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From The Economist: Some Facebook Facts
Revenue Growth, Social MediaBelow are some interesting facts and opinions about Facebook curated from the current Economist article.
“Last year the company had sales of $3.7 billion, a little below recent estimates, and made a net profit of $1 billion.”
“The network boasts 845m users, which, were Facebook a country, would make it the world’s third most populous, behind China and India.”
“Every day 250m photos are uploaded to the site. One out of every seven minutes spent online is on Facebook, according to comScore, a research firm.”
“Facebook accessible to ever more people. (The Boston Consulting Group reckons that around 3 billion people will be online by 2016, up from 1.6 billion in 2010.) The second is the rise of the mobile phone. Already more than 425m people are tapping into Facebook on these devices and in future most of the social network’s growth will come from the mobile web. Together, these trends could propel the number of users beyond 1 billion.”
“People are now spending far more time on Facebook than on rival web services such as Google (see chart 2) and why it has benefited from strong network effects. ”
Another interesting perspective- will a new hot social network take over? Tumblr? Twitter?
“One is that people stop using Facebook, either because they lose interest or because they are put off by its behaviour. As News Corporation discovered to its cost after it splashed out $580m on Myspace in 2005, network effects can also go quickly into reverse. Once large numbers of people started leaving the service, which became more cluttered than a teenager’s bedroom, it proved hard to stem the tide. Last year, News Corp sold the business for just $35m.”
Component-based Marketing Automation
Inbound Marketing, Revenue Growth, Technology & WebsitesAn effectively designed website is only one element of an effective web marketing ecosystem. To achieve effective web presence and drive qualified leads, we developed an easy to remember mnemonic “AEIOU” (attract, engage, influence, optimize, understand).
AEIOU helps to consider the strategies that make up a digital marketing strategy. But to really power the strategies, companies need marketing automation tools. Platforms like Hubspot (www.hubspot.com), Act-on (www.act-on.com) and Marketo (www.marketo.com) and many others are very powerful ways to manage multi-stage buyer processes and map content and engagement at each stage of the process – nurturing relationships from awareness to customer.
When budgets are a little smaller or the sales cycle is a little less complex, we often recommend using a component-based approach as a marketing solution. Some of our preferred solution components and web services include:
In selecting these solutions, we recommend that you find sets of solutions that work well together with strong APIs and integrations. If your needs are not too complex a component based approach can be a very affordable and effective way to deliver marketing automation.
How much does it cost to get a preferred space on a shelf?
Food & CPG, Revenue GrowthSomewhere between $0 and $3.5 million per item. Usually closer to $0.
Surprised? I hear it from people outside the industry all the time — they are convinced that evil manufacturers are paying supermarkets to have their items placed at exactly the right position on shelves.
Don’t get me wrong — there’s some truth to the idea that manufacturers pay supermarkets for placement. Just not how you think.
Let’s say a supermarket currently has pasta shelved together by type of pasta — that is, all spaghetti is together, all ziti is together, and so on. But I want my brand (let’s call it Asta Pasta) to have all of its varieties shelved together. I feel like that might cause consumers to shop within my brand and maybe ignore some of the other brands in the section.
I might even have some data showing that Asta Pasta’s sales go through the roof when this shelving configuration changes. But I’m not going to show that to anyone outside my company.
Instead, I’ll hire an outside consulting firm that will analyze the entire section — Asta Pasta, store brand, and competitors’ brands too. And they’ll create a study that shows how sales for the entire section will improve if brands like Asta are placed together in blocks.
If you can fit this change into a supermarket’s usual shelf reset schedule and it’s not too drastic — and especially if you can show that the category will have amazing sales increases — it might cost a manufacturer absolutely nothing to have this change implemented, aside from the cost of the study (negligible, hopefully) and the cost of a sales call to the supermarket’s headquarters. If it’s something more radical (and gets approved), the manufacturer might be on the hook for the cost of resetting the section — which might run $200 per store or more.
Where money comes into play is when a manufacturer wants to introduce a new item — one that didn’t have a spot on the shelf previously. That’s generally called a slotting fee or slotting allowance. And it can run up to $3.5 million per discrete item (per flavor and size combination — that is, per UPC) to be placed in every U.S. supermarket. We’ll cover that in a coming post.
