Digital Marketing Lessons Stress Personal Touch
Sometimes it’s good to know that even the biggest companies make mistakes, so that when we make them, it doesn’t feel so bad. And more importantly, it emphasizes that it’s how you respond to the mistakes that count.
A very interesting article appeared on Mashable.com recently concerning digital marketing. Reporter Lauren Drell interviewed social media and marketing experts from top brands to get a list of 9 lessons. One involved AT&T and “an email blast sent from their VP of general marketing. It was a broad and generic email that outlined how much money AT&T was spending on infrastructure. The email outraged customers, and the team manned the Facebook Page for 48 hours, compassionately responding to every single post within ten minutes. ‘It really changed the tone of the page and within 24 hours, the sentiment totally changed because we were engaging and responding.’ Lesson learned: AT&T now personalizes email messages and geotargets its email blasts.”
On SIPA’s excellent marketing listserve, Jim Sinkinson sounded a similar tone a couple months ago. “Always write a sales letter to an individual person, not to a crowd,” he wrote. “A letter is a communication from you to one other person. Interestingly, this is a good policy to remember when giving a speech or addressing a large crowd. Speak to each person as an individual, and you’ll be listened to and heeded much more effectively.”
Drell included another example about mistakes. Tom Fishman, manager of social media and community at MTV, said that the remedy for spelling a person’s name wrong or giving a wrong time should not be a simple and sly deletion. He said it creates “an opportunity to show what kind of company you are, and that human touch (a follow-up tweet with a ‘sorry’ or ‘oops’) is something the fans appreciate more than sweeping mistakes under the rug.”
So it’s still the personalization that wins out. In Drell’s article, the idea of publicly correcting mistakes falls under the category, “Get Feedback in Real Time.” (If you’re wondering where you’ve heard this before, it’s the subject of the new book—“Real-Time Marketing and PR”—by David Meerman Scott, SIPF’s Awards Luncheon speaker at the upcoming SIPA 2011 Conference.) The idea is to closely monitor your social media presence and if something needs responding to, you respond. Right then and there.
American Express pays close attention to their tweets and Facebook posts. “It’s test and learn—if something falls flat, they fix it.” AmEx is mentioned again when it comes to “knowing who your audience is” and “where it is.” Being an international company, they “geotarget” posts on Facebook for promotions and contests. “ ‘Recognize that you’re casting a wide net and be specific about who can benefit’ from what you’re offering,” said Shari Forman, AmEx’s director of online communications and social media —“or else you could get some angry messages.”
Here are the 9 Digital Marketing Lessons from Mashable:
1. Be Human – “Nailing a tone that resonates with your audience is of paramount importance,” said Tom Fishman, manager of social media and community at MTV.
2. Know What You Want – “Every brand has its own reasons for jumping onboard with social media, and it’s important you know your reason and your goals before you start.”
3. Listen and Respond – “Social listening” is a big part of AT&T’s initiative.
4. Diversify and Pace Your Content – pay attention to your followers.
5. Inject Yourself Into the Conversation – retweet away.
6. Get Feedback in Real Time
7. Know Your Audience
8. Know the Platforms – “Twitter and Facebook are not interchangeable, and you should have a different approach for each.”
9. Create a User-Centric Experience – “When someone ‘likes’ your brand or follows it on Twitter, he’s publicly endorsing your company and becoming a brand ambassador. And so, he should be acknowledged.”
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