This legitimizes the power and success of social media and re-enforces for all businesses – it is time to get into the game. It also points to many other big companies, Canada’s major retailer The Bay is rumored to be looking at an IPO for the fall. But how are these retailers leveraging the power of social media – as they step into the future in their marketing and continue to engage  their customers?

Everywhere you turn, analysts, media guru’s and business consultants are coming out to talk about social media. The retail industry is just beginning to jump into the foray. I think what is lost on so many businesses – but vital for these retailers is the understanding and skill of linking total communications – to their digital strategy using social media. They all began and continue offline to market to their customers with flyers, magazine inserts, pop -(point of sale) signage in-store, radio and television commercials. Those retailers who have a long history – take with them their brand identity and recognition via these marketing vehicles. As more retailers look to transfer that online traffic to their stores – they need to clearly understand how their customer  wants to communicate in the digital space. Then link their traditional marketing efforts to that digital strategy – seamlessly.

Social media is about engagement. These companies began their engagement with customers offline. Where the message for execution is being lost for many businesses is – that social media communities are extensions of what has and does happen in the real world.  Social media is a way to personally engage and build a one one on one relationship with your customer. The real success and skill comes from mirroring that traditional relationship with your company and brand and moving it online. What were the positive results and transactions you had with your customers offline?

Finding influencers in your target market and creating discussions, sharing ideas, expertise and taking their ideas and expertise to be shared with others in your community is where the success is going to be greatest. Remembering where you started and having a seamless pathway for your customers to travel – using the tools that are familiar and easily available to them, is taking that total communications purpose and making sure that you are making the transition with ease and comfort.

So where to start? Almost everyone has a Facebook page and coming behind Facebook many have a Twitter account. Almost all businesses have a website and from there they can use a multitude of ways to guide their customers in the way they want to communicate. Understanding the total communications pathway and leveraging that path to engage via social media will ensure nobody gets left behind!

Best Nicole

I was thinking about our small boutique agency. As we continue to grow and create successful campaigns for our clients, we work to carve out a space for those companies who greatly desire our skill, expertise, creative tech skills & bandwidth -while meeting and exceeding their objectives. Yes and keeping the money in their pockets with low cost innovation and implementation and high returns. Some believe the more “likers” and followers you have the better success you will be – yet they forget that it is quality not quantity you want via information and engagement. There is today no accident that your neighbor, former high school teacher, doctor, dentist and boss former & current are all on Facebook. (Yes we may all want to take an extra minute to review our privacy settings) It means that all the brands you can think of, businesses, products and services know we are all there too and they are looking for new marcom partners and business advisers to help them reach all of us. Both online and offline. It will be those such as ourselves with a wealth of award winning traditional talent and  savvy experiential technical talent – who clearly understand and can translate that user experience – on an array of platforms, that will help you knock it out of the park- in reaching that customer in the place you desire to have them go.

In the past – the key to audience targeting was focused on assigning people to demographics such as age, gender and location. While this info. is still vital – with so much data available to us now and the idea that understanding that data first- before going forward with that “knock it out of the park campaign” means much success in the campaigns you create.

“Targeting can be and is much more dynamic and can gauge your interests and preferences.” Ever notice that the ads on Facebook and Twitter, the suggested people to follow and things that relate to what you like and care about are truly on par just for you? It is this behavioral targeting that is now the future of where the internet and your marketing and communications is going both offline and online.

Mashable.com has a great article from a week ago that speaks to this very topic. Lauren Drell writes about 4 Ways That Behavioral Targeting is Changing the Web. It is a brilliant article that I encourage all of you who are looking to better understand and target your customers to read.

Drell gives a great explanation of how this works for those that are not yet familiar -“Here’s how behavioral targeting works: Targeting companies establish an agreement with a publisher, who puts a piece of code on his website. (That publisher must have a clearly stated policy for the consumer to opt out from having data collected.) Then, when you’re browsing the web, the site will put a cookie on your browser, which populates as you surf. (Though one interviewee, ContextWeb, targets based on content and not cookies.) Now that your browser has a cookie, the targeting begins. Data points amass as you click your way from site to site, taking note of what you buy, what you read and what you search for. The more time goes on, the more data is collected.”

