small business marketing | Garr Barr Group

August 31, 2009 By Susan Barr Leave a Comment

The Scarlet â€˜Eâ€™ for Social Media Expert

Lately, the blogosphere has begun an outcry against the “social media expertsâ€, mostly by other self-described “social media expertsâ€. I recently found myself laughing out loud when one such expert claimed outrage in her blog, asking her readers to â€œout the fakesâ€ by sending her their horror stories about fake gurusâ€¦an interesting approach to convincing others of her value, to say the least. Somewhere, someone is busy crafting Scarlet â€˜Eâ€™s for the offenders.

I admit to having a natural skepticism of the words â€œexpertâ€ and â€œguruâ€ â€“ years of working in software engineering left me with a definition of expert which leaves few able to pass the threshold. In spite of my prejudice regarding use of the word, I think the current debate needs reframing. I find it more alarming to see such a preponderance of business consultants and experts who do not understand social media or worse, those who dismiss it as irrelevant to their consulting work. The issue is not whether there are too many experts. The real issue is that anyone who charges for products or services that affect the customer experience MUST be conversant in social media.

If you are a business owner, donâ€™t ignore the debate about experts but donâ€™t become dizzy over it. It is my belief that you should not hire any marketing professional or web professional who does not make it a priority to understand how your customers are using social media and how those same customers expect to interact with your business using social media. Such professionals must have a broad understanding of what is happening on the social web and how it affects consumers. Their priority must be on your customer and your business vision, not their obsolete process or proprietary solution.

How can a PR pro or an advertising consultant create an effective campaign for your business without consideration of social media? How can a website designer ignore how social networks can be utilized to drive web traffic to your site? How can a strategist create a plan for you without considering a content marketing strategy? In this day and age, ignoring social media is akin to professional malpractice.

So, how do you evaluate the self-described experts? Social media marketing is still a young field but most of us talking about it have a back-story. Before the advent of social media, what did the expert do? A resume should be available on their website or upon request. Are they bringing the perspective of an experienced brand marketer? A corporate executive? A successful entrepreneur? A technical website developer? A graphics or creative web designer? They must have more depth than a resume of 1000â€™s of Twitter followers or Facebook friends can avail.

Be wary of the expert who is selling you proprietary solution along with their social media expertise. There are countless solutions providers who mask â€œstrategyâ€ under the cloak of their proprietary software or advertising solutions. They ask leading questions which always direct you to their custom solutions with great promises of Google page rank. Local coupon sales, local ad sales, canned websites and FB pages, local online directories, software packages that â€œautomateâ€ your social media methods and new business networking sites are just a few examples of applications being sold under the broad umbrella of social media marketing. Such solutions should be investigated thoroughly to ensure the result applies to your unique business and whether other alternatives exist (possibly free), especially since many of the above require ongoing subscription fees or hefty up-front costs.

Keep in mind that profitable social media implementation is 80% strategy and 20% technology so make sure your strategy is well-defined before you sign on the dotted line. Stay focused on your goals and hire experts who share your commitment. Ultimately, the labels don’t matter as much as whether your goals are achieved by working with these folks.

June 19, 2009 By Susan Barr Leave a Comment

Cheating the Customer?

After speaking recently at the SN4BW Online Global Training Event, I was asked if I recommend small businesses hire Virtual Assistants to respond to business tweets on Twitter. My initial reaction was a strong negative. I reasoned that outsourcing your social interaction on Twitter is equivalent to sending a secretary in your place to a cocktail party or a networking event to which you have been personally invited. The value and the beauty of social media as a marketing tool is that business participation in the media feels personal to the customer, makes the customer feel special and valued. I suggest that the use of “auto-tweets” while generally used for promotion and information, are not good practice for developing relationships or enhancing the value of your brand to a customer.

I tried to think of how and why you would want to outsource responses to your tweets if you are a small office/home office so I decided to consult with Carle Henry , CEO of Chrevian, Inc. and a TeleWeb Service Consultant. Carle is one of the first executives I worked with whose focus was on looking at the business from the outside in, viewing everything in the business from the perspective of the customer and then designing processes and systems around the customerâ€™s perspective and needs. Carle has worked with companies like Harrods, Eddie Bauer, Monster.com, and Sealy to create multi-channel customer experiences. He pointed out several issues with the concept of having a VA respond to auto-tweets.

“The whole cache of social media, what makes it cool and clever is the personalization of the customer experience. My first reaction is that it is way too personal an interaction to outsource. Essentially, the challenge is that most cannot keep a VA knowledge base up to date for traditional inquiries. Once you apply this concept to the Social Media world, it’s as if you’ve put the somewhat acceptable flaws on steroids. The result will be an obvious, exaggerated ‘cheat’ on what should be an intimate, personal experience.” Carle went on to say, â€œThe knowledge base is the most relevant point. If a customer gets a bad answer from a VA, they will search your website for a 1-800 number until they find a way to contact a real person to respond. In other words, customers who interact with you using twitter want a personal exchange: knowledge bases won’t cut it.”

