Social media can be a tricky business. On one hand, it is a great thing: you are sharing your wisdom with your audience, absorb other people’s wisdom, engaging in conversation with people inside and outside you industry, getting involved in your community and much more. On the other hand, as a marketer you know that the investment should be justified. You need to show results for the time and effort you invest. In order to get satisfying results – you need to get your audience to become your customers. You need to convince them to consume the product or service you sell. But how will you know that what you are doing is effective? And more important, how will you justify this expense in time and effort? You need to keep score.

Keeping score means keep on top of your statistics. In the more traditional ways of marketing such as newsletter campaigns and pay per click Google style, you have a good built in tool to do your statistics for you. You get a nice, clean, graphic, and easy to understand report that you can just integrate into your excel report, or your presentation to the management and show them how the marketing budget is being wisely spent. But that works nicely for these traditional ways of marketing. What about twitter?

The fact of the matter is that trying to keep your own statistics sucks and right down to impossible when you don’t have the right tool to do it (that is why you should always make sure that every marketing tool you buy can produce statistics and reports to make your life easier). When it comes to twitter, I was at lost until I was tipped off about Twitalyzer.com. This website will show you the important information about your twitter activity, and help you to show your management how twitter integrates into your marketing strategy.

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So your company has decided to have an event. The dates are set and you are in charge, among thousands other tasks, of sending invitations by email to your company’s relevant mailing list. You send all those email, inviting all those people and one by one, the RSVPs (or polite declines) are starting to come in.

But, as the set date fast approaches, as you compare the amount of responses you get to the amount of the invitations you sent, you find out that you have about 80% response rate. What happened to the rest of them? Did they even get your invitation? Did it bounce? Was it referred to their ‘junk’ folder to be lost among the junk mail to be deleted without being read?

We are now asking for your help with developing a new solution – more user friendly and suitable for your needs as an event planner.

Alongside an automated RSVP system to manage the responses you get from your invitees, the Invite Wizard provides you with graphical easy-to-understand statistics that you can integrate into your reports.

Another useful option in the Invite Wizard is to add new recipients to your list after you`ve already sent your invites, in case you forgot someone by mistake, and send invites to the new comers only.

The Invite Wizard also helps you solve the mystery of what happened to those unanswered, unopened emails, allowing you to take action and make sure the invites get to their recipients.

*Please try the Invite Wizard, allowing you to send up to 500 email invitations free, and send us your comments and impressions. Sign up here to get the trial account.

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Alongside keeping in touch with family and friends, social networking websites have become essential part in a business marketing strategy. Social networking websites such as facebook and LinkedIn provide the perfect place to interact with potential customers as well as to check out what people are saying about your business. Using these websites wisely can help you generate new leads and transform potential customers into actual customers.

• Don’t jump before you look. Plan. Strategize. Ask yourself: what are my goals? What is it that I would like to achieve? How do I get to there?
• Research. What is your community interested in? Which discussion subjects will attract more people to connect with you? What are their needs? Is there anything your target audience needs that you are not offering them and could be offering?
• Read. Social networking websites are full with useful information.
• Connect. Use the social networking websites to connect with you existing customers as well as with potential customers.
• Be active. Make sure you update your account regularly. An account that is not updated regularly looses followers.
• Monitor. What are people saying about your business? What are they saying about your competitors? Know where you stand.
• Don’t spam. The ratio should be that for every 10 posts of informative helpful content you are allowed to advertise once. More than that can result in loss of interest.

By following these simple guidelines, you can make your social networking websites worth your while.

Questions, comments, requests and whatever’s on your mind – Feel free to contact me,

ProMarketing Wizard

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Presenting yourself on facebook

There are 3 options to represent yourself on facebook. Which one is the most suitable for you?

Getting to know your homepage

After you sign up on facebook and choose the best option for you, get to know your homepage. This is the page seen by every facebook user as soon as he enters his or her account. The page changes from user to use and is composed of the content that the specific user choose to see when becoming a friend of another user or a fan on a fan page.

Which content do I see?

Fan page content: will present the content posted by the fan page which was joined according to preference which I will introduce in the next section.

Friends’ content: content posted by friends, as well as content created by facebook regarding friends’ activities (John is now friend with Jenny, Merry joined the X fan page, 5 friends commented on post X).

From now and then facebook makes changes to the user interface, therefore the kind and content may vary.

