Our MyST Blogsite generates highly qualified leads compared to other venues of online lead generation. One of the primary reasons is we have a trust factor, which we built (and continue to build) by providing dependable and accurate information through the blogsite. As a result, actions are more meaningful for business and the customer."
Ground zero for the conversational web is the customer, not your business. Get comfortable with the idea that the tail will be wagging the dog for the foreseeable future.
Your current and future customers have already calculated the ROI of surfing and foraging for knowledge across the open waters of the web - social everything won.
I'm privileged to get to speak with a lot of business and marketing executives about social media strategies and almost with predictable certainty, they skeptically ask ...
"How will social media help my business? Give me the ROI for this new line-item on the budget."
While I can sympathize with an organization's fiscal requirements to understand the return-on-investment for any given initiative, it's also just as important to understand ROI from the customer's perspective. One way to address this often asked question concerning the business benefits of a social media strategy, is to look at from the other side of the table.
"How does social networking and social media help my customer?"
Instead of thinking about your own ROI, imagine calculating the ROI from the customer's perspective. It's clear that the social media cruise liner has left the harbor with many companies standing on the dock wondering if it's worth it to rent a cigarette boat to catch up and assimilate with guests partying on the cruise ship.
Your current and future customers have already calculated the ROI of surfing and foraging for knowledge across the open waters of the web versus alternatives. They have concluded that it's far more profitable (and socially beneficial) to align themselves with networks that streamline the path to knowledge about family, friends, products, entertainment, and services.
I think it's time to stop asking how social media will help your business and transition your views in a manner that will help your organization understand how social media and social networking will help your customer.
Simplicity is good in online marketing sites; consumers like simple ideas and simple choices. But you cannot over-simplify the online e-commerce process - prospects typically become customers over a period of time through a series of touch-points.
Typically, graphic designers are not concerned with this element of online marketing and are simply relying on your directional queues to create a ?look and feel? as opposed to ?a look, a feel, and a sales funnel process?.
Conversion architecture is the art of visually identifying your company's primary sales funnels and leading your visitors to take action.
The action could be setting an appointment, sending an email, booking a reservation or picking up the phone to call for more information. It may also include a low level action such as signing up for a newsletter or mailing list for new offerings, updates and specials. Regardless of the action, it is a form of customer conversion and you should have a plan for all the types of actions that will help a new visitor become a paying customer.
To properly develop a conversion architecture, ideally you would start with a mind-map (or other graphical flow chart) that represents the sales conversion strategy that you want to integrate into your site design.
If you’re in the midst of a site redesign and it is ongoing without a conversion architecture as part of your overall marketing strategy, it’s likely that your graphic design efforts probably don’t factor into your site’s ecommerce architecture or prospect funneling requirements. When you describe the online product marketing and selling process in broad strokes such as “easy to see, easy to navigate, and without confusion”, it’s ambiguous. I may understand what you mean, but I don’t really get a sense of what your sales conversion requirements are for all manner of actions. Typically, graphic designers are not concerned with this element of online marketing and are simply relying on your directional queues to create a “look and feel” as opposed to “a look, a feel, and a sales funnel process”.
In my view it’s not wise to build your site with one selling action in mind (i.e., a product purchase or nothing at all). Online marketing is typically a progression of steps –
Capture awareness.
Capture sustained interest with a minimal email subscription.
Multiple brand impressions through subscription marketing, newsletters, direct-to-inbox blog posts, offers, etc.
Begin a relationship; the visitor joins your social network, shares your content, fills out an information request form, etc.
Sales transaction.
If your conversion architecture hops over steps 1 through 4, your success will be constrained significantly, and especially if your competitors create multiple touch-points that lead prospects down multiple progressive buying funnels.
Online marketing is no different than face-to-face marketing – people want to establish a relationship and often times, they need time to do that.
We don’t [typically] ponder the idea of calculating ROI on these activities because we intuitively know that failing to engage in these activities is bad for business.
