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

‘Spam age’, as David points out, is no more and email marketing campaign has been more cost and time efficient. He analyzes that there are three factors to determine the success of email marketing, which includes segmenting markets, taking advantage of mobile users, and using good ‘call-to-action’ phrases.

Marketing strategies between a B2C and B2B company would be very different. Not only that, if possible, targeting based on age, location, gender will also be beneficial. Moreover, as a mobile user myself, I do not usually open promotional email with unappealing subject line nor do I read if the content/image is not appropriate for the device, although the companies are not necessarily targeting the wrong customers. Just imagine the amount of money wasted if millions of users are doing the same thing. Last but not least, call-to-action has to be bold and big, for it is used to provoke an action from the customers.

Incorporating what I learned in class, marketers need to do email marketing tests and see what works and what does not. As marketing can either build or damage your brand, campaigns should be considered carefully. Each business and customer is different, hence, micro campaign is essential before investing a large sum of money into the campaign. Testing practices, for instance, putting the brand name to subject line, adding customer’s name, inserting either big or small pictures are some ways to test a company’s email marketing.

Below is a good diagram to visualize steps to take:

Source: http://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/14/120266.html

“Have you maximized Google Analytics  features?”

Google Analytics allow businesses to track and measure performance (ROI) of digital marketing. Measuring success only based on numbers of visitors is not adequate enough; a more detailed goals should be set. The article discusses a number of ways to track your online campaign (e.g. Google AdWords or social media) and search engine optimization (SEO). These strategies include, but not limited to, measuring traffic from different segments (e.g. social media traffic, google), time spent on the website, and pages viewed during each session.

Other strategies that I would like to add include measuring conversion rate. For example, tracking how many people actually visit the store after seeing the website would be beneficial. A way to achieve this is to give promotional code (e.g. 5-10% discount) that can only be obtained by visiting the website and entering their information (e.g. name, address, email). Another easier way to do this is to simply ask visitors directly regarding how they find out about the business.

Moreover, returning users are more likely to make a purchase when/after visiting the website. Thus, new visitors who spend less than 1 minute in the website should be analyzed. Are they potential customers who don’t like the website? Or are we using ineffective keywords on our marketing campaign (or SEO) and attracting the wrong people?

Finally, since people are using mobile devices and tablets more often, marketers need to know the devices that customers use when visiting the site. It allows the company to make an adjustment for the display (resolution) for effective viewing.

Source: http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/222947

Every person is unique. As marketers, it is critical to know that people are different, for this concept applies to Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Not all people use the same keywords to search for something. It all starts with the audience.

Who’s your audience? Many people worries too much about SEO without knowing their audience. How can you choose the best keyword without knowing your audience? Do a market research (e.g. surveys, etc) to know more about your audience, so that you can make a personalized marketing campaign for each persona you identify (group them).

“Every search is a question in disguise.”

Every search engine has their own algorithms and they are changing all the time. Instead of worrying too much on these algorithms, people must focus on “analytics and customer feedback”.  I’m not saying to totally ignore algorithms, yes understanding them is helpful. But what’s more important is publishing the content that is relevant for your audience.

In addition, corporate blogs, for instance, that is published often can create stickiness to the website, making customers to go back to the site. This is the “community” aspect of a website and other ways to increase stickiness is to enable people to give reviews of products/services. You can share your blog/testimonials on your Facebook page also, for example. In other words, the 7Cs are great guidance to create a good website.

In essence, when it comes to SEO, it’s all about content marketing (i.e. quality content publication).

Source: http://www.ask-kalena.com/articles/are-you-over-thinking-seo/

“It’s no longer about reach and frequency. It’s about how you get the community to engage and build overall loyalty.” Do you agree?

