Tag: marketing

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Gary Vaynerchuk is Wrong: There is a Social Media ROI

At last year’s LeWeb, my colleague and social media superstar Ayelet Noff asked my favorite wine guy Gary Vaynerchuk the question that we were all hearing in 2009, 2010, and finally forced to answer in 2011: What’s the ROI of social media.

Gary answered that that’s the wrong question – and it’s a problem. Gary asked, “What’s the ROI of your mother?” It’s not about data or Facebook friends or Twitter fans, he said.

He also said that ROI should be “relationship with consumer.”

But ROI of social media is far more than relationships. It’s not just about the The Thank You Economy (though brand goodwill is one tangible ROI measurement)

There are a lot of people getting paid for “social media” consulting because they know how to use Facebook but not measuring ROI. This is how we were all doing it in 2009.

 

emarketer roi

In 2012, it’s time for accountability.

At work, I’ve been a passionate advocate for Twitter – not because I love it (I love whatever tool works) but because it has a high click through rate and is an appropriate tool to integrate with other campaigns to achieve one of my key business goals: qualified leads. But I’ll use whatever tool achieves that goal – Twitter or Facebook, a trade show, or a magazine ad. What matters is achieving the strategic goal – using whatever tool is appropriate given my budget and organization. Social media is part of ecommerce. I’ve made clear sales – actual dollars – directly attributable to blog posts.

What’s the ROI of social media? Here are some possibilities:

  • Sales – immediate, tangible revenue
  • Qualified leads, in whatever form – names/email addresses, downloads, form submissions, etc. – that are targeted and qualified, using your qualification definitions.
  • Lowered costs
  • Customer service questions answered

Define your KPIs first and maybe social media can help you achieve this. On the other hand, maybe not – either way you should be comfortable finding the tool to achieve your KPI.

Here are some answers from Groundswell, Forrester Research’s first book on social technologies, on how social TOOLS can be used to accomplish BUSINESS functions:

groundswell_figure_4-1

The ROI is tangible and quantifiable. Here is another example on how social tools can help save money in customer service can be seen here.

OK, I admit, this title was a bit of link-bait and I’m being a bit unfair to Gary – who knows that the ROI in social media is what we aim to achieve.

In a later interview, Gary made the point that most social media marketers are clowns — talking about Facebook likes and Twitter followers, instead of how social media is a channel to achieve business goals.

Gary made the point that you need marketers who know how to use digital tools to achieve business goals and hiring some 22 year old kid who knows how to use Facebook isn’t the right person to be managing your business.

It’s time to start being accountable – 99.5% of social media “marketers” are clowns – encouraged by marketers who are technoilliterates seeking out the 22 year old kid who doesn’t understand business – those of us who have been doing this for a long time, like Gary, Ayelet, and me all know that this a tool to achieve business results.

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Are Marketers Technically Illiterate? Marketers Need to Get Technology and Development

Being called a computer geek before I ever worked professionally, I am sometimes shocked by the clashes between web and software and hardware developers, and marketing. In my mind, they both need to work together in order for the company to achieve its goals. I assumed developers understood the need for a clear message, and, like me, I thought marketers loved technology and computing.

Bored at WorkIn this first post, I will discuss why marketers need to be technically literate and understand developer and tech speak. In my next post, I will discuss why developers need to understand the language of business.

Marketers need to speak the language of technology – particularly their own, like web technologies, and their target products’, to craft the right messages, and position their products in the proper market niche.

Marketers need to get digital platforms: today’s core communication channels. In the old days of print, this may have been unnecessary for traditional marketers, with graphic designed easily outsourced. With the requirements of e-commerce affecting nearly all businesses, even service and physical stores, digital platforms have become essential touchpoints that need frequent adaptation – even minor – which require, at a minimum, basic web development and simple graphic design skills.

While the basic rules of strategy hasn’t changed, technology has always been a core component in formulating market strategy, and strategists need to develop a plan that makes sense when implemented in the real world. If it’s based on a misunderstanding of how the web works, a fancy obsession with the latest new toy, or a Luddite aversion to technology, that strategy will fail.

Technological literacy is becoming a necessary requirement for marketers, whether they are selling software or sofas. Whether purchasing online or just researching, platforms such as a website, blogs, mobile applications, and email, purchasing decisions take place over technical channels. The sales funnel happens online. Marketers need to understand this in order to develop and carry out correct strategy.

At a minimum, this means that marketers need to have the technical literacy and competency to know web development – at least the capability to handle basic tasks like content updating in a CMS, understanding the basics of SEO, which includes issues like clean code, web server load time, and page redirects and social media. They also need to know basic website management, even if the heavy lifting is handled by your web developer. With marketers that have a print background, the focus was on the final look of the deliverable to the viewer. With digital platforms, effectiveness isn’t just how it looks to the end-user but also the technical infrastructure on which it’s based on. If your website looks pretty, but can’t be indexed by the search engines, how useful is it?