If you invest your time in a social media listening post and use it diligently, you'll naturally develop participation techniques that will far surpass the "broadcast-centric" methodology.
Meryl K. Evans explores this topic with some excellent viewpoints and provides a comprehensive look at the opportunity cost of failing to engage in social media and social networking. (see “Previous Dilemma: The price of social media”) Meryl also mentions me in this article from a vibrant and enjoyable Q&A session that emerged on Linkedin. The central question at the core of this discussion is:
What is the cost of participating versus the risk associated with not embracing social media marketing?
While I love this debate (as you’ll see), I can’t help asking a few [rhetorical] questions to set the stage for a deeper dive. Here are four observations that may change your viewpoint on the perceived costs of doing business on the web with social media and social networking and why rigid ROI calculations may be unnecessary.
I assume you carry business cards; do you calculate the ROI of that expense? Do you toil away trying to accurately pinpoint the opportunity-cost of not carrying cards? Probably not, but if you tried, the ROI formula would likely require a significant mathematical equation.
Everyone blogs; they just don’t realize it. The last time you answered an email inquiry about your business, you probably invested a non-trivial part of your workday creating a response that was compelling, demonstrable of your expertise, and largely a representation of your business acumen. Indeed, your response was much like the one I am presently writing – it was a blog post intended for one person. This activity -- a common occurrence (by the millions) in every business, every day – is an act of social media engagement, yet no one stops to calculate the ROI. Indeed no one thinks of it as a social media occurrence.
All media is [social], even verbal media such as a phone call or a podcast. Media affects and impacts our decisions in a variety of ways. What is the opportunity-cost of not answering the phone when it rings? Intuitively we know (from experience) that when the business line rings, it’s probably related to business and if we ignore it, we do so at a perilous cost. In free-market societies the cultural expectation is that businesses always answer the phone, but that’s not why we do it. And we don’t calculate the ROI for answering the phone because it’s a foregone conclusion that profits are likely affected by not answering the phone.
Do you calculate the cost of not having a cell phone, or an email address, or a website? If you lacked any one of these tools, your competitors would likely eat you alive. Engaging with prospects, partners, and customers at a social [online] level, is a key business driver, but I doubt there’s any effort being made to determine ROI for these services.
We don’t [typically] ponder the idea of calculating ROI on these activities because we know (again, from experience) that failing to engage in these activities is bad for business. I contend that social media activities are no different than these examples; failure to engage online has definitive consequences that are clear, especially when a competitor emerges who does engage the audience online.
Should all businesses go nuts publishing social media content? Probably not – read this post for a deeper understanding of why it may be wise to listen more and publish less.
Be careful of the new emerging terms such as “social media marketing”; it is one dimension of many possible business activities that leverage the read/write web (aka Web 2.0). When you answer the phone, or provide an email response – is that “social media marketing”, or is it just “sales support”? Is a blog post that details your expertise social media marketing? Is a comment on someone else’s blog post marketing or sales? These are difficult questions to answer but an awareness of the relationships between the numerous social media activities you engage in, is probably helpful as you shape your social media strategy.
To conclude, all business activities have consequences and [therefore], a basis for ROI can be asserted in every situation. Calculating it is another question that’s generally impractical for most business activities, social media activities included.
The buzz about social media marketing makes me think about the dilemma that social media poses to each and every business entity: What is the cost of participating versus the risk associated with not embracing social media marketing?
While there's no debate that outbound marketing participation is important, there's another axis that can be far more productive in terms of bang-for-the-social-buck - it's called "listening".
I spoke with a group of bloggers in Phoenix recently. What I found is that very few had any business from their blogs despite a lot of effort. I have 5 closings and 7 active buyers directly from [our MyST blogsite] in 2008. I know because I ask. One person told me they have been reading my blog for almost a year before they called me to buy a property."
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=968156f3-3276-4a68-836c-863508482ac7)
