1 i’ i’ n ab a b he h e tl, tl, i’ i’ all ab sey s ey
s wh sey “I know half my advertising isn’t working. I just don’t know which half.” Lord Leverhulme,
www.LonSafko.com /Fusion/01.mov
the ounder o Lever Brothers (now Unilever)
t
he soundest strategy you can have is to start with a sound strategy strategy.. That may sound silly, but when it comes to social and digital media, most marketing people start with a tool, such as Facebook or Twitter Twitter,, and try to build a strategy around that tool. Marketing isn’t just about the tools, though. You wouldn’t assemble your team and say, “We’re going to build a strategy exclusively around print ads.” You’d make print ads part o your overall strategy. In the same way, Fusion Marketing starts with the development o a successul, integrated, and interconnected strategy using tried-and-true traditional marketing and media, social media, and the latest in digital media. 3
4
The Fusion MarkeTing BiBle
Don’t jump into social media without a plan. One Fortune 500 company I consulted with had more than 19 million riends, all chatting about its products. At rst I was impressed, but once the initial excitement about the number wore o, I asked, “So how are you monetizing that?” The people present ell silent, looking like deer in the headlights. They were wer e using a tool, but they t hey didn’t didn’t have a strategy. I you’re you ’re not monetizing your riends, your tweets, your e-mail lists, and your blogs, then why are you using social media? Everything Everything you you do should be directly related to revenues. I it isn’t, isn’t, stop doing it!
Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and YouTube aren’t strategies, they’re tools. Having a large number o riends, ollowers, and readers is great exposure, but you have to do something with those eyes, ears, and credit cards.
develp Cle Cve sey Develop a clear, individual, well-dened conversion strategy that will ultimately increase your revenue. Increasing your likes on Facebook could be a specic conversion strategy.. Increasing your ollowers strategy ollowers on Twitter could be another stratst rategy.. Building your e-mail list could be another. egy another. Getting more conversation and comments on your blog might be one, too. But how do you convert this activity to revenue? That’s your next strategy.
5
i T ’ s n o T a B o u T T h e T o o l s , i T ’ s a l l a B o u T s T r a Te Te g y
Here are some potential objectives and conversion strategies: Increase my e-commerce. Gather user-generated content. Increase web trac to a specic page. Build loyalty and peer support. Crowdsource innovation. Drive attendance at events. Build brand awareness. Improve customer service. Reduce tech support. Increase e-mail subscriptions. Increase telephone sales. Liquidate inventory inventory.. Here are some o my personal objectives and conversion strategies: Drive book sales. Raise sponsorship or PBS television special on social media. Develop a radio campaign to promote the book. Increase my number o speaking engagements. Send direct mail to top 100 speakers’ bureaus. Raise awareness o the book in universities. Develop ree press coverage. Increase my likes on Facebook. Facebook. Increase my activity on LinkedIn. Drive attendance at my seminars.
6
The Fusion MarkeTing BiBle
Send e-mail blasts with ree material. Increase Twitter ollowers. Some o these objectives are generic, while others are more specic. Some are so general as to be only starting points, while others involve better utilizing my tools. Let’s look at how I developed my strategies over the past year, when I started with a goal as broad as “drive book sales.”
sx sep sccel Cve sey 1.
Wh y pecfc bjecve? O course your goal is to make
money, but how? What segment(s) o your target market will you money, be ocusing on? What specic products or services do you want these people to buy? What is your timetable or success? 2. Wh y mke lcpe? The environment in which your
business exists will infuence your chances o success. Did you want to start a travel agency in 2004, when the Internet was sending most o them into bankruptcy? Not a good idea. Did you want to build spec houses in 2009? Also not the best bes t idea. Do you want to provide health services to seniors in 2015? That’s probably a great idea with a healthy economy and lots o retiring baby boomers. There are seven categories o environmental infuences that you must consider: must consider: Are people spending, and on what? Which sectors are getting hot and which are not?
a. the ecmy jb.
Can you get the supplies you need? How tough is the competition? Can you compete?
b. the cmpe ve.
c. new echly. How can you use it or suer rom it? d. gveme el plc.
What new laws will a-
ect your business? Are there social actors that will infuence your business, such as condence in the economy or demographic
e. the cey.
7
i T ’ s n o T a B o u T T h e T o o l s , i T ’ s a l l a B o u T s T r a Te Te g y
changes (or example, a growing Hispanic population, an aging population, ewer couples getting married, or later childbirth years)? Are there health and environmental trends that will aect your business, such as global warming, increased emphasis on sustainability and green awareness, and increased skin cancer and obesity?
f. Helh he evme.
Who are the specic people in your niche? How are they doing? Whom are they buying rom and why? How do they eel about your brand?
c me. g. Y cme.
