Eggblogg

Is it a bird, is it a plane, no, it's Social Media

I have a confession to make: ten years ago my introduction to the internet was in the form of an online community for history lovers. We each created our own avatars, took on Roman, Greek or Egyptian family names, and cavorted around the various special interest message boards and chatrooms all day and all night. I made pretend friends and real friends; some I even met IRL (as they say). I learned fluent emoticon-ese, took part in online arguments, role-played, formed some groups, joined others, attended virtual weddings and parties, created banners and avatars for fellow citizens and learnt basic HTML.

It wasn't called social networking back then, but it certainly wasn't Dungeons and Dragons.

Things have come full circle for me now, as this kind of online connection-building (funny how it's not called 'virtual' any more) has been re-invented as the Phenomenon That Is Social Media. This time around it has real commercial possibilities, which is why marketers are so excited about it.

At Eggbox, we don't claim to be at the cutting edge of social media marketing, but we learn new things every day. It's knowledge we're accruing on behalf of our small business clients who want to know about it and be a part of. Not only that, but given my own 'history' in the area of online community (I even used to write academic papers on the subject) it seems like a natural fit. So here we are, getting our feet wet but hopefully our noses not too dirty.

On the face of it there's a lot to learn (not least of all the language of tagging, pinging, digging and pimping...) but I agree with Geoff Livingston when he talks about a social media strategy requiring a blend of PR, traditional marketing and old-fashioned relationship-building networking skills ... in particular, word-of-mouth. Bring it on!

Why it's worth spending marketing budget on talking to your existing customers

The other day I got asked about our email marketing services. 'We need to target architects and interior designers in Sussex', he said. I had to disappoint him, as I explained we deal only with permission email marketing, in other words, communicating with customers/members/suppliers or prospects who have given you their permission to do so.

For many small businesses, getting new business is about getting new customers: perhaps they have a service or product that only gets bought once, or not very often (funeral directors or estate agents for example).

But a much neglected area of marketing is customer retention. If there's even a possibility that people might buy from you more than once, then customer retention is worth putting some budget against. If there's a good chance they'll come back again and again, and bring their friends, it's definitely worth it. Plus, it's all tied up with reputation management. Even if they don't need you again, keep in touch and they'll remember you when friends & family are looking.

So before spending a fortune on Yellow Pages, print advertising, pay per click, telemarketing and so forth .... think how little it could cost to keep some of those hard-won customers and get more of their business.

For many hard-pressed SMEs, if just 30% of the marketing budget went on customer retention, I am confident profitability would increase. Not only that, so would word-of-mouth referrals and long term customer loyalty.

I'm not saying you should inundate your customers with 'offers' emails every week, though lord knows it must work for some, we all know companies who do it.

But the task of selling to an existing customer is far easier than finding, wooing and persuading someone from cold. It's also cheaper, and the good news is ... done well, this kind of customer loyalty marketing just gets more effective over time.

Shame the same can't be said of targeting the cold prospects, who, in the face of mounting junk mail and spam issues, are becoming more immune to direct mail, cold prospecting and broadcast advertising.

Why bother about generating customer loyalty? One big reason is the more loyal the customer, the less likely they are to be sensitive to price increases.

Hang on ...  marketing which allows you to put your prices up, rather than demanding you lower them? Now there's a novelty.

Cracking up

So here we are, trying to move the existing eTips over to this new blog, giving it a new title as befits the new company name, deciding we're going to go the full blog hog this time with regular posts, but no website redesign yet on the horizon and a relaunch imminent... Will Eggbox all come together in time for Bonfire Night? I hope so!