…. Social Networking will continue to expand in customer relationships with brands and corporate team building efforts as ways to help the bottom line. Organizations are increasingly looking to next-generation social networking tools to conduct sophisticated business intelligence and analytics. In many cases, they are mining data and looking for trends and patterns, such as which salesperson has the relationships to pull off a deal or which customers seem to have the biggest influence with others online

It’s only been 4 months since my review, and already it’s pretty clear that social networking is on the rise. Sites like Twitter, Linked In, StumbleUpon, PerfSpot, and of course Facebook have grown even more popular, making major headlines around the globe (sometimes for all the wrong reasons)- not to mention newer social networking tools which have been popping up all over the web.

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Social Media as a brand building tool

Most people still see Social media as just a place to hang out and see what your friends are doing. They just don’t realize what a powerful marketing tool the world of social media offers their businesses.

Social media offer more than just an opportunity to stay in touch with friends and colleagues, they also provide a cost effective platform for product marketing and brand building, and indeed the popular social networking sites, in terms of marketing, offer an extremely large target-audience, often running into hundreds of millions.

Facebook for instance, has seen its membership rise from 175 million in March, to a little over 200 million in May, and it allows you “create a public profile that enables you share your business and products with these 200 million plus users.

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Legacy social media such as blogs, and newsletters also serve as handy marketing tools. Blogs have literally been in existence for over a decade, and still play a huge role in market development. They give you an opportunity to build relationships with customers, and those relationships, of course, can amount to much better sales.

Similarly, online forums- the original social networks- are still extremely relevant. They provide you a perfect opportunity to know exactly what your customers and prospects are thinking. The levels of interaction they provide can assist you in creating a proper direction for your online campaigns, and should be worth considering.

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Making Social Media Work For You

An integrated social media marketing strategy can help your business increase brand visibility, improve customer loyalty, and gain important insights about the markets you serve.

Social media marketing is the possibly the most effective way of generating traffic, and as such the importance of social media as a marketing channel should never be underestimated. It effectively compliments your other marketing strategies, and is highly sustainable.

How so?

“Social communities can be a great source of web traffic on top of any traffic you are already receiving from search engines. While you can’t easily increase your search engine traffic, social media traffic can be very easily controlled through strategic marketing.”

Social Media news sites let users post links to news articles, blog posts, videos, podcasts, and other web content. Then other site users can vote for that content, potentially sending it to the front page of the news site where millions of web goers are likely to see it and click through.

This is particular true for sites like Twitter, where users can access public timelines of other users, without neccessarily having to be friends with them (or follow them in case). Practically all the major news and web content providers are on twitter, including; Google, CNN, and BBC.

Social media channels will help your business grow by creating a community of supporters who (if nothing else) would recommend your products/services. It is common knowledge that word-of-mouth has and always will be crucial to marketing success.

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Are you using social media as a marketing strategy?

Leave a comment and let us know how effective is has been for your business. And hey, don’t forget to follow us on Twitter- http://www.twitter.com/dtechblog

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You most often hear people complain about how “business isn’t doing too well”, and how they “just aren’t making enough profit”, and how “things seem to be taking a turn for the worse”…… I’m sure we’ve all been there at one point or the other.

Anyway, I was fortunate enough to be given an invitation to attend a Licensing Training and Business Productivity seminar organized by Protech Distribution Ghana, together with Microsoft, which was held today at the Golden Tulip Hotel in Kumasi.

During the seminar, I had the opportunity of meeting Victor Diali- Distribution Account Manager for Microsoft Anglophone West Africa, managing Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone and The Gambia.

Apart from being Distribution account manager for Microsoft, Mr. Diali is also a Business consultant and “Motivational Trainer”. My 3 hour interaction with arguably the most inspirational person I have met this year got me thinking about a whole lot of things relating to business and business productivity.

The major (or principal if you will) reason why anyone even ventures into business in the first place is to “make more money”, and acheive financial indepence.

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What is Money Anyway?

If you were asked, you would (like me) no doubt answer by stating one of the commonly known, “orthodox” definitions of money which go like;

• a medium of exchange issued by a government or other public authority in the form of coins of gold, silver, or other metal, or paper bills, used as the measure of the value of goods and service
• Assets and property considered in terms of monetary value; wealth
• An amount of cash or credit

BLA BLA BLA ………….

