Posts Tagged ‘Social Media’

Fake Word-of-Mouth Marketing Could Cost You

Friday, February 10th, 2012

Word-of-mouth marketing, the kind of marketing where your customers spread the word for you, is an exceptionally effective marketing strategy in our world of connections and sharing. Customers trust word-of-mouth because it comes from their disinterested friends, family or online community.

When a business first opens or releases a new product, they might be tempted to “get the ball rolling” by asking employees or relatives to post favorable reviews, but this dishonesty might cost them. Online word-of-mouth marketing only works because customers trust the recommendations, reviews and ratings. It’s dangerous to risk losing that trust.

For instance, potential customers might spot the fakes and publicly denounce the reviews. Even worse, the FTC might come knocking on your door. From an FTC news release:

“A public relations agency hired by video game developers will settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it engaged in deceptive advertising by having employees pose as ordinary consumers posting game reviews at the online iTunes store, and not disclosing that the reviews came from paid employees working on behalf of the developers.”

Clearly, this PR agency will have a difficult time reclaiming its reputation. As with every aspect of life, honesty is the best policy. Inspire real customers with great experiences, and you won’t need to run the risk of fake word-of-mouth.

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Posted in Government, Social Networking, word-of-mouth marketing | No Comments »

Yelp for Small Business Marketing

Friday, January 27th, 2012

Your small business is already on Yelp. People are voicing their opinions about your business, and others are listening to their advice.

Yelp reported that 61 million people visited the site in the 3rd quarter of 2011.

Many small business owners don’t realize Yelp’s influence, let alone contribute to the conversation on the site. Including Yelp in your small business marketing plan can be a great way to build word-of-mouth-marketing. You’ll develop relationships with influential customers and encourage new customers to give you a try.

What is Yelp?

I would describe Yelp as an avid online community of passionate reviewers, eager to uphold their reputation and grow their influence. Casual users visit the site to find recommendations about nearby businesses, whether that be near where they live or where they are traveling.

Yelp got its start with restaurants, but it’s not just for restaurants anymore. You’ll find reviews on dentists, retail shopping, hair salons or even hardware stores. In many cities, the company has invested in local Community Managers, who develop and nurture relationships with local businesses and power reviewers.

Yelp Advertising

Of course Yelp would tell you the best way to improve your marketing with their site would be to buy advertising. Advertisements appear in search results and on competitors’ business pages. Below is an example showing Hannoush Jewelers’ business page with an advertisement for Rogers Jewelers:

There are a few other perks to advertising, such as the ability to display a video. Advertising on Yelp ranges from $300-$1000 per month.

Yelp Deals

Yelp also offers a way to provide customers with discounts from your business page, called Yelp Deals. Customers buy the “deal” from the site, and Yelp keeps 30% of the sale. Here’s an example of a deal, shown in a search result:

It’s hard to say how effective Yelp Deals are, but they might be worth an experiment, especially since there are no up-front costs.

More Marketing with Yelp Tips

There are several things small businesses can do to improve their Yelp marketing efforts without buying advertising or posting deals. I recommend taking these steps before making any ad buys.

First, ensure your business information is complete and up-to-date. On your business’s page, “unlock” your listing to add hours of operation, menus, pictures or an OpenTable reservations widget. Here’s a screenshot:

Once you unlock your business’s page, you’ll also be able to see handy data about the visitors to your page.

Another benefit to unlocking your page is that you’ll be able to communicate with your reviewers. Responding to your reviewers can build your relationships with them… if you do it carefully.

To respond to a negative review, consider the customer’s input constructive criticism, and try to remedy the issues the customer experienced. If you can “make it right” with the reviewer, chances are she will revise her review more positively. Even if the review is unreasonable, your business will not benefit if you reply angrily or defensively.

Responding to a positive review is much easier. Consider sending a private thank-you to the reviewer with a personalized note that shows you truly read and understood the review.

To really engage with Yelp, find out if your city has a Community Manager. This person organizes events for Yelp reviewers, and you might be able to improve your standing with local reviewers by hosting a free event just for them.

For more information about marketing with Yelp, send me an email: amanda@zooinajungle.com, or you can check out some of my reviews on my Yelp profile.

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Posted in Advertising, Customers, Small Business, Social Networking, word-of-mouth marketing | No Comments »

Marketing Podcast: Twitter Tips

Friday, December 9th, 2011

This month, I was privileged to talk Twitter marketing with Dave Weatherholt on his radio show, “Getting Down to Business.” In the adventure that is radio broadcasting, Dave’s other guest was unable to make it, so we extended our Twitter talk to the whole show.

Listen and enjoy!

Link: Marketing Podcast: Twitter Tips

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Posted in Marketing Podcasts, Social Networking, word-of-mouth marketing | No Comments »

Should I be on Twitter?

Tuesday, November 29th, 2011

If you answer “Yes” to the following two questions, you should probably include a Twitter presence in your marketing plan:

  • Are you interesting?
  • Are your customers on Twitter?

That is my basic litmus test to answer if a business or person should be on Twitter. More specifically, personalities, speakers, authors, thought leaders, news organizations, technology companies and similar groups should make room in the marketing budget for Twitter.

Who shouldn’t be on Twitter?