Companies that are paying attention to this understanding and moving towards  behavioral targeting with their data – through their advertising- can’t help but to expect more success and engagement by people who have indicated on the web what their preferences are and that they would be interested in YOUR product and or service. Of course this detailed data collection can be more costly, but the sales conversion rate of targeting to the correct buyer is sure to offset this cost. The viral advantage grows as well – as those accurately targeted customers- then SHARE those products , your products – with prequalified friends, family and colleagues.

Viva the future.

Best Nicole

Google Canada continued to tweet that, cost, simplicity and time were stopping small businesses and big business to I might add from leveraging online initiatives. They answered with “Canada Get Your Business Online” initiative. With this initiative Google will hand out websites and domain names to at least 100,000 small and medium sized Canadian businesses, with the bill being footed by Google.” Great way to get businesses started in the online space.

I believe though – that although many of these business owners and marketing managers are familiar with the internet and use it in their everyday life,  many have Facebook pages, smart phones and use those too daily. There is still a lack of understanding and evidence as to the link for these online tools and the success of their business. For most – success means seeing data, and monetary growth in their particular business that – is derived specifically via online channels.  To make an online investment it may mean – taking away current successful dollars from the offline marketing campaigns to invest in that “unknown, unproven space“. At the end of the day – any investment and cost that involves marketing – needs a big return on the investment made – to make sense and be of value no matter the size or success of the business.

In Canada alone -it is ironic that “Canada may be known as the most plugged-in population in the world (spending 43.5 hours per month online, nearly double the global average)” yet there are 1 million companies that do not have  presence online, let alone an e-commerce component. The power of total communications means, a business can leverage their current success offline to build quick success online. That dollar can be shared and used to benefit both aspects of your marketing to enhance your customer reach, broaden opportunity for brand exposure and sales. You also ensure that you reach each and every customer where they are most comfortable.

This new world is about  relationships. Understanding who they are, getting to know where  they are, how they want and like to communicate and the respectful act of slowly developing a meaningful relationship – that benefits both of the parties objectives, values and goals . As an example; creating a campaign on Facebook for a business that has  a retail location, will most certainly be more powerful – if you promote and share your online campaign in your in-store signage, your print materials, receipts that you provide at cash registers and other offline modes of communication that you currently use. What about the sales people in your store – that get to talk about the partnership that has been created with your online business. They want customers to continue to visit their stores. Some of those visitors can be the ones that find you online and have yet to come to your bricks and mortar locations. Others that have not visited you online may be unfamiliar with the idea that they could research certain products or services at home, before visiting your bricks and mortar locations. Now all parts of your business team are working together for mutual success rather than as separate entities. This gives your business more ways to make money and it makes it more meaningful- for your team members to be included in the various ways your business can grow.

It is that total communications mentality that can help grow your business and add to the current success you have had online or offline. You do not have to sacrifice one to benefit the other. There are so many ways to bridge that gap online – in ways that are far more cost effective than many of the offline marketing tools. With a clear understanding, effective and simple measurement and tracking tools – you can effectively find success that far exceeds your current planning and previous monetary success. Being digitally ahead, leveraging your total communications marketing tools = more customer reach, establishing meaningful customer relationships and more opportunity to meet your business objectives.

Time to get online and SHARE your offline communications dollars and success for a digitally ahead, total communications campaign!

Best Nicole

As we work to gear up with new campaigns for our clients in 2011 – using a digitally ahead- total communications outlook – leveraging tools like Facebook, Twitter and Youtube do and can work - not only for consumer engagement but to increase sales too! In a great article posted on Brandchannel.com – Going Social: Brands Large and Small Must Adapt to Social Media in 2011, Author Barry Silverstein says” Going social will demand a whole new level of consumer responsiveness from brand marketers – and a whole new way of looking at lead generation and qualifications process. Those who rise to that challenge will have the distinct advantage over their competitors in 2011. Click here to read more of this article.

