Josh Kerbel

Video killed the radio star.
Video killed the radio star.
In my mind and in my car, we can’t rewind we’ve gone to far
- Video Killed The Radio Star – The Buggles

We can argue the whether video killed the radio star or radio made the video star back and forth all day, but the truth remains……….people like to see stuff……..moving stuff………..no, not moving stuff on their food (cuz that’s just gross), but on their screen.  Internet peeps like video.  And with video sharing sites reporting hockey stick silly growth figures, you should like video too.

But when it comes to your sales message and lead generation, you shouldn’t like a pretty picture just for the sake of liking a pretty picture, you should like it because it contributes to your sales message.

The point of this post isn’t to bog you down with silly technical things like sitemaps and indexing, save that for your tech geek…………its to kick off our dive into the benefits for your sales efforts.

What you need to understand is the people search out for videos that help solve their problems (VIDEO IS BECOMING PART OF THE RESEARCH PHASE OF THE PURCHASING PROCESS).  So if you want to be the one they find, you need to be the one who produces the video…..bottom line, have you even considered how your sales process or product translates into video?

If not, you should………

I think the Old Spice guy may have fallen off his horse after seeing his year over year sales numbers:

But sales of the featured product—Red Zone After Hours Body Wash—aren’t necessarily tracking with that consumer appeal: In the 52 weeks ended June 13, sales of the brand have dropped 7 percent according to SymphonyIRI. (That amount excludes those rung up at Walmart.) P&G execs were not available to comment.” This, from Brandweek via Stephen Denny

Social media types across the Internet must be plotzing at this news………..you mean someone is holding social media accountable?  Ack you can’t!?!  You don’t get it!!!  It’s all about the brand!!!!

This isn’t the first “Oh wait, maybe this isn’t doing what we thought it was doing for the whole social media thingy?”  Even media types are starting to wake up to this fact –   B to B marketers still looking for return on tweets

I’m not saying that social media promotion is a waste of time if it drives a company’s bottom line, but throwing money at a social media campaign for the sake of throwing money at a social media campaign is kinda like banging your head against the wall because it feels good.

But I guess this all part of human nature, after all, how much money did companies invest in the Internet to find out that direct marketing actually works?

Anyone who knows me, knows that I abhor most forms of “social marketing” or whatever buzzword you want to describe the latest fad as.

It’s not that I dislike the concept, It’s that I dislike the content.  Most forms of social marketing focus around mindless blurbs of self serving information or simple “Me-Too’s”.  Whether you Tweet (or is that Twit) about your breakfast or the great deal your company is offering, its blatantly self serving and just a waste of electrons………in fact, if Tweets were physical objects, I am sure Greenpeace would have rammed Twitter with its boat in an effort to stop the endless pollution.

Tweeting about the 40% discount your company is offering on its entire product line is not using social media effectively, unless of course your goal is to devalue your business.

In fact, its gotten so comical that when I saw a friend of mine on Linkedin join a bunch of job searching related groups, I sent him an email to find out if he was looking for work and if I could be of help.  His response was:

No, not at all.  I just hired a consultant to teach me about social media in order to help me build my business.

Well, since he isn’t in the recruiting or job placement business (or anything close) I can only imagine what sort of advice he was getting, since he was clearly giving off the message he was looking for a job.  But you can clearly see that any moron can harness social media to send out a message, you just need to understand what message you are sending out.

So what it really comes down to is can you use Twitter in a way that just isn’t ‘Net pollution.  And since anyone can be a critic (Definition of a critic: Someone who knows the way but can’t drive the car), let’s see if I can come up with a plan to use Twitter productively.

And just to clear things up………you will not be getting regular 4Square updates from me every time I go to the toilet or decide to eat.  That’s just absolutely annoying.

Step 1: Set Up a Twitter Account Determine What Objective I Want To Achieve With Twitter

What would be a reasonable objective for me to aim for with Twitter?  How about these two:

• Download of my E-book;
• Subscribe to my blog feed (This means I need to get the feed up and running finally).

We are going to track these outcomes with Google Analytics.  I think it is important that you be reasonable, yet specific in your goals.  Let’s set this up right now.

