Don't Be a Digital Dinosaur
Be Ready to Jump
One of the toughest things we do in digital marketing is educate people on the best practices for communicating in this digital world. The challenge is not in talking to smart people who benefit from digital marketing - the challenge is in educating those that have lived and practiced traditional marketing for the majority of their lives. This article is good for you executives too, because if your marketers are doing their job, you are going to get a little nervous!
By using a few internet savvy practices you can create effective digital marketing programs. But you must be ready to jump off the cliff and change your way of thinking. So grab that harness, rope and carabiners! Here we go!
Talk Like Your Customers
Hopefully you will agree that the world has drastically shifted to an internet driven method of communication for most people. This shift has also changed what people do on the internet. Forums, blogs and reviews are the method of choice for consumers to research products. These vehicles typically are fueled by other consumers and/or people who know how to effectively communicate with their target audience.
Set up some Google Alerts and see what people are saying and how they are saying it. Especially seek out the forum posts where people are much less formal with their communication.
Communicate like your customers - do not sound like a corporate spokesperson. Use the jargon, terms, industry slang etc. If they have a nickname or a shorter name for one of your products or even your brand consider using it! If you don't YOU will be the only one using that name. And that's not cool! Now of course there are exceptions to this, especially considering negative nicknames but you get the idea.
Deliver the Goods
Don't try to make every program a company advertisement. It will turn people off and won't be effective. Remember the goals for each program and stick to them. Doing a contest to collect email addresses? Focus on what will bring the most entrees - not how to advertise in your contest banners. Trying to grow Facebook fans? Don't make advertisements out of your posts. Want more opt ins for your newsletters? Think like a publisher and deliver the goods.
Forums Are a Good Thing
Have you browsed a forum, found 15 positive posts for your products then found one that was bad? What do you do? What you should not do is immediately jump into the conversation with a defensive posture. This just looks bad no matter how you spin it. Many times your customers will come to your defense for you. And how powerful is that? Often the thread will just move along with new posts and forum visitors will ignore it. If you find the comment doesn't get addressed and you think it's important to counter the argument, ask one of your super promoter fans to jump in. Since they are already passionate about the products they will be glad to help.
A forum string where people are discussing your products can bring thousands of people to your site in a year so monitor your analytics. It's your job to have a great website that motivates them to purchase or research more.
Communicate, Engage, then Brand
Motivate people with good content, get them talking then periodically introduce the branding, sales, rebates, etc. They don't want your hype; they want entertainment, education and problem solving. Use social site dashboards to funnel your social site content so you are efficient with your communication. Get the book "Beyond Buzz" by Lois Kelly for great content ideas.
Be Willing to Take a Few Risks
Try some things and see how they work. Take a few risks. Be irrelevant, quirky or truly unique. Your customers will love it because you will stand out. Poll them for ideas. Just be willing to let your marketers experiment and get creative. There is a good article called Are You a Marketer or a Bureaucrat by Adam Singer that claims the most important asset of any marketing team is creative talent.
Bring Digital Consumers into Your Strategies
There is nothing better than internet-savvy young consumers to bounce ideas off of. My son is a computer/internet guru who is a moderator on a very popular forum. I am always bouncing ideas off of him. Bring young people into your strategy sessions and let the execs hear their points of view.
To be clear though, age does not have as much to do with these issues as you think. There are those of all ages who have dug in and learned and those that haven't. In his article on the digital divide Singer says: change, adoption and hanging on to the leading edge are what lead good marketers to bend the environment to their advantage. So jump off the cliff and give it a go!