For us the proof is always in the case studies and examples of success to show how powerful something can become. Everyone by now is familiar with the Old Spice campaign. That campaign garnered 140 million views on Twitter, an increase of Facebook fans of 2700% and 1.2 million Facebook fans. Sales rose 107%, according to Neilsen Data. You can’t get better than that. Here’s a link to a video from CREATIVITY that provides a case study for you to see how it worked so well.

The famed agency Weiden Kennedy knocked it out of the park with this one. What are you gonna do?

Best Nicole

When you begin to engage your community it will be come clear within the community – the ways to which your” likers” or community members  love to share information. It may even be in ways that will go outside or beyond the products and services that – you focused your community building on. Finding creative ways to allow these most important customers – to be able to engage others, share their lives, ideas, opinions and interests  -will allow and encourage others to share back. You create a real human association as well – when you are now allowing those who use and love your products most – to be your marketing spokes people. Lets not forget the opportunity to increase sales with people who are so eager to share themselves with others and learn new things in a place that you opened up to them. You also get to learn by listening to this burgeoning community you are building and find out what people love, dislike and are truly interested in – as it relates to your products and services, as well as the customers who are passionate about what you do and want to connect with others with similar interests.

It is no surprise that many companies are now using Facebook as a platform to build communities and engage their customers. 250 million people go on Facebook everyday! There is a wonderful post I came across today – that led to this article from my favorite social media site Mashable.com. It features 5 valuable online community marketing lessons from Kraft’s Philadelphia Cream Cheese. This article is written by Sarah Kessler. The community called “The Real Women of Philadelphia” is led by Paula Deen, as their celebrity brand ambassador. Results have exceeded expectation in community size goals, community engagement and sales. Better yet by letting this community build and form on its own – a whole group of women have found ways to engage and support one another far beyond cream cheese!

All good relationships are about listening, sharing and working together to build value to each person in that relationship. By letting your community take charge – you open the doors to some magical opportunities for both the community and your brand!

Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers.

Best Nicole

Asking kitchen-savvy women to not only invent their own dishes, but also shoot, edit and upload videos to a contest website seems like a recipe for disaster. But when Kraft invited women to do just that in its latest online promotional campaign for Philadelphia Cream Cheese, it got about 5,600 more responses than the 400 it set as its goal. With Paula Deen at its helm, what was intended to be a one-year campaign blossomed into a thriving social network of more than 30,000 women.

“When it was all laid on the table, I couldn’t believe the opportunity. I had to pass on an ‘attagirl’ or a boost to more women out there,” explained Paula Deen at a recent promotional luncheon.

When someone seated at a nearby table reminded Deen that the campaign has also been successful in selling more cream cheese, she looked sarcastically surprised. “It did? I hadn’t even thought of that!” she said.

The truth is that the The Real Women of Philadelphia helped sell quite a bit more cream cheese — 5% more, as of August. As a branded social network, The Real Women of Philadelphia is about as successful as the cream-cheese-infused French Apple Cake that swept the dessert video competition. These four aspects contributed to the campaign’s sweet success:

1. Leverage an Existing Community

There are arguably few personalities who could represent cream cheese with more gusto, and Paula Deen’s large fan base was likely to already be cooking with cream cheese. By advertising the Real Women of Philadelphia campaign on Paula Deen’s website and having Paula Deen star in ads on other media, Kraft was able to reach an existing community of the women it wanted to speak to. EQAL, the company that beat out companies like ABC and Yahoo for the opportunity to produce the campaign in partnership with Digitas, referred to Paula Deen’s role as the “igniter.”

