Archives for 2009

Making social media measure up

January 30, 2009 by Susan Getgood

As I mentioned in a previous post, I led an advanced workshop on blogger relations at a local pr agency last week. A significant portion of the discussion centered on measurement which offered a great opportunity to revisit my thoughts on the topic. This post covers some of the material I prepared for the workshop.

Measurement isn’t magic.

It’s also not the same as monitoring even though the two activities use some of the same tools and we often confuse them. Monitoring is qualitative. It looks at outputs — media coverage, blog posts, microblog streams. It’s purpose is to evaluate attitudes. It’s extremely important at the outset of any marketing campaign and it can inform part of the measurement. But it is not sufficient in itself. A clip “book” and a calculation of reach (how many people were potentially exposed) is good information to have, but it only measures potential awareness.

And last I heard, no one ever went into business or ran for office to make folks more aware. The goal is to sell some product or win the election. A result.

Monitoring is “tell me everything you know.” Measurement asks specific questions. What was the result? Did we achieve our objectives?

Measurement must be based on a desired behavior or action, not attitude. Outcome, not output.

It is important to choose a measureable outcome, not some squishy thing that can’t be assessed by an action or behavior. The best measures are action or behavior: evaluate a product, intend to buy, recommend, purchase.

Unfortunately, it isn’t always easy to link marketing campaigns directly to sales and other purchasing behaviors. So we are often left with web metrics. Useful ones include unique visitors, referrers and path, time on site, and for blog-supported programs, inbound links and comments.

These indicators are better than nothing, but the key to success is to define the measurement at the outset, not as an afterthought and build it into your program.

For example, a dedicated microsite gives you a set of web metrics 100% related to the social media program. A coupon or online discount code lets you track campaign-driven sales. Even something as simple as a badge that customers can put on their own sites can provide some basic information.

The $25,000 question is, why aren’t more people measuring at this depth? Why are we still talking about awareness, not about purchase behaviors?

It’s a combination of fear and ignorance.

Let’s start with the ignorance. We aren’t asking the right questions. If you set your objective as something squishy like “raise awareness,” your measurable result will be equally squishy and irrelevant to business success. Fine and dandy if we could magically pull unlimited money for marketing programs out of a hat. But we can’t.

This is where the fear comes in. We’re afraid that robust measurement may show that all that wonderful awareness didn’t translate into actual purchase. The more money we spent on the program, the more afraid we are. Safer to stay in the comfort zone of awareness.

Except that won’t fly. Not in this economy, and really, not ever. We must be accountable for results.

We need to shift our thinking a little bit. Big programs that don’t work can be career, or at least job, ending events. No one wants to be the guy that put forth a huge social media flop.

Think smaller, think pilot programs. Test, measure, evaluate, and then scale up.

Be more tolerant of failure. Fast, less expensive failure, but don’t dismiss a marketing tactic if a program doesn’t have the initial results you wanted. Figure out why so you don’t repeat the same mistake the next time.

And for goodness sake, ask the right questions so you can know, not guess, that you succeeded.

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Finally, a quick plug for my contest over at Snapshot Chronicles. Prize is a $100 JCPenney gift card.

“New to you” – the opportunity in blogger outreach

January 26, 2009 by Susan Getgood

In public relations, we are conditioned to think of everything in terms of the news. What’s new? Is it newsworthy? Introductions, launches, exclusives, breaking stories, reviews. These are the stuff from which PR success is traditionally made.

And that’s still true. Mainstream media, whether print or online, and social media that follows the journalistic model are still driven by the news. The news cycle is by no means dead. In fact, it is accelerated and expanded. If you have something new, revolutionary, even evolutionary, there’s plenty of opportunity.

What if you don’t? What if you are charged with spreading the word about a product that isn’t new?

In PR, we try to find story angles. We suggest story ideas to reporters and position our products for inclusion in features. These tactics can be successful when reaching out to journalists, but tend to fall flat with personal bloggers. Why?

Most bloggers do not view themselves as writing for an audience. They are writing about their lives for themselves and for their friends. Realistically, of course, they know they have an audience but that’s not the primary motivation as it is for a journalist.

What’s the solution? Reframe the task. You are not limited by the news cycle. Remember that bloggers are the customer. While they like to hear about new things, as long as a pitch is relevant, the product doesn’t have to be new.

“New to you” is enough.

Now, that doesn’t mean they want advertising hype. If they want to view your ads, they will. They might even purchase your products as a result. However, if you are pitching them something for their blog, it has to be relevant and timely to them. Product can be ten years old as long as it solves an immediate problem or answers a current question. As I’ve written here before, it has to add value.

That’s the opportunity in blogger relations. Think creatively about the product and services in your portfolio. Think about audiences for whom your product would be new. Or new uses for the product. Don’t be limited by launch mentality.

Where to start? I’ve developed a model for finding the shared value between customer and company that you can use to identify a departure point for your pitch. In my next post, I’ll apply it to develop two possible blog pitches for cotton swabs.

