I have a friend with a son who is a sophomore in high school.  This morning, she told me that she can’t believe how many money colleges waste precious funds on expensive direct mail communications.  She described the quality of the paper, the outsized packaging, and the heft of the packages they’ve been receiving–all of which she tosses in the waste bin.

Direct marketing mail campaigns are often cost-effective

As a marketer, I told her that her would-be correspondents may not be wasting their money.  After all, college tuition for four years is now in excess of $100,000–perhaps more than her fully loaded salary as a manager at a Philadelphia-based research organization.  If only 1 or 2 students that they contact eventually enroll, a school can easily justify the cost of the mailing.

Success depends on a compelling value proposition

I suggested she open a few to see if they had a message that would compel her to act, something that was important to either her or her son.  So, she opened one that arrived yesterday.

Sell, don’t tell

As she expected, it was just like all the others.  It started by pointing out that her son ranks higher than most students in the country.  They knew that.

The letter said that they are seeking students who want the types of challenges and experiences, from which others shy away.  Then, the letter told him they were looking for students.

Response mechanisms can erect barriers

Finally, before closing by asking that her son visit their website or send them a card, they said they were a prestigious liberal arts college–even though they confided, they prefer to think of themselves as a school that nurtures collaboration for big results.  The Admissions Director included his phone number under his signature.

Good design contributes to the message

The collage of pictures on the letter didn’t seem to add to the message.  In fact, if one just saw the pictures, he or she would be hard-pressed to guess what the sender was advertising.

Most prominent was one of the Dalai Lama.  Another was of clinicians in an operating room.

Others were of people talking, a building, an outdoor snapshot, a row of apartments, and kids kicking a soccer ball.  There were also headshots of people of different races and national origins.

Calls to action must resonate

The calls to action encouraged students to give the school a chance to get to know them before they apply–and offered to provide advice that would help them apply to any school.

She threw the package away.  Now perhaps there are students with whom one of these marketing messages will resonate–but I think the schools can do a better job of convincing their correspondents to take the next step

Capitalize on the data you have

Clearly, this school was able to get students’ names, PSAT scores, and zip codes.  Even without additional information, they could probably guess the student’s sex–and assume that he or she was a sophomore in high school.

Think through the implications

From just the zip code, they knew that her home is in a middle-class community several hundred miles north of the school.  From that they could have discerned that the recipients likely weren’t aware of the school and would probably require financial aid.  Yet, nothing in the communication addressed either concern.

Step into the buyers’ minds

The letter writer had sufficient information to recognize that the main marketing messages wouldn’t resonate.   Having had no previous interaction with the school, which didn’t have a national reputation, neither mother or son was likely to care that the school was seeking students–or wanted a chance to get to know the son before he applied.  Moreover, there was no reason to believe that the family would contact a complete stranger for help applying to other schools.

The letter also didn’t speak to the son’s needs.  In March of his sophomore year of high school, the son wasn’t seeking out more challenges.  Instead, like most boys his age, he’s focusing on the here and now:  his schoolwork, his friends, his extra-curricular activities, and sports.

Timing is everything

Unless the school could obtain information from the PSAT administrators that would enable them to speak to his current needs, a letter to the son was premature.  Also, the chances are slim that any teenage would call an adult and this marketing communication didn’t offer an email option.

I had to agree with my friend’s initial assessment.  Even organizations that seek small response rates can’t afford scattershot approaches.

Create campaigns that generate leads

How much more effective would this lead generation campaign have been if the sender had:

• Focused on its most promising prospects
• Spoken to their needs and concerns
• Tailored its message to where prospects were in their buying process
• Tested its calls to action
• Offered multiple response mechanisms

My guess is that the college could have gotten a far better return on their marketing investment–if only they’d thought a little more about the audience–rather than focusing exclusively on their own goals.  The question is how often do businesses make many of the same mistakes?

Need help confirming assumptions about your audience?  Try our Revenue Accelerator Quick Start program.

Related posts:

1. Drip campaigns keep your company top of mind: 5 steps for success + an example

So what’s the big deal?

Tuesday morning, I gave a presentation on Social Media 101 to the Boston Chapter of the Wharton Alumni club. There was a lot of interest and a lot of questions about how members could use social media to increase their revenues.

Nevertheless, at least one person wondered whether it was just a fad—and a tremendous waste of time. His experience was that most posters’ communications seemed to focus on the details of the publisher’s life—things that would probably be of little use or interest to anyone outside the poster’s closest associates.

So what am I missing?

Wednesday afternoon, a prospective client called to discuss the first draft of her social media marketing plan. She had clearly outlined her business objectives and developed a detailed tactical plan. Specifics included target social media platforms, desired frequency of communications, examples of tools/content needed to foster (internal and external) participant engagement, and resource requirements. Her question was: “So what am I missing?”

So what’s the best use of our time?

Last Friday, I met with the Marketing Director of a sizable division of a large firm. His greatest concern was the amount of time it takes to produce—and even keep abreast—of relevant social media. And, I thought that was mostly a problem for smaller companies.

His greatest need: metrics on the ROI of various social media marketing strategies and tactics. As he said, without that information, it’s difficult to decide where to invest constrained staff time—and impossible to justify decisions to company executives.

So what is working?

While there aren’t as many metrics on the ROI of social media – yet – as there are for more conventional marketing strategies, there are some. Yesterday morning, I attended a meeting of the Business Lawyers’ Network organized by Roger Glovsky where Erik J. Heels spoke about one of his successes. Upon realizing that the ROI he was getting from direct mail – which in the past had returned in excess of 400%–was approaching zero, Erik ramped up his social media marketing efforts.

About six months ago, building on what he had learned from his direct marketing experience, Erik launched a Twitter campaign with a compelling offer–free trademarks for start ups. Since then, other social media publishers have spread the word by retweeting it and commenting on it in their blogs (just as I’ve done here).

The result? Erik broke even in 30 days and has added one new client per week since launching the campaign six months ago. Each client, on average, files four trademarks, so he counts on the follow-on business to pay for the first free filing. The offer keeps on giving since his Twitter bio features the website link: http://FreeTrademarksForStartups.com.

So what can we learn?

Social media marketing, when backed by strong strategic thinking, is very powerful. Witness Erik’s success. That said, having a social media marketing strategy is key. Else, as the Wharton alum noted social media marketing can be a tremendous waste of time—both for creators and for consumers.

For that reason, my advice to the prospect, who yesterday asked me what she’s missing from her plan, was to suggest that she approach social media marketing as she does conventional marketing. That is start by identifying who she needs to reach—and what events need to occur—before she can achieve her business objectives.

Then, it’s a matter of figuring out how to engage these individuals by finding out:

• where do they turn for information,
• what sources do they trust most, and
• what format works best for them.

Only then, will she know whether to invest in testing social media platforms and tactics, which ones to choose, and how to make the most of her company’s time and money…

Finally, I advised her to review her metrics. Her plan had been to generate a large number of visitors, page views, and followers. But, the plan didn’t indicate how she knew that any of these metrics would actually translate to

• greater performance of the actions she hoped to motivate,
• faster performance of the desired actions,
• or achievement of her ultimate objectives.

I suggested, therefore, that she test these assumptions before making major investments. One way to do so would be to collect initial data and then look backwards.

Was there any correlation between execution of the desired actions and passive or active use of social media tools? And, if so, where was the correlation greatest—and did it differ by type of target audience? In short, I recommended that she gather exactly the information that the Marketing Director was seeking to determine where, and if, to invest in social media.

In conclusion

The questions that I heard this past week are pretty similar to the questions I hear every week about social media marketing. Different people are using social media for different things—and some have more experience than others—so it’s not surprising to hear a broad range of questions and/or conclusions.

I believe it’s foolish to dismiss social media just because a lot of people aren’t using it effectively. What matters most is not how others are using it—but what’s in it for you both as a content consumer and a content creator. Much like other marketing initiatives, it’s all about data-driven choices.

So what is on your mind about social media marketing?

Are you thinking about it at all? If not, why not? What’s worked for you and what hasn’t? If so, what questions do you have?

Wondering about how to get more value from social media?

