In her latest article for the monthly publication GREENCREST’S Chief Strategy Officer discusses how to analyze industry trends and determine the effect and impact they are likely to have.

You can read the article in it entirety on the Smart Business Columbus website.

Kelly Borth, GREENCREST Chief Creative Officer, shared with October’s Smart Business readers her insight on “How to Join the Mobile Revolution and Help Change Your World”.

“The mobile revolution is here and skyrocketing. It reminds me of social media in 2009 —it was no longer something to ponder, but rather to embrace.

One of the biggest adjustments businesses have had to make in the first decade of the millennium to remain relevant has been to adapt to the major shift in the way people communicate. Well, it’s time to crank it up another notch and join the mobile revolution.”

Click Here to read the rest of the article on Smart Business’ website.

Investing time and money in social media marketing is hard to justify especially if you’re concerned about ROI. Social media, as part of your overall marketing efforts, can help increase awareness and recognition for your company, decrease customer service costs, increase sales, and make your company more credible in the eyes of your customers.

Regardless of the benefits, unless you see improved ROI, it may be difficult to justify dollars and time spent on social media. Calculating ROI on social media can be as simple as tracking visitors, bounce rates, and number of fans. Or if you’ve been involved with social media for awhile and have grasped a good understanding of your customer base, you can track changes in sales and costs involved with customer service.

Before you can begin evaluating whether or not your social media efforts are effective, you need to make sure you’re using the right tools. If most of your customers are using Linked In and you’re using Twitter instead, tracking user data and sales changes will be useless for your company.

Establishing measurable goals using the SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely) method is the first step in measuring the effectiveness of social media. Using the SMART method will ensure that you are setting the right goals and guarantee you can measure them. It’s also beneficial to make sure your goals will match a measurable outcome and you know what data you will use to measure those goals.

If you have a well-defined social media strategy and measurable objectives, you will be able to gather data on your users and measure KPIs. Data such as number of fans or followers, website visitors, click-throughs, retweets, bookmarks, likes, comments, time spent on landing pages and the like will provide useful demographic information about your visitors. Overtime, you’ll not only have more information about your customers, but have a better understanding of their level of engagement and the depth of their visit. This information will allow you to establish better customer service programs and/or sales programs, develop more effective landing pages, push products that better meet your target customers’ needs, and qualify leads.

Eventually the data you gather will allow you to determine if there is a corollary in sales or business expenditures. Although you can start mining data immediately, it’s best to wait till your social media efforts are more mature before you start calculating ROI. Before you start out in social media, make sure you have baseline data on sales and costs involved with customer service data, assuming that is the information you will use to calculate your ROI. After a six to 12 month period, you can overlay this information with current sales and support costs to determine ROI.
Results in social media will vary from company to company as each organization will have an entirely different set of goals. To be successful in social media and see an ROI, you need to make sure you’ve established measurable goals specific to your company. Comparing the results of your social media efforts to another company will not prove to be beneficial and will provide you with no real results. If you’re not seeing results after a year, it’s probably time to rethink your social media strategy. The data you’ve gathered in the meantime will allow you to improve your efforts in social media.

A new year always provides fresh thought, renewed energy and new opportunities to explore. Unlike last year when economists were predicting a decline, 2010 is predicted to incline as businesses and consumers slowly begin to come out of hiding.

A new year always provides fresh thought, renewed energy and new opportunities to explore. Unlike last year when economists were predicting a decline, 2010 is predicted to incline as businesses and consumers slowly begin to come out of hiding. Economists hail that this is the best time to invest in marketing, so revisit your marketing plan from 2009 and put implementation back on the fast-track. For some companies, age-old marketing strategies may no longer be the most viable. Maybe your best opportunities lie in a new market sector or geographic region. So now what? Will the same marketing approach work with this new market? What if a competitor already owns the market position? How does your potential customer base look, feel and react?

Sometimes, entering a new market is an obvious decision—your customers are already asking for your participation, the competition has gone by the wayside or nobody really “owns” the market. Most often times, however, the decision is not as obvious and many factors need to weigh into the decision. While there is always some risk involved in entering a new market, doing your homework will ensure a successful venture.