To effectively market with Twitter requires quite a time commitment– you have to develop a community of followers by engaging in conversation and keeping them interested. If your customers don’t use Twitter, don’t bother including it in your marketing activities. It’s OK to just say “No!” to any marketing activity that won’t help you reach your business goals.

What should I say?

Marketing on Twitter is less about what you say and more about how you participate. People use Twitter for news, stories, conversations, and to learn what others are thinking right this moment about important (and not-so-important) issues in their lives. No one uses Twitter to receive deals or special offers from businesses. Be friendly and join conversations. Consider Twitter the cocktail party of marketing more than a megaphone.

What about that Twitter vocab?

Here’s some Twitter vocabulary to get you started.

  • Tweep – a Twitter user
  • Tweet – What tweeps post
  • # – This little guy is called a hashtag, and it allows tweeps to add categories to their tweets. For instance, #marketing would be a tweet about marketing. Usually, event organizers specify a hashtag to use when attendees are tweeting from the event, so people the world over can follow the happenings.
  • RT – Retweet. Give credit where credit is due. If you repost someone’s tweet, credit them with RT @username.

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Posted in Relationships, Social Networking, Technical Tips, word-of-mouth marketing | 1 Comment »

Marketing is easy when you’re awesome

Friday, October 14th, 2011

A couple weeks ago, I published a post imploring businesses to be good. Being good is important for your business, though it might not make your marketing any easier. But what if your business is not just good, it’s awesome? Being awesome opens the door to great marketing opportunities that makes your marketing strategy easy.

Here are three ways marketing is easy when you’re awesome:

1. PR and social media are easy

For many businesses, developing a compelling PR and social media strategy is hard– what do we say? who will care? who will spread the message? But for businesses that are awesome, PR is easy.

Grady Veterinary Hospital in Cincinnati, OH accepts animals in need from the SPCA. Right now, they are caring for a kitten that had been set on fire and loosed on a city street. Each day, they provide updates on the little guy’s progress. Because they do awesome things, their public relations and social media strategy is easy: Tell stories about the wonderful animals we help.

2. Word of mouth marketing is easy

It’s pretty obvious that if your business is awesome, your customers will want to talk about you. That’s the essence of word of mouth marketing. Give your customers something to talk about– a charitable initiative, an innovative application of your product or service that goes above and beyond what they could have imagined.

The BonBonerie is an extremely successful confectioner here in Cincinnati. Customer demand is so strong that they have an entire cafe dedicated to wedding cake tastings. Their business has been built mostly on word-of-mouth marketing because their business is amazing. The beautiful cakes, delicious flavors and careful service give customers plenty to rave about. Crafting this business wasn’t easy, but the word of mouth marketing is creating itself.

3. Employee satisfaction is easy

Happy employees make happy customers. When an employee believes in what she does, she wants to help each customer as much as she can. And, no surprise, employees find it easiest to believe in awesome employers.

When I worked at Apple, my fellow employees were 100% dedicated to the company’s way of doing business. Apple has a great employee training program and customer service methodology, and the employees already believe wholeheartedly in the products they sell. Because employees believe the company is awesome, they are able to provide customers with awesome experiences.

Marketing is easy when you’re awesome. “But my business isn’t awesome,” you might reply. So what are you going to do about it?

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Posted in Employees, Marketing, Marketing Theory, Public Relations, Small Business, word-of-mouth marketing | 1 Comment »

Marketing Management: Keep Marketing!

Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Marketing management is an ongoing activity, and it’s key to your business’s success. Marketing is something you do everyday, whether you are conscious of it or not. From your customers’ perspective, every experience they have or belief they hold about your business has been crafted by your products and employes. Are you managing these experiences or leaving them to chance?

It’s fun and exciting to engage in a large marketing project like branding a new product or revitalizing your marketing with a social media blitz. But these large projects receive undue credit for a business’s success- it’s the day-to-day actions that cumulatively build success. Your customers need to be able to rely on you, not just when they first buy or when you launch a new campaign.

Here are some tips for managing your marketing:

  1. Set goals. Set daily, weekly or monthly goals for how the frequency of your marketing activities. For instance, your goals could be one local event per month, one email newsletter per month and one Facebook post per week.
  2. Make a schedule. Looming due dates have quite an effect on the human psyche. Set a firm schedule for your goals, like publishing a blog post every Wednesday morning.
  3. Monitor and make changes. Some marketing activities keep themselves going. For best results, you should monitor these activities and make changes based on your observations. For example, look at your Google AdWords each month to see what you can learn.
  4. Measure results. Managing your marketing can be hard work. Measure your results, so you can see which efforts are paying off and which aren’t. Stop the least effective ones, and put more energy into the producers.
  5. Show discipline. All of these tips are rooted in having the discipline to keep marketing. Discipline is the number one ingredient for marketing management success. It’s not sexy, but it’s true.

By managing your marketing, you will create a compelling story for customers to buy into. You just have to keep at it, everyday.

If you don’t have the time or energy to manage your marketing, you could look into hiring a professional to manage it for you. Conveniently, Zoo in a Jungle Marketing excels at marketing management. Contact me to talk about your business: Amanda Cullen, 513.833.4203, amanda@zooinajungle.com.

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Posted in Customers, Marketing, Marketing Theory | No Comments »