Last
modified April 22,
2011
Real
Estate and Car Sales Pros:
How
Can You NOT Be Rocking Social Media?
If burritos and cupcakes can
benefit from social media (and you should really check
out the Pancheros
guy on Twitter), how could real estate or car sales
not be digitally rocking it?
Why get digital?
Digital or
social media fosters relationship building and lead
generation and referrals and sales
objectives.
It’s really
what you already do every day, all day—make connections
and then turn those connections into relationships. Create
more customer engagements with all social and digital
communications venues.
If you’re
lucky enough to have folks looking for you, you had better
be in the places they seek you out! Monitoring or “listening” through
digital platforms can garner information specific to
your targets—information companies have paid big
money to get from surveys, focus groups and other such
marketing research. From this data garnered you can better
understand your customers’ interests and motivations,
which can then be used to tailor powerful and targeted
marketing campaigns.
Your target
customers are typically geographic in nature.
Finding “friends” and “followers” in
social media by location is easy. But you can also find
and make target lists based on other factors, just as
you would in finding qualified buyers to target.
You can
give so much value! That’s really the name of the game
in social media – it’s not overt sales, it’s
a set of content goals providing value specific to your
objectives. For example, you may educate about interest
rates; you may promote charities or non-profits in your
community, you may commiserate about the weather, or
you may describe your thoughts on first seeing a new
property or car, as is applicable.
You have so
much to talk about—particular sales features, community,
industry, trends and so much more—and when you
do, you’re positioning yourself as the expert.
Experts earn trust. Trust earns business.
Personal note:
I bought my Hyundai, Vivian, from a local
dealer who responded nearly immediately to an email inquiry
I sent.
Yes, it absolutely mattered that they
were “digitally” clued-in.
Yes, I name my cars.
Get your digital
on!
Keep CALM
Content
Marketing is on the Way
Have
you ever left your TV on while sleeping only to be woken up by
someone pitching a miracle blender or life-changing diet system
with WAY TOO MUCH ENTHUSIASM (and volume)!!!!? Is it possible these
marketers have no idea how annoying they are?
Have you heard of the Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation
Act?
From Wikileaks.
The Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act (H.R.
1084/S. 2847), or CALM requires the Federal Communications
Commission to regulate the audio of TV commercials from being
broadcast at louder sound volumes than the TV program material
they accompany.[2] The bill passed on September 29, 2010.[3]
The bill requires the use of technology to ensure that commercials
will be played at the same volume as the program. The U.S.
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will begin enforcing
this bill within a year.[4]
Why was this even necessary to take to Congress?
Audiences have been complaining about this for years; why don’t marketers
listen and try to please the audiences they’re trying to
reach? What about direct mail, pop-up ads, spam emails? Why are
marketers so very willing to annoy their target audiences?
Fact: The ugly truth
is, it works. Remember the miracle diet commercial? It got your
attention! The key to
its success is in the bulk nature of distribution, which ensures
consumers’ attention. Commercials and infomercials, email
blasts, direct marketing, pop-up ads and the like are relatively
inexpensive to produce and distribute. For example, since there
is almost no cost associated with sending out millions of emails,
if a bulk emailer sends out 1 million messages for a product that
he sells for $19.95 (plus shipping and handling), he only needs
0.1 percent to purchase it to earn $20,000. Companies most successful
at these types of marketing usually employ a mix of these bulk
distribution techniques.
Why is some marketing more annoying than others? Studies indicate
audiences are likely to reject communication efforts because they
perceive a loss of control over the type of material they are receiving
through the mail and Internet. Why do I get spam suggesting erectile
dysfunction treatment? Annoying! The marketer clearly knows nothing
about the person that I am, not even my gender.
Value Content Trend
As most things in marketing trending right now, content is best targeted to
individuals whom it may benefit. Content marketing is about communications
that are relevant, valuable, customer-centered and designed to attract, not
annoy, buyers. According to research firm http://www.gfkamerica.com/,
80% of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series
of articles versus an advertisement. Another 70% say content marketing makes
them feel closer to the sponsoring company, while 60% say that company content
helps them make better product decisions. This kind of marketing is actually
welcomed by customers; they look forward to receiving your content because
they get something out of it. The right kind of content creates a connection;
good content communications can change behavior – from annoyance at
marketing they didn’t ask for or need, to appreciation and desire for
offerings that are relevant and have value in their lives.
So you may not only get some relief from blaring commercials within
the next year, savvy marketers are learning to give you value,
not irritation.
