Archive for March, 2009
PUT THIS IN YOUR ROI PIPE AND SMOKE IT
by Eric Brown
Sometimes, When you are so very passionate about something, it is challenging to understand why others around don’t “See It” Perhaps they just think you will go away, grow weary or just loose interest. But then when you don’t wear down, the next best thing is for the pundits to fire a zillion questions to discredit or confuse the issue. That’s what seems to happen frequently with non-believers of Social Media Marketing, and it is very so frustrating.
A HERO OR A LOUDMOUTH
At first everyone poked his or her head in to see what was happening in our little shop. How are you doing that with No Paid Advertising? That won’t work long term, and the yuck went on and on. Years later, the word now is it only works because you are a small boutique shop. What? At the end of the day, continued success in a small business hinges on how you market yourself, and there are lots of ways to do that, both traditional and not so traditional. Our vote is for the not so traditional path. Why, because with Social Media Marketing, You are connecting with your Customer in a much different fashion. You are creating a Relationship.
A GRAND EXAMPLE
Our hats off to the crew over at Goodwill of Greater Washington, D.C. They have gone online with a vengeance, seizing the chance to capitalize on a social media strategy.
How would you like to have a blog so readable and persuasive that one out of every 14 readers promptly clicked over to your eBay store and bought something of yours? You’d be ecstatic. You’d close down your direct-marketing department.
If it cost you nothing except 15 percent of your star blogger’s time, you’d be thinking end-of-the-world thoughts. And if you were the first nonprofit in a nationwide chain whose social media program actually made money, well, you’d make history.
Em Hall discusses why having a mission and keeping a schedule is key to her blog’s success.
All this happened to the nine stores of Goodwill of Greater Washington, D.C. in the last 18 months. In that short time, a full-blown social media strategy with a wildly successful blog as its centerpiece has suddenly taken this familiar nonprofit into unfamiliar territory.
HOW DID THEY DO IT
Brendan Hurley, head of marketing for Goodwill of Greater Washington, credits the creative minds of his marketing team. The four of them met in June 2007 to develop a way to expand the nonprofit’s social media strategy.
The group resolved to do two things:
1) Transform their live fashion show into a virtual fashion show. The virtual show, to be held Sept. 12, 2007, would drive traffic to, and coincided with, the hard launch of Goodwill’s new eBay store. (In 2008, Goodwill of Greater Washington held both live and virtual fashion shows, generating the largest net profit in the event’s four year history by more than 50 percent.)
2) Start a fashion blog to reach a younger, hipper population of shoppers. Many people know Goodwill stores are filled with vintage fashions, and a blog would help reposition those stores as a destination for quality clothes that are cheap. They also hoped that the blog would drive traffic to their eBay store and their shopgoodwill.com stores (a national Goodwill auction site that operates like eBay).
They had no way of knowing that this strategy would succeed beyond their wildest imaginings.
BLOG AND THEY WILL COME
Em Hall, Goodwill’s retail marketing manager, volunteered to write the blog and Hurley, who knew from Hall’s work as his retail marketing manager that she was a strong writer with a passion for fashion, approved her as the official Goodwill blogger.
On July 12, 2007, Em Hall wrote her first blog as the “DCGF”. At the start, the blog averaged fewer than 25 visits a week. Now 18 months later, Hall’s blog averages 3,500 unique visitors a week. The busiest day of the week is Tuesday, which is the Goodwill-centric Day, when Hall promotes the Goodwill Good Buy of the Week.
Hall is making a regional–and perhaps national–name for herself as a fashion writer and expert.
“Which is great for Goodwill,” says Hurley. “It can only increase our credibility in the retail and fashion fields, and give more credibility to the quality of the fashions that can be found at Goodwill.”
Hall appears as “The DC Goodwill Fashionista” on Twitter, and as herself on Facebook. She’s made almost 400 online friends for herself and Goodwill of Greater Washington.
This is only the beginning
SHOW ME THE ROI
One out of 14 people who read the blog click over to one of Goodwill’s sites (eBay, ShopGoodwill.com) to shop. And, one out of six people who visited the virtual fashion show then went to ShopGoodwill.com or its eBay store to buy goods. The blog retention rate is over 60 percent and the “Fashion of Goodwill” marketing strategy has already received three awards from the American Marketing Association and is a finalist for an ISES award.
Hurley primarily credits the blog–costing almost nothing financially–as the driving force behind the success of the fashion show, eBay site and shopgoodwill.com.
“Remember, the blog is just one component of our social media strategy, but of course the blog is the linchpin, raising our credibility and driving the traffic to the virtual fashion show which drove traffic to our e-commerce sites. That was the strategy we developed, and it worked, and continues to work.”
The nonprofit’s social media strategy generated a significant amount of interest in Goodwill as a source of fashion. They’ve been featured on CNN, FOX News and NPR, as well as in The New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post, The Washington Times and every local TV stations.
