crafted media: how to find your customers online

Briefing: how to find your customers onlineSocial media, SEO, local search engine marketing

Hello from Crafted30+ Ipswich-based staff specialising in:

� E-commerce� Design� Development� Search engine marketing� Search engine marketing� Social media� Copywriting� Mobile sites & apps

we drive sales & enquiries through engagementorwe find your customers so you don’t have to

Social media IS mediaMedia is mass communication. Social media is essentially tailored, targeted communication with ‘opted-in’ or self-selected target audience.

Where are your customers now?(trying to find you)

Where will they be next week?(engaging with you, or with your competitors)

RelationshipsMitch Lieberman states that:

“Social CRM is about bringing “me” [the social customer] into the ecosystem…the ecosystem…

It is not about the technology, it is about the people, process and cultural shifts necessary to support and grow a business.”

Think inside the box

TV has become a social event

+

So what are you talking about?Imagine if you could influence the conversation

Everybody’s talking about something...

Trends

Economy WeatherBusiness

EventsTV News

Sport

Relevant communicationWho are your customers?

Where are they?

What are they talking about?What are they talking about?

Every answer to these questions, or discussion you have around these questions, will help define both your business and marketing strategy.

And your strategies will include digital media.

Why?The opportunity lies where ‘new media’ meets traditional.But we’ve been calling it ‘new media’ for 10 years.

Social is customer recommendationsSocial is customer recommendations

Social is conversation

Social is relationship building

Social is free, trusted advertising

We look at how social is built in to your wider marketing strategy, and into the consumer’s daily life.

Stop, look, listen

How?WOM (word of mouth)

You, your products or services are being talked aboutand recommended!and recommended!

Set-up keyword alerts for your company name (and competitors) and core services. Sit and watch. Use it as a research channel!

� Plan� Set expectations� Tweet in your tea break from your phone� Or have set times: 15 minutes split out across the day

How?Say something (but not too much).

Advise, comment, have an opinion, steal someone else’s!! (by agreeing with them), become a trusted source of information or expert commentary.agreeing with them), become a trusted source of information or expert commentary.

You don’t have to be a big brand to be trusted!You need to be relevant.

If it is relevant, it will get talked about: recommended / favourited / forwarded / retweeted / curated / heard.

Creation vs curationProduce your own news and aggregate the news that is relevant to your business and your customers.

Promote it as a source of convenient and essential information.Promote it as a source of convenient and essential information.

Become a trusted / respected source of news and opinion.

It’s not all about TwitterLinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner on the role of Google+

‘LinkedIn is for professionals, Facebook for family and friends, and Twitter for broadcasting short thoughts and information.’and Twitter for broadcasting short thoughts and information.’

LinkedIn is networking, not marketing.

Activity tends to be peer-to-peer, rather than business-to-client or customer.

Other channels can be multiple things to multiple audiences.

The way we need to be.

The way we wereIt’s all about search engine marketing, paid and natural.And conversion.And maybe a follow-up email.Done.Done.

‘traditional’ media

The way we should be nowNow, social influence during the search, research, purchase, post-purchase phase is more important than ever...

Remember the basicsThe digital landscape is ever-changing, the key is to not get distracted by the latest shiny route-to-market, but integrate it with your existing activity.

‘Traditional’ approach:‘Traditional’ approach:� Traffic – keyword to landing page� User experience – from calls-to-action to form usability� Conversion, retention, conversation, conversion, retention...

Understand the role that social plays within this process.

Get them in the shop, sell to them (softly), ensure they come back...

Tactical campaignsPPCSocial mediaOnline advertisingEmail marketing

What are

Email marketingOffline mailshots(!)Blog postsEventsTraditional PR

customers

?

your

talking about

Hmm?

The basics +Enhance all of the above by knowing your customers.

Who are they?Where are they?Where are they?What are they talking about?

The answer still lies in social media, but search & social are increasingly mobile. Learn from every channel.

Crucially, once we’ve answered the above questions...

What now?

People haven’t changed the way they behave fundamentally,

they are just more technologically they are just more technologically enabled.

Remember to not get excited about the shiny thing. Simply focus on where your customers are and how to sell to them

MobileMake sure your website works on a mobile.

Mobile search

Mobile commerce

70% of people use mobile in-store. (Google)

MobileMobile shouldn’t remove the opportunity to consultatively sell.

There is less real estate to visually sell, so it is more important to focus on how your customers might view your business, products and services.focus on how your customers might view your business, products and services.

� highlight your products, emphasise your services� enable the user

� to reserve & collect� to find store locations� to do whatever they expect to be able to do

Mobile is a new and complementary channel, not a replacement.

Social changeNew platforms = new behaviour?

Social commerce is e-commerce through social networks.E-commerce is selling products or services online.E-commerce is selling products or services online.

Is social change happening? How is the economy affecting the way we shop? How are any and all social factors affecting the way that we find, review and choose service providers?

.

