Social Media is a hot marketing topic this year in Kelowna! The number of inquiries we get about using social media for marketing has quadrupled in 2011. We have seen some media coverage in the traditional press too (see Face to Face is a click away). In the past year, we've had a chance to leverage social media as a marketing tactic for a number of businesses in Kelowna have witnessed very positive results in general. This article digs into some stats about social media's effectiveness vs. other forms of online marketing. It's interesting to see how the different tactics stack up, as well as the shifts over the last year.

In a recent survey by eMarketer.com, small to medium businesses (SMB) in the U.S. were asked several questions about their online marketing efforts and their effectiveness.

Small Business Still Prefer "Traditional" Online Marketing Tactics

From the survey, SMBs are still more likely to say they found new customers by using websites (85.8%), over email (74.3%), and search marketing (74%). Web sites are considered a more “traditional” online marketing tactic and are well entrenched in the marketing programs of most companies whether a site operates as an online brochure, order system or supports the full sales cycle.

Is Satisfaction in Online Marketing Decreasing?

Despite the rise in use of online marketing, SMBs surveyed indicate that satisfaction with many of these channels is decreasing.

Specifically, large decreases in satisfaction were seen in audio podcasts (-53%), webcasts/webinars (-44%), Twitter (-38%), Linked In (-36%), Banner/display ads (-34%) and Blog (-32%).

Are Internet Users Changing Their Behaviour?

While new online marketing programs by inexperienced marketers are going to be less effective, this doesn’t account for such a huge decrease in so many of the online marketing tactics.  Instead these decreases suggest a change in behaviour by Internet users in obtaining information. This change in behaviour is both a reflection on the increased maturity of the average Internet user, the amount of time users are willing to spend looking for something, as well as the ever increasing use of mobile Internet devices.

• Users are more aware of paid advertising including banner/display ads and search marketing (PPC);
• Users are less tolerant of lengthy sales pitches such as podcasts and webinars however informative. Instead users are turning to quicker ways to obtain the information they need, often on a “just-in-time” basis.
• Use of mobile Internet devices has increased to the point where users aren’t looking for information until they actually arrive at their destination, often using tools like Gowalla and Foursquare which alert you to sales and deals near your current location.  This focus on location based marketing is also seen in the popularity of coupons like Groupon and Twongo, as well as the increased use of Google Places.

In fact, the survey statistics show that new channels made up for these decreases, including emailing offers, Google Places, Groupon and other coupon sites, mobile marketing, and location services like Foursquare. These are all new entries on the list for 2011 and yet they all have between a 25% and 50% effectiveness rate according to the SMBs surveyed.

A Key Advantage When Marketing Online: (Nearly) Everything Measurable!

Many of these new marketing tactics are more measurable than some of the earlier tactics. It is far easier to measure the number of Groupon coupons sold or Foursquare discount coupons used over the number of sales resulting from Blog and Podcast consumption. Similarly, savvy Kelowna businesses are taking more interesting email open rates, click-through rates to gauge newsletter performance.  Perhaps this is why small businesses are jumping on these new tactics in such large numbers.

Popular email management tools like Constant Contact have great tracking and measure the number of email opens and internal link clicks on each email campaign. Website analytics software like Google Analytics enables business to see the number of visitors, clicks, time spent, and online purchases.

What does this mean for Kelowna businesses?

The move away from less measurable and out-of-vogue methods of communication towards new and often more measurable methods of communication will help businesses track the effectiveness of their online marketing efforts.  It's easier to justify spending $ on marketing when you can measure the results!

It's Free, right?

Since many of the new digital marketing channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and so on are seemingly cheap, small and medium sized businesses in Kelowna should certainly consider them.  Beware that "cheap" and "free" are not really good descriptions of these tools.  Your time is worth money!

Here's a few pointers to get started...

