Category

Marketing

Apr 01
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A Rewarding Moment — Getting Mad Props on a Client’s Facebook Page

By Communications, Marketing, Social Media

We work with the team at The C’ville Market; we help them with branding, their social media presence, their marketing, and their public relations. We love getting to know them and helping share their stories with customers and with the community at large.

Today we had a gratifying moment because a customer commented on the Facebook page the following:

Dear C’ville Market. You are doing such an incredible job with your postings. I look forward almost every day to see if you have a sale, a recipe, info on your staff and insight into what’s happening around town. Just want to say Thank You! Your effort keeps me shopping there.

Facebook comment

 

That’s just the kind of reaction we were hoping for! If you’d like to see what The C’ville Market is doing online, you can follow their blog, http://cvillemarket.com/blog/ be a fan on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/cvillemarket  or watch what they do on Twitter https://twitter.com/cvillemarket

 

Sep 26
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In a Client’s Words: Working with UVa Intramural-Recreational Sports

By Communications, Marketing, Social Media

I am, of course, proud of all of my clients, what they learn, how they apply what they learn to every day work and how they follow through on the execution of a strategic communications plan. However, right now, I’m extra super proud of Carol Spry at the University of Virginia. Carol is in the Intramural-Recreational Sports marketing department and what we’ve done together is take that program from a very print-focused, traditional marketing world to a very social, web-friendly, responsive and interconnected (read: UVa student friendly!) platform, and Carol is right at the core of making all of that happen.

In this video, produced by the HR department of UVa, Carol talks about her job at the University. See if you can spot my cameo!

My UVa Job – Carol Spry from My UVA Job on Vimeo.

May 29
Love0

Your Brand is Often Your People

By Marketing

In a client meeting, we were working to identify what makes our client really stand out in its industry. They referenced their collective experience, the deep level of knowledge some team members possess and overall, that the individuals within the company are what make the company different from others that do the same thing in the same market.

Huh.

So what you’re saying is, your people define your brand?

Exactly.

dentalhealthpartners

The dentists of Charlottesville Dental Health Partners

What image do you think your customers have when they think of your business? A logo, or the person (or people) who represents that logo to them?

The team at Rebecca's Natural Food

The team at Rebecca’s Natural Food

Yeah, but we’re really a business-to-business organization. We don’t serve consumers, so …

So, the people who work here don’t have relationships with one another and with the people at the businesses with which they work?

The HemoShear team

The HemoShear team

Right.

 

Your brand is your people. Share your people with your community.

PHOTO CREDIT: the inimitable Sarah Cramer

Nov 16
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How Social Media Has Actually Made Marketing Easier, Not Harder

By Communications, Corporate Strategy, Marketing, Social Media

There are a LOT of articles and blog posts out there warning the business world that social marketing is the One True Way. CMOs that are not using Big Data acquired through myriad, massively integrated social platforms might be out of a job soon. Social has replaced advertising. Etc. Etc. Etc. It can be very intimidating if you’re used to marketing your products in more traditional ways. The ROI of a social program can be hard to calculate. There are many companies making a nice living just trying to help marketers compute it!

But I’d like to argue that the era of social marketing has actually made your job easier.

Social tools add complexity, it’s true. They can fragment the marketing budgets and team. Hooking all these social listening and sharing platforms up so you can make sense of your customers’ online habits and predilections can add a lot of work, both in the short and long term.

But the transparency of messaging that social marketing requires actually takes a lot off the table. Since spin and backpedaling are really not effective anymore, it’s actually easier to decide what to do. The kind of content you create, the strategy you develop, and the systems you use to communicate can all be much simpler because they are designed to do one thing–explain what you’re going to do and how. You’re not going to spend a lot of time trying to convince someone to buy something of questionable value anymore. Their peers are going to provide the validating information about you and your offering that they need, not you.

It all comes down to doing what you promise and then enabling the satisfied to amplify their satisfaction via social channels. No more lying, covering, shaping, hiding, reacting. All you have to do is explain, clarify, and deliver.

Isn’t that why you’re in business to begin with?

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Oct 29
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Four Ways to Use Social Platforms to Drive E-commerce Sales

By Communications, Corporate Strategy, Marketing, Social Media

With all the blogging, sharing, news articles and conferences that tout and exploit the uses of social media, you’d think the idea of using it to drive e-commerce sales would be a no-brainer. I mean everyone’s doing that, right? Anyone with an online storefront MUST be using their Facebook pages, Twitter feeds, and Pinterest boards to drive traffic to product landing pages, right?

Turns out, not everyone understands that, especially in B2C. I was at a training session yesterday with one of our favorite retail clients, teaching them the amazing benefits of Sprout Social. This is a pretty great social media dashboard tool that allows you to manage all your social media presences from one location. As I was helping them hook it all up, I was also asking how these platforms were being used so far. Were they promoting items in the store? Sharing design ideas from their own people? Promoting designers and products outside of the store? Driving traffic to their online web store?

Turns out they were really only using their social platforms to promote things outside their store–designers, other Pinterest boards, other blogs. They weren’t really using the social tools to drive everyone back to their OWN store, either online or bricks and mortar.

I was very surprised, to say the least. But it made me think that maybe they weren’t alone, especially if they were a small business with limited time and resources. So here are some things you can do right now to help drive more sales using social tools.

  1. Set up a Facebook page and update it regularly. MOST people who buy things online have a Facebook presence of some sort. 67 percent of B2C companies and 42 percent of B2B companies have acquired a customer through Facebook (Hubspot, 2011). Use it to drive traffic to your blog, your Pinterest page, or better yet, specific product landing pages on your site. Facebook is a great way to stay in front of customers generally.
  2. Set up a Pinterest page to showcase your products. According to a recent BizRate Insights study, “sixty-nine percent of consumers who visit Pinterest have found an item they’ve purchased or wanted to purchase.” In some studies, it’s even outpacing Facebook as a product purchase influencer. While both sites are used to connect with people who share common interests, “Pinterest is more of a product finder and decision influencer.”
  3. Set up a Twitter account for sharing thought leadership. Post content from your blog, and ideas from others, along with deals and ides on your OWN site. Twitter is less effective as a sales tool for consumer products, but it’s great for business solutions and products.
  4. YouTube is still one of the largest search engines, so you have to have a channel. This can really enhance SEO as well. Post weekly video tours of section of the store, specials, or events you might be hosting in your brick and mortar store, but link to corresponding product or category pages in the online store!
  5. Make sure to set up Google Analytics on your web store so you can see what links drive the best results. It’s pretty easy and Google already tracks the major social platforms. You’ll quickly get an idea of what each platform brings to the table in terms of traffic and sales. The key here is to be everywhere, targeting each platform to do what it’s good at. But don’t be afraid to drive traffic to your store, rather than just your blog.

Need help? Call us!

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