Some Thoughts on Social Media

By now, you know that we love social media. After all, we attend Social Media tradeshows, we author not one, not two, but three blogs and we are avid commenters and Facebook contributors (particularly on our favorite Facebook page, "What I Saw at the Direct Marketing Revolution").

We've even taken the additional step of proposing to be blog authors for some of our very favorite clients. Hey, we think we're pretty good at it -- why not help our customers be good at it, too?

So, today when I came across two really interesting and insightful articles from a couple of fellow bloggers about what Social Media is and isn't, you can imagine that I thought it was definitely worth a blog post to share these musings with our favorite readers.

First, I read Marc Meyer's post on his blog "Emerson Direct Marketing Observations." Marc discusses 11 things that Social Media is Not. As you can probably guess from the title, Marc outlines his thoughts on what social media isn't . . . all in an effort to gain a clearer definition of what it is. He brings up some great points . . . it's not static -- it's ever-changing; it's not calm -- it disrupts and is meant to disrupt; it's not many-to-many and not necessarily one-to-one -- but it can be better than that -- one-to-one realtime.

Finally, Marc ends on the point that Social Media is not the Final Frontier of Marketing -- giving full credit to a post by Brian Solis of Futureworks. In Brian's post, he discusses some of the thoughts of Pierre Far, who had originally discussed this point in an interview on the Techipedia blog (phew!).

Brian succinctly states:

If anything Social Media, as it exists today, has simply created a more efficient platform which amplified and organized people’s voices as well as democratized content, and in doing so, collectively built a foundation for a new level influence between companies, traditional media, influencers, and people in general.

Social Media doesn’t necessarily replace traditional marketing. Everything is concentric. Everything should work together.

Brav-o! This view is very much in line with our view that Social Media is yet another tool in the overall marketing toolkit. If you integrate it into what you are doing today now, you will be well ahead of your competitors over the long-run. Why? Because despite all of the hoo-haa over Social Media, it is still not widely used or accepted by the many . . . and those few who see this and use it now will definitely have the upper hand.

The reason for this is that it is becoming increasingly apparent that consumers and businesses alike want to be involved in the conversation. It isn't just the younger generations -- it's all generations. There is a simple reason for this . . . people are sick of being marketed at. Businesses and consumers alike want to be involved in what messages are sent to them and the overall process of deciding what products and services to purchase.

While not the final frontier of marketing, social media is definitely the newest kid on the block -- and the channel that will separate companies from one another when integrated into the marketing strategy and executed really well.

Take a look at these posts -- both offer really compelling insights and will get you thinking about your own social media strategy. And, if you have any other ideas as to what social media is and isn't, shoot us a comment.

Links O' The Week

TGIF! And welcome to our favorite links of the week.

To start off, we've been doing a lot of ranting about the economy of late. And most of the kvetching has been around what's gone on in the mortgage market. Let's face it, most of us aren't happy about this. Today's first link is from the Goodlin Group from my own South Bay neighborhood. Ron Goodlin provides us the take of his CFO on what's going on in the mortgage market, and some of the news is brighter than you may think. It's an interesting viewpoint and I think you'll find this article full of good information on a topic that impacts us all -- direct marketers or not.

Next, and staying on topical issues, Heidi Cohen of ClickZ provides us with Marketing Lessons from the (never-ending) Presidential Primaries. Heidi takes us through twelve campaign tips that marketers can use to assess their online campaigns. From creating a campaign plan to raising sufficient funds, Heidi relates how each of these tips can help you make your online marketing campaigns more successful.

Finally, in a very troubling post, the WiseMarketer reports that Marketing is still struggling to prove it's real value. The reason that this post is so troubling to us is that as marketers, we talk about the value of measurement and tracking, then apparently don't even do it internally to prove the value of what we do on a daily basis. For us, this is just plain crazy. In order to make what we do gain positive attention, we must articulate our success in financial terms. In a sputtering economy, your budget will definitely be cut if you aren't able to effectively prove your value. Yikes!

Finally, finally . . . just for the fun of it visit Diz White's site. My friend, Linda, introduced me to Diz's work, and I've actually been lucky enough to read her newest manuscript, "Life is a Bowl of Cherries." I'm sure that she'll sell the book on her site once it's been published . . . and when she does, quick -- get a copy. The story relates Diz and her husband's journey of finding the perfect cottage in the Cotswolds, a range of beautiful hills in West-Central England, while working as actors in Los Angeles. It's a great tale of the crazy jobs they took to fatten up their bank accounts so that they could afford a cottage in their dream location. Diz is a fabulous writer and as the reader, you get seriously caught up in her journey. What a blast!