Each o these categories provides both risks and opportunities. You must analyze your company’s company’ s strengths and weaknesses weakne sses careully in relation to each. Providing healthcare services may be a great idea, but unless you have the unds to create creat e such a business, trying to do so could just bankrupt you. Do D o your strengths let you overcome the risks and take advantage o the opportunities? Do your weaknesses put you in mortal danger and preclude you rom beneting rom the opportunities? Take your time and do this analysis careully. Think o it as a mineeld. I you miss a mine now, it could blow up later, ater you’ve you ’ve committed a lot o money to your strategy. 3. Wh b ey wll help y m he cmpe
st and pve wy he cme y e mke? To stand out, you must oer o er value that your competition co mpetition doesn do esn’t, ’t, and that is important to your customers. Scope took market share rom Listerine by emphasizing that it not only stopped bad breath but let your breath “kissably resh,” an important positive value that Listerine doesn’t provide. Oten the best strategies are the simplest. Look at your product or service through your customers’ eyes: what logical and emotional benets do they gain rom using your product? Promise to sell them the satisaction that they want, and use product eatures to prove that you can deliver. deliver. Scope promised breath so resh that your loved one would want to kiss you. That is what people wanted to buy.
8
The Fusion MarkeTing BiBle
e mke wh y me4. Wh cc c y e ech y e e wy h ble eecve? Maybe you plan to
emphasize print ads, social media, newspaper stories (PR), and video. Each channel must be judged on how many target-market eyeballs it will deliver or the cost. The greater the anticipated ROI (return on investment), the better better.. I you run r un an Italian restaurant at one end o a large city like Phoenix, and you spend $30,000 or a newspaper ad in Section A, most o the people who see the ad will live too ar away to eat there, so those eyeballs are a wasted cost. But i you spend $5,000 on an ad in the North Phoenix newspaper insert, you will reach a smaller audience, but nearly all o those people will be within driving distance o your restaurant. The key is to maximize ROI. You need the right tools to make your tactics work. I I want to promote expensive blue jeans to teenage girls using videos o cool girls with cool guys, what tool should I use? YouTube will be more eective and ar less costly than TV. You’ll learn all about tools and how to plug them into your specic tactics in later chapters. For now, just keep in mind that you need to identiy specic tools—like specic magazines or newspapers or TV shows or websites—that will carry your message into your y our buyers’ minds. You You’ll ’ll also see that you can use dierent tools, whether they’re traditional, digital, or social media tools, to create even more specic and eective tactics by using just one little word!
5. Wh l c y e y cc?
carr y your messages. 6. Wh y mee? Tools are vehicles that carry What you say and how h ow you say it make mak e a huge dierence. dier ence. You You’ll ’ll get a lot more people to have breakast with you i you invite them out or “bacon and eggs” rather than or “atty strips o hog back and unertilized chicken ova.” Your messages must refect what your target market wants to buy (“kissably resh breath,” not mouthwash). Promise them what they want and oer more value than the competition. When you ollow these six steps, st eps, you’ll you’ll have a strong strategy or converting potential customers into buyers. We’ e’ll ll cover tactics and
9
I t ’ s N o t A b o u t t h e t o o l s , I t ’ s A l l A b o u t s t r A te te g y
tools in greater depth throughout this book, particularly in Chapter 15. I will even show you how to develop microstrategies. In the ollowing example, example , let’s say my objective is “drive book sales.” The Five Ws
Remember the Five Ws rom grade school English class? The who, what, where, when, and why (and how)? The Five Ws came rom journalism. They were developed by the New York Times back in the 1890s, when the paper used kids as (cub) reporters. The editors taught the kids to just bring back the Five Ws. I they did, no matter how bad a reporter the kid was, there would always be enough inormation to crat a complete story. The what is “drive book sales.” The who is me, although it could also be my team, my department, my division, or my marketing company. The when might be now or it might be in the rst quarter, 30 days beore the end o the scal or calendar year, or beore a trade show. The where could be locally, nationally, internationally, or something else. The why , o course, is to increase revenue. The how is where the gold is, and this will require a little mining. To drive book sales, I have to ask how . I can do this by raising the level o awareness about me and the value o the book’s content. The more people who are exposed to me and the book and how it will help them look at their marketing and sales in a completely dierent way, the more people will buy the book, and the more they will talk about the book. The more they reer to the book, the more the book will sell. This is absolutely true or any product. The Seven Why s
The Seven Why s is a technique that t hat is credited to Toyota, and I use it when teaching workshops on building dynamic, productive teams. It provides a way to get to the bottom o a “we can’t do that” issue. As a kid, I was always asking why. “Mommy, why is the sky blue?” “It’s because there’s water ltering the sun’s light.” “Why, Mommy?” “Well, it’s because the sun heats up the water, and it evaporates and foats into the t he sky.” “Why, “Why, Mommy?” “Well, it’s because when water becomes a gas, it’s lighter than the air and rises.” “Why, Mommy?” “Because the molecule o a gas is . . .” And so on.