2. Create a Reason for Users to Create Content

Even with Paula Deen as an ambassador, it’s hard to imagine that the campaign would have had much success as, let’s say, a social network feature on the Philadelphia Cream Cheese website. The competitive aspect was and is crucial to the success. For the first iteration of the contest, women submitted instructional videos about their invented cream cheese recipes. Sixteen finalists were chosen and flown to Savannah for a live webcast competition, hosted by Paula Deen, that determined the four women who would become “hosts” for the next iteration of the competition and win $25,000. Currently these four hosts are accepting submissions for the cookbook that Kraft will create using 80 of the best recipes from the community, recipes from the four hosts, and Paula Deen recipes. Every day the hosts choose a winning recipe from the community, which earns its author $500.

Because women have invested themselves in creating content for these contests, they feel more ownership of the site and are more likely to visit frequently. Greg Goodfried, the co-founder and COO of EQAL, says that it’s important to have some motive for people to create content on a branded social network. This motive doesn’t necessarily need to be a competition, but it needs to be strong enough to spark the community.

3. Focus on Community Content, Not Your Content

Between videos of Paula Deen and vidoes starring the four hosts, the EQAL team has produced more than 50 videos for the site. But they are careful to keep the spotlight on the user-generated content. During the initial competition, for instance, the homepage featured select submissions. One main feature of the site is a gallery of community recipe submissions, and the team will post especially impressive contributions from the community on the LoveMyPhilly Facebook and Twitter accounts.

“There was a really great sense that the content people were sending in was the main attraction and made them feel like stars, and it made people thoroughly engaged,” Goodfried says.

4. Step Aside

When Kraft launched the campaign, the company wasn’t sure what to expect.

“I think originally we thought that they would talk a lot about food, a lot about the competition,” Goodfried says. “[We thought] there might be a little bit of competitive component to it, and they would just all be excited about the opportunity to win.”

When the women started talking about their personal lives, it surprised the community’s architects. At one point, a woman mentioned that she couldn’t afford a dress for her daughter’s school dance. Other women in the community offered to ship their own grown daughters’ dresses to her. One woman offered to make a dress. Another woman who wasn’t sure how to use a video editing program mailed her raw video submission to another member of the community who had volunteered to edit it.

Instead of trying to divert these discussions back toward cream cheese, EQAL decided to let the community shape the site. When the managers saw the conversations shaping around individuals lives, they added a weekly “spotlight” post in which they profile a community member that has been nominated or shared something interesting on the site. When forum topics popped up that were unrelated to Kraft, cheese, or food, they let them be. The tools on the site allowed women to create a robust profile, privately message each other, and participate in whatever way they wanted. By letting the members shape the community, Kraft was able to build a stronger one.

“These incredible personal connections that extended beyond food, beyond cooking, beyond anything related to the competition just occurred,” Goodfried says. “There are substantial numbers of women that we have talked to that have way more friends on Real Women of Philadelphia than they have on Facebook.”

5. Play a Supportive Role, Not a Director’s Role

If the creators of the social network can make it richer by getting out of the way, what are they supposed to do once the site launches?

In this case, they spent a lot of time helping women participate by fielding questions about editing and uploading videos. After a couple of weeks, other women in the community started answering these kinds of questions in the forums. But the role of the managers remained supportive.

“The only reason we build these sites is to encourage people to come to them to make content and submit content,” Goodfried says. “It’s not one-way where we’re just publishing things and people are coming and consuming it. We’re trying to start this spark of a conversation, this spark of community, and then encourage the community to be engaged.”

As I drove back to my office after the conference I realized – even with all the information available on this most important marketing shift and the SHARING we have done – there are many large and small companies – that are just getting started and are still unsure of how to ensure success.  I thought I would offer some ideas – that can be applied to any  social media marketing efforts to help garner immediate results as quickly as possible.