In addition to content, you also have access to the most common tools on facebook (my inbox, my events, photos, my applications, my fan pages, my campaigns, my favorite applications…)

Content presentation preferences

There are 2 options for content presentation on your homepage:

-          Top news

Using ‘Top news’ you will see the content that facebook algorithm decided will interest you the most. Some of the criteria according to which this algorithm chooses for you are:

• Post quality – measured by the number of the interactions in the page.
• The number of interactions with the specific piece of content (high number means that this is an interesting piece of content)
• The number of interactions our friends had with this piece of content
• Our own history with the page / friend that posted the piece of content. How often do we visit this fan page or friend’s page, and do we have any interactions with him (comment on posts, ‘like’)
• How many of our friends are connected to the page in question

-          Most recent

This is an attempt to mimic the micro blogging service ‘Twitter’. It will show all the posts posted by our friends and the posts on the fan pages we joined in real – time.

Getting to know your wall

Much like the homepage, every user has his or her unique ‘wall’. My wall shows all my recent activities in facebook which can be presented and will include links.

For example, when I click ‘like’ on a picture from a fan page I joined the line “X likes the picture in page Y”. The word ‘picture’ will be a link to the picture and the page name will be a link to the page. Meaning that when a user clicks ‘like’ on a piece of content you post, you get free publicity on his homepage. This is a most important publicity, since studies show that the most common way for people to be exposed to a new content on facebook is by wandering around to see what’s on their friends’ walls. (think about it:  go back and consider the implication of ‘Top news’ as a viral marketing option…)

In addition, from your wall one can see the list of your friends, basic information about you and also have access to other tubs on your account (if you choose to share them) such as info, photos, video, and other tubs you choose to add

now this I couldn`t resist showing you all … (click the link to see how would life be if facebook was real)

The credit for this post goes to Yorai Ronen.

Questions, comments, requests and whatever’s on your mind – Feel free to contact me,

ProMarketing Wizard

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will it tweet or will it buzz?

http://polls.linkedin.com/p/89107/pypwg

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Answer our poll:

http://polls.linkedin.com/poll-results/88710/syqee

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ProMarketing

One of the most important aspects of planning an event is planning the layout of the room. They way the participants are sited and situated in the room and in reference to the speaker, influence the nature of the event and the participation and cooperation of the people in the room.

Below are some room layouts that are suitable for different events:

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Planning an event can be a stressful task. Here are 10 tips that will help you get through it.

Define the Scope of your activity

Start the planning process by defining the scope of your activity. Determining in advance what you would like your participants to gain from the activity planned will help you to focus and construct your event.

Overall Goals and Objectives

Is an event the best way to achieve these goals you set? (Versus any other activity that meats your goals and objectives)? Think this point through. An event might not always be the way to go.

Key Planning and Production Items

Consider: What are your event’s primary messages and themes?

Speakers: Decide whether or not you want to have speakers. If so, be sure to choose the ones who will help you achieve the objectives and goals you set. If there will be more than one speaker – how will their messages be differentiated and integrated? How will the program be “choreographed”?
Target Audience: What is the target audience? Think cheerfully about who you invite and who don’t invite.
Consider who else might benefit from this event beyond the primary attendees? If appropriate and feasible within budgetary constraints, consider including other members, as partners or special guests.
Date/Time/Location: What are the best dates, times and locations for this event? Why? Has adequate lead time been factored in (to invite attendees, reserve the venue, etc.)? Are you avoiding critical periods, such as back-to-school week, holiday times, and conflicts with other events that might be of interest to your target audience? Does your choice of location suit your goals/objectives? Should the venue be central, somewhat isolated or close to something / somewhere that pertains to your event?

Identify Marketing and Communications Strategies

Marketing: How will this event be marketed? How can you obtain maximum effectiveness and leverage from your event – both before and after? Have you contacted media relations representatives?
Communication: How will your message will be communicated or reinforced? Consider: invitations, printed programs, publications, advertising, and websites.
Printed Materials: Do the printed materials (design and text) clearly reflect and identify your brand? Does it reflect and convey the message you want to convey in your event?

Select the Best Date

To avoid potential scheduling problems, check the following calendars to ensure that your preferred event date won’t conflict with any other large events that may be relevant to your target group.
Holiday Calendar: This site provides dates of national and religious holidays: http://www.infoplease.com
Sunrise and Sunset Calendar: This site provides the sunrise and sunset times for any given day: http://www.sunrisesunset.com – you don’t want to plan a day event and find out you lose your light before it ends or plan a light show in broad daylight.