Carle acknowledged he projects most customer service outsourcers of the future will include responding to Tweets (and some do already) from within large corporate customer service departments. The key to making it successful is to train the VA or outsourcing agency (with a long-term commitment in mind) in order to transfer relevant brand knowledge, product knowledge, and company culture and policy. Companies who do not properly train their outsourced service providers suffer the consequences of lost customers, reduced loyalty and brands with tarnished reputations. Some large brands such as Comcast are using Twitter and other social marketing tools to repair brand issues and poor customer service reputations.

If you are a small business, you have a natural desire to build your business with social marketing tools. But, if you are going to use tools such as Twitter, Facebook status updates and such to promote your business, think twice about the frequency and content of your status updates. Too much promotion comes across as Spam. So much self-promotion that you cannot respond to your own tweets is definitely Spam. Outsourcing your status updates and social marketing to a VA can be done ONLY if you have invested enough training so you trust the VA to represent your brand, your products, and your culture in a seamless way. Are your customer and your brand reputation worth the risk?

May 22, 2009 By Susan Barr Leave a Comment

Is your Brand Boring?

In my last blog post, I talked about how many social media efforts fail to bring profit because the small business does not ask the customers how and where they want to engage with their brand. Does your customer want to be a part of a community? A Facebook page? A blog? A Twitter follower? What is in it for them to engage with your business on one of those platforms?

Check out this blog post from Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research that I ran across this morning. It suggests your social marketing strategy must consider whether your brand is a â€œboringâ€ brand or aâ€talkableâ€ brand. Combining your knowledge of the type of brand along with the customerâ€™s engagement requirements leads you to a better social media mix for your business.

For those who are developing a social marketing strategy for your small business, I highly recommend you subscribe to Joshâ€™s blog. I further recommend you read â€œgroundswellâ€ by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li. The book gives a great overview of social technologies, statistics, and case studies of companies who are winning the social marketing game. The case studies are primarily for larger companies and brands but you are certain to find great inspiration for implementing social marketing programs in your business.

May 14, 2009 By Susan Barr 1 Comment

What About the Customer Experience?

No, I did not abandon my blog series! Pneumonia struck me in April and it took a few weeks to recover but I am back to my full schedule. Thanks to everyone who expressed concern!

This is the third installment in my ten part series regarding the biggest mistakes small businesses make when it comes to implementing social media technologies. Mistake # 3 – many small businesses forget to develop and implement a participation marketing strategy that engages the customer and enhances the brand message at every stage of the customer experience.

Traditional marketing and advertising programs focus upon creating awareness via a variety of shout techniques: advertising, promotions, public relations, etc. The concept is that the more the prospect hears your message, the more they trust you and the more inclined they are to buy. But social technologies empower the prospect in ways unseen until this time. Most people research your name and your brand on the web before they make a purchase decisions. Most prospects consider ratings and reviews as influential in their purchase decisions. For you to be successful with social technologies, you must have a marketing strategy that creates awareness, educates the prospect through consideration and preference, encouragers purchase, and ultimately fosters loyalty.

Awareness: You may have a Facebook page and a website and a twitter account. Are you using these platforms as a way to engage in 2-way conversation or are you simply sending status updates all day long? Again, are you taking traditional shout marketing and transferring it to the web? Expect to be blocked and dropped from friendâ€™s lists. Try joining groups and twitter chats. Provide value in the conversation so your readers want to know more about you.

Consideration: By this point, you are connected in some way. They know your name and may consider buying from you. Your target prospect is a â€œfriendâ€, or â€œfollowerâ€ and they may have actually subscribed to your newsletter. Again, making connections is not good enough if all you are going to do is send sales messages all day long. Ask questions. Create surveys and ask your readership for feedback. See who is following your competitors and who the influencers are for your industry. Befriend them and engage them. Determine what kind of information and content you can provide to help them make a purchase decision. Educate them with product information.

Preference: Follow-up on your conversations. Thank them for their ideas. â€œI enjoyed your participation in this class or this tweetchat.â€ Comment on their blogs. Send them bookmarks and articles that provide value, content created by yourself or others. Your prospect has given you permission to begin a conversation so inform them about ratings and rankings. Let them know what others are saying about your company and brand. Follow-up on prior conversations.

Purchase: Ask for feedback on the purchase process. How do you like our product? How has using the product been for you? What uses have you found for the product that we did not consider? Consider a targeted promotion for the customer asking for their feedback and providing a discount on one future purchase. Ask them to join your loyalty program!

Loyalty: At this stage, the customer is a fan. Whether they purchase from you or not, you want create campaigns that encourage them to make future purchases and refer others to your brand. Develop a loyalty program that provides customers increased value for engaging with you as a member or affiliate. Their value to your business increases as they refer you to others and become a repeat purchaser â€“ make it worth their while. Continue to survey. How is the brand working for you? Target promotions for loyalty members only. Create an affiliate awards program. Encourage them to write online reviews. Ask them to join a focus group, a collaboration team to develop new products. Create communities and engage the membership! Remember their birthdays and anniversaries or provide other personal promotions.

Keep in mind all the systems and processes of your business that touch the customer experience from pre-sale awareness campaigns through point of sale emails and communication and finally through distribution and reflect a consistent brand message at every customer touch-point. At every stage, ask the question â€“ how can I provide value? Better yet, ask your customer.

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