• Create clearly defined goals for your online marketing plan
• Identify your audience (Hint: Use the marketing channels, tools, and websites that your customers are ALREADY using)
• Understand that social media is a 2-way communications channel... it's a party line, not a megaphone
• Do a batch process (eg. write a whole week's worth of content for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn on Monday morning and schedule the release using a tool like Hootsuite)
• Measure the results (Who is clicking on your links in the updates? Do people ask more questions? Do they call for an appointment?  Do they walk in the door?)
• Integrate social media efforts with things like blogs posts, email blasts, in-store contests, special events, radio, print, and video
• Consider hiring a company if your time is better spent elsewhere!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Twin Creek Media Named One of Constant Contact’s 2010 All Stars

Company’s use of Constant Contact products and services helped increase its overall marketing performance and deepen its engagement with customers

Kelowna, British Columbia — March 25/2011 – Twin Creek Media Inc., an integrated marketing agency, has received the 2010 All Star Award from Constant Contact®, Inc., the trusted marketing advisor to more than 400,000 small organizations worldwide. Twin Creek Media is one of Constant Contact’s 2010 top performers and most prolific user of its tools, whether within Constant Contact’s email marketing, event marketing, social media marketing, or survey products – or a combination of all four.

Creative Director/CEO, James Shaw comments, “We’re happy to be recognized by Constant Contact for our use of their platform in our innovative email marketing campaigns. Our clients appreciate the ease of use, professional look, and great metrics that we can analyze.”

Constant Contact looked at criteria including the following when selecting this year’s All Stars:

• Frequency of campaigns, events and surveys
• Open, bounce and click through rates
• Usage of social features
• Mailing list sign up tools
• Use of reporting tools

“We work hard to listen to our customers, and we use that feedback to create products and services designed to help them better engage with their customers and prospects,” said Gail Goodman, chairman, president and CEO of Constant Contact. “The Constant Contact All Star Awards are our way of recognizing our customers that have successfully used Constant Contact to market their companies. We have some of the most committed, passionate customers out there and we’re proud we can be a part of their continued success.”

About Constant Contact, Inc.
Constant Contact is revolutionizing the success formula for small organizations through affordable, easy-to-use Engagement Marketing™ tools that help create and grow customer relationships. More than 400,000 small businesses, nonprofit organizations, and member associations worldwide rely on Constant Contact as their engagement hub for starting and driving ongoing customer dialogs through email marketing, social media marketing, event marketing, and online surveys. All Constant Contact products come with unrivaled know how, education and free coaching with a personal touch, including award-winning customer support.

Constant Contact and the Constant Contact Logo are registered trademarks of Constant Contact, Inc. All Constant Contact product names and other brand names mentioned herein are trademarks or registered trademarks of Constant Contact, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks or service marks of their respective owners.

Media Contact:
James Shaw
Twin Creek Media Inc.
250-762-4001
james@twincreekmedia.com

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by James Shaw and Amelia Penner

Every business has a few "raving fans".  These people are usually cherished individuals who talk about our company or group in such a nice way that more people become customers.  This article is all about empowering raving fans!  Hook up your social media accounts into your email blasts and you'll allow more sharing, recommending and commenting.  Free PR anyone?

Let me ask you a question assuming that you use email marketing and social media.  Are they separate in your company’s mind or do you make sure to bring them together?

As a company it can get tiresome dealing with email marketing and social media separately.  Why have two separate audiences when you can bring them together in one?

Grow Your Audience
The easiest way to connect the two is to make sure that your audiences know about both your email newsletter and your social media.  On your email newsletters add your latest Facebook post or tweet to your sidebar.  Or you can add the logos in your footer with links to your pages.  Using your Facebook Fan Page you can easily add a newsletter signup box and on Twitter you can tweet the link to your newsletter signup.  By doing this you can easily expand your email database and social media followers.

Cross Posting
Constant Contact allows for a handy feature when you send out your newsletter.  You will be asked if you want to tweet this newsletter and you can choose yes or no.  By choosing to tweet the newsletter a tweet will be sent out through your company’s Twitter account with the title of the newsletter and a link to the web version.  This allows for your newsletter to be retweeted by your audience and get more people interested in what your company has to say.

Tips and Tricks
Here are some simple tips you can implement right away to engage your email database and social media audience.

