From: Jeffery Giesener – CEO – ShoppeSimple Network
I have been reading Scott Stratten’s book called UnMarketing*…Stop Marketing…Start Engaging.
Engaging, that’s a word I frequently use to discuss Social topics along with Conversation. Stratten also focuses on “Listening” to your consumer. This is a terrific book and it advocates a very different approach away from traditional marketing. Two thumbs up.
In the book, Stratten discusses how Traditional Marketing is dying a slow, painful death. He makes a strong passionate statement: “that when you go the route of UnMarketing, you’ll find innovative ways out of the old “Push Marketing” ways of the past, which assumes messages sent out blindly and broadly will magically lead to loyal and long-tem clients.
Instead, why not discover a new approach called “Pull Marketing that brings consumers to you through listening, conversation and engagement enabling you to build trust and position your company as their logical choice when they need your services.”
Engaging, listening and conversing with consumers is exactly what makes The ShoppeSimple Network so successful in driving Social and Mobile Commerce for our clients.
Thinking about Stratten’s words, have you determined when your Facebook Store is launching? When are you going to put muscle behind your marketing on Twitter? What are you planning to do with m-commerce? On Facebook, are you building a self-contained Facebook Store where checkouts are being done on Facebook or are you wanting to drive the Facebook traffic back to your website? Have you thought about data protection issues on Facebook and are you concerned about your consumer’s data security on Facebook? When are you going to start using YouTube to market your business?
After saying all of the above, I hope you are not one of the 75% of brands/merchants who have yet to even put together a Social/Mobile Marketing strategy? If not now…when?
Listening, Conversation and Engagement…
It took Facebook, YouTube and Twitter just a few years to amass mega-millions of consumers on their platforms? Are they/have they perfected the art of listening, engagement and conversation?
Have you thought about your Push Marketing techniques and whether they are the reasons why consumers are defecting off your website (you know around 80-90% of your visitors never move beyond your home page from the link into your website)?
- Why do think you have a minimum of 70% non-open rates to your emails? Is it also because Push Marketing is raising its ugly head?
- Why have your E-mail click through rates been steadily declining (now continuously moving south to <8%); is it more Push Marketing?
Push-N-Pray on Facebook…Yikes
What a pity that we are now witnessing the positives of merchants moving their business into social environments like Facebook with the builds of their Facebook Store and then choosing the old school approach of Push-N-Pray Marketing. Believing by pushing their product catalog at their consumers on Facebook, Twitter and Mobile they can maximize their social commerce. Then they wonder in the Marketing Meetings and Boardrooms why they are not seeing social sales or social is not generating a ROI for them. No surprise here!
Are merchants/brands Listening to their Consumer and asking them if pushing a product catalog at them is what they wanted out of their social Engagement with the brand? Are these merchants trying to build Conversations with their consumers or are they are just assuming one exists?
Push-N-Pray just won’t work in Social and Mobile. And if you do it, I am afraid these platforms will just eat your business alive. You will be rowing your social boat in the opposite direction of your consumer’s social tide.
Stirring your coffee
In the age of Social and Mobile, “fire hosing consumers with your product catalog” just doesn’t cut it anymore. Just look at what your marketing trends are telling you. Doing what you have always done and not realizing that it isn’t working anymore is like someone never trying a Starbucks. It’s also probably the most significant reason why consumers will be defecting from you and into your competitor’s business.
Pull, Place, Buy and Share Marketing…
There is another marketing approach in the Age of Social: one that doesn’t require consumers to arm themselves to defend against the push marketing arms race.
At The ShoppeSimple Network we call this “Pull, Place, Buy and Share™” Marketing where your consumer gives you the permission to market to them everyday. As Seth Godin wrote in his ground breaking work Permission Marketing, it doesn’t take much to build a great relationship with your consumer if you would only ask them for their permission and then not take it by assumption. And because you further respect their Digital Rights, we have found that these social consumers will not only buy from you, but also share your offers with their Likes, Followers and Mobile friends.
At The ShoppeSimple Network we integrate your business into a network of social and mobile portals including building you a Facebook Store that enables your consumers to pre-select the products they want to see on your Facebook Store, in Twitter and on their mobile smartphones; products that are highly relevant and targeted to their wants and needs. Then we send your Facebook/Twitter and Mobile consumers back to your website to complete the purchase. We do not do check outs on Facebook so your consumer’s data is protected and not shared with Facebook or other Facebook partners. http://bit.ly/9Qi8v1
So what will happen when you get in front of your consumers with your offers that are welcomed and fully permissioned? Your consumers will buy your products through The ShoppeSimple Network, will bookmark your offers on their iGoogle, MyYahoo home pages, their Facebook and Twitter pages, share them with their Facebook Likes and Twitter Followers, email and text their friends multiple times a day, 365 days a year. The result is new unbudgeted sales for your business.
What you will quickly find is that The ShoppeSimple Network builds a new social loyalty program for your business without causing channel shift. Your business will also quickly build a highly scalable Social Commerce channel. Why? Because using any one of our 5 Social and Mobile components will enable your business to experience higher average orders, more order frequency, increased consumer loyalty and higher conversion rates than you are getting today. Trust me…our clients have done the A/B split tests to prove the above points and we guarantee results.
We do all of this for one low monthly subscription fee without any commission “toll” or monthly maintenance fee. And you will be up and running in less than 30 days with no IT involvement.
As the leader in the space, we would welcome the opportunity to engage in a conversation and listen to your social requirements. We guarantee that we will build a social program that will meet your needs. Of course we know that a program like The ShoppeSimple Network needs to be presented to be fully understood and we do that in an interactive online presentation 1:1 or with your marketing colleagues. We’ll clear our schedules to do just that so give us a reply ping to set up the virtual meeting or call us at 612-349-2740.
Best,
Jeffery