Okay, here’s what happened. An eblast was sent for our client, Sherman Health. One of the stories in the weekly newsletter teased a great gluten free recipe for chocolate puddle cookies. Sounds freaking nummers, right? It is. You should bake these cookies and I will eat them for you.

Anyway, here’s what the eblast teaser looked like.

The eblast was written, reviewed, and sent in a swift and effective manner. Only one problem this time: the link to the story pointed people to an old article for a pumpkin butter recipe.

Curses!

Now, when a mistake like this is found, most people would correct it and send a recall eblast. But because we had the mistake link under our control, we were able to come to a different solution. Here’s what we added to the incorrect landing page.

In a nutshell, eblast mistakes (or any internet marketing mistakes) hurt and are panic-inducing. But if you can find a way to correct the issue honestly and have fun while doing it, it just might be even more effective than it would have been had you gotten everything right in the first place.

President Barack Obama is gearing up for the 2012 Election the digital way. His microsite dedicated to his 2012 campaign, barackobama.com, includes a variety of digital marketing tactics.

The site leads with a video which is obviously hosted on YouTube. You can submit your email address to receive e-blasts, get text messages, or get connected via Facebook. You can volunteer, donate, check up on events, purchase Obama 2012 swag, and join groups dedicated to his campaign fundraising. At the time this post was written, Obama had accumulated over 19 million Facebook Fans and 7 million Twitter followers; so we’d say he is doing a pretty good job at being social.

Obama has the right idea when it comes to digital marketing. Something we call “Web Herding” incorporates all of the concepts stated above, and even a little more.

Obama’s 2012 Campaign Launch Video Video

If you woke up this morning and thought to yourself, “Boy, I sure do miss working with Venn diagrams,” have I got a blog post for you! But in all seriousness, if you have any interest at all in how your company is perceived in the Email, Mobile, and Social Media marketing trifecta, you’ll find this Venn immensely worthwhile.

It comes from flowtown dot com, and I recommend you click that link if you’d like to see an enlarged version of the graphic below. Having a voice in Email, Mobile, and Social Media is absolutely essential to healthy growth, and this fact won’t be changing anytime soon.

So where do you fall?

Note: The following story is completely true.

I love books. I don’t actually read them, but collecting them is righteous. Oh, how smart I appear! So imagine my elation when I discovered this email on a fateful January morning.

Naturally, I printed my mystery coupon and scooted to the nearby Barnes & Noble. I browsed around for a bit, then snagged a copy of a hardcover I’ve had my eye on for a while, The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. $25 book, but I was going to save 50%, so it was a no brainer.

Alarmingly, my scanned coupon revealed just a 10% savings. I did NOT see that coming. So did I return the book? That would be a no. In fact, the B&N employee upsold a yearly membership to me. Hey, back off, it only cost $20!

So, to recap, here are the events that transpired after I printed my email coupon:

1. I bought a $25 hardcover and saved 10%, the lowest possible savings
2. I purchased a $20 annual membership
3. I have since purchased two additional hardcovers online to take advantage of free express shipping (membership perk, baby!)

So how did this happen? Quite simply, the natural allure that comes with rolling the dice did me in even before I printed the coupon. That slight adrenaline kick combined with my already-present love of books to hook me from the get-go.

And the big question: what does this mean for your email marketing campaigns? Well, if you have any kind of product that can be sold, you might consider holding a fun little Mystery Savings campaign. Your subscribers may love what you’re offering as much as I love books, and if that’s the case, they won’t even know what hit them.

Like most people, a select, elite few brands have my heart. They are brands I love, that I will always purchase if they are offered among others, even if the price tag is higher. I will proudly like them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, welcome their eblasts about new products, and recommend them to friends without expecting anything in return.

