GenX Marketing Advice from Forrester Research

Targeting Generation X? Try Word of Mouth

[Excerpted from 8/28/2009 Forrester Research article by Nate Elliott]

If you're a marketer targeting Gen X consumers (between 30 and 43), and you're not using social media or influence marketing, it's time to reevaluate your strategy.

This audience is surprisingly engaged with social media. They're more active than average on nearly every rung of our social technographics ladder -- especially as joiners, with 59% of Gen X consumers telling us they use social networks at least once each month. Best of all, many are using social influence to make product recommendations: 42% say they often tell friends about the products and services that interest them.

So if you want to leverage this sharing behavior to reach Gen X consumers (or any other socially active online audience, for that matter), what should you do?

• Give all your customers the tools they need to share. Tools like ShareThis and AddThis make it easy to add sharing functionality to your site. And don't forget: as valuable as Twitter and Facebook can be for driving word of mouth, most people make product recommendations through private channels like e-mail and IM.
• Find -- and leverage -- your brand advocates. Mine your sales database to find your most loyal and valuable customers, and run surveys to find users who think most highly of your brand and are most likely to pass the word along.
• Don't forget the power of offline influence. Online influence can work wonders, but offline influence is both more common (see Figure 11) and more powerful (see page 18). Savvy marketers are using social media to organize offline events where customers can energize each other around products and brands, and to create and manage ambassador programs that extend both online and off.

My Take

Nate's practical advice and clear data is compelling.

Bottom line - if your target clients are aged 30 to 43, they're using social media to talk about you. It's a race between you and your competitors - the earlier you engage your customers and neighbors on social media there the more new sales you'll book.

SMEs' Future is Connecting With 'Fans'

The Problem With 'Fans'

by Joe Marchese

Excerpted from 8/25/2009 MediaPost Blogs Follow the author on Twitter @joemarchese (www.twitter.com/joemarchese)

Fans, by definition, have raised their hand to indicate some sort of affiliation to a brand. The intent of that affiliation can vary widely, depending on the individual. Perhaps the "fan" simply wanted to tell her friends about a brand she liked, one time. Perhaps the "fan" wanted to get the coupon offered by a brand for becoming a fan. Or perhaps, and this is the one the brands want to hear, the "fan" wants to hear from and talk to the brand going forward.

Whatever the reason, an individual has opted to form a loose connection to a brand within social media. There is no doubt that this is the next generation of CRM (customer relationship management), and will be an incredibly valuable tool as brands better learn how to communicate in a social media setting -- but it is no way a complete answer to social media marketing.

Consider the number of brands the average person interacts with in his or her daily life. Now consider how many of those brands a person would be willing to become a fan of. Also, in what setting does marketing to your most loyal fans only constitute the whole of your marketing efforts?

The power of social media marketing is to reach out to people who are not already fans, outside the setting of direct communication between brands and people -- instead generating conversation between people about brands. The difference is between Nike talking to me on Facebook, versus a friend and I talking to each other about Nike on Facebook. Authenticity is found in peer-to-peer communication, not just within a core group of loyal fans, but reaching out to the community at large.

Activating this strategy will unlock significant reach and generate the ROI brands are looking for to justify social media investments (re: new customers).

People are spending more time in social media all the time. Adapting best practices to leverage fans/friends/followers is a must, and should be a major component of every social media marketing plan.

My Take

Marchese touches on several consumer trends:

• Increasing tendency of consumers to affiliate with brands (substitute Small to Medium Sized Enterprises - SMEs - for the purpose of this commentary)
• These fans' motivation ranges from sheer loyalty to desired connection to reward
• As consumers increasingly use social media, it is an ideal place for SMEs to connect with loyal and prospective customers. In fact, adapting best practices to leverage fans/friends/followers is a "*must".

These trends are early indicators of the emerging social economy which will recognize and incorporate social media as the most valuable advertising channel. The $100B US local advertising market will increasingly shift to social media.

On A Roll... Another 25 Words...

Oh, what the heck? Here's another "25 Words of Social Media Wisdom"

"20% of clients provide 80% of referrals. Each referring client is Golden Fuel - worth 16x non-referrers. So do unto them as they unto you."

Submitted to Liz Strauss' "25 Words of Social Media Wisdom" Project.