(Image: Used under a Creative Commons attribution license from Flickr user AndyCunningham)
Lead Nurturing: An Overview
Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Revenue GrowthAn Overview of Lead Nurturing: For Every Business
Up to 95% of qualified prospects visiting your company’s website are there to research but are not yet ready to make a purchasing decision; ultimately, as many as 70% of these prospects will buy from you or your competitors. How do you gradually mold these prospective leads into buyers?
This is where lead nurturing comes in. A lead nurture program involves adapting calculated marketing strategies to share useful, relevant information with prospects regardless of how ready they may or may not be to buy. The goal is to establish your brand and build a relationship based on trust and credibility, which will ideally position you to be their first choice once they are ready to make a purchasing decision.
First, identify a set of new prospects by monitoring certain activity on your website, such as who has downloaded a white paper or filled out a form, and determine which leads are ready to be sent to sales and which need to be nurtured. This can be achieved through a lead scoring methodology, which should take into account demographic attributes; budget, authority, need, timeline (BANT); lead source; and level of engagement with your materials.
For those prospects that you have determined to be nurturing candidates, establish permission to be included in your nurturing campaign by asking prospects to opt in or out. This is the first step in building a relationship that is based on trust and relevancy. At the very least you need to comply with the CAN-SPAM Act by providing a clear way to opt out, but you might want to go the extra mile and ask for explicit permission on registration forms. Not only does this earn you the prospect’s trust by proving your concern for privacy, but it also increases your deliverability and sender reputation scores.
Throughout the nurturing process, gradually send pertinent information over time. Timing is critical; consider the duration of the buying process and the communication approaches you will use to determine the best frequency of communication. A general rule is to contact prospects at least one a month but no more than once a week.
Personalize the content of your communications to ensure that it will be relevant to your prospect, which will keep them interested in staying on your list. Develop profiles of your prospects that include characteristics that will help you best tailor your communications to their needs, rather than simply providing less valuable generic content.
Do not let leads sit at any point in the process. You should always be communicating with prospects and continuing to move them along a cycle, even if they are not ready to buy. Pay attention to a prospect’s activity and engagement with your website and adjust your communication according to these cues. Accelerate communication with prospects identified to have a higher interest, and reduce communication with prospects that are slower to respond.
By building a positive impression of your company and keeping the prospect engaged and interested throughout the lead nurturing process, they will be more likely to select your company once they decide it’s time to buy.
Successful Email Marketing – Crafting Your Message
Content Marketing, Financial Advisor Marketing, Revenue Growth, Social MediaEmails are one of the most often used communication methods used by businesses to reach clients and potential leads, and if used correctly email marketing can be among the most effective methods as well to grow your business. In a climate where communication is becoming increasingly digital, crafting effective email marketing messaging is vital for any financial advisor. Successful emails that clearly communicate their message enhance customer experience and generate business, while unsuccessful emails lead to may lead to confusion or lack of action. The following are a few simple steps that can be taken to maximize the effectiveness and clarity of your email marketing message while also optimizing the user experience of the email’s entire audience: the foundation of any successful email marketing campaign.
Like all good writing, email is most successful when the who, what, when, where, why, and how of the message is taken into consideration. For the purposes of user experience, the what, where, and how are the three most important of these categories.
“WHAT are you saying to me?”
“HOW do you want me to take action?”
“WHERE am I reading your email?”
Customer relationships are so important and client experience should be the basis of the design of any email. Making sure the what, how, and where of the email from the audience’s perspective is analyzed and accounted for will help ensure that you compose a successful marketing message.
AEIOU Tips – Mnemonic for Marketing Best Practices
Inbound Marketing, Revenue Growth, Social MediaAs part of a recent presentation on social media and digital marketing, I developed a Mnemonic AEIOU to help the audience remember some of the key elements of an integrated revenue architecture and associated marketing best practices. After all, most English speakers remember our vowels (A.E.I.O.U. and sometimes Y)!
This short slideshow introduces the model and offers a few AEIOU tips and practices for each element: