Good news for those of you who have struggled with the decision to add social media to your marketing mix. According to the Small Business Success Index small business adopted the use of social media at twice the rate of 2008 in 2009. These businesses are finding that social media offers them access to their market – enabling them to build their brand, engage their current customers, and attract new customers as well.
Here’s a link to useful information summarizing these finding: http://www.bit.ly/ceSbFP
It’s never too late to add social media to your marketing plan. BoyDog Design can assist you in sorting through the various social media sites, blogging options, directories, and more. Is it time to hone the social media persona of your business?
Part of any marketing agenda is the need to create and measure awareness of your brand. One of the current media outlets that you can employ is a blog. A blog created to promote your product or service can benefit your business in a number of ways.
1. Search Engine Marketing – Your online presence via your blog will increase search engine activity and ultimately should result in higher rankings on search engine return pages.
2. Direct Communications – Your postings allow you to speak directly to your potential market. If you speak honestly, openly, and with authority you will instill the perception that you are an authority within your product or service category.
3. Brand Building – Blogs are another media outlet to promote your brand’s core values and how they will positively impact a potential customer.
4. Competitive Differentiation – How you present your brand in your blog in comparison to your competition will help you promote the ways in which your product or service is different and more relevant to a consumer’s needs.
5. Building a Relationship – By presenting your brand with an honest approach to your target market and promoting trust in the benefits you are offering you can eventually build a long-lasting relationship with your customers.
6. Niche Marketing – Tap into an underdeveloped niche for your brand category by using your blog to reach a niche market you may otherwise be missing.
7. Media & Public Relations – Blogs offer a free opportunity to spread the news about your brand. Regular press releases reinforce your brands accomplishments and place within your category.
8. Position Yourself as an Expert – Your blog will enable you to establish your level of knowledge and expertise pertaining to your brand category. It helps in demonstrating to your market that you are a source of information they can benefit from.
9. Reputation Management – A blog allows you to build on the perceived image of your brand. It also allows you to state your position if your brand is perceived negatively.
10. Low cost – It doesn’t get any better than FREE. Most blogs can be set up using existing online publishing platforms.
I routinely suggest the creation of a blog for a client. More often than not I receive a lukewarm response to my suggestion because there is a false assumption that blogging requires extra special skills. If you know enough about your product or service to offer it to the public you should have the required knowledge to write about it. If you aren’t comfortable with the idea of creating and operating a blog there are professionals to help you. I admit that most likely includes a fee, but the potential benefits should outweigh the initial cost.
Don’t lose out on a wonderful opportunity to promote your brand by eliminating a blog from your marketing mix. With some thoughtful preparation and a little practice anyone can master the art of posting on a blog. If the thought of doing it yourself is still something you prefer not to tackle remember that you can always hire a blogger to promote your brand for you. By educating a blogger about the benefits of your brand and setting boundaries for the blog’s performance you never have to give up control of your brand’s voice. Ultimately, isn’t that what your crave for your brand? At the forefront you want to establish a dialogue with your target market that allows you to build trust and brand loyalty for the present and into the future.
Whether you’re a small business owner or responsible for the marketing program in a large corporation you will undoubtedly be confronted with the need to track the attitudes of your customer base. Depending on your particular product or service, the way you collect this data and the effectiveness of the information you receive will vary in detail and degree of relevance. Marketing metrics are used to help improve your return on investment and offer insights into new avenues of profitability.
Awareness and Knowledge:
We presume that customers progress through stages of knowledge about a product or service. The progression starts at being totally unaware to an initial introduction, then on to a purchase, and finally total awareness and loyalty to the brand.
You can measure a potential customer’s level of awareness by asking questions such as, “Have you heard of Dell?” or “When you think of computers, which come to mind?” The first question would be considered an aided question as you are planting the brand within the question. The second question is considered unprompted because it is totally generic and doesn’t offer any brand as a jumpstart to answering.
Once you’ve established that a consumer is aware of your brand you can delve deeper into their feelings. You might ask them if that particular brand is for them? Have them rate the brand on a scale of 1 – 5. Ask them to verbalize any strengths or weaknesses they attach to the brand?
If you’ve established that a person has actually purchased your brand you can then inquire about their purchasing habits. How many times have you purchased this brand? What was the last brand of this product type that you purchased? The answers you receive should help you discover the level or awareness of your brand, where your brand ranks when your customer thinks of that category of product, and what specific knowledge and beliefs they may have about your brand.
Attitudes:
Based on their experience with your product or service your customer will develop their perception of your brand. In order to collect and decipher these attitudes you will have to explore their degree of liking your brand and the image your brand has made for them.
Questions to consider:
- Is this a brand for people like you?
- Is this a brand for people younger than you?
- Is this a brand for people older than you?
The responses should be measured on a scale of 1 – 5. One being the lowest and five the highest rating. The data received will show how relevant your brand is to that consumer.
- Is this brand a good value for the price?
- Would you be more likely to purchase this brand for a reduced price?
- Would you stop purchasing this brand if the price were to increase?
Measure the responses on a scale of 1 – 5. The data received will reflect the consumer’s perceived value of you product for the money.
- List other products in your brand’s category and have the consumer rate them on a scale of 1 – 5.
This rating will allow you to see how your brand is perceived against your competition. Your ranking demonstrates the quality/esteem associated with your brand.
- Would you switch to another brand if this brand were not available at the time you intended to make a purchase?
Rate their response from 1 – 5. The results should give you an indication of their intentions.
- Is it very likely that you will purchase this product?
A 1 – 5 rating for this type of question will measure their intentions to actually purchase your brand.
Usage:
Measuring usage is to quantify the frequency and number of units purchased. The information gathered will let you know:
- what was purchased
- when and where it was purchased
- how many have rejected the product
- how many have added the product as their preferred brand
The answers you receive are self-reported behavior of your customer. An array of questioning will give you insight into their overall view of your product or service.
Questions to consider:
- What brand in your category did they purchase before your brand?
- How many times in the past year have they purchased your brand?
- How many items of your brand do they currently own?
All of the above questions are usually part of an ongoing survey of potential and current customers. This request for information can take the form of warranty cards and registrations, offering prizes in return for information, random drawings that encourage participation in a survey, or regularly administered surveys conducted by phone, e-mail, mail, web, social media, etc.
There are many ways to approach the collection of this type of data. Any attempt to do so will be influenced by your particular product or service. What works for one category may not be efficient or provide usable information for another. Tracking customer trends for brand awareness will require a focused approach to the information you want to gather and then developing the right set of questions and conditions to administer your survey. Once your data is collected you will need to review it keeping in mind the set up for each question (aided or unaided) and the goal of the response you seek. The results should give you better insight into the personal relationship your customer has with your brand.
