Final Post: Marketing in Politics

          Over the summer, I received a piece of mail that provided an especially interesting example of effective marketing.  When I opened the letter, inside was a card that said it was from a New York State Senator named Michael H. Ranzenhofer.  Its contents proved to be a congratulatory message addressed to me for making the dean’s list at Canisius College.  The senator signed the note in pen, and wrote a personal message as well.

             Marketing within the sphere of politics is often overlooked, as traditional marketing typically deals with specific companies, products, brands and services.  Politicians are faced with the daunting task of marketing themselves to their constituents in order to maintain popularity and remain in the public’s good faith. It is my belief for several reasons that this is an exceptionally brilliant and effective marketing strategy for the purposes of this politician getting reelected and looked upon favorably in the public eye. 

            The first reason that I view this strategy in such a positive manner is because of the marketing principle of reciprocity, which according to author Robert Cialdini, is one of the six main elements of effective persuasion and marketing.  The basic premise of reciprocity is that when something is given to an individual, he or she feels an obligation to return such a favor in one way or another.  Companies often take advantage of this principle for financial gains with promotions such “free samples”.  In free samples, grocery stores and restaurants offer their customers a small amount of food, free of charge.  The reciprocity principle suggests that because the customers accepted a gift from the store, they then feel an obligation to make a purchase.  It is clear that many businesses across the country agree, as according to KnowWPC, an estimated $1 billion per year is spent by companies on sampling programs.

            Whether he knew it or not, Michael H. Ranzenhofer was utilizing the reciprocation principle when he sent me his message.  Because this letter was unrequested, surprising and most importantly free, I know feel as if I owe a debt to this State Senator.  Since it is not likely that I will ever meet this man in person, and a “thank you” letter may seem quite redundant, the most logical means of repaying this debt is to vote for him when it comes time for his reelection.  This debt may have in fact been strengthened because it was clear that Ranzenhofer signed the card himself.  In a study conducted by Randy Garner, surveys were sent out to people (a) with a handwritten sticky note requesting the completion of the survey and (b) with only the survey and a typed cover letter.  The response rate for the survey with the handwritten note received a 75% completion rate, as opposed to the other group, which only yielded a 36% completion rate.  This study shows just how much people value handwritten messages.  It is conceivable that the Senator will gain many votes in the next election because of reciprocation.

            Another reason that this card may prove to be an extremely effective marketing tool is because of a function it is likely to serve.  According to the Canisius College newspaper, The Griffin, around half of the college is comprised of commuter students, who do not live on campus.  It is reasonable to believe that other local colleges have similar statistics, and that a good portion of these students live with their parents.  Many parents are constantly looking for ways to brag about their kids, and what better way to brag than to hang a letter from a State Senator on the refrigerator, congratulating them on making the dean’s list?  Should this letter be hung up in the house, it would constantly be in view, and Mr. Ranzenhofer’s name would be in the minds of the family almost every day.  The principle of conditioning suggests that the positive feelings associating with making the dean’s list will be transferred to the Senator because the two things are so often seen together.  In this case, not only does this message affect the students to whom they are addressed to, but the entire family, thus gaining more potential votes.  Also, the target market of college students on the dean’s list are most likely more intelligent individuals, more likely to be aware of and involved in politics.  In a study conducted by Ian Deary of Scotland, it was concluded that smarter people vote more often.  Politicians should then yield a more effective result by targeting only them, as opposed to all college students.

Sources: http://knowwpcarey.com/article.cfm?aid=611

http://canisiusgriffin.com/?p=1663

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/story?id=6108897

Influence and Yes! By Robert Cialdini

Inbound Marketing Model: Content, SEO and Social Media

Luke Summerfiled offered some fantastic advice on his blog on clickz.com.  He suggested that the first thing that should be concentrated on when it comes to content in inbound marketing is the company persona, or the "complete fictional character profile that is based on your ideal customers who share common problems, needs, and wants."  This is especially important because it enables content to be more relevant to consumers, making it more powerful. Next, he recommends that the marketing funnel (seen below), be viewed. 

