ROI on Various Marketing Channels
With over 6K people calling themselves everything from “Social Media Guru” to ” Social Media Super Hero” I’m just gonna call it like it is. 90% of you are full of crap and have no idea what social media is or where it’s place is in an overall marketing plan and are generally spouting personal dogma and there is a high likelihood you are socially and physically retarded. Ouch, huh? And yeah, I’m gonna be controversial and obnoxious, just the way you like your Mary McKnight. Here’s the skinny. I am a marketer. A REAL marketer. Meaning, I have directed large scale integrated online and offline marketing campaigns and budgets for REAL enterprise sized businesses and in a REAL business we measure results on each campaign and budget accordingly. In a real marketing environment, there are some accepted budgeting standards. Take a look at the chart on the left (courtesy of Hubspot). Hmmm, social media and blogging are ONLY 8% where a company or brand’s leads and sales come from. Meaning they are only spending a maximum of 8% of their marketing budget and time there and they EXPECT to see a return on that investment. So, if they expect to see a return on it, social marketing is a lot MORE than just Twitter and Facebook. And they EXPECT the people they hire to do social media to have a handle on marketing as a whole discipline!
It means you need a SOLID strategy that involves social profiles that not only offer something people will want but also directs them to where they can get it. Yes, that means your Twitter and business Facebook pages need to CALL people to action and drive them to a page on your website that offers them the ability to convert. These conversion or landing pages should be single purpose pages. That means – there is only ONE thing people can do on that page – enter in their info to a form that dumps into your lead database so you can re-market them or have your sales team follow up or flat out sell them something from your shopping cart. Each one of these conversion or landing pages should have a tracking system installed like MINT, VisiStat, CrazyEgg or worst case/cheapskate scenario, Google Analytics. This is how you measure how well your call to action worked and how well your conversion page performs. In an ideal situation, you will use something called “split testing.” Split Testing is where you have 2 calls to action that direct visitors to a single landing page. You see which one generates more traffic. You use the best performing call to action then you test the conversion page. Meaning, you create 2 and test 1 for 1 week and 1 for another week with the same call to action. The better performing conversion form is what you stick with. Now, you should have an ideally performing call to action and an ideally performing conversion page.
And because I feel “bitchy” today, below are my social media, blogging, SEO, “guru” pet peeves that are totally “twucked up” and directly related to most “gurus” lack of any and all knowledge of marketing, it’s purpose, how to implement successful campaigns, how to measure results, prove ROI and make critical decisions when a campaign fails to produce ROI.
Twuck Up 1: You need to interact with people to get them to convert. (one size fits all advice is for the Jaqueline Smith collection at Kmart not marketing)
Um no. Check out @jetblue. Minimal and automated interaction that mostly tweets deals of the day that call people to action to visit the deal of the day site and BUY. And you say, “but Mary, that’s a recognized brand that had some PR behind it, surely a small business of individual like me cannot generate that kind of following, traffic and conversion.” Let’s take @shitmydadsays. Just 1 guy with about 1 tweet per day with half a million followers and only following 1 person. Puts “social” media into a new perspective for ya, eh? Now, I am not saying you should NOT interact, I am just showing that it is possible to be successful without the level of engagement most social media “experts” advise. I actually whole-heartedly agree that talking to others 12 x more than you talk about yourself and your offers like ProBlogger suggests and tweeting at the optimal volume of 23 tweets per day as Hubspot suggests are effective. But, there are other methods that have proven effective and we should not neglect them. What I have learned from Fortune 500s and celebs is that not ALL want to engage or tweet or update their Facebook status constantly. It’s just not who they are as people and it doesn’t interest them or they simply do not have the time for it. That’s where services like Tweet Later and RSS 2 Twitter come in or having a a shtick, an offer, or, for shame, a ghost tweeter…
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Yeah, yeah, everyone does a “top 10” Halloween movie post. But, I hate “going to the well” lemming mentality for these kinds of posts so… are my top 10 Halloween movies of the past 10 years. Halloween isn’t about watching a bunch of classic movies you have already seen 10 times before. Yes, Halloween, Psycho, Carrie, The Exorcist and A Nightmare on Elm Street are ALL AWESOME. But Halloween is about being scared out of your gourd and sleeping with the light on for a week. So, I thought I’d put a list of new and obscure horror films together that will CREEP you out! Seriously, remember the feeling you got the first time you saw Friday the 13th? Yeah, that’s the feeling these movies will give you.
I need to caveat this with – if you offended by the F word or have an abnormal love for Pandas don’t read this post- you are sure to be completely and irrevocably offended. This is the very post that launched 1,000 PETA freaks unleashing on me over at sacriliciousmarketing.com so steer clear if you are easily offended.
