Corporate Eye

...compare, compete, excel

Archives for November 2011

Medical Students: Mobile, Motivation and Mass Communication

This weekend I was invited to run a workshop for medical students about building quality websites. Yes: medical students.

This was a conference for students running their medical school society committees – so, students from across the UK – and my session was for those with responsibility for their society websites this year.

Because every medical school and every MedSoc is set up slightly differently, each is different, but primarily the purposes of their websites are to:

  • inform (about education, about events, about current – medical – news, and about welfare)
  • recruit (new medical students; new MedSoc members; volunteers)
  • sell (event tickets and other items)
  • share (create a community of support for their peers).

We ran through an exercise of examining the home pages of a few MedSoc sites to see which items of good practice could be identified and used by others. We found a fair few reusable ideas for MedSoc sites, and it also became clear that what the students were looking for on these sites included:

  • an explanation of who is behind the site and what they do
  • a statement of why the visitor should join (the school and/or the society)
  • fresh – and useful – content for visitors of different types
  • contact details.

Why would you care about this?

Some of these are things that companies should consider with respect to their own sites (not yours: obviously you’ve covered these bases). But there is more to it than that:

  • mobile

    These students were bright and highly motivated – unsurprisingly, since these were medics. They were also very clear on what they saw as a quality website; and they almost all used the internet with a mobile device (usually a smartphone). What do you think they make of your site?

  • motivation

    I sat in on one of the earlier conference sessions, and heard from a 5th year medical student building revision apps using medical expertise from his peers and from hospital consultants.

    These students are a select group, and further self-selected by finding time out of their intensive course not only to run a student society but also to get to their annual conference. And to find time to build an app as well…

  • mass communication

    These students are individually willing to voice their opinions and to speak up for themselves and the people they represent. The official theme of the conference was 2020; the unofficial theme that one attendee thought was developing was the need to band together to achieve more—from pooling the results of the revision apps worldwide, so that individuals could compare their own progress with results from their peers around the world, to the MedSoc webmasters sharing best practice and technical support in earning revenue from their websites.

So: what are you doing to prepare for a future in which individuals are demanding service from you from wherever they happen to be, using whatever device they prefer, with virtually instant access to information and with the backing of their peers around the world?

——–

Thanks to Birmingham MedSoc for the invitation to participate.

Study Puts Numbers to the Value of Facebook Fans for Brands

Just how much is each fan of your brand’s Facebook Page really worth? A new study by SocialCode puts the number at $9.56. As reported by AdAge, this number was derived from a study of over 5 million Facebook ads in multiple verticals which were placed by over 50 companies between May and September of 2011.

The research focused on the cost of getting new Facebook Page fans and on seven specific actions that brands typically want to motivate consumers to do on Facebook: install an application, enter a contest, vote in a contest, become a fan, sign up for a program, make a purchase, and enter a sweepstakes.

Using that data (shown in the chart below), SocialCode calculated the cost per acquisition by dividing the total cost of clicks by the total number of actions and came up with a Facebook Page fan value of $9.95.

Regardless of the monetary value the study places on a Facebook Page fan (which differs from study to study these days), you can trust the fact that this study demonstrates again that Facebook Page fans are easier to move to action and are more likely to convert in terms of performing a desired action than non-fans.

The SocialCode research found that the conversion rate for Facebook Page fans is 19% versus just 7% for non-fans. In fact, Facebook Page fans showed conversion rates as high as 500% in this study.

Therefore, while marketers still struggle to find ways to accurately value Facebook Page fans and social media as a whole, companies that understand the potential of that “500%” and what it means to a business in terms of brand-building, brand loyalty, and brand advocacy will be on their way to long-term success while everyone else will still be trying to muddle through the “value” numbers.

What do you think? Leave a comment and share your thoughts about the value of Facebook Page fans and social media marketing. Can your executives make the necessary leap and understand that the brand needs to be in the social media space even if you can’t provide perfect numbers yet?

Image: AdAge

Blogs Influence Purchase Decisions More than Ever

Blogs are influencing purchase decisions and recommendations more than ever. According to Technorati’s 2011 State of the Blogosphere report, 38% of bloggers talk about brands positively and negatively on their blogs, and 34% write product, service, and brand reviews.

Furthermore, bloggers are influencing each other a lot more than they were just a year ago. In 2010, 29% of bloggers claimed to be influenced by the blogs they read, but in 2011, that percentage jumped to 68%.

There is no doubt that bloggers are gaining influence, particularly professional bloggers who are paid to write about specific topics. These authoritative bloggers have carved out a niche as credible sources of information, and people are listening to them.

Unfortunately, the 2011 State of the Blogosphere report provides some unfavorable information related to how brands interact with bloggers. Despite the broad reach and influence that bloggers have, only 1 in 2 feel that their interactions with brands are favorable. 17% indicated that brand representatives have asked bloggers to publish something or do something that would compromise the blogger’s credibility or the blog’s content standards. Furthermore, only 14% said that brand representatives are knowledgeable about the blog, its content, and its audience, and just 16% said that brand representatives are actually interested in building relationships with them. Amazingly, only 23% of brand representatives provide information that has value for a blogger’s readers.

Those are some poor statistics that clearly show brand representatives don’t understand how they need to approach and interact with influential bloggers. Traditional publicity pitches don’t work, and brand representatives need to work on understanding the blogger, the blog’s content, and the blog’s audience in order to build relationships with the blog and its readers. The statistics in the paragraph above are disappointing to say the least.

