Nick Baggott's CRM and Digital Marketing Blog

Business Biscotti Day Pics

I really enjoyed speaking at the Business Biscotti day in Burnham, Berks last week. If you are running a business in Berks, UK, I would definately recommend joining this group. Have a look at the Business Bioscotti site.

Here is a review of the Business Biscotti Digital Day

Here is some pics....

Turaz (formerly Thomson Reuters Risk Management) web site now live

I have been involved recently with helping Turaz build a CRM and digital marketing strategy. Turaz is a new business that was formerly Thomson Reuters Risk Management division. I also introduced them to the excellent agency who built the site. I am not sure if I can say who they are, but if you like the site and want an introduction, then drop me an email or contact me on Twitter @njbaggott and I'll do the introduction. The new site for the new brand, Turaz is now live. 

Which social media monitoring tool should you use?

I have been working recently with Richard Lucas of Tangent90. Richard has compiled a concise review of Social media monitoring tools for the client and he has allowed me to share this review with you. So, thank you Richard....

Brandwatch

Overview :

Brandwatch enables the user to set keywords and start the search across websites and social media platforms. It includes scan search of Twitter, facebook, youtube Blogs, forum and news . brandwatch offers  a user friendly interface, easy to set up.  Sentiment  accuracy in the standard market range. The tool offers a customisable dashboard to have all the available data in one view, and exports report in cvs and email format

£: Reasonably priced, from starting packages

Synthesio

Overview :

The syntesio platform offer a wide range of analysis tools. In addition to the standard sentiment analysis , number and localisation of mentions, it offers multilingual and multi-regional support.

The platform is user friendly and easy to set up

The sentiment analysis however, relies strongly  on human intervention. The sysntesio team offers data analysis together with the subscription, and it doesn`t not come cheap. The system also, at the date of testing ( Spring 2011) presented numerous bugs.

£ : starting package expensive

Radian 6

Overview :

Radian 6 is possibly one on the most powerful social media monitoring tools on the market. As its competitors it offers sentiment analysis, customisable dashboards, and powerful data analysis across the widest range of sources, unlike its competitors , it can be integrated with Salesforce and webtrends. The reports can be exported as emails,cvs and PDFs

The learning experience with Radian 6 can be frustrating,  with a steep learning curve, to utilise the tool in all its features.

£ : starting package expensive

Addictomatic

Overview :

Addictomatic is a free web app to locate  content on the web based on any topic, event or subject and provides the users with a windows containing the mentions for the brand or topic searched.

Compared to the other mentioned tools, Addictomatic is more news and social media oriented, but it doesn`t offer the complex automatic operations as Brandwatch or Radian 6

The tool doesn`t offer a dashboard or sentiment analysis, and any further operation offered by other automatic tools, is left to the user.

£: free

iGoogle

Overview :

iGoogle is a free web app which requires quite a lot of customisation and configuration, it is meant as a consumer tool for managing a personal experience and not as a shared business tool.

£: free

Personal Mashup using WidgetBox

Overview :

WidgetBox is a collection of over tens of thousands of Widgets which can be turned into mobile Apps and into ‘Blog Embed’ Components for a simple low cost subscription.

Some widgets quickly hit the refresh limit on services such as Twitter and Google and so pages can be denied access to these services.

This requires the use of a Web Designer with basic knowledge of HTML and web design.

£: free

 Postscript:

 Since I wrote this post, I have been contacted by webfluenz - see below. I have reviewed it and it looks to me like a good value low cost tool that is certainly well worth considering. The costs start at $99, but rises based on numbers of users etc. This is the note they sent to me originally which includes a link tio the site

I came across your review on social media monitoring tools and wanted to bring a tool to your notice called webfluenz. I wanted to inquire about whether you will be interested in reviewing our tool. To give a brief introduction, webfluenz is a social media monitoring and measurement tool that allows users to listen, monitor and enagage with social media conversations in real-time. For more information, please visit our website (http://www.webfluenz.com/) 

The Benefits of Social Media (McKinsey stats)

Just saw this in an excellent social CRM pdf from salesforce.com. Sent to me by my friend Paul Vernon at Oegen. It is from a McKinsey report from December 2010. It shows that companies who use social media achieve the following:

- increased marketing effectivenes & c-sat

- reducing marketing & support costs

- reducing tiome to market of new products

- increased innovation

- increased revenue

It still looks like the cost saving elements are driving the first four benefits on the chart below. I believe that if brands focused on using social media to build engagement and trust more and cost saving less, then they would drive the revenue number as well as reduce the costs. To do this, social media needs to be more integrated with traditional channels as part of an over arching CRM strategy. 

What do you think?

Great free Seminar for Professional Services Marketers (I am speaking)

If you are in Professional Services and you haven't signed up already, please sign up for the Touchstone Professional Services Free Marketing seminar. It takes place on Friday 23rd November in London. I shall be speaking, just click on the link below to sign up: 

How Professional Services can increase productivity without cutting corners

Smart Insights RACE digital model

Thanks to my colleague at CIM, Gill Kelley for sharing this with me. Smart Insights have produced a simple 4 step digital marketing model that they have called RACE. It stands for Reach, Act, Convert & Engage.

I think it has its merits, but mixes up the goals of engagement and conversion. Personally, I would measure where a customer is on the purchasing funnel / sales revenue on one axis and engagement on a separate axis. The model also misses the final stage of enagement - advocacy, which I call "share" in my acquire, participate, engage, share model.