Reach
those marketing challenges
With
fewer resources, many organizations are expecting value-based
marketing with significant return on investment expected from
each action. Return, return, and more return!
The marketing challenge
is accelerated by smaller staffs and higher expectations. The
job needs to be done with less people, in less time, and with
a much smaller budget. No matter who you are, this is tough to
produce. It requires strategic focus and organizational agility.
Start by looking at
the expectations and objectives from your strategic plan and
prioritize them so the most important aspects of your marketing
goals are achieved by importance. Reach the target the first
time without market experimentation when business gains are expected.
By evaluating every opportunity in terms of its potential for
immediate success, a marketing director must approach it with
instant focus and have the ability to reallocate resources when
needed. Every activity must be weighed against results in these
tight times.
The challenge that most
face is the balance between the strategic plan and the dexterity
needed to make quick shifts when opportunities arise. Staying
versatile and ready to act is important. Large organizations
are developing small teams and giving them autonomy so they can
respond the way smaller companies do. The speed of business has
increased and if you are not with it, you are behind it.
Adaptive organizations
and leadership win in challenging times. Which activities are
essential and which are extra? Sometimes it is a fine line. And
always consider that what is essential today, might not be tomorrow.
It’s all about efficiency and effectiveness.
Based on our own experience,
the marketing strategy needs to be linked to an overall business
strategy that will enable the team to focus on what is critical
to corporate goals. To enable this responsiveness, avoid sluggish
bureaucracy, be efficient and always have a reliable way to measure
effectiveness.
Twitter
for Fun and Profit
Are
you using Twitter in your social media arsenal? If not, consider
this question: What would you or have you paid for a database with
millions and the ability to cull it for thousands of your marketing
targets?
Further, what would you pay to communicate
with those thousands as much or as little as you like? Communication,
keeping a business
or product top-of-mind is what marketing is all about; Twitter,
done well, can provide a tool to keep your business or product
in the limelight every day. How does one “do Twitter well?” Three “rules”:
find the right followers to engage with, keep the conversation
about them and sell without selling.
Twitter is not a sales tool,
nor is it best utilized for overt marketing. It is a conversation.
It is giving value. It allows my colleagues and me to speak
to those in the industries in which we work; to show our expertise;
to give useful/meaningful/memorable relationship-based messages
to one other at a time, or to hundreds, even thousands of others
at a time. Hopefully, these messages will lead to conversations.
Twitter
for business purposes is like an after-hours mixer or business
cocktail party. You are there as a representative of your
company and so should comport yourself with class and professionalism.
You should also engage with others—that’s the purpose
of professional networking. You should not meet and greet everyone
with your company’s sales and specials, new and improved
products or upcoming deals. Yes, it may come up in conversation,
but that should happen naturally and organically, without any promotion.
Also natural and organic are conversations in these settings that
do not have anything to do with business. And that’s
where the potential for fun comes in.
Check out the following “tools” to
enhance your Twitter experience, and the experiences of your
followers:
www.twittionary.com
Twittonary
aka the Twitter Dictionary is a compilation of the twitter words
people have come up with which include the language of twitter,
twitter phrases, twitter businesses, twitter applications, and
more.
http://mytwitterweighsaton.com/
My
Twitter Weighs a Ton grabs a bunch of your tweets and counts
how many times you use any given word.It groups similar words
using the Porter
Stemming algorithm. This process reduces words to a common
roots, allowing us to identify similar words like “fishing”, “fished”, “fish”,
and “fisher”.
This isn't particularly useful, but it is cool to see what other people
tend to talk about.
http://140it.com/
140it
shrinks your twitter messages down to 140 characters
by reducing words, removing extra spaces, shrinking URL's with unhub and
exchanging company names with their StockTwits symbol.
http://tagdef.com/
A
hashtag, as described by Twitter Help (http://support.twitter.com/entries/49309-what-are-hashtags-symbols):
The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords
or topics in a tweet. It was created organically by Twitter
users as a way to categorize messages. Clicking on a hashtagged
word in any message shows you all other tweets in that category.
Tagdef defines posted hashtags, and posts trending and most
popular hashtags.
http://www.twsym.com/
Twittersymbols allows characters other than those that are standard on a keyboard
to be tweeted; post it to your bookmark bar for easy access.
http://www.ironicsans.com/thsrs/
My
personal favorite, Thsrs gives you synonyms shorter than the word you’re
looking up. Just enter one of the longer words in your message, and Thsrs will
suggest shorter words to use instead.If you haven’t yet signed up
for Twitter, better give us a call