Do you want to inspire a conversation?  Write a question in the sidebar of your newsletter and encourage people to answer it via Facebook or Twitter.  Or you could use survey tools like Survey Monkey and Poll Daddy. This could be a great way to get customer feedback for your business.

Want more interactions on Facebook?  Mention in your newsletter and your social media accounts that the 15th person to post their best experience with your company on your Facebook wall will receive a prize.

Want more interactions on Twitter?  Ask your audience an industry-related trivia question.  Make it fun!  Remember that Twitter is faster paced than Facebook so keep the comments/questions time sensitive.  Don't forget to comment and re-tweet (RT) other peoples' tweets.  JOIN in the conversations already happening!

Want more ideas to expand your audience and increase engagement?  Contact us today to set up an integrated marketing campaign that is the perfect fit for your business!

by James Shaw and Amelia Penner

Newsletters are an extremely common form of communication between companies and their customers.  Email marketing is a great way to advertise special offers, grow your audience, and communicate with your customers.

Key Benefits of Email Marketing

• Maintains top of mind awareness through regular contact
• Drives traffic to your website
• Gives your reader something valuable (promotions, information, communication)
• Continues the relationship that began when they visited your website, store, or social media
• Integrates with social media (promotes your YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook accounts)
• Highly interactive (You can't click play video on a postcard!)
• It’s trackable and measurable

Why Not Direct Mail?
Are you still using direct mail as a form of advertisement?  Direct mail is only as measurable as you want it to be.  For a truly trackable direct mail campaign you need to ensure that every customer brings in their mailout to redeem for the promotion.  This way you can count how many came in.  Plus, on top of that you have the cost of sending out the actual campaign.  Direct Mail has it's place, and can be effective to drive a brand new group of people to a website or to a store.  (After all, you are only supposed to email to list of people that have given you permission first!)

Email marketing requires only your time to type the newsletter and then simply click ‘Send!’.  Then you can monitor how many people opened the email, clicked on links in your newsletter (and which ones!), and if your newsletter was forwarded on to anyone.  Now isn’t that handy?  Email Marketing software either comes with a monthly subscription fee based on list size or pay-per-use payment plan - either way, it's WAY cheaper than direct mail.

Couldn’t I Just Use Outlook?
The problem with using an email program like Outlook or Hotmail is that you have a limited amount of email addresses that you can send to.  This can also be time consuming of ensuring that you have all of your customer’s email addresses in Outlook to send to.  You also cannot automatically personalize your emails to the person.  Finally, the biggest problem is that you cannot track how effective your newsletter was.

And just in case you’re still not convinced:

• Email's ROI index is 55 percent higher than any other direct-response marketing vehicle. - Direct Marketing Association (2008)
• For every dollar spent on email marketing in 2008, marketers can expect an estimated $43.52 ROI. - Direct Marketing Association (2008)

It all starts with your Customer List
Well, you can’t send out a newsletter without a list of email addresses.  Constant Contact allows you to import CSV’s of your customer’s email addresses.  You can also divide up your customer’s email addresses into separate lists.  For example, if you have multiple locations you can divide up your emails based on what location is nearest them.  This way you can better target your promotions to your customers.  For more information on how to build your email list click here: http://www.twincreekmedia.com/blog/2010/06/got-a-store-build-your-email-list/

Remember to only use email addresses that you obtained through your company.  Also, do not spam your customers or email out unsolicited emails.

Newsletter Basics
Help your audience solve a unique issue, find good information, and provide something of real value.  Don't SELL with an overtly spammy message!  Each time you send your customers a newsletter you need to be sure that it’s worth them opening the newsletter.  You want to make sure that your email list will not unsubscribe from receiving your newsletters as that defeats the purpose.

Some basic tips to follow are: use the right tone, you don’t have to always offer a sale, make them want to connect with you, and encourage them to share.

Always remember to proofread and test the newsletter before you send it out to your client list!

The Subject Line
This is one of the most important parts of your email newsletter.  When it comes to the subject line of the email - keep it short and simple!  You have 3 seconds or less for your customer to decide if they want to open your newsletter.  Using 30 - 40 characters including spaces (5 - 8 words) is usually a good guideline to follow.