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Yeah, almost everyone would, but after those 3 hours with Victor, my entire perception of money changed. According to him;

“Money is the reward you receive for solving a problem”

In other words, people pay you to solve a problem.

I mean, let’s face it: no one actually pays you just because they like your face, your well pressed suit and matching tie, or anything else for that matter. People pay you simply because they feel you can help (or have helped) them do something they ordinarily couldn’t (or wouldn’t) have been able to do themselves- literally “solve a problem”.

That said, I assume it is therefore correct to say;,

“if you can solve complex problems, you have the opportunity of making more money”

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Let’s consider a Passenger Jet Pilot for example shall we.

With mordern crafts, the job of a pilot has has been simplified to; Take-Off and Landing. All the pilot has to do is;

1. Take Off
2. Put the Plane on Auto-Pilot once it reaches the right altitude
3. Land the plane

So you see. They don’t really do “much”, yet they are amongst the highest paid professionals in the world.

Why?

Simple. Their training enables them solve the complex problem of traversing long distances in a relatively short period.

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What Problem Does Your Business Help Solve?

In order to fully acheive your original business motive, you would need to “connect your products and services to the customer’s problem(s). This usually begins by first getting to know what your customer’s problem (need) is, and there is no better way to do this than to

Listen!!

Another interesting thing I learnt from my interaction with Victor Diali today is that contrary to popular believe, a good sales person is not one who knows how to talk, but one who “knows how to listen”

How would you feel, if you went to see a Doctor for instance, and as soon as you walked into his office, he immediately gives you a diagnosis without any form of examination? The next logical step would no doubt be to turn around, flee, and never return.You may even report the Doctor to the relevant authorities.

Same goes for your business.  Just as you would go to the Doctor, looking to solve a health problem, your customers come to you looking to solve a problem. Your customers need to know that your business can actually solve that problem, and the only way to know what your customers need is to actually listen to them.

After pondering over this all day I came to the understanding that listening in itself is more of a process than an action. That is to say that listening is continuous, and goes on for the entire length of your relationship with the customer.

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The Listening Process

In order to get the most out of your business, you have to effectively manage your listening process. To do this, you would however need to effectively manage your business contacts.

• Keep A Record- you would no doubt need to know who your customers are in order to “listen” to them

• Develop  A Relationship- Get to know your customer-base. Create and maintain good rapport with them. Simple tasks such as sending out a gift/greeting on a known anniversary could do a lot to help

• Management- you would need to manage every aspect of your customer’s relationship with you. You need to know as much as possible, how your products/services are helping the client in terms of business growth. If you do not have a “Client Account Manager”, you may need to consider recruiting one

• Support- arguably the most important. The customer is the customer, and should “be the customer”. You must as a matter of necessity provide as much support as required by the customer.Additionally, Most businesses and business owners take offense when a client complains about poor service. This definitely shouldn’t be the case. Allowing the customer to have a voice is one of  the most powerful marketing techniques, and is vital to the listening process.You should know how to effectively handle customer complaints

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A lot more actually goes into this process, but that would have to be in a future article (actually I’ve run out of things to say). Anyway, if you want your business to really succeed (and I assume you do), then it would make a lot of sense for you to “clearly” define what problem(s) your business really solves

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Incase you don’t know what a sales copy is and you own a business (which I seriously doubt)- it is  that piece of text you find in advertisements, promotional brochures or other public relations outlets. Copywriting, which is the art of writing a sales copy has never been more crucial to a business. Tom Chandler writes;

“Good copywriting and marketing have never been
more important. Or more confusing.“

Probably the reason why most businesses hire professional Copywriters to draft these sales copies for them. So;

Who and What is a Copywriter?

Whenever you hear a radio commercial, or read words in the advertising section of a magazine, a copywriter is responsible. A copywriter creates the text for advertisements, promotional brochures or other public relations outlets. Advertising agencies routinely refer to a written script as copy, thus the name copywriter applies to those who create the scripts.

But what makes a Good Sales copy?

Several answers to this question may exist, but the most important (arguably) of them all would be Readability!! Readability here not just in the sense of the word, but also in terms of attractiveness. The sales copy must, as a matter of necessity, be able to capture and captivate the readers.

A few things you may want to note when writing your sales copy ;

• Keep it Attractive- can’t help but reiterate, your sales copy should, as a matter of importance, be engaging. It must possess qualities that captivate, if not thrill the reader. This holds true for the opening paragraph through to the last.

