According to The Radicati Group, a technology market research company, there are 196,300,000,000 worldwide emails sent and received every day this year. However, most of those emails are not attractive enough for the recipients to open them.

Studying human brain can actually helps marketers to launch effective marketing campaigns. Marketers should aim for the recipients’ emotions instead of their conscious mind as amygdala (part of the brain that controls emotions) reacts faster.

Compared to our conscious mind:

• Gut reactions jump (only) in 3 seconds or less
• Emotions process input 5x faster and last longer

Compared to texts:

• Brains process images 60,000x faster
• 90% of all data processed by our brains are visual
• We remember images better, especially human face

Other things include the way we use colors, since they trigger different meanings. For example, blue refers to trust. This is especially true for me, because blue also reflects calmness (if you are calm and feeling at ease that means you have trust in someone/something). Red color, on the other hand, increases your blood pressure, heart rate and appetite. This why quite a number of restaurants use red colors for their logos, tablecloths, and other things (Here is an additional infographic about logos and colors: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/232401)

I think this is an insightful knowledge, for I can understand how people make decisions. As marketers, we want to understand customer behaviors (what they like, for example). The article mentions specifically only for email campaigns, but these findings, in my opinion, can be applied both in online and traditional campaigns. Even to designing restaurant or shop, for instance, marketers can use these as guidance.

By learning these things, marketers can design their campaigns so that people would be interested to act.

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239292

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238936

One indisputable notion that Mark mentioned is that really good content has to be made, since there are more competitions in the news feed. Marketers are seeing social networks as a “battlefield”, since only 100 out of 1500 updates will be seen by users. Some of great contents include those with jokes, creative videos, infographics, and events that are relevant to companies. The reason is that people dislike brands that just focus on getting more money from customers; thus, instead of focusing on money itself, companies should look for other compelling contents.

For instance, Doritos created a creative marketing campaign: they were giving their fans tickets to Super Bowl 2014 if they wear orange t-shirts. The seats were strategically bought so that it would form a giant Dorito from afar. The photo was tweeted on Twitter and many people loved it!

Further, as you may all probably know by now, Facebook is incorporating “buy” button into its platform. In the same way, Twitter also started testing its “buy” button a couple of months ago. In one of the class discussions that I had, it seems that many people actually do not like this idea of combining both social networks and ecommerce (people are able to buy things without leaving their Facebook page). The rapid growth and expansion of social networks can be deteriorating for the brand, for people just want their social networks to be clean from ads (even though it’s hypertargeted), let alone ecommerce platform (remember Ello).

“We optimize for users not for businesses” – Mark Zuckerberg

Do you agree?

Are these developments going to be bad for social networks (e.g. Facebook) or the advertisers? Or both? Or is it going to be good instead? How would marketers protect their brands?

Source: http://marketingland.com/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-town-hall-107096

http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/10-examples-great-content-marketing-0942616

As you already know, customers are engaging with companies through social media more than ever. In class, I have learned the social media “triage” which helps marketers to make decision when monitoring social media. Also, customers find that automated messages are annoying and lacking in personalization aspect. Not every message needs to be responded and the diagram assists marketers in making this decision. Below is the diagram:

Moreover, there are some key elements that need to be maintained in responding to complaints in social media. These elements are responsiveness, company’s separate handle, and knowledge appropriateness.

First, consumers expect that companies would respond quicker. 42% of consumers expect 60 minute response time. This will improve customer experience, increasing overall satisfaction. Responsiveness will show that you care, respect, and value customers.

Second, a huge company should have separate accounts to deal with different issues. In class, I learned that depending on the nature of the business, separate accounts may be either good or bad for the company. Having a separate customer service account would be helpful. However, having different account for each different city might not always be beneficial and effective unless that there are specific events or promotions in that is targeted for a particular city.

Last, providing useful and relevant knowledge to solve technical issues, especially, is crucial. Some companies often reply with irrelevant knowledge that does not add any value for the customers. The person responding should have a certain level of expertise in a particular area.

Source: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/exceptional-customer-service-on-twitter/ and http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-research/42-percent-of-consumers-complaining-in-social-media-expect-60-minute-response-time/

“84% of consumers are more likely to trust word-of-mouth recommendations from their peers than branded advertising campaigns.”

I believe this finding is kind of obvious. Companies want to use marketing to portray themselves as good and people say that advertising is deceiving. This idea may create problem for marketers, for consumers are less likely to respond and believe their marketing campaigns. Keep in mind that companies who launches misleading marketing campaigns will eventually hurt their brands themselves.

Important to realize, this research also reminds marketers to focus on customer experience that will lead to brand advocates. The article mentions that “by encouraging trust, your customers become your brand’s strongest advertisers – capable of organically spreading your message far beyond the reach of a traditional advertising budget.” This is indeed true and some important approaches that can be used it to focus on service rather than the product, such as responding to feedback and solving issues. Correspondingly, this creates opportunity for your brand to be improved as well. By hearing and responding to customers’ feedbacks / complaints, consumers will feel as being respected and valued, increasing the chance of being brand advocates.

To point out, social media has made it easier for marketers to get closer to customers and provide personalization. With the help of customer relationship management (CRM) and other services, such as HootSuite, relationship can be managed easily and effectively. Lastly, instead of focusing on the word ‘advertising’, which often seen as profit-making effort, emphasize on relationships.

Source: http://www.clickz.com/clickz/column/2378740/the-customer-experience-is-key-in-every-channel-and-at-every-interaction