1. Most brands have established who they are product and service wise – but many have not allowed themselves to reveal their personality. By this I mean – you must be assessable and approachable. Encourage your visitors to share their ideas, opinions and provide feedback. You want to retract the traditional methods of talking at people or pushing information and facilitate a two way conversation that welcomes your participants, encourages them to talk with you and makes them feel so good they want to come back and share with others. Don’t forget your employees. They are your first and best brand ambassadors. Create rules and guidelines that fit your companies policies – but encourage them to talk about your business and galvanize your customers to join in with them.

2. Create information and content that can be shared! Make it fun and interesting. Ask questions and listen to the feedback and the content that gets passed along – as guidelines of what your audience enjoys and connects with. Be sure to be consistent and respond to any requests, questions and opinions so that your audience knows that you are listening as well as providing information. This will help add value to the online conversation for your entire community.

3. Acknowledge your brand ambassadors and community participants. Let them know how happy you are to have them supporting you. Be sure to respond to every comment, email, blog comment, Tweet or Facebook post. It is no different than how you would treat a friend. You don’t want them to think that you are ignoring them – all good relationships are built on taking time to nurture each person individually.

4. Continuity of marketing channels is key.  Integrating all of your marketing tools from your website, to your blog, email campaigns, in-store and offline campaigns and your online communities which might be microsites, Facebook and Twitter pages. All must be unified – sharing the same message but communicated in different ways. Like all of us we have different ways of communicating and taking the time to understand the way your target market likes to communicate- gives you have a much better chance of engaging them. Leverage your various sites to promote one another. So on your home page – you might include find us on Facebook and Twitter. Do the same on your Twitter and Facebook pages and provide links where they can easily access the way they would like to connect with you and share you with their communities.

5. Don’t look sideways. So many companies hear or read about businesses that have a gazillion fans on Twitter and decide that they should dive into Twitter hoping for the same results. It could be that your target market doesn’t use Twitter. You want to strategize and understand who and where YOUR customers are and meet them there. It is always great to know what your competition is doing and how they are communicating with their customers but remember – no two people or business are the same. Be true to who YOU are!

Best Nicole

The idea behind using social sharing in email campaigns is to encourage and let members of your database do the sharing of the emails they are receiving. In addition to an extended brand awareness this is a superb way to augment email lists – which appears to be the mandate of many marketers these days – in particular retailers who are looking to drive customers to both their e-commerce sites and bricks and mortar locations. While the email campaigns are being socialized – it makes pretty good sense that you stand to enhance SEO results (search engine marketing) without spending alot of additional effort.

For those that are just starting out to build an email campaign – social media is a great way to begin building a relationship and build the list. “A homebuilder in Indianapolis ran a “12 Days” promotion during the holidays on Facebook, with prizes including free furniture for an entire home.  Twitter also was used to create interest in the promotion.  As news of the promotion spread and people signed up for the contest, the company was gathering names and email addresses for a future email list.  While marketers are used to driving prospects to their Web site and building campaign lists this way, social media is unique because it disarms prospects by building a connection with them in advance.” (example quoted from Media post)

Posting questions and or polls can help with research that can be leveraged on social media sites such as Linkedin and then linked back to your website or syndicated to your Facebook and Twitter pages. Asking people to share their ideas and give their opinions is a good way to start to engage your customers and let them know that you are interested in what they think. This can prove as invaluable research, while helping a retailer decide on the right frequency and timing of emails as well as information on how their target market best wants to connect.

With the addition of mobile and text messaging being the largest and most frequently used feature on a variety of mobile devices in North America- combining all of these tools together with creative campaigns that include offline, in-store and online initiatives – will provide the continuity – to tap into the social computing behaviors of many rather than just some.

How are you building your email lists while engaging your customers and keeping that relationship ongoing?

Best Nicole

Our guest blogger Blair Currie who we introduced to you last week and is working with BCAD Group on some new projects, has written a post to answer one of those questions. What will be the future for search. We feel there are some very important points to consider here – as this is one of the sure fire ways -  your can ensure your business will make money, garner new customers, improve your page ranking on search engines which in turn will help you sell more products and services.