Search engine optimization should be in the forefront of one's mind when creating content.  Keywords and relevance should be prevalent so that your site can be found with ease on sites such as Google.  Content should continuously be monitored and altered.

Several great tips are offered here to improve a company's search engine optimization.  It is extremely important to have a great quality score on tools such as Google Adwords.  This is a device that measures sites on several different metrics such as authority and relevance that determine how high sites appear on a given search.

Social media is a vital aspect of any inbound marketing plan.  Over 1 billion users are members of Facebook alone, not to mention many other significant sites.  The existence of social media has perpetuated marketing as a whole into a whole new age, marketing 2.0.  It is because of this evolution that marketers are now able to enter a conversation with consumers, thus completely reshaping marketing as a whole

Social Metrics/ Monitoring Tools

One of the most invaluable assets of social media marketing is knowing just how well your campaign is performing.  The great thing about the Internet is that most information is trackable, meaning that effectiveness has become a measurable statistic.  There are several distinct metrics that marketers can measure to determine the effectiveness of their campaigns.  According to Social Bakers, the most important metrics include reach, post interactions, engagement rates, click through/conversion rates, key influencers/brand ambassadors, fan growth and momentum of your page, and customer service efficiency.  I believe this is a complete and comprehensive list, with growth specifically standing out in my opinion.  Growth is a metic that is often overlooked, but perhaps carries more weight than all the rest.  When a campaign loses momentum, it becomes time to drastically alter, or perhaps even remove the campaign altogether.

Probably the best tool out their in regards to social media monitoring is Alterian/SDL.  Just a few of its exciting features include share of voice (where one learns what has the greatest impact on online discussion), map overlay (where conversations can be geographically isolated) and sentiment reports (where brand perception can be gauged).  It is clear that SDL goes the extra mile to deliver hard to find functionality.  A more complete description of the program can be viewed above.

Twitter for Business

Although often considered strictly a social tool, Twitter can be extremely effective for businesses if used properly.  Several key steps, however, are necessary if businesses are to succeed by using this microblog.

First, a company should not dive right into tweeting before they clearly define their purpose for using Twitter.  Several different strategies have been adopted by businesses in the past, including generating leads, building brand awareness, or communicating with an audience.  Tweets should be built around a specific goal so that choosing the information that should be shared, as well as whom to follow will become easier.

Another important idea that businesses should be aware of is the importance of reciprocation in the Twitter world.  In order to achieve maximum success with this tool, businesses should increase activity in regards to other Twitter pages.  This will cause a feeling of obligation to return the favor, thus promoting activity and benefitting both parties.  Examples include "favoriting" and "retweeting" specific tweets and following other profiles.

Within a business, it is vital that the right person is charged with the important task of sending out tweets.  This person should have several qualities such as being knowledgable, trustworthy and a good listener.  Listening is especially important on Twitter, as it is essentially a communication tool, and responses are usually expected.  Every young, tech savvy intern may not possess all these qualities, so a careful decision is paramount in determining the proper person to assign this role.

These are merely a few basic tips for using Twitter for business, so I highly suggest you check out some of these useful sites for more information before you start.  31 Twitter Tips for Businesses and How to Use Twitter for Business both have some great advice.  Thanks for reading, and good luck!

Social Bookmarking

A simple concept, social bookmarking is essentially tagging a website and saving it for later.  In its purest form, a user will stumble upon an interesting article or site, copy and paste its information into the social bookmarking site (or in some cases simple click a button on the Internet browser) and this site will be saved onto your social bookmarking page.

This concept becomes even more interesting when one examines its social aspect.  Once a website is saved, it can then be shared and sent to your friends, clueing them in on what you have found.  In turn, you can also discover new and exciting sites that your friends have came upon.  Also, bookmarking sites often allow the user to browse through content based on specific qualifications such as popularity, newness and category.

Social bookmarking can also be applied to group projects, both in school and the workforce.  At least one social bookmarking site, diigo, allows specific groups to be formed.  In these groups, various articles that are relevant to a common goal can be shared amongst members, increasing cooperation and streamlining productivity.

Which RSS Reader is Best?

