whether up-keeping a large company profile or providing simple outreach from a small business owner to a potential client, the expenditure of three hours a day twittering is valid and real to the bottom line. A good ROI formula for gauging marketing investment is:
For Service Oriented Businesses—Time (hrs. per week) spent on all social media (times) hourly charge for standard services.
Example: 14 hours a week (2 hours per day) (times) $50 per hour = $700 a week, $2,800 a month, or $36,400 a year!
For Product Oriented Businesses—Number of product sold in a week (times) price point of product (divided by) number of hours spent on social media.
Example: 15 ebooks per week (times) $20 each (divided by) 14 hours of social media marketing = around $21 per hour. Now backtrack, if your time expenditure is $21 per hour and you spent 14 hours doing social media, then you made less than $1 this week.
In each case, realizing the investment in a social media campaign in term of dollars helps to bring business owners a realistic picture of their ROI. And the beat goes on!
Social Media Savvy. At this point, most business owners are disgusted with even the mere mention of using social media to further their marketing efforts. Before you ditch all of your social media marketing efforts, here is the point at which we get down the meat and potatoes of WHY and HOW social networking can help businesses succeed without contaminating a marketing pool. Ready? Invest your time in social networking and social media marketing that targets your specific audience. Ideally, incorporating social media into your marketing plan is not an IF statement. Without doubt, social media and network can give you outreach to potential clients that would cost mega dollars in other venues; however, remember the earlier statement about a marketing plan? Here is where the plan becomes a reality.
Every good marketing plan will include several elements like goals, target audience, SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats), and distribution plan. The key to social media marketing, at this stage, is to successfully identify your target audience and reach toward those people in your social network most affected by your message. In short, if your target audience is women who are mothers, then your general target audience on any social network, like Twitter, should be women who are mothers with the same goals. Even more to the point, if your target audience is career women, then use specific career women oriented forums to build a network.
Spend Time on Success. Once you have built a strong social network with a base of followers, interact with them using strong information that will benefit their business or life. Constantly trying to sell someone something is the quickest way to lose followers. With a modest investment in time in your targeted marketing niche networks, your network will grow as others seek you out for information and recommend you to their followers. The most important thing to remember is that social networking is an investment in time and money. So, when you find your tweeps, invest in them and give them a reason in tweet about you!
Any business owner will readily agree that they would rather have 50 hot leads than 1000 cold leads. With these tips, business owners will be able to make the most of out of their efforts to participate in social media and build a robust following in every social platform.
Most of all, know when to say when! If you need help or it becomes too costly for you to maintain your social media network, then find a marketing company that specializes in social media marketing or a VA that will help you. The intelligent choice is not whether or not to commit to a plan of social media marketing. The real choice what is the best way to plan a social media campaign that does not waste your time and jeopardize your ROI! This is the way to work smarter...not harder!
Tweet’cha later.
Warning U R Contaminating Your Marketing Pool - To learn more about this author, visit Diana Bourgeois's Website.
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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John AlexanderJohn has taught keyword research and SEO skills to small groups of business owners and Webmasters from over 80 different countries world wide since 2002. John is also the Director of Search Engine Academy ; Co-director of Training at Search Engine Workshops offering live, SEO Workshops with his partner SEO educator Robin Nobles, author of the very first comprehensive online search engine marketing courses at SEO Training Online and the SEO Workshop Resource Center. I look forward to hearing from you! - Visit John Alexander's Website |
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