How you are you leveraging search engine marketing in your business?

Best Nicole

There is no crystal ball to tell what the future holds; however, in the area of search engine marketing, there are a number of developments in the areas of audio search, location-based technology and personalization, that one can paint a pretty good picture of what is to come. Here are a few signs of where search appears to be headed:

1.Audio

Search by voice command will become increasingly common, especially for mobile devices. This will help speed up search and making it more personal.

In Stanley Kubrik’s classic film “2001: A Space Odyssey”, we were introduced to HAL, an intelligent computer that talked with the protagonists in the film. Speaking directly to HAL seemed much more natural and much faster than using a keyboard, trackball and/or mouse. This movie, albeit released in 1968, provides a glimpse at the future of search.

2.  Augmented

Search will continue to be augmented by both past behavior of you and “others like you” to speed up the process of delivering results. This is what Google Instant does when it shaves seconds off the search process letting you see results before you finish tying your search query.

The second form of augmented is “Augmented reality” (AR) where a real image is enhanced or augmented by digital imagery. An image captured on a mobile device can be identified with GPS technology and this image can be augmented or over-laid with search data, such as history of a building in the picture or availability and pricing of rooms in a particular hotel.  Companies that do this include Layar.

A third form of augmented is what can be referred to as  “Augmented humanity”. In this case an engine will search for things without being asked to. For example if you are walking down a street Google will use GPS data to search for history of the area as an example. This requires that your computing device continuously search and anticipate your questions – augmenting humanity in a way.

3.) Broader – will include the Internet of Things.

Everyday objects in the physical world will become searchable with the help of radio frequency identifications chips (RFID). Physical objects are being increasingly embedded with tiny identifying chips with valuable data including country of origin, component parts, manufacturing dates etc.. These chips are decreasing in prices so that more and more objects can be “connected” to the Internet.  Alternately put, there will be an “Internet of things”.

With the ability to search, identify and track physical goods, companies and individuals can manage inventories more effectively and consumers or customers can find and products more readily and compare prices at different vendors.  Individuals can also find lost objects – to mention a couple of functions related to the Internet of things, which is sometimes referred to as “Ambient intelligence”.

4.) Customizable

Search companies will include more tools to allow users to set priorities in what they are looking for and what they want to screen from their searches.

For example an individual may want to exclude social media or video searches and concentrate only on blogs. This will be possible because the search engines will allow us to set these filters.

5.) Future oriented

Major search trends will increasingly be used as “Future data now” that will be used to create new products and services. As such, Search will be used more proactively than reactively and become a more important tool for companies.

While in the past companies produced products and services and then figured out the best way to market them, search will accelerate the use of insights to develop products.

6.) Global

Language barriers to finding search results will decrease, as translation software will permit multiple language searches. The world’s data is not all recorded in one common language making it difficult to find Arabic results using a Japanese search engine. To help overcome this problem technology is being developed that will allow search in many languages.

7.) Location based applications

Location and mobile are really the “Third Wave” of the Internet following “Pages and Search” in the First Wave and “Social and Interactive” in the Second Wave. As mobile e-commerce develops, location based search will become more important.

When consumers are mobile they are generally interested in location based search. By combining search with GPS technology many services are developing that facilitate local navigation and marketing.

8.) Mobile

Mobile search will take an increasing share over the overall search market as mobile penetration overtakes PC penetration and as mobile devices – smart phones, computers in automobiles and wearable devices gain acceptance. .

This is a key reason why all the major search companies Google (including YouTube), Microsoft, Yahoo! and Facebook are all competing in the mobile space many of them developing operating systems and/or telephones of their own.

Audio search will greatly help out the spread of mobile search because of the difficulty of using keyboards and touch-screens for sending text.

9.) Personalized

Search will become more personalized and tailored to the individual as the search engine learns and knows more about an individual’s tastes and preferences. For example a search engine should be able to determine whether an individual  is looking for Seal the Musical performer vs. Seal the mammal based on his or her history.

