Internet usage, smartphones and social media have become more popular and show a steady increase in popularity not only from personal use but from business marketing as well. The below graphic displays B2B and B2C companies Social Media profiles and the popularity of social media in business marketing.

The emarketer.com reports that Social Media Marketing spending for B2B and B2C businesses is projected to increase over the next several months and years.  Customer Relationship Management and Brand Building will be the focus of business social media marketing practices as these play key roles to a company’s success.

Technology, internet and smartphones are the content delivery mediums today and your marketing needs to adjust to reach your target audience. Not quite sure where to start?

1. Start with a plan, who is your target audience and what is your message?
2. Make sure that your website is up-to-date and relays your company message.  Is your web site smart phone readable and friendly?  Can users interact with your website via their smart phone and current web browsers easily?  These are important as trends show that 83% of adults have cell phones or smartphones and, among them, over 35% have access the internet via their phone.
3. Create a Social Media Strategy – see related post with strategy and social media sites information found at: http://www.isisinternettechnologysolutions.com/social-media/social-media-adventure-continued/
4. Initiate Marketing Plan – how are you going to reach your target audience with your message? Social Media is certainly an item that will be used but there are also alternatives such as Personalized Email Campaigns and Personalized URL’s. These provide an alternative to customary print marketing and are personalized and targeted to that specific person or persons vertical market, enabling you to target your marketing message.

The key is to plan your marketing strategy, ensure that your message is reaching your target audience and engage your audience with your brand and customer relations.   Getting involved in Social Media is more than just posting, but involves interaction and getting to know/responding to your consumers.

There are a few ways that involvement can be addressed that may fit into your company strategy and profile.

Should you become involved in Social Media – YES.  According to the Nielsen 2010 Media Fact Sheet, Time spent on social networking sites in the U.S. increased 277%; The average U.S. worker spends 5 hrs a month visiting social networks at the office; Facebook reaches 56% of the active U.S. Internet universe with an average usage of 6 hrs a month per user; Twitter grew 500% over a year; and 32% of all mobile web users visit social network sites.

Due to these statistics, it would definitely be in your best interest to become involved in social meeting as a company and marketing strategy.  Now, to what extent do you become involved?

This will really depend on your staff and time allotment.  Adding a blog to your site and providing content and resources to your viewing audience and member is a huge commitment but one that will pay off in the long one as establishing yourself as a knowledge leader in your field.  Blogs do take time and commitment to write, but is it possible to spend about 1 hour a week on your blog work?  Consider video blogging vs. writing a blog.  Make it a point throughout the day jotting/writing down blog topics and key points (approximately 5-10). Schedule an hour to sit in front of a video (does not have to be a professional production) and tape a 5 minute blog session on each topic that you’ve recorded. The video blogs can then be posted weekly to your site and based upon the number of video blogs that you recorded, you could have about a  months or a little more of video blogs to post that took you a few hours to complete.

Assign social media sites to various people in your organization. Arrange for these people to be in charge of each site and check/perform searches on the selected keywords for your organization, and interact with others. A schedule can be arranged where this occurs at least 3 times a day for approximately 1/2 hour each time. This provides some type of interaction with the social media main stream and enables your organizations name and content to be seen and discussed.

Becoming involved in Social Media does involve a commitment of time and resources. But if this is planned according to your companies goals and staffs schedule and abilities, can become a positive tasks to any ones day while increasing company awareness, site visitors and potential members.

1. Recognize and Reward – Offer employees incentives to take that extra step in customer service.  Offer awards and/or prizes based on customer feedback or product satisfaction.
2. Staffing – Ensure that your staff is well qualified and skilled to lend themselves to reinforce your brand.  During employee training, make brand identity a key component.
3. Employee Feedback – Share your ideas/brands and plans with your employees and offer them with the ability to ask questions and provide feedback.  Feedback is a great way to open communication, ensure that employees are working for the same goal and provides employees with a vested interest since their feedback is being sought and acted upon.
4. Measure Performance – Reach out to customers, media and vendors to check to ensure that your message and brand is being conveyed appropriately.