25 Words of Social Media Wisdom - Submission

"Good fences make good neighbors." But small gardens.




Don’t wall yourself in. Connect with your customers and neighbors who are talking about you right now.


Submitted to Liz Strauss' "25 Words of Social Media Wisdom" Project.

Do Local Businesses Need a Social Media Strategy?

They do if they want to grow like crazy!

Business finds success through social networking Play video

(Excerpted from 7/28/2009 NECN report by Peter Howe) - Louis E. Page Inc. , a 116-year-old Massachusetts company is proving to be a raging success story for how to use social networking and other online tools to increase sales and sales leads.

The company supplemented its mailed-out catalog and ads in specialty magazines with a website about five years ago, but the big breakthrough came last December, when Duncan Page added a blog that he calls The Fence Post.

Since then, he has had an 850 percent increase in sales leads.

One article Duncan wrote was about how to use something called woven wire fencing to build a horse paddock. Guess how many people have downloaded it? More than 1,500.

Page said his typical blog post is "just an article about the products. We don't say you should buy this from us. We don't really refer to ourselves at all. It's really important to the whole marketing effort to blog and sort of become known as an authority and a trusted authority on what you're selling.''

"One of the things I've learned is that it really works,'' Page said. As Louis Page & Co. enters its 117th year, the namesake's grandson's looking ahead ... to video blogging. "I would like to get into video, is one thing, because that's very effective to be able to actually show somebody rather than have to write and describe it with words.''

My Take

What a perfect illustration of a trusted, established business using social media to leverage its reputation and its profile among its customers and prospective customers.

"I washed my windows and I liked it?!" - Guest Editorial

Linda Pulford, owner of New Hartford-based Farmington Valley Organizing offers this great motivational piece in today's FVO newsletter.

I hate to wash windows! I have 47 of them and I usually just get streaks. I always put window washing on my gift wish list. But, it never materializes.

So, after pollen season passed, I had no excuse. Why couldn't I get it done? It was too big and overwhelming a chore. So, I had to work really hard at getting started. First I thought I would just do the insides. Still, too many windows. Then I thought about just doing the downstairs (29). Still too many. Then I thought, maybe just the insides of the kitchen windows (5). OK, deal.

I sometimes tell my clients to put on music they love to help energize them for a task. I needed all the energizing I could get, so I put on a Doo Wop CD.

I had tried the newspaper tip before with streaky results. But, just heard the ladies from "How Clean is Your House?" say the papers must be at least 2 days old to work. Who knew? I used some old newspapers and window cleaner and it worked great! The rough papers took the film off the windows quicker than a soft cloth. After I cleaned them with newsprint, I just ran a clean
paper towel into the corners.

I was having such success, I kept going... All the insides of the downstairs windows (29). The music played a big part. It's hard to have a bad time while listening to "I love a girl named ramma lamma lamma lamma lamma ding dong!"

What does this have to do with organizing?

One reason you are not getting organized is because the task is too big and overwhelming. Whatever it is, breaking it down into a very small piece will work.

* If it's the office, just start with one small part of your desk.

* If it's a pile of papers, just start with one inch.

* If it's a storage room, just start with one square foot.

Get the idea? It works. And don't forget the music!

Linda has been a YouGottaCall.com Member & Trusted Service Provider since March 2008. She was the first TSP to gain a new client by a YouGottaCall.com Member referral. Please visit FVO's YouGottaCall.com page - or you may reach Linda at 860-558-1747.

My Take on "Does Facebook local ad biz help advertisers?

Adotas may be missing the bigger picture when it comes to pronouncing Facebook ads a waste of money for small businesses.

Excerpted from "Facebook soaks up local ad biz, does it help the advertisers?" (July 17, 2009):

"74 percent of Facebook's ad revenues is from local businesses, according to Borrell. What are advertisers getting for this? Facebook’s best bet is as a portable data warehouse as advertisers ask for targeted buys, but considering the far flung nature of social networks, it seems wasted money for local businesses."

My Take

"considering the far flung nature of social networks, it seems wasted money for local businesses."

Far flung - perhaps. But local too. As more 30-60 year olds get onto Facebook - which they're doing - their local neighbors, friends, and trusted businesses will be on as well.

Local businesses get most of their business from word-of-mouth now. The local ad market, estimated at $100B, is primed to mine the communal knowledge of trusted local relationships.