As search gets more personalized search engines will need to increasingly need to better deal with privacy issues through opt-in agreements, full disclosure etc..

10.) Private

The Search Engines will ultimately need to develop a Bill of Rights to deal with the privacy of information and legal access rights by government bodies and the length of time information can be retained.

11.) Specialized

While some search engines will remain focused on mass search there will be niche search engines. For example, Wolfram Alpha, which is a fact based search engine. The user interfaces of specialized search engines may be better equipped to display the results of searched items, just as YouTube has evolved to best present video search results.

12.) Universal and more

Search will become increasing “Universal” in that it will continue to expand in scope moving from websites, books, news, images and videos to video and television as are now being introduced by Google and Apple.

This understanding can allow us to look at that success and then create opportunities here that allow for innovation but more importantly success for all levels and types of users. There are now more than 5,000 types of phones (”handsets”) out there, each with possible different screen sizes, resolutions, speed, and/or operating systems, creating a campaign to conform to every type can be a bear. The most common phones used in the U.S. are iPhones and BlackBerrys (they presently represent about 50 percent of the market).

I came across an article from Media Post that gives you a good perspective of how mobile marketing differs around the world. Posted by Mark Walsh this is a real quick eye opener to how mobile is not just a campaign but a necessity for many.

The fundamentals are the same globally, but what differs is that in many countries mobile isn’t a nice thing to have, it’s a necessity, explains Michael Becker, North American Managing Director for the MMA, in a presentation on mobile use globally. He points out that in Africa, mobile plays a key part in HIV treatment and other health-related areas. You can even use mobile to pre-pay insurance for your own funeral. Yikes.

Mobile commerce company M-Pesa has gotten uptake from the unlikely market of  goatherders in Africa, who use its money transfer system to buy and sell goats at market. Who needs a credit card? In the U.K, the company jobsite has had success with 15-second mobile job ad, boosting traffic to its site nearly 500%. In Norway, you can file your taxes from a mobile phone and in India you can even download a condom-themed ringtone (as part of a health campaign). “So all this shows how critical mobile is becoming to people’s lives,” said Becker. And you thought you were an avid mobile user.

Mobile marketing is now at the forefront for many and if you think about it – it is really the most effective means for communication with your customers both current and new. These days most people have a cell phone which they check religiously.  Using mobile allows you as a business – to reach customers immediately and effectively at lower costs then other media streams.

The key is understanding that all businesses need not worry about creating their own mobile apps. Leveraging phone apps that already exist like Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare as places where your business can be found in apps – can be a savvy way to begin. Checking out existing apps stores to find out what is most popular  or what features best suit or mimic your business needs will help you practically find a use case – that makes the most sense for your business.

Don’t forget to look around the world!

Best Nicole

Interestingly this topic came up last week in a coffee I had with one of Canada’s top home decor editors.  She and her husband have built a fully sustainable home using, solar energy to heat the home and appliances, a compost toilet, etc. She talked about how it had transformed her life and the way she thinks about EVERYTHING. This of course is really diving in and for many such as myself and there are many ways that I can begin by making my mark and taking baby steps.

Cause marketing has grown with the leveraging of social media – especially Facebook where the audience capture is so great. I posted on Twitter today in a tweet that 1/4  of consumers want brand info. on Facebook. With this kind of opportunity – companies are using the idea of cause marketing to show that they good corporate citizens – to jaded consumers who are now tired of just being sold to and want to support products and services that fit with who the are as people and align with living their best lives. This leads to the second part of the title of this post the Effect. Does this cause marketing that might play out in a campaign such as “like us on Facebook and we will donate $1 to our supported charity” -  hope that this outward commitment will help build brand passion and evangelism?  Or as suggested in an article from Media Post that I read the other day – in their Marketing Green RSS – by Matthew Martin – take an approach that can truly effect a change.