Don’t use words like: free, guarantee, spam, credit card, etc.  Also, do not write in all capital letters and use excessive punctuation like “!!!” or “???”.  Finally, make sure that it connects with the content inside your newsletter.

Leading Email Marketing Software: Constant Contact
Constant Contact is really easy to use and manage on your own.  There are a variety of templates to choose from to make your newsletters more effective.  Since all of your contacts are imported into Constant Contact you can choose which email list to send out a newsletter to and each email will be personally addressed to that person.  Finally, you can view all the statistics and tracking for each newsletter that you send out!

Want more ideas to expand your audience and increase engagement?  Contact us today to set up an integrated marketing campaign that is the perfect fit for your business!

by Amelia Penner & James Shaw

With a bit of creativity and effort, you can have a list of 1000's of people to stay in touch with via email.  Best of all, it's really cheap!

All companies should have a database of clients and prospective clients that they use for newsletters, promotions, etc.  When using your list to send out announcements or run a promotion, its success is only as good as the people in your database.  This can be a challenge if you are new to collecting customer's information or if you are dragging around a list that you created years ago.

Here are some tips on how to build up your email list:

1.   Customers - a natural place to start
If you are not already collecting your customer's information, start!  People who have previously purchased from you, and have had a positive experience, are likely to come back again.

You can easily get their information from them as they make their purchase by asking for their name, number, and email address.  Let them know that you will be using their email to sign them up for a newsletter filled with information and promotions that they may enjoy.

In a retail store, you can also have a newsletter sign up as part of a comment form.  One local retail that we worked with built a list from 0 to 3000 subscribers using a simple in-store comment box/prize draw incentive.

2.   Connections - extend into your business network
Everyone has connections, whether family, friends, or suppliers.  Next time you are in contact with these people ask if they would be interested in receiving information about your business along with lots of exciting deals.

When using these contacts to fill up your email list realize that they may not be as likely to respond to a campaign as a previous customer.  You can ensure a greater response by having great content and deals that bring them into your store.

3.   Prospects - not customers yet, but hopefully they will be!
People love contests because they love to get free stuff.  Next time you have a giveaway or promotion advertise it on your website and tell people about it on Facebook and Twitter.  As people sign up for the contest, have an option to opt into your newsletter.

Not only does this allow you to see the success of your promotion, but you just gained a list of people who are interested in your company.  Now it is your job to turn them from a prospect into a customer.

4.   No Store?  No problem.
If you are in the B2B sector (business to business) and don't have a physical storefront, there are other tactics you can use to build your email list:

Social Media: use network sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and industry blogs to create teasers that draw people back to a capture page.  Use the capture page to offer a free download (whitepaper, report, tool, widget) in exchange for their contact info.

Host webinars or live chat opportunities that require people to register beforehand.  Now you'll have their contact info for follow-up later.

Enter people that you meet at trade shows and networking events into your email database.  Send them a personal message letting them know it was great talking with them.  Later when you send your newsletter they'll recognize you and your company.

5.   List Management - it will manage you if you're not careful!
As your email database grows you'll want to manage it properly using software. Segmenting your list into different groups for more targeted email blasts will become important. Managing unsubscribers is critical as well. Gathering statistics on how your emails are performing is really useful for tweaking and improving future communications. All of these features are available with email marketing software.

Note: if people can not easily unsubscribe from your newsletter they will get angry!  Use email marketing software like Constant Contact, Vertical Response, or NEDmail and list management will be a cinch.

6.   Spamming - a fine line
In Canada, the SPAM laws are actually pretty relaxed.  You don't technically need consent to send someone an email, but be aware that many people will consider it SPAM and it will hurt your reputation if you continually send irrelevant junk.  Word will get around even faster if your market is local!  Be careful.  Be transparent, identify who you are, give a relevant subject line, allow people to opt-out or unsubscribe, and try to be decent person in general.  Check here for more info: http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/canspam/canada/

Happy emailing!

Comments or Questions?  We'd love to hear them!
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