Digital Marketing Gaps in Skills May Hinder Sales Results

Posted on January 27, 2014 by Jason Sem in Corporate Social Strategy, Digital Marketing Strategy, Return on Investment | Leave a comment

Struggle in Building A Digital Marketing Team

Hiring managers these days are struggling to find good digital marketing talent according to the Online Marketing Institute. They surveyed almost 750 Fortune 500 and ad agency execs and the results showed there’s a vast gap between the digital marketing expertise needed by organizations and the talent that is actually available to them at every level.

Many times the trouble starts with the hiring managers who don’t have enough work experience in hiring the optimal digital marketing team. About 30% of the time companies haven’t hired in the past year because they can’t figure out who to go to for talent.

Just Getting By
Many companies are doing just enough by working with the talent they already have to sustain their digital marketing campaigns. Many times the tech people don’t have the marketing skills and the marketers are lacking the tech skills so its difficult to get someone to pull it altogether.

Invest In Talent
If companies are just maintaining current staffing but they’re most certainly missing significant opportunities that better qualified digital talent, contractors or consultants could take advantage of. It may take some time and the willingness to pay for experience but if companies dedicate themselves to finding digital talent with the proper skills and experience they will have a much better shot at:

Generating more leads
Growing revenue
Increasing brand awareness
Demonstrating ROI

Here are some resources to finding the best talent:

How Social Media Affects the Consumer’s Decision to Buy

Posted on September 15, 2012 by Jason Sem in Corporate Social Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Retail, Return on Investment, SEO, Social Media, Social Media Consulting, Trends | Leave a comment

Google recently came out with some research called Zero Moment of Truth that very clearly and convincingly lays out the business case for social media and how it impacts the consumer’s buying journey.

Google states that the Zero Moment of Truth is the moment when a consumer picks up a laptop, mobile phone or other wired device to research a product or serve and then decide what to buy. The research shows that more and more, people are making their buying decisions well before they get to the store.

Recently, I’ve been telling anyone who will listen (ad nauseum, perhaps) that there’s been a fundamental shift in how consumers gather data and how they’re using that data to make buying decisions for products from new cars to ball point pens.

They are increasingly turning to online social interactions to check out ratings and reviews (which is a form of social sharing) for opinions on products and services and searching what a brand’s Facebook Pages or Twitter account has for deals and insights as to what’s new. They’re also using sites like YouTube and Vimeo to research how-to videos or demos on how products are used. Here’s some interesting stats that highlight this behavior:

70% of Americans now say they look at product reviews before making a purchase
79% of consumers now say they use a smartphone to help with shopping
83% of moms say they do online research after seeing TV commercials for products that interest them

All these social interactions can be quickly and easily found using search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo. For a long time the conventional wisdom was that people won’t go out of their way to research things like laundry detergent and butter but in fact they do. Google’s research clearly shows they do.

The graphic below shows when those Zero Moments of Truth are happening:

Average purchase cycles for three diverse categories

If you don’t believe what Google’s saying, the Harvard Business Review came out with some research from McKinsey & Company that supports Google’s thinking. (See my recent article Consumer Decision Journey in the Digital Age) They’ve actually documented this behavior in 2009 and Google backs up their assertion that brands need to be at that digital evaluation process or Zero Moment of Truth when the consumer looks for information. If a brand isn’t showing up when consumers do their search, they are losing sales.

Where social media really makes its impact is in the advocacy phase of the consumer’s buying journey after they’ve taken advantage of a service or brought a product home and used it. If they like it (or not) they will go on Facebook, Amazon.com, Twitter, blogs, Consumer Reports, or brand website and let you know what they think. And for the first time in history, this word-of-mouth communication is being digitally archived making one person’s advocacy someone else’s Zero Moment of Truth.

I highly recommend you check out Google’s research (it’s free), watch all the videos and read it in its entirety. This Zero Moment of Truth will become, if it’s not already, the most important impetus for a customer to buy your company’s goods and/or services.

How Far Did That Tweet Go?

Posted on June 7, 2012 by Jason Sem in Corporate Social Strategy, Reputation Monitoring, Return on Investment, Social Media | 2 Comments

As I was perusing the intertubes today on my phone I suddenly received a flurry of notifications from my Twitter app telling me that 21 people had mentioned me (@jbsem.com). I usually don’t receive this many mentions in a week let alone all at once so I clicked to see what happened.

Apparently, @MariSmith, bless her heart, who’s a prolific tweeter (106,000 followers), just re-tweeted a blog post of mine (7 Keys to Choosing the Right Social Media Monitoring Tool). Another 20+ people then re-tweeted her tweet. All of a sudden a good number of people were clicking on the link to my post.