Building your brand isn’t something that is only done externally through Social Media, Meetings, your website, etc., but comes from within as well through employee interaction with customers, vendors and the general public each and every day.

Most member and client contact lists contain one contact for each company. Why is this?  What if that contact moves to another company, leaves the job, is fired, etc.? Who do you contact then?

It is always a good strategy to not only have the person that you consider your key contact/member but also ask for an alternate contact name, title, etc. at the same company.    This enables you to not only grow your list, but also provides you with the ability increase your visibility into other areas of the company.

This really isn’t that difficult to do.  Ask your main contact or member to recommend other people in their organization that may be interested in your services and/or information.  I’m pretty sure that you will receive a positive response from your contacts/members to this question with a listing of a few different contacts.

When visiting with your client, ask them if it would be possible to show you around their facility and introduce you to other departments.  If you have a good relationship with your contact this should be a no brainer and present you with a great opportunity to meet other contacts within the same organization.

One thing I’ve learned over the years that organizations (especially associations) have many layers and many decision makers for various departments.  In most cases, your contact, who may be in the member services department, doesn’t communicate the wonderful products and services that you offer with the IT or Publishing Department.  This relates to lost opportunities and sales.

Asking current members to recommend persons that they feel may be interested or providing them with the opportunity to “forward to a friend” some materials is another way to help increase your list.  This is easily done if you provide targeted member materials via cross media campaigns, meetings/announcement, etc. that you may be marketing to your members, etc.  Adding an option that enables your member to “forward to a friend” allows the member to send the information along and possibly entices the friend to join as well, but also provides you, through programming, to collect the “friends” contact information for marketing.

Multiple contacts within any organization are great ways to strategically build and maintain a valuable marketing list.   Don’t let these opportunities get by you.  Updating your list is the best way to make sure that you have a list of value that will provide you with many opportunities for years.

The survey is comprehensive and contains a wealth of information that includes some of the higher level points below as well as results and graphics that display: How Prospective Members become aware of the Association, How do Associations Allocate Marketing Dollars and What Best Describes your Marketing Approaches and Results. This is just some of the information contained within the survey. Visit Marketing General Inc. to download and receive your copy of the survey.  You’ll need to give up your email address but definitely worth it.

Some of the information contained within the report includes:

• Most associations report continued membership growth – 46% of the associations reported that have seen their total membership grow with 54% of this growth contributed to new members.

• Direct mail has been found to be the most effective channel for recruiting members with a listing/ranking of the most effective as:

1. Direct Mail 46%
2. Member get a Member and WOMM 32%
3. Email 24%
4. Promotion at Own Conference 15%
5. Personal Sales 11%

Of note also is that associations who use direct mail as a recruitment channel also are more likely to report membership renewal rates of over 80% compared to those who do not.

• Giving a first year membership/dues discount is the most effective incentive – Of those who reported offering a new member dues discount, 75% had renewal rates of over 80% and 25% under 80%.

• A personal approach to new members was used and below are the top 10 methods:

1. Mailed Welcome Kit
2. Email Welcome
3. Membership Card or Certificate
4. Volunteer or Staff Welcome Call
5. Invite to Chapter Meeting
6. New Member Survey
7. In Person New Member Reception
8. Special Discounts on purchases
9. Custom New Member Email Follow-Up
10. New Member Newsletter

• Continual renewal contacts and services may improve renewal rates.

The data appears to indicate that organizations that stop their renewal process earlier are more likely to have membership renewal rates under 80%. However, those that continue in their efforts to renew members are more likely to have membership renewal rates over 80%.

In fact, those who say that they “don’t stop contact” are 83% more likely to be in this higher renewal grouping than those who stop contact earlier.

As mentioned, the above data are key-pionts of some of the data contained within the report. Visit the Marketing General Inc. website to download your full copy of the report.