We surveyed 1,915 marketers for the MarketingSherpa 2012 Lead Generation Benchmark Report, and asked them about the importance of offline lead generation tactics. Here is what the data revealed …
Q: How do you feel the importance of OFFLINE lead generation has changed over the last three to five years?
All content is not created equal. For instance, according to a Nielsen report, men spend more than 247 million minutes per month viewing video via social media. Yet, women spend just 228 million minutes, despite the fact that more than 4,000 more women log on to social videos per day. Men just watch longer. If you want to engage men, videos are a superior form of content.
The still photograph remains king of the proverbial hill in terms of generating engagement with fans on social platforms. A 2012 study by ROI research found that 44% of users are likely to engage with brands if they post pictures, against 40% for regular status updates, and just 37% for video. Given that startling piece of information, a reasonable person might be led to ask the question:
Are all photographs created equal?
Do grainy, low-quality photographs thrown into a Facebook stream, more or less as afterthoughts, have the same impact as high-resolution, high-quality photography? Does it matter if the content is only photographic, or do graphical images also generate higher engagement numbers? Let’s look at one industry that is quite popular among the coveted 18-24 demographic on Facebook: entertainment (the companies shall remain nameless).
We begin by dividing the image content of several popular pages into two broad categories. First, there is the professional category. Images in this category tend to be high-resolution, feature-striking photography, be character based and contain only those graphics absolutely necessary to convey essential data. For example, look at the following image:
Click to enlarge
At B2B Summit 2011, keynote Jay Baer, President, Convince & Convert, discussed social media marketing myths. Here are a few excerpts…
Here are a few key takeaways from Jay’s keynote excerpt video embedded above:
0:30 – Myth #3: How B2C uses social media doesn’t apply
3:30 – The overemphasis on Facebook “likes” as a metric
5:06 – Focus on being social, not doing social
If you enjoyed these excerpts, you can watch Jay’s full one-hour B2B Summit 2011 keynote, for free, on MarketingSherpa.
Related Resources:
B2B Summit 2012, August 27-70, Orlando
B2B Social Media: Jay Baer discusses social media ROI and Facebook likes [Video]
TEDxAtlanta – Sally Hogshead – How to Fascinate
When I was a kid, I thought suggestion boxes in restaurants were strange. I wondered: what do people suggest? And why does the box have a lock? The whole thing seemed mysterious.
Later in life, when I worked in restaurants, I realized there was no mystery. The boxes were empty. The rare suggestions they held invariably used four-letter words and misspellings.
Today’s suggestion boxes are different in almost every way:
Kip Clayton, VP, Marketing and Business Development, Parasole, is aware of the trend. He oversees marketing for Parasole’s portfolio of restaurants, and his team uses tools monitor the Web for customers’ comments and feedback.
“We always monitor what people are saying about us, whether it’s food writers, other members of the media, or most importantly, our guests.”
Such analysis provides Parasole with a variety of information it can use to improve customers’ experiences.
Feedback on lunch at launch
For example, in November, Parasole launched Mozza Mia, a pizza restaurant in Edina, Minnesota. The restaurant specializes in wood-fired pizzas and homemade mozzarella cheese.
Each month, the team received a report on the online feedback about the new restaurant. Information was pulled from a variety of websites, such as OpenTable and Yelp. Based on customer commentary, the report graded the restaurant in areas such as food quality, beverages, and menu options.
“By February, we were getting pretty clear feedback that people wanted more choices than we were offering,” Clatyon says.
Mozza Mia offered a diverse selection of pizzas, but customers could not order in the traditional “build your own” pizza style that so many other pizza restaurants used. The team decided it needed to offer the option.
“Within a week, we had a plan for how to handle the logistics and inventory to allow customers to build their own pizzas,” Clayton says.
Suggestion turns into success
Mozza Mia offered the “build your own” pizza option less than one month later. Now, if customers want a simple pepperoni pizza, they can have it.
The pizzas quickly grew to comprise 10% of the restaurant’s sales, Clayton says, and helped the restaurant overcome the “veto factor.”
“The last thing you want is people ‘vetoing’ your restaurant because you don’t offer what they’re looking for,” he says. “That doesn’t mean you try to be all things to all people, but the flipside is that you better be listening to what people are saying and asking for.”
Related resources
Market Research via Social Media
Social Media Measurement: Moving forward with the data and tools at hand
Social Media Measurement: Big data is within reach
Social Media Marketing: Tactics ranked by effectiveness, difficultly and usage
newBrandAnaltyics – how Parasole monitors the Web for customers’ comments and feedback
Photo: hashmil
We’re planning several studies about social media marketing, and we’d like your help targeting our research on the information you really need.
We’ve set up an online form to collect your questions about social media. Let us know if you’ve got questions about social media strategy in general, or questions about specific social channels, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or MySpace.
Here’s the link:
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s/174250/smq
NOTE: This isn’t a formal survey that’s going to require a lot of your time. It’s a just blank field where you can supply as many questions or topic suggestions as you’d like.
Thanks for your input!