Step 2: Develop A Strategy/Plan for using Twitter

Notice that we still don’t have an account yet (well, we do, but we aren’t going hog wild with it yet).   Twitter is just a tool, much like a hammer or steam shovel.  You don’t randomly wack things with a hammer or dig assorted holes with a steam shovel, you start with a plan of what you are going to do, when you are going to do it, who you are going to do it to, where you are going to it, why you are going to do it and how you are going to do it.  If you are a news geek, apply some who, where, what, when, why and how rules to your Tweeting before you start.

Now keep something in mind, although my objective is to get people to subscribe to my blog feed and download my E-book, first I need to become a trusted source of information.  I also know that I can’t be all things to all people, so I am going to confine my tweets to 4 silos – electronics, construction, automotive aftermarket and personal financial advisers.  Once I get going, I may find that this is just too much work and I may have to cut down.

Starting out, I have decided that I will not simply re-Tweet (say that 5 times fast without sounding like Tweety Bird) what some talking head or Internet personality has said, but rather I am going to broadcast news and information relevant to the sector/silo.  Nor am I going to blast everyone on my Facebook and Linked in accounts with my thoughts.   That is exceptionally annoying and may be the true definition of Internet Narcissism.  My goal is to find people who are actually interested in a topic and engage them (And this means ignoring my own business needs for a while……or does it?)

Automation is the key to the Internet, so I am going to register for a free Socialoomph account and see what part of the process I can automate.

Step 3: Execute and Measure

My plan is to put out 10 to 20 tweets a day for the next month and see how it comes back to my KPI’s for this little project.

The goal of this project is to objectively determine if I can monetize Twitter rather than just using it as an Internet exhibitionist

…..almost.  OK, what the heck, these guys @ Pluck are about as close to having a proper lead generating campaign in place as we have seen in the sector.  So it seems that Pluck is the winner of this lead generation derby………….

PPC traffic is driven to this page -

The top half

…and the bottom half.

And low and behold, it has some form field captures to capture some prospect information in return for a free report on the six pillars of social networking.  Prospects can now be funnel through the system to be better qualified.  If you down load the report, Pluck may think you are worth talking to about your problem and how they can solve it.  If you don’t sign up, they won’t devote any expensive manpower to you.

The lights are on and someone is finally home!

While the copy could be a little less self serving and there are a few too many links on the page to distract the user from completing the assigned task of filling in the information form, it is light years ahead of what we have seen from other social media consultants we looked at today

My advice to them would to be hold off on establishing your operating history until you have engaged the reader by addressing his or her  problems.

But at least they get it.  They seem to know what to do with someone’s attention once they have it.

Finally!

Click on the numerals to read Parts I, II, III, IV & V of this Question of the Day

More of the same with these three characters

Brandmovers, Archrival (Dude, you sent me to your Facebook page………..ACK!!!)  & Eric Harr (Your landing page makes it sound like I should know you already?  Do I?)

Just a total lack of thought went into building these PPC campaigns.  The landing pages are show absolutely no thought in how to generate a return on investment as none of them deploy any robust strategy to harvest leads.  In fact, all they want to do is tell YOU about THEM.  You are not the solution to my social media problems, your skill set maybe.  How about giving me a little taste of you skills in action………

Direct marketing is not about you……..it’s about your customer.  And before you start telling your customer about how wonderful YOU are, you had better figure out a way to build some rapport before I start parting with my money.

How to fix this……….

Try a real landing page and go from there………..

Holy shit………someone should let good people at Constant Contact know that their landing page was hacked

Look:

……oh wait, it’s supposed to look like this.

I see, your page designers  forgot to take their meds before going to work on this page……I guess that would explain all the distracting information on the page.

So, if we removed 99% of the links on the page, removed the self serving copy about some recent acquisition of SquirrelNut, Nutmail, Wingnut,  NutNut or what ever silly company they just bought, put up a form field capture between the user and the “Getting Started With Social Media” download, you would have a well designed landing page.

Instead some designer vomited all over the page and didn’t even bother to exchange one item of value (the download) for another, the user’s contact information.  Constant Contact is practically giving away money here as the PDF download really does target the social media neophyte and answers a good number of questions.  They just need to use this asset properly to build another asset……………the database!!!

