smART talk daily digest | 18 November 2009

The latest smART talk summary of contributions made by community members and specialist guest, Vicki Allpress-Hill about Crack Web Marketing.

Today we have outlined Vicki’s response to each question about web marketing so far. There are also some active discussions with community members - including persuading your organisation to embrace social media, controlling social media, selling tickets via social media and recommendations for email service providers. 

Topic One | Getting Started: New To Web Marketing

How do we keep up?

Vicki Allpress-Hill said not to rush, but at the same time don’t miss the boat entirely.

“The web will always move fast and there will always be the “next best thing”. Never got around to setting up a MySpace page? Skip it and go straight to Twitter.”

Which market segments should we target through which online marketing tools?

Vicki said know your target markets and what their characteristics, lifestyle and media habits are – through surveys, observation and talk to your target audience.  Build a persona of a representative imaginary individual, test your assumptions on an individual.

“Once you put yourself in the shoes of your potential audiences like this, you can get a feel for the online marketing tools they are likely to use in their day-to-day life. From there, you can identify priorities.”

How do we compare internationally?

Vicki said compared to what she sees internationally NZ arts organisations have a lot of potential yet to fulfil.

“It’s not all their fault – sometimes it’s even difficult to get customers online at all, with fast broadband being so elusive and costly in this country.  And we don’t have the funding levels here that many U.S. or
European companies are accustomed to.”

She gave examples of international organisations who have fully embraced Web 2.0.

Topic Two | Web Analytics

What are the benchmarks for web and email marketing?

Vicki said in New Zealand there are no clear benchmarks within our industry. She recommended some general benchmarking statistics sites.

Rae said Australia faces the same issue, and refer to international studies.  She recommended some general Australian benchmarks, which were more useful than US ones.

Examples of how others are using Google Analytics?

Vicki gave some real-life examples of how arts organisations are using web analytics to time marketing campaigns, create an international online campaign, change social media focus, navigation, content, price breaks and simplify online purchases.

Topic Three | Email Marketing

Options for email service providers?

Models range from services that deploy email on your behalf, through to custom-built software developed in-house. The model that works depends on a range of factors including the number of emails you send, size of your list, likely growth and your in-house expertise.

Other community members shared their recommendations for email service providers, solutions and the pros and cons.  Add yours.

Complying with the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act (UEMA)?

Vicki said the principles are common sense. Key points included being very clear about what people will receive, identify yourself in the email, do not use the email address for any other promotional purposes, keep it secure and never pass it to a third party, provide a clear and easy opt-out.

Can you give us some email marketing tips?

Email can help engage loyalty and community, and drive revenue.

Vicki outlined email marketing strategy considerations including data acquisition, deployment method, style/type of communication, email publications, monitoring and tracking and integration. She gave tips for creating a regular e-newsletter and how to improve the effectiveness of your email marketing including timing (the best day and time to deploy your emails), subject line, content, call to action. To help make good decisions, it is important to get adequate statistics on each email.

Topic Four | Social Media

How do I persuade my Board and CEO to embrace social media?

Vicki said it is your job to spend some time persuasively documenting how it will work, who and how many people it is likely to reach, what your targets would be, how it fits in with your marketing objectives, how you will manage it efficiently, and what the policies will be.

She recommended showing them the Social Media Revolution video 'Social media isn't a fad. It's a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.'

Community members commented on this and made their recommendations.  Add yours.

To what degree should we try to control social media?

Vicki said any attempt to control a conversation or community online will stifle it.

“Trying to control the interactions on social media is like inviting a group of lively, intelligent, like-minded people to a dinner party and then giving them rules about what they can and can't talk about.”

However to potentially avoid unfortunate situations by creating an internal policy which can cover such things as acceptable subject matter, who is responsible, frequency of updates, tone of voice, response times to comments, etc.

Community members added their views and experiences.  Join this discussion.

Do social media sell tickets?

Vicki said at THE EDGE they measure “conversion to purchase” and revenue from transactions from social media and it is resulting in purchase of tickets for a range of performance genres.  Facebook is amongst the most lucrative traffic sources.

“Yep, folks, social media is resulting in ticket sales. Anyone else received this evidence?”

How do you know if your audience is using social media and how do you reach them without being intrusive?

Vicki said if direct research is not possible then intuitive assumptions are needed, including matching your known audience demographic with the known demographics of the most popular social media tools, using publicly available statistics. Become a user of these tools yourself and remember you are not forcing anyone to follow or befriend you.

“Social media is about listening to your audience and enabling them to connect with each other, and with you, in a way that adds value to their lives. Be careful to provide information that assists or intrigues them, and to enable the conversation to happen naturally without too much interference from you.”

Topic Five | SEO & SEM

Is search engine optimisation something we can do ourselves in-house?

Vicki said you could manage a one-off optimisation exercise in terms of adding keywords and ensuring that your website’s development and functionality are not creating any barriers to being picked up by search engines.

“But it’s when you want to maintain SEO on an ongoing basis that an external SEO company really comes into play.”

Topic Six | Online Advertising

How do we use online advertising effectively for a niche product? 

Vicki recommended two key ways to gain value from online advertising including advertising on identified websites and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Identify websites by using your audience/user information to locate websites that are likely to be attracting them. This might be an intuitive guess, a survey or audience research. You could use Hitwise statistics or have a conversation with the site managers.

Use SEM, such as Google Adwords, to target precise search terms your target audience will be searching on, and deliver relevant ads in the “sponsored links” at the top and right of the search results pages to drive people to your site.

“You can also place a ceiling on daily ad spend – it’s an ideal way to dip your toe in the water of online advertising within a set budget.”

What web marketing challenges are you grappling with? What's working for you? Join the forum.

smART talk 02 | Crack Web Marketing with Vicki Allpress-Hill

Creative New Zealand and The Big Idea are running the second in a series of three online forums aimed at arts & creative sector professionals in any creative field. smART talk 02 | Crack Web Marketing is hosted by The Big Idea | Te Aria Nui and aimed at those who want to grow audiences using web marketing.  It runs until 3 December.

Vicki Allpress-Hill has been a regular contributor at Creative New Zealand’s 21st Century Arts Conferences .  Currently Manager – Online & CRM for The Edge in Auckland, Vicki has also worked and consulted with some of the most successful arts organisations in New Zealand, Australia, the UK and US and has authored books, papers and blogs on the subjects of audience development and online marketing.