• Keep It Short- despite what most people may think, length matters. Not everyone enjoys reading (as a matter of fact most people don’t), as such it would be wise to make your sales copy as “straight-to-the-point” as possible.
  
  
• Formatting and Placement- also very important. It is worth noting that 6 out of 10 average readers would only read the first one or two paragraphs and scan through the rest of your sales copy. It is therefore extremely important to pay attention to placement- endeavor to have the most important aspects of your draft as close to the beginning of the copy as possible. It is also a good idea to use bold fonts, and quotation marks where necessary, so as to emphasize an important word, sentence or paragraph. Coloured text are “pleasing” to the eyes, and are encouraged.  Be careful however, that your copy doesn’t end up looking like the face of a clown.

• Keep It Original- try to be as original as possible. Think twice before deciding to “borrow” content from someone else’s copy without their permission. Copy writing requires an enormous amount of talent and creativity, needless to say are intellectual property. Apart from just losing credibility in the eyes of your reader, you can quickly find yourself in an unwanted legal tussle. If you must borrow, you should endeavor to give the author some acknowledgment.

• Mind your language- last, but by no means least, it is advisable to watch your language. In the beginning, it may seem like a good idea to use your copy to show your grammatical proficiency, but you may end up having achieved nothing in the end, if your sales copy is more confusing than it is explanatory. It is thus advisable to use “common”, everyday terms which would have “real” meaning to the reader.

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Finally, as a parting gift, bear in mind that;

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“Marketing is not just about advertising – it’s also about
education and building customer relationships.”

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Though the fundamental principles of marketing remain the same, the approach to marketing has and always will be the underlying factor that sets apart the successful business from the unsuccessful ones. True, most businesses understand the need for marketing, and many allocate the required amount of resources to the propagation of their products and services through many channels- some effective, others not as effective, and some, well …….

Internet Marketing for one, has become extremely popular, with Search Engine Optimization (SEO) often topping the agenda in most Internet Marketing campaigns- the rationale behind it being to get into the Golden “top 10” search results of a Search Engine’s SERP. E-mail Marketing is also high on the agenda, I mean, you simply;

1) Prepare your HTML Email template
2) Compile a comprehensive list of Email Addresses you wish to mail to
3) Create your Email or E-Newsletter (Obviously)
4) Feed the Email or E-Newsletter into a Mass Email Software

AND ………… BLAST OFF!!!

Yep! That’s just about it. Or is it?

Whilst it may be easy to go according to structured, laid down marketing principles and methodologies, it is also extremely easy to lose track of the obvious;

Your entire Marketing Campaign was originally targeted at
“Individuals”, not the Search Engines.

Meaning- these individuals form the core of your target audience, and whilst it may be prudent to pursue the fine art of SEO and all the other E-Marketing techniques, it is however important to Remember Who You Really are Dealing With.

Links, optimized tags, PPC campaigns and the like may bring the much needed traffic to your website, and even place you in the top 10 results of Google’s SERP, but just as Google’s Matt Cutts said “last year” (it’s fun saying that);

“SEOs are starting to embrace the fact that they are marketers. It’s a broader spectrum. You have to think about how you build buzz, how do you get loyal customers, how do you optimize your ROI. All those different things and that can include how do I make good videos, do I have a book, things like that.“

“…. the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings. They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log. It’s great if you’re ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn’t help you very much.“

Similarly, with regards to E-mail Marketing, sending an email or calling someone up might be more convenient, but it’s also less personal — and therefore less effective. Words alone cannot always communicate what you want, your facial expression and body language often contribute to help your cause and help you reach your marketing goal.

There is also the issue of practicability- what assurance do you have that your E-mails won’t just end up in a Spam folder, and even if they do make it to the “Inbox”, what are the chances of them getting read, especially if they are unsolicited?

This is particularly true for most African countries, where most businesses don’t even have email addresses, and 90% of those who do, either do not monitor their mail boxes, leading to them being closed after a while, or deliberately post invalid addresses. It is extremely common to get E-mail bounce rates of up to 85% in E-mail campaigns (and that’s no lie)- all resulting from invalid E-mail addresses.

As such, you cannot and should not play down the role of physical marketing, and you should also pay serious attention to localized forms of advertising/marketing such as the radio, Television, NewsPapers, etc. Localization is also a very important aspect of marketing and branding.

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