I consider these brands as a match to my identity. My good experiences with the brand have made me align myself with the products so much that I consider it a part of who I am that I use and prefer this brand. (I’m bursting to tell you which ones… Ask me which ones! Okay, it doesn’t matter if you ask, I’ll tell you anyway, since I love them so much: OXO (kitchen and household products), Munchkin (baby products), Dyson (oh, the pet vac…a Chocolate Lab and Golden Retriever have me hooked on Dyson), among others.) In short, I am a brand enthusiast.

One way or another, these brands have already done the work to get me on board. So they don’t have to do anything additional to get me to buy their product. They don’t have to do much to get me to recommend them to friends. A reminder on occasion would help, but for the most part they just have to keep being awesome, and I’ll keep buying their products. In fact, I’ll seek them out on my various networks, so I can tell the world I love them by fanning them or following them. How they can tap into people like me to do some of their marketing for them is a discussion for another day. Just remember, there is a lot of power and potential in your brand enthusiast, especially on social networking sites.

You want a pack of brand enthusiasts for your product or service, but let’s be realistic—the vast majority of those that are in the market for your products or services would not list you as a part of their identity. I know, I know. It’s much easier to think of every one of your customers as loving you that much. But let’s face it—most people are passionate about a select few brands, and the rest they choose for other reasons. Think about your own favorite or best brands—you probably have only a handful. The rest of the products you purchase are for reasons other than the fact that you know you love the brand, such as cost, necessity of the product or service, convenience, and other factors. Unless you’ve had repeatedly great experiences with a company’s product or services, you may have a mild interest or would claim to enjoy a brand, but you wouldn’t seek them out to offer yourself to them as a fan, follower, or email contact. It’s part of the reason Facebook switched from “Become a Fan” to “Like”–more people are going to fall into the “like” you category.

So while talking to and creating brand enthusiasts can be an ultimate goal for your marketing and social networking efforts, you will need to do far more than tap into and focus on those powerful few who already love you. You are going to have to offer those who enjoy your products but are not passionate about them a reason to jump on board. Think of it as a courting ritual–you bring the girl flowers, and she might give you her number. And you need to offer up something good, because your customers won’t give their information out to or connect with just anyone. They are more particular than that. After all, if they are connecting with you on a social network like Twitter or Facebook, they are acknowledging some sort of relationship with you, and they know they will be be seeing your messaging among the messages from their friends. And with all the spam out there, your customers are very guarded with their email address. By connecting with you on social networks or offering you their email address, they are giving you an awful lot—their attention, time, and a little bit of their privacy—and it’s very likely if they are not brand enthusiasts yet, they are looking for something in return.

So what do you have to offer? When I look at those products I’m following or fans of that I don’t consider as “my” brands, some have convinced me to join through occasional discounts, coupons, or special offers. Consider this fact from the Compete “Online Shopper Intelligence Study”: Among those who use Twitter and Facebook to connect with retailers, 2 out of 3 respondents said they use the tools to keep up to date on retailer sales and promotions. A few other facts from the study show that offering up a discount is good for you also: of those online shoppers who used a coupon to make a purchase, 57% said if they didn’t have a coupon, they wouldn’t have made the purchase; they spent almost 2x as much as consumers who didn’t use a coupon; and satisfaction and intent to purchase again from the retailer were both higher.

But if you’re not a retailer, you’re not at a loss to find new fans and followers. Others have convinced me to join simply by being relevant, entertaining, interesting, and informative. You just have to know how to spark that relationship with your potential consumers and discover what kind of information will keep them around. (As a personal example, I’m a fan of Babies R Us on Facebook–they aren’t my favorite baby retailer and don’t offer me any discounts I don’t already get through snail mail, but I enjoy their cutest baby of the week photo contest, product recall information, and occassional baby advice. And if my cute baby ever wins that contest, you can bet I’ll become a brand enthusiast!)

Think of what you are a fan of and follow, and how they get and keep you on board.  Think of what makes you willing to give out your email address. And then start to think of what your brand or product has to offer fans or followers. You just might come up with some new way to capture those who think you’re okay. Once you have them, you can start working on moving the relationship from like to love.