His point is that in most cases, people do not truly know where all the money goes when it is donated. The second brilliant point is that it really does not change peoples behavior by writing a check. Instead he suggests in this article that “If you had to choose between giving a small donation to an environmental organization to fight global warming, or switching to LED lights (and then getting all your friends and neighbors to switch their lights, too … and so on), choose the physical change every time. This approach is the core difference between effect marketing (long-term behavioral changes that impact issues) and cause marketing (transactional promotions that link a business to a cause)”.

In the world of social media – where the power is has now shifted to the consumer – the company is going to be held accountable, not just for the actions that the company takes – but also the for the actions that their customers take and on down the line.

Food for thought and an article worth the read!

Happy October!

Best Nicole

Matthew Ammirati said it right: “Is it Enough to be Green? What About Being Good?” For now, greener is an advantage in the sustainability game. Soon enough, green will be a cost of entry. The reasons are becoming the 2000’s mantra: Consumers are jaded; information zips through social networks faster than ever; and there are tracking systems for everything (including corporate social responsibility actions).

Many green marketing programs evolved along the cause-marketing model. Cause marketing is attaching your brand to a cause with consumer appeal and piling on media/promotion. The program typically supports change through donations to non-profits, puts a halo around the brand, and hopefully generates business results. Principally, though, it’s philanthropy. It is an image game; putting on a “being good” veneer. There may be corporate concern for the adopted cause, but cause marketing generally does not directly affect the root issue.

Our world’s most pressing issues — from global warming to AIDS — require people changing behavior more than simply writing a check. Just giving money to these causes is important but does not address the fundamental education and behavior change needed to meaningfully impact the issues.

If you had to choose between giving a small donation to an environmental organization to fight global warming, or switching to LED lights (and then getting all your friends and neighbors to switch their lights, too … and so on), choose the physical change every time. This approach is the core difference between effect marketing (long-term behavioral changes that impact issues) and cause marketing (transactional promotions that link a business to a cause).

Sustainability demands a shift to creating an effect rather than simply marketing a cause. Before marketers can make any of the essential moves, they need to shift orientation and distinguish effect programs.

Here are some tangible examples:

• Cause marketing is donating 10 cents for every mailed-in wrapper; effect marketing is facilitating park clean-up days.

• Cause marketing is giving money to breast cancer research; effect marketing is teaching early diagnosis through self-exams.

• Cause marketing is buying a certain color product to spur a donation; effect marketing is a brand providing vaccinations in Africa.

Sustainability pioneers have created business models that make social change inherent to their products. What’s more, they measure their impact on both levels: social impact and profit.

Sustainability pioneers such as Ben & Jerry’s and Stonyfield have created business models that make social change inherent to their products. What’s more, they measure their impact on both levels: social impact and profit.

Stonyfield started selling yogurt to support its organic farming school and now it gives 10% of its profits to efforts that help protect and restore the earth such as a corporate climate rating non-profit, Climate Counts. Ben & Jerry’s has three different mission statements (social, economic and product) to help it focus on all three.

Overall, today’s leaders in corporate social responsibility are taking an effect-marketing approach to sustainability. They’re not calling it that — yet — but their actions are establishing a new standard.

The key: Social change is central to every business decision of the product or service life cycle, including what constitutes effective marketing. Their marketing campaigns rally all stakeholders — customers, employees and affiliates — into direct action. And it’s not just the biggest brands; smaller companies are making a difference, too.

While most companies can’t replace business models overnight, they can take meaningful steps in the right direction. Effect marketers consider how their companies can be engines of social change by continually asking three essential questions:

1. What specific actions are we taking — and, by design, encouraging consumers to take — on the social issues we’re committed to influencing?

2. How can we re-envision our business culture to drive social change?

3. What are we doing to measure and report the impact our business has on society, both positive and negative?

Just staring Question One in the face is enough to shift a company toward a more sustainable business model. Ultimately, though, consumers will demand that we follow through on all three questions and, likely, many more. So, are you ready to answer?