There are many types of social media.  Where should you focus to meet your business objectives?  Download the social media primer to help you determine the best uses of social media for your organization.

Related posts:

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3. Social Media Marketing for Job Search
4. Social media: Insights from an in-house specialist

Call me old-fashioned but I tend to think of interacting with machines—rather than directly with other people—as antisocial. But let’s not quibble over terms. Social media is all the rage at marketing conferences these days, so it’s fair game for this blog.

What got me thinking about this topic today was an event that I attended earlier this week at the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council (MTLC).

Why are marketers talking about social media?

Marketers make a living trying to attract the attention of desirable prospects and then motivate them to move through their buying process quickly. To do this, among other things they need to deliver the right message to the right person at the right time.

The MTLC announcement described social media as a fast, efficient, and relatively inexpensive way to get your message directly to an audience. Presumably, this description offers three reasons why marketers are interested in social media. That said this description is a bit of a blanket statement and has a lot of underlying assumptions.

Do messages travel faster by social media?

Theoretically, conventional broadcast media such as television and radio have the potential to be equally fast—since transmission and receipt are instantaneous—if audiences are tuned in to the programs where advertisers are placing their promotions. Many social media advocates argue, however, that social media results in faster communication because engaged audiences can tune in to Internet- or mobile-based content any time from anywhere. Unlike viewers of conventional broadcast media, or even direct marketing campaigns, social media consumers don’t need to wait for content to arrive at a pre-scheduled time.

Is social media more efficient?

This takes us to the next adjective MTLC used to describe social media: “efficient”. The dictionary defines “efficient” as being without waste. One could argue that there is a lot of waste in broadcast media because marketers pay to reach a wide range of consumers, many of which don’t have—and will never have interest in the advertisers’ solutions.

Most social media content such as blogs, wikis, and podcasts, on the other hand, attract relatively homogenous communities. Therefore, promoters can seek out the communities that they believe will attract their most promising prospects and deliver highly targeted messages. Of course, this is theoretically true for a lot of conventional media vehicles such as publications that focus on special interests (e.g. sports magazines, medical journals, etc.) and any well-thought out direct marketing campaign. So, it’s not clear to me that social media is more efficient than direct marketing—unless you consider speed and expense.

Will social media remain less expensive?

In my opinion, it is the third quality “inexpensive”, where social media clearly excels. Clearly, it is less expensive to write and post a blog entry than it is to develop a commercial and buy time from a network to deliver it. It is probably also cheaper to post a picture on Flickr–than printing it on a postcard, attaching a stamp, and sticking it in the mail.

Nevertheless, even “inexpensive” may be a short-term phenomenon. As blogs, “You Tube” and other alternative content vehicles proliferate, audiences may demand many of the same services they expect today from conventional media. That is, it may take professional writers or photographers to elevate content above the clutter. Similarly, audiences may choose to optimize their time by turning to aggregators to provide filtered and edited content—rather than going direct.

Social media enables ongoing communications

What the MTLC promotion didn’t explicitly mention is a fourth attribute of social media—built-in avenues for ongoing communications. Conventional broadcast media is clearly one-way communication. The promoter delivers a message but the only way that the receiver can respond is to buy a product.

Direct marketing campaigns—whether conducted by mail or telephone are one step better. Here, there’s usually a chance for the recipient to respond to the message. Nevertheless, that’s usually the end of the conversation—until the promoter transmits another communication.

Blogs, wikis, and other social media encourage ongoing communication—not just between sender and receiver—but across an entire community. Marketers hope, then, is that this ongoing communication will build the deep relationships it takes to nurture prospective purchasers through their buying process.

What did the social media experts say?

There was a lot of great content and unfortunately I didn’t capture much of it on paper. Moreover, some of the points that I did capture, I wasn’t quick enough to note proper attribution. The panelists would probably tell me that if I were a Twitter user, I’d be able to refer to the notes everyone else was sending back and forth during the conference.

A lot of the discussion centered on the effectiveness of social media. The panelists were quick to point out that before you can judge effectiveness you need to identify your goals and how you will measure success. That said most indicated that in many cases, it is too early to tell.