10
The Fusion MarkeTing BiBle
Using the Seven Why s to get to a root-cause dogma* is a really eective exercise. Here’s how that conversation might go: “We can’t can’t do that.” “Why? “Becausee it can’t “Becaus can’t be done.” done. ” “Why?” “Because it has never been done that way.” “Why?” “Because we don’t have enough stang.” “Why?” “Because we don’t don’t have the budget to hire additional stang.” “Why?” “Because management never approves additional budget.” “Why?” “Because we never presented a good proposal explaining the benets.” “Why?” “Because we never took the time to create one.” “I I helped you create a killer proposal to justiy the additional stang budget, could we get it approved?” “Sure!” Somewhere between a ew why s and seven why s, s, you will uncover the real root cause o your problem. Let’s use the Seven Why s (changed to How s) s) to determine how we can raise the level o awareness to drive d rive more book sales. *Dogma: Noun: a principle or set o principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.
11
i T ’ s n o T a B o u T T h e T o o l s , i T ’ s a l l a B o u T s T r a Te Te g y
objecve: How can I raise the level o awareness?
Develop a radio campaign to promote the book. Use direct mail to increase my number o speaking engagements. Raise awareness o the book in universities. Develop ree press coverage. Increase my likes on Facebook. Facebook. Increase my activity on LinkedIn. Drive attendance at my seminars. Send e-mail blasts with ree material. Increase Twitter ollowers. Increasee video content Increas con tent on YouTube. YouTube. Do these look amiliar? These are all tools: radio, e-mail, direct mail, Facebook, LinkedIn, Linke dIn, Twitter, Twitter, YouTube, YouTube, newspapers news papers and magazines, seminars, universities, public presentations, and so on. They are also actual campaigns that I created and executed over the past year. Out o all these traditional and social media tools, let’s pick one (“Increase my activity on LinkedIn”) LinkedIn”) and continue the how questioning. how questioning. tl: LinkedIn
How can I increase my activity on LinkedIn? I can increase the number o postings. I can ne-tune my prole. I can create a group. I can create and moderate a question. I can e-mail my contacts. I can increase my number o connections.
12
The Fusion MarkeTing BiBle
I can connect with prospects, customers, and vendor partners. I can participate in industry group discussions. I can answer questions based on my area o expertise. I can ask or or oer “recommendations.” These are tactics. I you don’t don’t know how to use a given tool, do a Google search. For example, I searched s earched or “Top + Strateg + Linked-In.” (You (Y ou could also add “business.”) I used “strateg “strateg”” so that Google would return “strategic,” “strategy,” “ strategy,” and “strategies.” Read a ew o the SERPs (search engine result pages) to see what the “wisdom o the crowds” is. Pick the ideas that you like and that are appropriate or your business and write them down. But wait, you can take this even urther! Let’s pick one o the specic tactics related to using LinkedIn and apply the how how questioning questioning to it. tcc: I can create and moderate a question.
How can I create and moderate a question to t o increase awareness o me on LinkedIn? I decided to run a contest. I used LinkedIn “Answers” to post a subject-matter question in the orm o a contest. Public questions on LinkedIn are amazing! They: •
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Show up on the Open Questions page or others to answer. Are visible to all LinkedIn members to browse and comment on. Appear in your prole. Generate an update sent to your connections. Generate an update when someone answers the question. Can also be delivered as a message to t o 200 o your connections. Will show up in search engine results. Are open to responses or up to seven days or until you close cl ose the question. Can be reopened ater they’re closed.
13
i T ’ s n o T a B o u T T h e T o o l s , i T ’ s a l l a B o u T s T r a Te Te g y
Within 15 minutes, I got exposure to thousands o people and received dozens o correct responses to the question. What was the contest? I simply asked, “What was the very rst social network?” I suppose you would like to know the answer too—it was SixDegrees. This chapter outlines the traditional way o de- www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki veloping a successul marketing campaign with /SixDegrees.com a sound conversion strategy to increase revenue. Coming up, we’ll examine more sophisticated and exciting methods o developing these strategies, all the way to the point o using threedimensional ractal analysis. Don Don’t ’t worry, this is going to be un! To access additional materials, go to:
www.TheFusionMarketingBible.com
suMMarY •
s y ccel mke wh , , cle ey. Fcebk, twe, Lkei, p, em, ec ml e l, ee.
•
Mke l ll he h y mh w y ex cmp.
•
alyze h l he x ep ccel cve ey: ey: 1. develp y Objective. s wh e eel bjecve.
14
The Fusion MarkeTing BiBle
2. iey y mke lcpe. 3. deeme wh b ey wll help y m y cmpe. 4. devel develp p cc y c e ech y e mke wh y mee. 5. iey wh l y c e wh y cc. 6. deeme wh y mee . •
Che e bjecve.
•
iey he Fve W h ey evelp evelp h l el.
•
ue he seve Why he m How cheve he bjecve.
•
Fm he l how , , che l.
•
Ce he how qe cve he h cc. how qe
•
Ce he how qe eeme hw y c mplehow qe me he cc.
•
Lhe, e, epe!
