Websites are a major access point to a company, so it is important to put your best foot forward. Just as your wardrobe should evolve with the demands and expectations of your position in life, so should your digital image. Welt has evolved our online brand, and we are proud to present our updated website.
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Marketers wanting to tap into the power of word of mouth marketing to increase brand awareness, preference, and purchase eventually learn a fundamental truth. This truth is simply, “Marketers do not decide what gets talked about. People decide.”
Studies clearly indicate word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing. According to research from McKinsey & Company, word of mouth is responsible for up to 50% of all purchase decisions.
Studies also indicate there are seemingly endless ways to spark word of mouth conversations. The Keller Fay Group has been tracking conversations people have about brands since 2006. Their findings tell us 22% of all conversations people have about brands, products, and services are sparked by advertising. However, the vast majority of word of mouth conversations, 78% of them, are sparked by something else.
Which means… the playground for marketers wanting to trigger word of mouth from customers about brands is HUGE.
Anything and everything a customer can “touch” is an opportunity to spark a conversation. Every customer touchpoint is a possible talking point.
And since people, not marketers, make the decision about what gets talked about, it’s up to marketers to give people something to talk about at every customer touchpoint.
It's time to think about all the associations your service brings to your customer's mind.
For example, any restaurant that uses a “Please Wait To Be Seated” sign from a restaurant supply catalog has given up on being talk-able. This sign is one of the first customer touchpoints someone will experience inside a restaurant. It’s the perfect opportunity to showcase a brand’s unique personality by creating a custom sign that expresses the uniqueness of the restaurant.
Chevrolet was one of the most talked about brands at the 2011 SXSW Interactive Conference. They accomplished being talk-able by giving conference attendees something to talk about at various touchpoints. There were Chevy Volt-branded recharge stations throughout the Austin Convention Center for attendees to recharge all their electronic gadgets. Attendees needing a ride to someplace in downtown Austin could hop into Chevy Cruze and be shuttled free of charge. You could get a 360-degree picture taken of you and your friends at the Chevy Sonic photo booth. Prior to the start of SXSW, Chevy sponsored 10 teams on a scavenger hunt road trip from their hometowns to the conference in Austin. Of course, Chevy was all over social media during the conference with the much-used hashtag of #ChevySXSW. By far, Chevy was the most talk-able brand at the 2011 SXSW Interactive Conference because they gave people reasons to talk at various touchpoints.
No budget, no marketing dollars, no existing clientele, a business name, great event ideas, and a drive to succeed…
This was me, six months ago, when I decided to leave my job and embark on a journey of entrepreneurial passion. I had the winning idea, but — with my limited budget — how was I to promote it and spread the word?
Let’s fast forward to the present day. I have two major events on the docket: Run for Your Life Zombie 5K scheduled for October 23, 2011 and Challenge Cincinnati Urban Adventure Race scheduled for March 24, 2012. Using solely social media, I have managed to create buzz and increase traffic to my event websites, to the point at which I now fully expect both events to sell out. Keep in mind that I have yet to spend $1 on advertising! So what new fad or idea did I use? None — I used simple, old fashioned networking skills, and the ability of social network sites to magnify those skills.
Social media has proved effective in promoting events like Run for Your Life Zombie 5K.
Building my initial following wasn’t easy, but I knew that with Facebook and LinkedIn, I had thousands of possible connections. Not only did I personally have all of these connections but, the charitable organizations that were to benefit from my events had many as well. Here is how it went down:
The strategies behind branding efforts and building a real-life relationship are comparable.
Think about it: When you’re starting a relationship you try to prove to the other person that you’re trustworthy and good for them. You don’t do this in one particular way, but you express yourself across multiple platforms – calling, texting, dating, and yes, shockingly enough, you also make things “Facebook official” by becoming one of their social media friends. If you want the relationship to last and you’ve done something wrong, you inevitably have to fix the problem, but more importantly, gain back their trust.
Similarly in branding, marketers not only want to gain awareness, but also want to establish credibility and trust. In order to achieve these things a brand does not just market to their consumer over one platform — it engages in a variety of mediums.
A digital audit can determine metrics to measure against a larger marketing goal.
Keeping this in mind, it would seemingly make sense that, especially when things are not working out, marketing managers would conduct a comprehensive analysis of their efforts, right? Not always, and unfortunately this analysis is especially deficient across the digital platform!
As more and more companies discover the digital marketing universe, it seems less actually utilize the full scope that digital has to offer. This inability to optimize is partially due to the fact that most companies don’t actually know what they’re supposed to be doing or why they’re suppose to be doing it. It seems that many companies either believe that the more users they touch, the more the success, or that having a mere digital presence is enough.
What Are They?
No need to worry, QR codes are not a government conspiracy to track your movements (…or are they!?!). Instead they’re what is known as a “Quick Response Code.” You might see them on everything from business cards to print ads to billboards (tough to capture when you’re whizzing by on the freeway.) For the most part, the marketing application of this code — which looks like a very complicated Rorshach test — is to make it easy through an app-enabled smart phone to scan it, and then be transported to a website.
It’s easy to scan a code with your smart phone: just hold the phone up, and the reader does the work. It’s important to get the details right when you are using a QR Code. Placement is critical, and it needs to be big enough for the reader to capture. That means that wherever you place it, you need white space, so plan your designs accordingly. It’s not a great idea to “slap on a QR code” as an afterthought. There are several “QR code reader apps” and every phone is different, so testing it across a wide variety of phones and apps is important.
The area of QR code planning that is most often overlooked isn’t the code, or placement of it, but rather, it’s what happens after your consumer scans it. Consider this: Your audience is using a smart phone to scan the Quick Response Code. Is your website mobile ready? And make sure the page that you are guiding them to actually has something to do with what the card, ad, billboard, etc. has offered. In the best scenario, you will have thought out the offering you want them to see, and isolated it. It could be an opt-in program, a coupon, valuable information (white papers, hard-to-get insights/reports), giveaways, or anything that is not your standard sales pitch. When they “Quick Respond,” you want to be ready to engage! If you have done all of the necessary planning for your QR Code Campaign, then find a QR Code generator, be sure to shorten your URL using bit.ly or ow.ly or another URL truncating site, and let the scanning begin!
When Should I Use a QR Code?
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