One of the measures they discussed were the number of people who followed various individuals via Twitter and the number of members in various communities—each of which they compared to the number of subscribers to conventional media such as some of the major newspapers.

One panelist, journalist Dan Kennedy, said that his blog posts had led to paid assignments. Similarly, Brian Halligan, co-founder of Hubspot, said his company generates many of their leads for paid subscriptions using social media. Another Pam Johnston from Gather said one of her company’s advertisers was pleased that the “mentions” of their product increased as a result of their campaign. The fourth panelist, Perry Allison of Eons, had a lot of rich content, as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t get down what she had to say in this area. I do know that she attributes her company’s success with “Spirited Boomers”, in part, to the way they’ve redefined aging.

Social media panelists’ tips

Another part of the conversation focused on tips for others. One panelist pointed out that social media isn’t just for promotion. Businesses can use it for marketing research, customer service, and other important functions.

Along those lines, this panelist pointed out that one of the best ways to use social media is to learn more about what really matters to your prospects and customers. You can do this by lurking, listening, and learning.

Lurking, listening, and learning will help businesses improve products and services—and it can also help them build better social media campaigns. All the panelists pointed out the importance of offering content that was relevant to the audience. As Dan said, that will ultimately influence your efficacy since today’s information consumers have many choices.

Another advised the audience to spread their content out. Two suggested using your website as a hub that can serve as a landing page for those who find you via social media or refer website visitors to conversation forums they will find interesting.

One of the really powerful things about social media is that everyone is commenting on everything. Marketers can leverage this capability in a couple of ways. One is to become a destination by providing shoppers with a forum that they can turn to for purchasing advice–a la Amazon’s book reviews.

Another important way to leverage social media is to get others to refer people to your content. Therefore, you must have a strategy for publicizing what you write. As one panelist advised, don’t settle for relevant content—go for remarkable content. Make it easy for viewers to Digg or Tweet about your content by putting direct links to these services on your site. Reference others’ content because as one panelist pointed out, if you link to someone’s post, they’re much more likely to mention you.

Perry provided some excellent tips that I didn’t write down quickly enough. Among them were the admonitions to listen well and be authentic, transparent, and responsive—important qualities when building any relationship.

She or one of the other panelists, therefore, encouraged the audience to write back and comment on others’ comments to your posts. Finally, as with any marketing campaign, social media communicators need to test, measure, and refine until they get the desired results.

Questions about social media

As you’ve probably gathered, I got a lot from the conference, and could have probably gotten more if I could have written faster. Nevertheless, it raised as many questions for me as it answered.

Paradoxically, one of my questions is whether this media enhances, or impairs efficiency. Marketing is efficient, among other reasons, because it allows for “one-to-many” communication to tee up leads that a salesperson can close one-to-one. Social media, on the other hand, encourages a real dialogue—which may mean more individualized responses. That’s great to the extent that one is talking to qualified prospects—but does one injure one’s brand, if he/she doesn’t respond to everyone? And, if one does, is social media really that inexpensive?

Another concern is about privacy. Awhile ago, the Wall Street Journal contacted me to comment about a company that was engaging consumers online, months before they planned to launch a new product. It was clear to me that a great application for the data they were gathering was to hone their value proposition—which was great for them. But was it great for the consumers? When I clicked on their privacy policy, I learned that it didn’t provide much protection to those the company was engaging in conversation.

More recently, I’ve had occasion to use social media. So far, I’ve refrained from using most vehicles because I didn’t find their privacy policies acceptable—and am using the only blogging software that met my criteria.

I also wonder whether social media will help—or hinder—social relationships. As more and more hand-held technology becomes available, I increasingly see people typing away at meetings rather than devoting their full attention to those that are present. In the past, inattention has led to the erosion of relationships. Unless the behavior–or our social mores–change, social media runs the risk of hampering rather than nurturing personal relationships.

What are your thoughts about social media?

This is a much longer post than I had intended to write but I’ve barely scratched the surface of what was covered in last week’s conference. Please write back and let me know what you’ve learned about social media—and your largest unanswered questions.

Related posts:

1. Social Media: So What?
2. Use of Social Media for Marketing Medical Devices
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4. How search and social media will shorten the B2B sales cycle.