This got me to wondering how many people did this one tweet reach so I brought up my online tools and got to work. There are some robust systems out there that could have provided a complete view of clicks, reach, impressions, blog visits, etc., all in one dashboard but those cost some serious change.

So instead, I used a variety of free online tools that produce reports similar to the more sophisticated platforms; it just took a little more work and some knowhow. Here’s what I used.

Bit.ly

Bit.ly is a URL shortener that shrinks long URLs into ones that are more conducive to 140 character limits. It also has tracking capability that measures the number of times people click on the URL and where they’re coming from. Using my URL http://bit.ly/j5xc3j it showed me that 42 people clicked on a bit.ly link to get to my post; 32 of which clicked on the link I created. This means 10 people used a different bit.ly link to get to my content.

TweetReach

This is a simple tool that lets you easily gauge the reach of a tweet, link, #hashtag, phrase or keyword and shows the reach and exposure data for those tweets. I typed in my bit.ly link and it showed that my tweet as of June 6 reached 129,137 people via 18 tweets; producing 142,627 Impressions. It’s a nice quick and easy way to see how far a tweet has gone. See below.

SocialMention

This is a free social media search and analysis platform that provides an easy way to track and measure what people are saying about you or your company across the web’s social media landscape. The tool lacks the customizable reporting capability other monitoring tools provide, however you can’t beat the price (free). This tool showed me that mentions, using my bit.ly link, had a sentiment ratio at an excellent 21 positive to 0 negative. This due to the fact @MariSmith included “LIKE!!” in her tweet. I love her. While I have serious doubts about automated sentiment analysis, it’s a quick and dirty way to see if good or bad things are being said about you. The tool also uses metrics like strength, reach and passion of the posts. You can click here to see how they define these metrics (just hover over the number and the definition will appear).

Google Analytics

I really don’t know what marketers would do without Google Analytics. It’s by far one of the best and easiest tools to use in measuring and monitoring your website and/or blog’s traffic. And its FREE. It provided me with metrics on the number of visits I received to my post, the time people spent reading my post, the number of people leaving the page without further clicks (bounce rate), percent of new visits, source of the traffic, etc. I won’t go into all the detail other than to say that this information is critical for me in determining what content is most useful and how well my content is being picked up by search engines. If you don’t have this program set up, just ask your web master and they’ll do it for you and give you access.

It was a fun day today as it’s always interesting to see the impact of your online social activities and it’s a great way to really understand the power of social platforms and the tools used to measure them.

Aligning Social Media Insights with Consumer Buying Habits – CMOs Are Missing the Boat

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Jason Sem in Corporate Social Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Return on Investment, Social Media, Social Media Consulting, Trends | Leave a comment

IBM Global CMO Study

IBM has recently released their IBM Global CMO Study for 2011 and once again, social media comes up very high in what CMOs see as an area of concern for the future of their business. Other areas of concern were the data explosion, proliferation of channels and devices and shifting consumer demographics; all of which tie into social media.

The one tidbit I found most interesting in this study was CMOs are still predominantly relying on traditional sources of information such as focus groups and studies that focus on understanding markets rather than individuals. It seems that most are still ignoring what people are saying about them through social channels. Case in point:

26 percent are tracking blogs
42 percent are tracking third-party reviews
48 percent are tracking consumer reviews

In a past blog post, called Consumer Decision Journey in the Digital Age, I highlight a McKinsey & Company study that shows how more and more consumers are using these social channels to make their buying decisions. However, organizations have yet to leverage these tools which can provide crucial insights into how customers and influencers think and behave.

The graph below shows the sources of information CMOs are using to make strategic marketing decisions and as you can see most are paying more attention to markets than individuals. The key sources to understanding individuals (highlighted in yellow) still are ranked relatively low:

It’s quite obvious that CMO’s have not yet aligned their strategies with how consumers are behaving today and aren’t keeping up with the trends in technology. Therefore, I see a big role for social media going forward and the companies that embrace this trend will be well positioned to be leaders in their industries.

Consumer Decision Journey in the Digital Age

Posted on April 17, 2011 by Jason Sem in Corporate Social Strategy, Return on Investment, Social Media, Social Media Consulting | 1 Comment

In the December 2010 edition of the Harvard Business Review, David C. Edelman wrote an outstanding article on social media called “Branding in the Digital Age: You’re Spending Your Money in All the Wrong Places.” He points out that today’s consumers are connecting with brands in a fundamentally new way through media channels that are beyond manufacturer’s and retailer’s control.

Then: The Funnel Metaphor

Edelman points out that for a long time marketers assumed that consumers started with a large number of potential brands in mind and methodically winnowed their choices until they would decide which one to buy. After purchase, their relationship with the brand typically focused on the use of the product or service itself.