From a marketing perspective, it is important that you invest in market research upfront. It is critical to understand the competition’s marketing approach in order to determine how you will position yourself in the marketplace. Who is your competition trying to reach? What is their unique selling proposition? What sets you apart? What need is not being fulfilled? Equally important, is to understand your potential customers. If you are not meeting the needs of the market, all efforts will be futile.

Knowing how to develop an effective marketing plan can pave the way to successfully entering a new market. It is important that you are able to dedicate a reasonable marketing budget toward a new launch to ensure that your potential customer base is aware of your products or services. Your budget should allow marketing to your existing customer base as well as developing an entirely new base of potential customers. Furthermore, it is essential to ensure that you can deliver internally. Nothing is more damaging to a brand than not being able to deliver on your brand promise.

The first in a series of Marketing Prose podcasts: Does Social Media Have a Place in Your Business?

Does Social Media Have a Place in Your Business?

It is not easy to know the best way to integrate social media into your marketing strategy, or if it is right for you. According to a recent report from Forbes, more than half of executives under 40 are actively engaged in social media. In addition, another study released by Forrester Research indicated 91 percent of B2B decision makers are taking part in social media. Does social media have a place in your business?

While the economy is a little uncertain, your marketing plan doesn’t need to be. By fine-tuning your marketing strategy in 2009, you can maintain a strong voice, increase market share and be top-of-mind when the situation improves.

It’s official… we are entering 2009 in a recession. While many have felt the economic crunch for sometime now, the announcement made in early December sent more fear into the marketplace. Companies are tightening their belts to adjust to their 2008 earnings and 2009 projections. While some economists predict a bounceback in as little as six months, others state the economy will be slow into 2010. While pulling out of advertising completely is usually not a wise decision—the market will come back eventually and you don’t want your customers to forget about you—marketing efforts can be fine-tuned during tough economic times.

Search Marketing and Social Media

The advent of search marketing and social media has brought many cost-effective marketing measures to the forefront. As consumers continue to make more decisions based on online information, it is important your site can be found among the competition. The first step is to make sure your site is designed according to search marketing “best practices” and is optimized for search engines. From there, it is important to keep your site continually updated by posting current press releases, articles, white papers and other news. Adding a blog or podcast will help enhance your site and drive additional traffic. As budgets permit, pay-per-click campaigns are also a cost-effective measure in directing Web site traffic.

In addition to search marketing, many companies will benefit from social media in 2009. From Facebook and LinkedIn to YouTube and Twitter, companies are reaping the benefits of these free opportunities. The most important part of a social media campaign is to ensure someone is in place to manage the process and monitor the message.

Direct Marketing

Now is the time to ensure your mailing lists are up-to date! While traditional postcard mailers are a great way to reach customers, HTML e-mails can be even better in today’s economy. The elimination of postage and printing costs allows a company to increase their frequency through e-mail. Assuming you can reach at least 85% of your contact list through e-mail, HTMLs are better if looking to trim your marketing budget in 2009.

Public Relations

There’s no such thing as free publicity… or is there? While public and media relations are often viewed as a “luxury,” the return-on-investment is typically valued at 10:1 or more. Third-party validation of your message becomes more crucial in a recession. Press releases and articles are not the only consideration—white papers and case studies also serve to open the door on publicity opportunities. Consider community relations opportunities and speaking engagements to become more visible to your audience as well.

advertising and collateral materials—Now is the time to fine-tune advertising and collateral materials through evaluating the true ROI. All advertising efforts should offer a strong call to action to encourage the audience to visit your Web site, call your toll free number or make the purchase. Frequency of message is usually more important than reach, so be sure to do one media well before moving on to the next. In considering your collateral materials, enlist the help of your sales team. One of your biggest marketing assets, the sales team can tell you what brochures or newsletters are needed most, which trade shows have netted the greatest results and which magazines your customers are reading.

Go Viral

Look for opportunities to speak to your customers at a one-on-one level to assist in relationship building and customer loyalty. Lunch-and-learns are a more cost-effective measure than trade shows for some companies, while hosting trade and association events is an effective means for others. Empower your repeat business by creating a loyalty program and reward your customers for their word-of-mouth endorsement through a referral program. Create a “buzz” to stay visible.