Event Fact Sheet

The Event Fact Sheet provides a brief event synopsis and includes basic details, such as who is attending (guest list); what is on the agenda ; what is the budget; what are the event goals; what are the general attendance statistics; and who is the contact person.
The event fact sheet is useful in helping to inform and brief staff and administrators, as well as in helping to address all of the basic event questions (who, what, where, when, etc.) for planning purposes.

Event Timeline

The event timeline is a schedule that lists the various tasks, notes, requirements, staff assignments, deadlines, etc. that pertain to the period leading up to the day of the event.
For a large-scale event, your timeline will likely cover a span of six months to a year prior to your actual event date. Plan carefully as to leave yourself some error margins.
It is advisable to create a separate timeline for your printed (or e-mail) materials (save-the-date, invitation, program, ticketing, etc.).

Financial Responsibilities

In addition to reviewing and approving your event’s programmatic content and ensuring compliance with company policy, the event manager is ultimately responsible for all costs and commitments related to the event.
It is vital to ensure that all commitments reflect, and are in line with, company policy.

Event Budget Planning – stick to your budget 

In a climate of escalating prices and limited resources, finding the best deals and meeting your bottom line are top priorities.
Planning out your expenses in advance will help you to determine the feasibility of your event, show you where you will be investing your funds and give you a clear picture of costs.

Company Policies

Companies have strict policies with respect to entertainment, gifts, insurance and travel as they relate to events. Familiarize yourself with the company regulations about each of these in advance.

The most important tip of all is learn from you events. if something goes wrong – initiate ‘an investigation’ and learn from it.

Questions, comments, requests and whatever’s on your mind – Feel free to contact me,

Marketing Wizard

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Hi all,

Email marketing is communicating a message (usually commercial) to a large audience, using emails. You can say that the email marketing is the evolution of the traditional advertizing mail, sent by post.

In today’s post I would like to offer some help with your email marketing. Here are some tips that I picked up here and there and checked myself.

When creating an email for a marketing campaign you should consider the following questions:

1. What do I want to get from the campaign?
2. Who is my audience?
3. What is my message?
4. How do I convey my message?
5. What`s in it for them?

Answering these questions will help you focus on creating a campaign that both you and your recipients benefit from.

Here are some useful tips to help you with your email marketing campaign:

A good subject line

Never underestimate a good subject line. As this is your first contact with your recipient, it is a key factor in his or her decision to read your email or to send it to the recycle bin. Try to get your message across in your subject line. An offer or a benefit is a good call.

A clear message

A short clear message is always better then a long one that you have to read through to get to the point. Keep your message clear and brief. If your readers need to read too much to get to what’s interesting, they won’t bother.

Make it attractive

Make your email campaign attractive. Use pictures and designs. But be careful about that. If there are too many pictures, the email might be a heavy one or will take time to load. Also note that software like outlook tends to remove the pictures from the email. Another thing is the filters. If the text picture ratio is in the pictures favor, the filter might classify your email as junk mail.

Frequency

How often should you send an email campaign? This is a tricky subject. Send them too far apart, and your audience will forget you. Send them too much and your audience gets annoyed. No clear answer on this one. What you should do is ask your audience how often they would like to get their emails – after you do the survey on about 10% of your list you should have a good idea about the subject.

Maintain a well segmented list

This is a very important issue. If your list is well segmented you should be able to customize the emails you send to your audience thus getting better results. An offering or a benefit that will suit one group might not suit another. Choose your criteria well. You can create a survey about issues that concern the criteria you are interested in and segment your list according to the answers you get.

Campaign results

Most of the email marketing software will offer statistics about your email campaign performances. Those results will tell you how many emails were sent, how many were opened, how many people clicked on the links within the emails, how many bounced, how many were deleted without being read etc.

Get better

Learn from the statistics. Analyze it and see where you got the better response. I suggest you do a trail run. Make a few versions of your campaign, send it to about 5-10% of your list and see which one gets better response – meaning which one did best on the statistics.

I would like to point out that the best thing about email campaign – in comparison to the transitional marketing mail sent by post or your regular flyer is that it is more environmental. The less paper the better. So please consider the environment and send your campaigns by email

Questions, comments, requests and whatever’s on your mind – Feel free to contact me,

Marketing Wizard

Credits due to:

http://bit.ly/cJi5qq

http://bit.ly/dAfmGn

http://bit.ly/cV7sNX

http://bit.ly/aXFfXK

In writing this post I used many articles I read over the past few years, I am sorry that I cannot credit you all.

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