It is obvious that corporate resources were devoted to creating this page.  The least you could do is set it up properly so that it generates a return on investment by building up the firm’s prospect database

Again, a perfect example of a company that should know better confusing brand advertising with direct marketing.

My value added advice…………………

Practically every item on that page could be broken up into its own landing page with specific keyword and PPC ad.  You should be working the hell out of the PDF.

I love the url – wegetsocialmedia.com – of their home page.  Yes, they just transported you right to their homepage.

Top of the page to ya

And now the bottom

Beyond the lack of any form of information capture on the landing page.  Who in god’s name wrote the self-serving copy?

Unless of course your problem is that you need to hire a firm with “a history of developing breakthrough social media strategies and activations for top marketers that include Pepsi, T-Mobile, Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson, Mr Youth has been named as Social Media Agency of the Year by Mashable”, cuz if it is, I think these guys just solved your problems.

But you were just looking to hire a social media consultant.

This is another example of people confusing brand advertising with direct marketing.  I don’t care about you.  I care about me.  What can you do for me?  Does your being named social media agency of the year do much for me?  Well considering we don’t have a relationship yet, and you really aren’t attempting to build one here (No one likes a braggart), I’m not sure your campaign is going to get much traction with this sort of layout.

Again, you have my attention.  What are you doing with it…………beside distracting it with a whole pile of irrelevant links.

Let’s take a look where the top PPC ad takes us.

Abracadabra………..we are magically transported to…..Buddy Media’s home page?!?!?

Top of the page:

Mid Section

And for good measure, the lower portion (look at all those links):

I thought they knew social media?  Well maybe they do.  What I would question is do they know what to do with someone’s attention once they have it?

Beyond being the home page (vs. a specialized landing page) they don’t even attempt to capture some demographic/contact information from the user.  No attempt to get a potential prospect into the funnel.  The fact that I clicked on their PPC ad in the first place is reasonable indication that I am worth getting in the pipe and then filtering me out after.  Whatever they paid for the click is just a cost, not an investment…….

But I am glad they were mentioned on TechCrunch.

Ladies and Gentleman, a round of applause for Buddy Media.

Do social media consultants understand lead generation.  That my good readers is the question I am going to answer, or at least attempt to answer.

I’m going to make a basic assumption here, and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but companies hire social media consultants in an attempt to drive sales, generate leads and increase brand awareness.

So one could safely assume that these guys should understand the on line lead generation/prospect development process. No?

Well let’s find out. Let’s go on a search to hire a social media consultant in Los Angeles and see how they take us through their lead generating/prospecting system.

-hire a social media consultant Los Angeles -

Google says what:

Now let’s take a look at the ads

#1 – Buddy Media – they are talking about some platform and I am looking for a consultant.  If I want a consultant, there is a good chance I may not know what a platform is to begin with.  You really have to think about your target market and aim for the lowest common denominator sometimes.

#2 – The Mr. Youth Agency – Congratulations, you won an award.  And that solves my problem how?  I need to hire a social media consultant

#3 Constant Contact – you bought who? why do I care?

#4 – Brandmovers -Er, what is “high performance”

#5 – Archrival – So you are experts.  Great.  Then you should already know what I think of your ad

#6 – Clarity Media Group – I’m glad you are using your media expertise and not your plumbing expertise – a blinding flash of the obvious.

#7 – EricHarr – You do social media?  Who would have thought that.  A social media firm that does social marketing that turns up when I do a search for a social media consultant.

#8 – Pluck – OMG………looks like someone gets it the idea of giving you something of value in return for some basic contact information.  I know it without looking at the landing page (I hope for their sake I know it).  They know that if i am looking to hire a social media consultant, I might be missing a few variables in my hiring equation – like my basic knowledge of social media.  And they are going to educate me….for FREE……………

When I originally thought if this article/search term, I thought I would see a number of well written direct ads.  After all these companies are working in a direct marketing/one to one environment.  Not so much.

What you don’t want are ads that encourage window shopping.  This is how you keep your costs down and your conversion rates up

In fact, I think a deeper dive is warranted to check out how these companies attempt to skim off interested prospects into their sales funnels.  Don’t you think?  Stay tuned for part II and we can dissect some landing pages…………………