This is true regardless of your product.

When selling hardware or software, technical literacy is even more important.

The role of the marketing strategist is to develop the market position. When selling technical products, the marketers need to have an understanding of the product, the position it belongs in, and the problem it is intended to solve. It’s the marketers that create the communication and messaging. They can’t derive messages or build a brand for something that they don’t understand. If the target audience is a foreign species, how can they craft an effective message and communicate authentically with them?

A thorough technical understanding of the product can also help find more channels to help promote your product. A few weeks ago, my company launched its first product for Linux. I’ve used the Ubuntu Linux distribution for several years. I’m not a Linux guru or a top sysadmin, but I can make my way around the command line when needed. In fact, I’m writing this post in Linux. This knowledge of Linux assisted in helping to craft a message that will be perceived as authentic to the Linux audience – coming from a Linux user itself – and identifying and locating more media outlets and channels to promote the product, which has already lead to increased product awareness.

Of course, marketing isn’t responsible for developing the product and development is not responsible for marketing the product.

Hence, the two sides need to work together and bridge the gaps.

In the next post, I will write about how software and hardware developers also need to understand marketing.

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Marketing: It’s Not Just a Guessing Game

Frequently, in marketing meetings and client meetings, it’s assumed that everyone has an equal opinion and equal knowledge.

Because I use Facebook, that means that I can do social media marketing.
Because I’ve sent emails before, that means I know e-mail marketing.
I’ve read the newspaper, so I know public relations.

While it’s important to listen to all sides of the story, it’s also important to be based on professional standards and best practices.

What about:

  • Branding and positioning
  • Legal requirements and regulation, such as CAN-SPAM, regulating email marketing in the US, or Israeli legislation on email marketing
  • Standards of e-mail marketing bounce rates and click rates
  • Knowledge of lead generation and the sales funnel
  • Cultural knowledge and nuances of your target markets
  • Technical knowledge (HTML, Web Development, SEO)

We also understand that – like any other profession – marketing isn’t magic and viral isn’t a strategy. Rather, there is a process to build momentum, gain traction, and gain results. But starting with industry best practices, we can develop and implement the best roadmap to achieve your business results.

In today’s rapidly changing world, there is a significant role for experimentation and it’s important to listen to a variety of perspectives in order to maintain agile.

But experimentation is not a substitute for guessing.

As marketers, we have extensive experience and knowledge in what moves human behavior: qualitative and quantitative. That experience is the starting point for successful strategic implementation.

Marketing isn’t a guessing game. It’s not simply having an opinion. The fact that I have an opinion about baseball doesn’t make me a hall-of-fame pitcher – or even a member of the minor leagues. Self-diagnosis doesn’t make you a doctor.

It’s a profession, that we’ve invested hundreds of hours in research, education, and implementation. It’s only by bringing our background knowledge to the table that we can help your business expand.

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The problem with ‘social’ media

I hate the word social media. I hate the concept ‘social’ media. I’ve consistently refused to incorporate the word ‘social’ in my job titles.
social media, social networking, social computing tag cloud (#1)
I’m not a social media strategist. I’m a strategist. On this, I disagree with analysts like Altimeter’s Jeremiah Owyang.

I also don’t say that I do social media marketing. I don’t.  I do marketing and today, media is social. (Today? When I was 15, half my lifetime ago, I started a nonprofit as a website, which I handcoded in HTML, and an email listserv).

OK, maybe I do social media.

… And telephone media.

… And print media.

… And radio media.

… And mobile media

… And spoken media.

… And email. And tradeshows.

SnailOk. I’ll be honest. I’ve never (yet) created a trade show booth (but I’ve reached mass audiences and niche audiences without it). I’ve also never worked with a printer to create direct mail (which is probably good since printed snail mail volume is declining (no wonder, since it’s called ‘snail’ mail)). Is it that I’m really an online marketing strategist?

How does marketing to a trade group in LinkedIn or Meetup differ from doing it over the telephone or via the postal service and in person?

How is social media different from online media, in general?

The platform isn’t the most important thing. First choose your goal and objective, and then choose the platform.

The only ones talking about social are the ones not being social. If you’re singularly focused on the magical, wondrous world of ‘social media’ I promise it’s going to disappoint you. On the other hand, if you can use the appropriate tool for the appropriate time (both online and offline), I promise things will be much better.

My point is, with over 2 billion people online, including most of the developed world, marketers just need to be where their target audience is. Much of the time, it doesn’t matter (at least to digital natives like me that learned to use a computer at the same time that we learned how to use a telephone or write a letter). Do you care that I’m writing this post on my cellphone and not on paper? I didn’t think so.

The point is: for digital natives (the oldest of whom are now managers in their 30s… Don’t remind me) – equally comfortable online as off – differentiating media as social makes no sense.

So please, don’t say social media to me.