Are you or your brand representatives approaching bloggers in the wrong way? You’re not doing them any favors by “letting” them write about your brand. Influential bloggers know that they’re helping brands by writing about them. There needs to be something in it for them and their audiences or they won’t help you. Remember, influential bloggers are very busy people who get dozens or hundreds of pitches each day. If you want to get in front of their audiences, you need to do more than send an email with a copy of your latest press release.

Image: Flickr

Chicken suits, chameleons and the one true way

Were you at Ethical Corporation’s Corporate Responsibility Reporting and Communications conference last week? If you weren’t, you missed a treat.

1 word

The word of the conference, had we been asked to choose one, would have been:

Humility

The number of times people urged that companies should display some humility in their corporate social responsibility reporting was striking…

1 central theme

Whether talking about reports, communications, stakeholder groups or engagement approaches, the clear message from many of the discussions was that there is not One True Way of ‘doing’ CSR, of reporting on it or of talking about it.

One size does not fit all

There were, though, lots of examples of different ways that companies had found that worked for them, and so might work as part of someone else’s toolset. It helps to be a chameleon, using different language and information for different groups.

4 quotes

There were many tweet-worthy snippets that came out of the discussion. Here are 4 that I noted down:

Corporate responsibility is not a man in a chicken suit holding a large cheque

Corporate responsibility reporting is not PR jazz hands

The corporate responsibility report is not for communication: no-one reads it for fun

Stop communicating and start talking

A CR report, then, is both more and less than people might think. It isn’t – or shouldn’t be! – spin; it isn’t – or shouldn’t be – about sitting in a bathtub of baked beans; it does matter to the business and it is necessary but not sufficient to explain your approach to responsibility to your various audiences.

6 topics

It wasn’t physically possible to attend all the sessions without a time-turner, so this is my pick of the themes I identified; it would be interesting to see someone else’s selection.

My six:

  • Driving performance: integrated reporting and Board conviction
  • Different stakeholders; different stories
  • Global-local, sector storytelling and authenticity
  • Collaborating with activists
  • Stakeholder outreach
  • The investor view of your CSR work

I hope to look at some of these topics in more detail over the next couple of weeks; I’ll add links in this post as I get to them. Or, of course you could subscribe to our RSS feed.

If you’re intrigued, make sure you get to the next conference; this is my pick, and I’m quite sure others will have gone home with a different set of ideas.

Brands Increase Mobile Marketing Spending with a Local Focus

Each quarter, Millennial Media releases a report that tracks mobile marketing campaigns. The 3rd quarter 2011 report states that mobile advertising spending has grown across all verticals with 6 verticals growing over 140% in the past 12 months.

Fueling that growth during the past quarter was a 50% increase in local market targeting and a 78% increase in “post-click” options like the ability to watch a video.

The 6 verticals seeing the most growth in mobile marketing spending during the past year were:

  • Technology = 687%
  • Consumer products = 378%
  • Finance = 356%
  • Retail and restaurants = 184%
  • Pharmaceuticals = 163%
  • Entertainment = 145%

Looking at actual mobile advertising spending during the third quarter of 2011, the finance vertical topped the list in the United States followed by entertainment and retail/restaurants. Internationally, the entertainment vertical came out on top.

Location-based marketing and targeting really is the hot thing for mobile marketers, and the Millennial Media report found that campaigns which allowed consumers to view a map (for example, to find the location of a store to purchase a product) grew by 27% during the third quarter of 2011.

Furthermore, consumers are interacting with mobile marketing campaigns while they’re shopping. During the third quarter of 2011, the top activity among consumers in this study was searching for specific items in order to find a better price. Also, while shopping consumers use their mobile devices to search for product reviews.

The take-away from this study is simple. Brands are not only investing more money into mobile advertising and marketing campaigns but they’re also actively testing a variety of tactics to drive brand awareness and sales. Consumers are actively using their mobile devices to find information about brands both before and during their shopping excursions.

Brands want to find ways to tap into the “always on” consumer population who always have their mobile devices with them and use those devices all the time. It’s time to get on board and start conducting your own experimentation with mobile marketing before it’s too late and you’re left desperately trying to catch up.

Image: Flickr

Brands Create Unique Print Ads with QR Codes

Quick response codes (QR codes) are hot these days and brands are doing some really creative things with them in an effort to discover how best to use the technology to drive buzz and sales. Open a magazine, and you’re likely to find many ads with QR codes in them. However, simply displaying a QR code isn’t always enough to motivate people to use it. There needs to be a hook to move people to action.

Metrokane manufactures household products, including wine accessories. In an effort to creatively demonstrate how some of those wine products work, the company created a campaign that used strategically placed print ads, QR codes, and mobile apps.

Check it out in the three ad samples below. Each ad includes a message that says, “Scan the code and place your phone within the dotted area.” Instantly, there is sense of curiosity. When people do scan the code and place their phones in the dotted area in each ad, they’re rewarded with a demonstration of the product in action.

Clever copy taps into an emotional trigger that wine drinkers are likely to relate to. For example, the Upright Rabbit cork remover ad says, “Simple stopper. Aggravation dislodger.” The Electric Rabbit cork remover ad says, “Automatic cork/frustration remover.” Anyone who has ever struggled to remove a cork from a bottle of wine will relate to these messages!

Click each image to view a larger version with legible copy via Ads of the World.

Overall, this is a great example of how to use QR codes within offline media — no website required! The lesson to learn from the Metrokane ad campaign example is simple. Instead of just using QR codes to send consumers to your website or Facebook Page, think about how you can use them to enable your brand to interact with consumers within the media experience they’re already having — instantly.

What do you think of the Metrokane print ad campaign? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.