Social influenceSocial shopping and social influence are an integral part of our lives. (Note: I didn’t mention ‘online’ or ‘digital’ there).

We seek out the opinions of our peers & trusted brands.We seek out the opinions of our peers & trusted brands.

Customer behaviour has not changed (much), but when we ask a question, or seek an opinion or recommendation, it is amplified.

Google + social channels = relevance + trust

Social interaction

Off(line) and on again

Be useful (100k+ views)

Add value

Daily (location-based) deals

Where?Location, Location, Relevance.

� Google states that 20% of all searches have a local intent, that’s 2.8 billion searches per month globally

� Of mobile traffic, upwards of 50% of searches have local intent

� 23% of time spent accessing internet is on a mobile device

� More than 4 million business listings on Google have been claimed by business owners

Where we refer to ‘local’, these are listings not generated by Google’s algorithm but those associated with a map.

‘Place’ pages are integrated listings with mixed natural and Local listings. These come from searches with a local intent ‘Accountants Colchester’

Google’s assumptive location results: better user experience when searching generic term

Location-aware mobiles lead to local listings.

List every business location, the more you list the better coverage you can have – think creatively!

Fill out everything:� business hours,

detailed description� detailed description� 10 photos (even if it’s your logo and the front of your building) � Links to 5 YouTube videos � you can also be listed in up to 5 categories including custom ones.

Competitors� Check out your competitors’ listings � If they haven’t filled out a section it doesn’t mean it’s unimportant,

it’s an opportunity to steal a march on them.

LogisticsLogistics� If you have too many locations to enter manually, then Google

offers a whitelisting service.

Quick tip: claim your listing with a Google account email on the same domain as your website e.g. local@examplecompany.com

Google likes links, its algorithm is weighted toward them as they infer relevance

Local is relevant.

Get your business listed on Hotfrog, Yell.com, BizWiki, Qype, Freeindex, Thomson Local, Yelp, Bview, UpMyStreet, Trusted Places, Scoot, Tipped, Infoserve, City Visitor, TouchLocal, UFindus and Smile Local.

Match up the business details:AddressWebsitePhone number

Quick Tip: There are services that’ll add these on-mass for you, but manual submission is always better.

You’ve done local via national listings sites, now go truly local:

Your town:Chamber of commerce, business networking sites, professional bodies, business listings specific to your town / area

Your ‘friends’:What organisations does your business partner with or support locally? Local school, local charities.

Your industry:Suppliers’ websites as a ‘Distributor’

Quick Tip: Scan your invoices for companies with websites who might link to you, often gems can be unearthed in the unlikeliest of places.

So, you’re sorted on Google Places & you have citations.

Seek out customer reviews for your Places page or to complement citations on Qype or Yelp.

Respond to positive e-mails thanking them and asking them to post their Respond to positive e-mails thanking them and asking them to post their review or comments on the above sites.

Send e-mails a couple of weeks post-transaction asking for feedback.

Quick Tip: Don’t fear negative reviews. Promote this to your best customers, negatives will quickly be drowned out.

Look at your competitors.

One of them may be ticking a lot of the digital boxes and doing it well.

Learn from it: where are they listed / mentioned. Is there sentiment attached?attached?Crucially, wherever they are, it’s likely to be relevant to your business.

Learn from this, do it better than them.

Intelligent search marketing is‘informed search marketing’

Quick Tip: In Google search using: ‘competitor.com -site: competitor.com’ This will return pages mentioning their website from around the web.

Do Something Local TodayAs with traditional search engine marketing, and social, get your basics done, then make local part of your everyday business profile.

� Contact suppliers to feature your details - explore common ground for wider search benefitfor wider search benefit

� Search out citations� Follow-up good feedback� Encourage reviews via your newsletter� Mention local reviews to

long-standing customers

The results are cumulative.

Quick Tip: Expect regular change in your rankings, they are dynamic and you won’t always be #1 even when you’re up there.

What next?By 2014, more people will be accessing the internet on their mobile phones than laptop / desktop computers*

Leave here with questions: for the rest of your company.Leave here with questions: for the rest of your company.

Don’t dismiss social media as something that you don’t understand.

It is where your customers are, where they will be, and where business is getting done.

And keep an eye on Google+ as it rolls out business pages...

*Professor Manuel Castells – Digital Obama Architect

Contact

Tom GriffithsSales & Marketing Director

tom@craftedmedia.comtom@craftedmedia.comtwitter.com/TomGriffolagplus.to/TomGriffolaLinkedin.com/in/tmgriffiths

Tel: 01473 213222www.craftedmedia.com

Image on slide 3 http://www.flickr.com/photos/cheesy42/5945217559/

Image on slide 18 http://www.flickr.com/photos/renet/369761/sizes/z/in/photostream/

Image on slide 27 http://www.flickr.com/photos/anirudhkoul/4646989519/

Images on slides 6 and 23 from The Commons via Flickr.Images on slides 6 and 23 from The Commons via Flickr.