In the doghouse?

January 18, 2009 by Susan Getgood

In December, a video began making the rounds on YouTube. Called The Doghouse, it was sponsored by JC Penney’s jewelry department and humorously described what happens to men who give inappropriate gifts to their female partners on significant holidays.

Not to belabor the point, but unless she explicitly asked for a vacuum cleaner, not such a good idea.

The JC Penney branding was subtle. Almost too subtle, said my friend Julia Tanen.

That didn’t worry me so much, as I suspected JCP would use a multi-prong approach to promote the campaign. The day I first learned of the campaign in December in fact, JCP started following me on Twitter, and just before the holidays, one of their PR firms reached out to me about participating in a contest promotion for the Doghouse campaign and site. More about that in a minute.

Women will identify with this promotion. We are always getting gifts from our spouses that aren’t “quite right.” Perhaps not as bad as an appliance, but there’s a reason why women like to get jewelry. In my personal experience, it has relatively little to do with avarice and quite a lot to do with not having to stand in line to return stuff that is the wrong size or style.

However, I’m not crazy about the website. It seems a bit confused and not up to the standard set by the video. It’s pretty clear how people get into the doghouse, and the message about how to get out is clear – buy diamonds. But how do people who are submitted by their friends get released? Is it real, or just some sort of random thing? I’d like a bit more explanation.

That said, I applaud the company for trying something different and creating a funny video that speaks to the real problem — the difficulty men often have in buying gifts for their partners — and not just to their product. This is thinking at the intersection of mutual interest, not simply product promotion.

Now, back to the outreach from one of Penney’s agencies. They reached out to me with an offer for a gift card that I could award in a reader contest. Now, I don’t do contests here on Marketing Roadmaps. In fact, there is no advertising here and I rarely review products. However, I do have a personal blog where I do both, and the PR rep was fine if I ran the contest over at Snapshot Chronicles. I also told her I intended to do a brief analysis on the campaign here.

Which brings me back to one of the themes I raised in my New Year’s post – credibility and ethics. I have a clear policy for both my blogs. Marketing Roadmaps is about marketing and critical analysis and accepts no advertising. Snapshot Chronicles is a personal blog and runs ads from BlogHer, Google and Amazon.

What I’ve said here on Marketing Roadmaps about this campaign was not influenced by the blogger outreach. I formed an opinion about the Doghouse campaign when I first saw it and my opinion hasn’t changed. It was a good effort, a funny video and a so-so website. So, I couldn’t see any reason to not accept the offer of the gift card for a contest for my Snapshot Chronicles readers. Times are tough and every little bit helps.

But I wonder — would the critics who lambasted Chris Brogan about the Kmart campaign criticize me in the same way? Granted, I get no personal benefit, other than the continued relationship with the PR rep who reached out to me, but still, I will be writing a post over at Snapshot Chronicles that encourages people to promote the JCP campaign. Even though I was critical of it here.

I think it’s fine. Or I wouldn’t do it.

What do you think?

PS – Go to Snapshot Chronicles for info on how to enter the contest for the $100 JC Penney gift card.

Presentation matters

January 12, 2009 by Susan Getgood

In artistic sports like ice skating and gymnastics, there’s a score for skill and a score for presentation.

Marketing is pretty much the same. It’s the idea AND how you express it.

Now, without the skill, or good idea, the presentation is irrelevant. But, make no mistake, presentation matters.

It’s often the difference between gold, silver and bronze. Or a pitch that hits its target or misses. Not by a mile, maybe only an inch. But misses all the same.

Here’s an example. KB Toys recently announced that it would no longer accept its gift cards. Competitor Toys-R-Us saw an opportunity and today announced it would give KB gift card holders a coupon for 15% off at Toys-R-Us. Nice idea, nice gesture.

Except that’s not quite what it said in its pitch to bloggers and its press release.

Instead it announced the “great news” of its “gift card exchange program.”

Except “great news” is a bit of an exaggeration. It’s not an exchange — it’s a 15% off coupon. With a fair number of restrictions.

Why wasn’t the company more honest? I realize the corporate wordsmiths are probably cringing, but the truth is that Toys-R-Us is capitalizing on the misfortune of its competitor as well as helping the potential customer. Everybody gets that.

So why not just tell the truth? In a perfect world, Toys-R-Us might accept the KB gift cards in a true exchange. But the world isn’t perfect, and that would be a bad business decision. But it can give the KB gift card holder some value in exchange for trying out Toys-R-Us, and that’s better than nothing, which is what the card is worth at KB Toys.

Say so. “We wish we could simply accept the KB gift cards at our stores, but we just can’t afford to do that,” said Toys mucky muck. “But we can offer this discount to encourage KB shoppers to try our stores and experience all that Toys has to offer.”

I also wish the coupon didn’t have all the restrictions. A gift card wouldn’t. How cool would it be if you could use the discount for any single item you wanted.

It’s not just what you offer. It’s how you say it.

Sometimes that makes all the difference.