One of the best and most efficient ways of getting your news and information can be through the utilization of an RSS reader.  RSS (or Really Simple Syndication) readers are, according to wikipedia, "client software or web applications which aggregate syndicated web content such as news headlines, blogs, podcasts, and video blogs in one location for easy viewing." In other words, these readers allow you to get all of your news in one place.  The problem, however, comes into play in deciding which among the multitude of RSS options to use.  In my experience, I have experimented with several different such applications and have come to the conclusion that one in particular has separated itself from the rest.

The best RSS reader that I have come across, and the one that I would recommend to all my readers is without doubt, Digg.  The reader that this site offers is extremely user friendly and easy to navigate through.  It took virtually no time at all for me to get used to this application.  It is also chalk full of great features such as the "Digg" button.  Clicking on this button is similar to a "like" on Facebook, and allows you to even further organize your influx of information.  Also, clicking on the "popular" tab will allow to gather some of the most viewed recent articles.  Although I struggled to find any negatives associated with the Digg reader, I do concede that I did have some trouble logging into the system a few times.  This, however, may have been due to poor internet connection, and not a reflection of a bug on Digg.

  
Another RSS reader that I have used is Feedly. This application has several positive features as well, including a customizable layout that the user can set to his or her liking.  Layouts with the themes of magazines, mosaic, titles, cards and full articles are all readily available.  Another positive attribute of this application is its intelligent use of keyboard shortcuts.  The main thing that turned me off to Feedly, however, was the general clutter of the interface.  Although this can be partially reduced through changing the layout, I could not make it as simple and user-friendly as Digg.  I also did not like the extremely visible presence of ads.

  

The final reader that I have experienced is Bloglovin'.  I appreciated this websites streamlined look and also appreciated the categorization aspect of it, as you can sort articles into folders.  Aside from that, however, I found myself to be somewhat limited on what I could achieve with Bloglovin'.  I felt as though it lacked some of the features that other sites offered.

This is simply my opinion, and I am curious to know yours!  Which RSS Reader do you use and why?

Managerial/ Leadership Strategies: Social vs. Traditional

As the principles and philosophies of traditional and social marketing strategies greatly differ, so too do the managerial and leadership strategies that go along with them.  In order to highlight these differences, we must revisit the goals and content of each strategy.  The fundamental difference between social marketing and traditional marketing is that social marketing involves a conversation both among consumers and between consumers and companies, whereas traditional marketing involves a one-way street of broadcasting messages to mass amounts of people.  This undoubtedly entails vast differences in managerial strategies, which will be the content of this post.

The first, and most obvious evolution in managerial strategy for social marketing involves a conscious focus on maintaining a positive online reputation.  Managers must constantly be aware of what is being said about their companies, and there are many ways to monitor this.  A popular strategy involves enlisting the help of websites such as trackur.com that skim the Internet for relevant information regarding your company, specifically social media sites.  Specifically, Trackur enables the user to check the health of a brand, coordinate with RSS readers, influence and sentiment analysis among other features for the reasonable price of $27 per month.  With over 1 billion users on Facebook alone and many more on various other social media sites, the conversations regarding companies and products that take place in these platforms are overwhelming.  Monitoring and improving the online reputation of a company or brand should be a primary focus of any marketing manager under social marketing, whereas this was not an issue with traditional marketing.

Another strategy that many marketing managers are adapting involves the hiring of a "social media marketing manager".  This is a very loose title, and the specific tasks associated with the position can vary greatly across different fields.  One specific account of such a position can be viewed here.  Generally speaking, a social media marketing manager's sole purpose is to manage the company's presence on social media sites.  Because of the sheer mass of information that is transferred throughout these sites, this position has become something of a necessity.

Those involved in social marketing must also learn to be able to change easily.  One of the benefits of the social marketing age is the increased level of instant feedback from consumers.  This feedback, however, becomes useless if it is not being properly looked at.  Changes can be made from suggestions on social media that could undoubtedly greatly benefit the company in the long run.

It is clear that social marketing managers have much more responsibility than traditional marketing managers.  Where the latter is merely concerned with the process of one message reaching large amounts of people, social marketers must concern themselves with the conversations that occur amongst a large amount of people.