Fonally, is it a RACE? I would say that you should be nurturing relationships over time and not racing to convert them to a sale too fast - that is like proposing mariage on the first date!

10 tips for direct marketing channel selection

I have just written a piece for a leading marketing mag. Here is a sneek preview of my ten top tips for Direct Marketing channel selection - i.e Traditional paper based Direct Mail v Telemarketing v email...

1. Be clear about your objective. Lead generation v relationship building, up sell v cross sell, sales v service, educate v inspire...
2. Start with the customer. Who are they? How will you segment them? What do you know about them and their behaviours? Are you talking to customers or prospects? Will they have gate keepers that you need to get through? How environmentally conscious are they?
3. Research their media habits. If you have the budget for TGI then that is a great place to start. If you don’t, conduct your own research. Consider how they spend a typical day. What are their media habits and when are they more receptive to your marketing messages?
4. Ask for their preferences. If you have a relationship with the target audience, give them the choice. If not, use your research to find out what the majority want.
5. Allow people to opt out by channel. Don’t keep sending the paper catalogue to people who buy and browse online.
6. How complex is your message? Direct mail has the advantage of being physical and tactile. People open it and experience it. If you want to reveal the message gradually or if you want to include extra information, samples or vouchers, then traditional DM may be the best option.
7. Focus on your call to action. If you want to drive traffic to your web site or social media channel, it is one click away from the email. This is not the case in DM and telemarketing.
8. Personalisation is key. Treat different people differently. Email and telemarketing are simple to personalise. Direct mail customisation has got easier with digital printing, but is still generally more expensive.
9. Test and learn. If you want instant feedback and to test different variants then you will have to wait longer for responses from traditional DM. You will get results back from telemarketing and email almost instantly. You’ll get more data too. With DM the outcome is either responded or didn’t. With email you know if it is delivered, opened, clicked through and which content has got their attention.
10. CRM is very different to Direct Marketing. Are you looking to build an engaging on-going programme that is driven by changes in customer behaviours? If it is short term sales leads you need, then telemarketing can work for you, but what will the impact be on your brand reputation and customer relationships from more intrusive marketing? Ideally a CRM programme will be integrated, using combinations of channels.

 

 

Facebook Deals launches in UK

Have you tried facebook deals yet? As a consumer, or as a brand marketer?

Firstly, as a consumer:

- open facebook on your smart phone and click on check in

- it will list local places e.g. if you are in a high street, it wil list shops, bars and businesses where you are

- if any of these places listed has a yellow square next to them, then click on it

- that will display whatever deals are available from that company

Deals could be simple discounts, or free gifts (free coffee when you check in....), or it could be a charity donation (I have just donated £1 to a teenage cancer charity, by simply checking in at Argos), or it could be an added value experience e.g. check in and you could meet a player after the game (as a US basketball team is doing). Give it a try....

But what about brands -n how can it help you?

- The average person has 130 friends on facebook, so every time one of your customers "checks in" then they are endorsing you to 130 of their friends. What's more, you can reward them for their advocacy or use it to trial new products e.g. check in and get a free sample. It really is that simple. Brands like Argos, Debenhams, Starbucks and many more have launched on day 1 in UK and it has been a great success in the USA since being launched in the Autumn (Fall, for my American friends).

It is a serious threat to search engines, if people are spending more time on Facebook than Google and if your brand has more Facebook follwers than web hits (or wants to get to that situation), then this could well be for you. Again, why not try it?

Wouldn't you want your customers endorsing your brand, as I have just done for Argos, see the picture below to demonstrate what I mean.

 

 

Scott McKain highlights from Cisco Partner Velocity Conference

One of the highlights of the conference, was Scott McKain's key note. Scott is the best selling author of Collapse of Distinction, a marketing book which talks about differentiation in markets and customer experiences. Scott was inspirational and thought provoking. Here are some highlights....

Taxi Terry - There is a video on YouTube of Scott telling the Taxi Terry story. The video does it more justice than I can. Basically, Scott uses Taxi Terry to show how even the simplest service, which would normally be a commodity can be differentiated. He tells how Terry picks him up and opens with the line "are you ready for the best taxi ride of your life" and proceeds to provide him with information on the latest weather, golf courses, restaurants etc. Terry also records his conversation and then enters it onto his database, so when he collects Scott next time, he can ask him how his daughter is doing at college...

Scott also talked about emotional comnnections with brands and recounts how Apple talk about "getting into people's hearts, not their wallets", of course, by doing this, the wallets follow!

He also talked about why we need to make emotional connections and not push content at people. That is a message I regularly deliver too, but he had a neat trick. He got everyone in the room to pair up. Both people raised their right hand and he asked one person to push against the other. He then asked them what the other person did - they pushed back of course (a neat metaphor i thought!).

He ended with his 4 corner stones of distinction:

- Clarity - knowing what rully makes you different

- Creativity - but saying that the best creativity, comes from a clear brief

- Communication - i..e story telling (like Taxi Terry)

- Customer experience - focus on experience (see Taxi Terry again!)

If you get the chance to see Scott McKain talk, then take it. He'll make you think

#Partnervelocity Barcelona for Cisco

I am in Barcelona, speaking at the Partnervelocity conference for Cisco. I am doing an hour and a quarter on b2b CRM. If you want to find out more about the show, then check out #partnervelocity on Twitter