Utilizing Social Media sites for your business has already been proven in many cases to be a smart marketing move.  Think about it:  Marketing is all about getting messages out to the target audiences in order to drive traffic, interest and sales.  What better way to do this than to engage in dialogs with your customer base?

The key to effective Social Media marketing is not the number or quality of Social Sites you create.  Rather, the real work is driving people to your sites so they can be engaged.  After all, just because you build it, doesn’t mean anyone will see it.

So while it’s important to create and manage your sites effectively, it’s also imperative that you promote those sites everywhere you possibly can.  Everywhere.

Company emails go out 24/7 to vendors, customers, coworkers, etc.  While the employee’s signature line is normally not thought of as a place to sell, it is a place to promote.  This is evident in the number of emails that come across with the signature line that says something like “Please save our planet.  Only print this email if absolutely necessary.”

But rather than just promoting your “green” stance, why not also provide links to your company’s social media sites?  It’s not hard, and they do generate clicks.  You will need  a programmer to do this, but it’s not that hard.  And once it’s done, it’s done.  Every email that goes out will have links back to your sites for all to see.

Here’s an image of my digital signature that is always at the bottom of my emails.  Clicking on the image will take you to my social media page that lists all my links.  Try it.  Then try it with your business.  It really works.

You likely are well aware of my company’s Social Media Marketing Program that we named “Sparking”.  You can learn about it by clicking here.  While this program successfully and cost effectively increases our clients’ followers, friends and fans through a wide mixture of social media and Web 2.0 tools, our biggest goal through Sparking is to grow our clients’ e-lists.

At a recent conference, I sat on a panel with three social media “experts” who said that our focus was a waste because people didn’t use email anymore.  I was stunned — not because these “experts” had a different opinion, but because they were so anti-email.

When I pointed out to that everyone on the panel communicated with each other before the conference via email, and that eblasts were the number one way people at the conference linked to the registration page, they were silent.

It seems to me that social media experts like their tools so much that it has had a negative effect on their abilities to generate sales and exposure for their clients.  Each one of the panelists was an expert on one social media tool (Facebook, YouTube and Twitter), which is likely why each one professed that their tool of choice was all that was needed.

Well, what’s needed is results.  And short of online sales, the best way to measure results is to track the response from those who follow you by analyzing eblast clickthroughs and reads.  Email works in tandem with other tactics to increase engagement, deliver relevant content and build contact databases.

And don’t believe these people when they say email is dead.  While Twitter and Facebook certainly offer other ways for people to communicate, the simple truth is that most adults (young and old) have an email account and check it often.  Heck, some have more than one.

Here’s a chart just released from MarketingSherpa that dispels the myth that email is dead.  Note that this chart is about how consumers share information about a product or service they find interesting:

Ways Consumers Share Information

According to MarketingSherpa, the chart views “how email is used to share information, because this activity is so central to social media sites. Email is dominant, even in this regard.  When we look at media use over the last 15 years, we see a pattern of aggregation and adoption rather than replacement. Some media suffer in the exchange, but none are eliminated entirely. More commonly, their uses become more refined.  For example, we may find that Twitter and Facebook gradually reduce our use of email to convey quick messages and content to social groups, but it’s far less likely that social media will replace email for commercial transactions, receipts and the like.”

In conclusion, email is not dying.  It’s not even sick.  It’s still the number one way that people share important information.  And, to boot, it’s the only clear way you can monitor what your friends, fans and followers do with the information you give them.

Last week I wrote about the need for companies to get on board the Social Media bus now before it leaves marketers so far behind that the cost to start and show immediate results will be so high that executives will not want to “experiment”.  Judging by the emails I’ve received about the post, the problem is not the marketers don’t agree, but rather that they cannot get others above them to allocate any budget to Social Media because they’ve heard that it cannot show a direct correlation to ROI (side note:  if you have questions, please post them to the story on my blog rather than emailing me since the back-and-forth in blogs provides a great education for readers.  If you’re reading this on my blog, please accept my apologies; however, there are many people who read this through Facebook or Twitter so I wanted to make this point to them).