Now: The Consumer Decision Journey

Edelman goes on to say “New research shows that rather than systematically narrowing their choices, consumers add and subtract brands from a group under consideration during an extended evaluation phase. After purchase, they often enter into an open ended relationship with the brand, sharing their experience with it online.

Click here to read the full Harvard Business Review Article article (there’s a pay wall – but it’s worth it).

Consumer Lifecycle

Jeremiah Owyang also draws attention to this new consumer lifecycle; he uses an hourglass funnel which goes into a little more detail but it’s generally the same concept as Enjoy-Advocate-Bond in the chart above.

There are many companies who have yet to build scalable social business programs so addressing these areas may still be difficult. However, once they do, they will be better able to arm not only their employees but their advocates with the knowledge and tools to help promote their brands after the point of sale.

It’s quite evident that brands need to start thinking strategically on how each of their social media channels will address these consumer touch points. Ignoring this new consumer journey means a tremendous lost opportunity.

Building A Scalable Social Business Program

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Jason Sem in Corporate Social Strategy, Return on Investment, Social Media, Social Media Consulting | Leave a comment

Jeremiah Owyang, one of the leading social strategists, has been working closely with many of the world’s biggest brands to learn about where social media is headed and how companies can scale their business for social media.

He’s conducted research and has come up with some fantastic reports on corporate social strategy. Below, he’s laid out what I believe are essential steps for building social media programs:

Get into hub and spoke and develop a center of excellence
Leverage community for first tier marketing and support
Integrate both in the customer lifecycle as well as your corporate website
Launch a formalized advocacy program
Invest in Social Media Management Systems before you lose control

Here are some must-read articles from Owyang and the Altimeter Group for companies looking to build out an enterprise wide social media program:

Corporations Should Prioritize Social Business Spending
The Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist

Scalable Social Business Programs

Jeramiah Owyang, one of the leading social strategists, has been working closely with many of the biggest brands in the world to help learn about where social media is headed and making recommendations on how companies can scale their business for social media.

Here are five key’s for building social media programs:

Leverage community for first tier marketing and support.

Integrate both in the customer lifecycle as well as your corporate website.

Launch a formalized advocacy program.

Invest in Social Media Management Systems before you lose control.

Here are some must-read articles for companies looking to build out an enterprise wide social media program:

Corporations Should Prioritize Social Business Spending

The Career Path of the Corporate Social Strategist

Keynote: Invest in Scalable Social Business Programs

View more presentations from Jeremiah Owyang

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Social Intelligence – Utilizing Social Media Data

Posted on June 21, 2010 by Jason Sem in Corporate Social Strategy, Reputation Monitoring, Return on Investment, Social Media, Social Media Consulting | Leave a comment

Its amazing to see how social media has so quickly transformed the marketing world, not to mention the realm of advertising and public relations. We went from talking about how to build a Twitter account a few years ago to now expecting social media to do some heavy lifting.

And much of that heavy lifting is in the form of data collection based on online discussions and engagement. Companies are trying to keep up with these emerging social interactions by monitoring what is being said about them online but can’t seem to grapple with the fire hose of data that is coming at them. Most of them are just trying to make sense of properly engage customers and haven’t quite figured out how to use the information that is coming back at them.

From what I see, most companies, not named Ford or Dell, are still hesitant to really embrace social technologies and aren’t quite convinced of its relevance to their business. Either that, or they haven’t the faintest idea how to craft and implement a strategy that incorporates branding, business lead generation, quality customer service, and consumer insight.

Many companies these days have a social media presence but they aren’t really tying it to their overall business objectives. Its just hanging out there on its own. They throw up a Facebook page or sign up for a Twitter account but don’t really have a strategy on how they engage with people or what type of data they hope to glean out of social interactions.

Without any prompting, customers are openly sharing information that would otherwise have taken months of surveys and focus groups. And they’re doing it for free. This has prompted the growth of a relatively new field called Social Intelligence, which harnesses the insights found within social media data to better understand customers and inform marketing and business strategy.

McKinsey & Company, one of the world’s biggest consulting firms, as just recently partnered with Neilson to provide this service to clients, so you know there must be something do this. (Nielsen Joins Forces With McKinsey For Social Intelligence Consulting)

Social Intelligence is quite an easy concept but one that isn’t being fully utilized by most companies. It involves these three basic steps:

Monitoring social media
Collecting and analyzing the content
Using the insights to inform your strategy

Companies are just beginning to figure out the first two steps but have yet to figure out the third and, what I’d consider to be, the most crucial step. Zach Hofer-Shall, an analyst at Forrester Research recently published an article called Defining Social Intelligence which he encouraged companies to start taking online conversations seriously to better utilize the data coming from their social channels.

I think Zach and Forrester are on to something. Thus, you should be seeing more and more demand for services that link social data to business insights.

Here are some interesting articles I’ve found on the subject:

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