Measuring ROI (Return on Investment) in marketing is especially challenging. In this article, Constellation, a large wine producer, is using a combination of traditional marketing tools (e.g. survey) and new technologies to quantify ROI. Surveys are posted on social media to gain insight about the market. For example, the survey found that 48.9% of people increase their purchases of the brand since becoming fan. However, in my opinion, this method is not specific enough to know which of the company’s marketing campaign that made them fans of the brand in the first place. Yes, this can be used to measure success, but it is still far from a good measurement.

In class, I learned that marketing needs to have specific objectives, which is based on the overall organization’s goals, and the appropriate measurements or KPIs (Key Performance Indicators). For instance, increasing brand awareness/online presence can be the objective and the KPI would be gaining 50 new followers each month. An ROI explanation written by Avinash Kaushik made it crystal clear on how to measure performance in detail.

And another key point, it is good to know how and where your customers are. If your customers are more engaged in Twitter, then do more marketing (and customer service) on Twitter. On the contrary, if they are more engaged on Facebook, do more marketing on Facebook.

In a nutshell, building overall loyalty through engagement with community is important, but we still need to be specific (i.e. able to quantify) in measuring performance.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/cathyhuyghe/2014/08/25/wine-tech-measuring-the-roi-of-digital-media/ & http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/digital-marketing-and-measurement-model/

“But marketers are still struggling to find the most effective way to cozy up to a consumer via social media”

I, personally, can relate to the statement above. Positioning myself as a marketer, I think I would find it pretty difficult to get people to “like” my facebook page, for instance. As the article elaborated, people, including me, do not usually “befriend” with brands online. 55% to 63% respondents in the study refused to “befriend” with them since these people do not find it beneficial for them and they only use social media to resolve issues (see my previous blog post). I usually follow, for example, a band/musician on facebook to see the schedule of their concerts and new songs/albums.

In my opinion, people who like to shop would follow their favorite brands to see promotions/ads. Further, I think the brands that would be followed by people are companies like apparel companies, for their products are changing constantly (short life cycle); and some people would like to keep up with the latest trend.

Other people simply “like or follow” brands on social media just for the sake of supporting their brands or because they have ever been a part of them before (they are not really commenting/looking at their posts). For instance, I liked “The International Baccalaureate” facebook page simply because I was in this program in high school and I don’t follow their news anymore.

Therefore, I think some of the ways that marketers can do to increase followers include, posting useful wall posts (quality aspect) consistently, increasing engagement, rewarding loyal customers, and integrating facebook page to the company’s website.

Source: http://blogs.wsj.com/cmo/2014/09/18/more-than-half-of-us-consumers-dont-want-to-friend-a-brand-online/

We live in a social media era, in which we have twitter, facebook, instagram, and other social networking sites (SNS). In class, I learned how powerful SNS are and how companies often use these sites to interact with customers (and build relationship! That’s what marketing is about, right?). For instance, a complaint addressed through twitter is more likely to be resolved faster; I believe one of the main reasons is that other people can see that post which would damage the brand of the company. On the other hand, it could also enhance a company’s reputation if a customer commends or say positive things about it. Simply put, it is a double-edged sword for the company. However, marketers need to be careful since, psychologically, people tend to remember and put more emphasis on the negative things.

The report articulates that most people complain about their traveling experience through phone calls; and the least tool used would be social media. (I thought social media is an effective way to get the best customer service?) Phone calls are dominated by people of 35 years old+, whereas social media is used by younger people (18 years – 35 years old). It’s obvious, isn’t it?

Marketers can use this kind of data for a more precise marketing strategy. Younger generation, obviously, are more active in using SNS and as the older generation would be ‘replaced’, more people are going to keep using SNS. In my opinion, since SNS is one of the best ways for people to interact with others (family, friends, and even companies) easily, there will be a growing number of SNS users (given that SNS are constantly improving their services). Additionally, not only SNS, people who are using “online/mobile search” is also dominated by younger generation (and will keep increasing). This increases the importance of digital marketing.

Source: http://skift.com/2014/09/15/travel-habits-of-americans-social-media-is-the-least-popular-method-of-customer-service/