Have a great weekend!

Direct Marketing and the Economy

This is the time of the year when we all start looking at our revenue performance and begin to set our strategy for 2008. Over the past several months, we've reported some wonderful results for the direct marketing industry on this blog. We've reported how data sales are increasing, direct mail numbers are up, higher results from using e-mail marketing, and so forth. While we've been talking about the strength of our industry, the US Economy has been going through some definite shifts. With the flailing about of the mortgage market and the tightening of credit, some economic analysts consider this the start of a recession, while others state that we are firmly ensconced in one already. Whatever you believe to be the actual case, this bears some looking into as we plan for next year . . . or the next few years.

In the midst of all of this, DM News has reported that Silver Lake and Value Act's acquisition bid of data compiler and database giant, Acxiom, has fallen through. According to Bruce Biegel of Winterberry Group, “This deal was announced back in May, with Silver Lake jumping in with ValueAct Capital, but the credit markets have changed since then. Consider this pricing issue with the fact that Acxiom has a substandard quarter and the risk of a second one doesn’t create a comfort level for investors.”

The article goes on to state that Biegel does remains confident in the potential for growth in the data sector. However, he points out what we already know (at least those of us who have clients within the financial services sector) -- "that the bad credit market is not helpful to Acxiom, many of whose clients are credit card companies and financial services firms suffering from the current economic slump and subprime issues. In addition, he acknowledged challenges to the postal increase earlier this year and the expected increase next year."

However, as you'd expect, Acxiom's retiring CEO, Charles Morgan, remains confident about the strength of his company, and promises to work harder than ever to show value to Acxiom's various stakeholders.

What all of this proves to us is that during the peaks and valleys of our economy, the playing field is strangely leveled. It doesn't matter what size firm you are . . . it seems that everyone is impacted in some way or another.

The other takeaway from this experience is that though you are working hard in the present to assist your clients, you must do so with an eye towards the future. If you can effectively diversify your client base or product offering, you simply have more staying power as the economic factors shift.

Obviously, Acxiom is going to be A-OK -- and then some. They are a giant in the industry and it sounds like they are already planning their next critical steps. As Morgan puts it, “Acxiom has been an industry leader for over three decades. We will continue to execute on our long-term strategy to remain the market leader in database marketing, services and data products.” And, the beauty of the economy is that it tends to be cyclical. Those of us who have been around for awhile remember when this sort of economic pullback happened in the 90s . . . and the 80s . . . and so on.

So, as 2007 enters its final quarter, we advise you to start planning exciting new things for 2008. One of the best places to start your planning is to take a hard look at your overall marketing strategy. We've written some Holiday Tips that may help to spark some good ideas as you begin this planning process. They were written at the end of last year but now is the time to take them out, dust them off, and re-look at them to get some ideas flowing for your 2008 Marketing Strategy. After all, the Annual DMA Conference is right around the corner. By putting these plans into place now, you'll be armed with some great ideas so that you can do some solid research at the conference and come home with your 2008 strategy well on it's way to being completed.

You'll be so far ahead of the game that you'll look like a hero to your CMO. It's like having all of your Holiday Shopping done by the day after Thanksgiving! That's always a great feeling!

Beyond CRM -- Customer Experience Management

Continuing on our theme from yesterday's blog posting of acquiring -- and keeping -- customers, author Bill Porter of Porter Research has written an interesting article on CEM -- Customer Experience Management. According to Porter, "Customer Experience Management is a multi-dimensional phenomenon including both process and product and differs greatly from earlier simplistic movements like customer delight or the magic three questions to ask customers today. On the process side CEM seeks to measure customer expectations all the way from early customer encounters in the buying process – customer identification and customer acquisition - through support help requests and additional purchases of products and services throughout the customer life cycle (or the customer retention phase). On the product side, key factors like partnership and transparency matter a lot while customers traverse the phases above with a supplier or vendor."

As direct marketers, CEM is key to effectively planning campaigns -- whether they are fueling your acquisition or retention efforts. In fact, we would argue that the three key phases of CEM -- as outlined by Porter-- act as a strategic roadmap for your marketing plan. Paying close attention to your customer segments as they move through these phases will allow you to increase the success rate of each direct marketing campaign, and assist you in reaching your profitability goals.

TGIF!