While the blog got some buzz when it launched in July of ‘07, the floodgates of publicity opened after the Washington Post business section ran a cover story about the virtual fashion show. In addition, Hurley and his team have been asked to speak at several conferences about their social media fashion campaign and the “DCGF” has even been invited to blog from New York Fashion Week.
Has the social media campaign reached its peak in buzz, publicity and increased sales? Hall and Hurley believe they’ve barely scratched the surface.
“There are millions of potential Goodwill shoppers out there we haven’t reached yet,” Hurley says. “Goodwill’s mission is job training, but that mission is funded through the resale of donated goods at our retail stores. So anyone interested in donating to Goodwill or purchasing inexpensive fashion is in our crosshairs.”
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Twitter 101, Part 1
This three-part article is for those who are just getting started with Twitter or who simply want to know what it is and how it works. We’ll cover everything you need to know about setting up and using a Twitter account, and share some tools and resources to help you leverage Twitter to market yourself or your company. …
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MySpace Mobile Application to Support Microsoft Windows Mobile and Silverlight
A new MySpace mobile application set to debut this summer will support Microsoft Windows Mobile as well as Microsoft Silverlight. Silverlight is technology similar to Adobe’s Flash that powers rich media.
“We are pleased to bring MySpace users the benefits and flexibility of Microsoft’s platforms,” said Aber Whitcomb, chief technology officer of MySpace. “Our relationship enables app developers to use Silverlight to create engaging MySpace apps and allows Windows Mobile users to have a more personal MySpace experience on their phone.”
MySpace already has mobile applications for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Sidekick, Palm, and Nokia.
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Search Drives 5th Consecutive Record Setting Year in Internet Advertising
Despite the economic decline of 2008, internet advertising reached .4 billion, setting a new record high. Records have been set for five consecutive years, according to data from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
Search grew 19% over 2007, maintaining its role as the driving force behind the continued (yet slowed) growth in internet advertising.
Meanwhile, digital video is on the rise, more than doubling revenues from 4 million in 2007 to 4 million in 2008.
The fourth quarter of 2008 was the first time a single quarter surpassed billion.
“We are seeing an ongoing secular shift from traditional to online media as marketers recognize that ad dollars invested in interactive media are effective at influencing consumers and delivering measurable results,” said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO of the IAB. “In this uncertain economy, where marketers know they need to do more with less, interactive advertising provides the tools for them to build deep, engaging relationships with consumers–the experience marketers gain from this will deliver dividends especially after the economy turns around.”
Report: Jonathan Miller to Run NewsCorp’s Digital Unit
AOL’s former Chief Executive Jonathan Miller has been approached by NewsCorp to head up their digital unit, according to reports. Miller is under a non-compete agreement with AOL, but that expires within days. The agreement prevented Miller from joining Yahoo!’s expanded board, a compromise with investor Carl Icahn last summer during the Microsoft acquisition aftermath.
Currently, Miller is a partner at investment firm Velocity Interactive Group. He left AOL in 2006. Last fall, it was rumored that he wanted to buy Yahoo, but it turned out he was raising funds for Velocity, not a Yahoo purchase.
NewsCorp is the parent company of MySpace. They also have an investment in fast-rising online video site, Hulu.
Google AdSense Says Goodbye to YouTube Video Feature
Google will no longer be offering YouTube video ads in AdSense. Apparently, the feature hasn’t performed as well as AdSense had hoped. Publishers may still get video ads if they accept image ads on their sites or if the produce video content and use AdSense for video.
Meanwhile, if publishers still want to feature YouTube videos, they can, of course, embed videos directly on their site. They can also create playlists to feature multiple videos.
What do you think of Google killing YouTube video ads? Let us know in the comments.
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Google Ventures Into VC Business
Google has announced the launch of its new venture capital fund, appropriately named Google Ventures.
“At its core, Google Ventures is charged with finding and helping to develop exceptional start-ups,” Google says of its new for-profit effort.
The New York Times reports that the group is expected to invest up to 0 million in the next year. [...]
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Turn Back Google’s Clock With Retro Links Script
Back in the day, when some of us old-timer SEOs used to walk to work in the snow (uphill both ways), we’d get to our desks, fire up our 14.4 modems, pop in a floppy disk, listen to our favorite songs on a Sony Walkman cassette player and optimize that meta keywords tag like there [...]
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Microsoft’s Dr. Qi Lu, Google’s Matt Cutts To Keynote Search Marketing Expo – SMX Advanced June 2-3 in Seattle
Search Marketing Expo – SMX Advanced returns to Seattle June 2-3 with a cutting edge agenda specifically created for experienced search engine marketers.
SMX Advanced sessions are fast paced and sophisticated, packed with extended Q&A. Presenters will jump right in to cover today’s hot button search engine marketing issues, including paid search advertising (PPC), search [...]
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