While I had no problem answering each one and gave clear examples of how to measure the ROI of Social Media, I just came across this slide presentation by Olivier Blanchard that sums it up rather nicely and with some much needed humor.  While his presentation is different than mine, this is pretty much exactly what we advise others to do and what my company does for our clients.  Enjoy.

Just a few short years ago, advertisers would spend thousands on ads placed in traditional media to drive people to websites in order to sell a product or service.  Flash forward to today and we all know what happened:  traditional advertising is declining, web advertising is increasing, and people are still buying (albeit at a lower rate) — all at an incredibly low cost to advertisers (as compared to past years).

Blame it on the economy, but most advertisers still demand even better results from even lower budgets.  How can that be accomplished?

The debate often centers on search engine optimization (SEO) versus pay per click advertising (PPC).  Both cost money — SEO being upfront and through keyword buys related to the content optimized on the site, whereas PPC is purely by clicks on ads that appear on seemingly unrelated sites.  Both get results, depending on the industry/product/services offered.  So which is better?

I’ve always liked PPC.  It costs you nothing except the service, until someone clicks on your ad.  Then the price is anywhere from ten cents to ten bucks per person and even higher based on auctions.  PPC can be targeted geographically and behaviorally, and also directed toward those viewers who have shown an interest in products or services similar to the clients’ offerings.  The key is getting the person to fulfill your goal before you lose them.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the results of a new study by Engine Ready who analyzed the goal conversions of 26 e-retail sites over one year ending this past June.  According to the results, visitors who arrive at a retailer’s site from paid search ads (PPC) are 50% more likely to buy at that time than those who arrive at the site from clicking on an organic search link (due to SEO). The conversion rate from PPC is 2.03% versus 1.26%.

Those who are most likely to buy are consumers who arrive at a retailer’s site by typing in the web address or clicking on a saved bookmark, as their conversion rate registered at 7.38%.  These are people who learn about advertisers through other methods, like word of mouth, traditional advertising, and general searches.  Consumers who linked from a different e-commerce site or from an e-mail were buyers 6.58% of the time, per the study. The overall conversion rate for all traffic was 3.6%.

The study found that:

Paid search visitors spent the most with an average order value of $117.06 compared to the $109.27 in sales that were derived from links from other sites.  $106.64 was spent on average from visitors who originated from organic search. Last, an average of $95.29 in purchases came from direct referrals, such as from a bookmark or from directly linking to a web address.
This Engine Ready study is based on an analysis of 20.8 million visits and 108 million page views to 26 e-commerce sites from July 1, 2008, through June 30, 2009. 21 of the 27 companies in this study also provided data for an earlier Engine Ready study.

By the way, this study is analyzes purchases made after the viewer clicked on links.  It does not take into account those people who visit a site one day (via any method) but do not buy, only to return at a later date to finalize the purchase.  Many sales are made after the viewer compares sites and prices, so I’m interested to find out more information related to viewers who return to sites.

Metrostudy (Houston, TX), the leading provider of primary and secondary housing market information nationwide, has announced today that they selected Demi & Cooper Advertising to create a new corporate website and to also create, manage and execute a thorough social media strategy, including blogs, eblasts, Facebook pages, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts for their company.

Metrostudy has developed an impressive reputation around the country for their consulting expertise on development, marketing and economic issues, as well as their in-depth research studies that evaluate the marketability of residential and commercial real estate projects.  Their clients range from all sizes of home builders and developers as well as Corporate and Retail companies that purchase land for their companies.

We at Demi & Cooper are excited to begin.  Metrostudy’s “product”, which is really well organized information collected by their own field researchers around the country and analyzed by industry leaders, is perfectly suited for social media in a professional presentation.  Selling information is all about spreading the news that you have the information — and social media is perfect for this goal.  Look for our blog posts and the new sites in the months ahead.  If you want to sign up to receive the eblasts and blog posts, just send us a note and we’ll include you on the list.