Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bradley Flora on February 17, 2011 at 1:55am

Beth,

 

I would say you are probably focusing on the correct demographic (audience) with your marketing message. It makes sense to me that you focus on promoting to and working with military families with your Robby the C-130 book.  So lets assume that you are targeting the correct demographic with your message, which leaves us to dissect your message itself.

 

Since knowledge of your brand may be relatively limited, you may need to take a broader approach to your marketing message. Think of your social media and online marketing output like a cable T.V. channel. If all T.V. shows is commercials, then most people will inherently tune it out, or change the channel.

 

I think you are doing a great job with your constant contact newsletter in that regard, by offering a variety of subtopics and contests that relate to the life of the military child.

 

http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Military-Child-Awareness--Feb-20...

 

 In regard to your newsletter,

can you share with us the statistics on the open-rate for your newsletter?

 

And in comparison with that how many subscribers do you have?

 

 

I ask these questions because it is always good to keep things in perspective. Depending on the total number of "opens" you have, having five people respond to contents might be a good start!

 

 

It might be helping you sell all the books you need, but I want you to realize that from an industry average standpoint, general conversions that are 1-2% of total visits are often considered very successful.

 

Also,

Are you assuming that guests won't want to post because of you visitor statistics? Has this actually happened, or is this a self imposed restriction?

 

I wonder if you find someone that is passionate about your topic, they might be willing to share and post regardless of your audience size.

 

These passionate people we can call super-fans. They will be ones who act as brand evangelists for Robby, and share your message with their friends and people you know.

 

How do you create super-fans? They key is to create a brand that aligns with their passion, that they can relate to, and that they will be proud to support because they agree in totality with the message.

 

The super-fan is going to be someone who will support your marketing message because they believe in it. To convert regular folks, or regular fans, to a super-fan you may need to engage them with dynamic marketing or conversation.

 

Now this is where things get tricky, because even having a competent marketing message may not be enough. Hype about social networks has been that if you just put your message out there, people will find and you can convert sales from it. But the truth is, you have to work for those sales in a very special way. It's not just about asking for the sale, it's about converting you fans into super-fans through engagement and discussion.

 

Looking at your facebook page,

 

http://www.facebook.com/RobbyC130?ref=ts&sk=wall#!/RobbyC130?sk=wall&closeTheater=1

 

your most recent post is a great example of doing it right. You are engaging your fanbase with a question, "Where should Robby go next?"

 

It may only have two responses, but notice how that's two more then most of your previous posts. It's because you asking your fans to think, and giving them an opportunity to share their opinion. These two things people love because its dynamic. They're not just watching the home shopping networking, watching commercials, they're actually getting a chance to respond to input, and information.

 

In regard to finding super-fans, and brand evangelists, have you thought about partnering at all with any of the following websites?

 

http://www.militaryfamilysupport.org/

 

http://www.militaryfamily.org/

 

http://www.militaryhomefront.dod.mil/

 

There's more resources too, I just typed "military family support" into google and grabbed the most appropriate to share with you from the top 10.

 

 

I have some more thoughts in regard to brand evangelisim, but I'd like to hear back from you on what I just said before I share any more (got to keep the conversation dynamic!). Plus, any of the answers to my questions that you can share in regard to your constant contact newsletter statistics would be helpful as well.

 

bradley flora

SPANnet.org

 

 

 

 

 

 

Permalink Reply by Beth Mahoney on February 18, 2011 at 7:35am

Thanks for the information Bradley. 

Currently for this month my open rate is 24.5% and 16.7% click rate. 

However, I can't seem to get many fans to respond to posts, facebook, twitter, or even contests, I only get 1 or 2 a month if I'm lucky. Am I on the right track? I am at a loss as to how Self-Publishing Authors like myself can compete via social media against branded Authors.  

 

I have thought and pursued partnerships with the said websites above, however, because they are military run sites, (as the case with most military or Department of Defense sites) they cannot support a single company or organization. I must pay for advertising space  or be an employed DoD. I have been interactive in response to issues on the boards, but the probability of people clicking on my signature links are quite rare. I have not yet received a subscriber whom has said they found my books via a forum.

 

In my opinion I am counting on my fans to do my marketing by word of mouth, but if my fan-base is not responding, even if they are reading, I am not producing that feedback in communication. I am curious how some companies can get so much feedback on facebook and engage their fans in such a way. I have reviewed their questions (i.e. post pictures of you with <insert product>) and not offer anything in return, yet their fans immediately post. However, I have asked for pictures of my fans with my books and I am getting ZERO responses even though I know they are buying.

 

I am also curious to find out what other SPAN members have facebook/twitter and how they are engaging their fans as well.

 

Looking forward to your thoughts on brand evangelisim!

Permalink Reply by Bradley Flora on February 22, 2011 at 5:10am

Beth,

 

 

When comparing your open and click through rates to the industry average for publishing, (Open: 18.1%) (Click-through: 27.6%) I'd like to start off with a note of optimism, because you are definitely on the right track.

 

 

With your numbers, open rate 24.5% and click-through rate: 16.7%, it is obvious to me that, in regard to your open rate, you have a good mailing list of interested parties, and then, in regard to your click-through rate, there is room for improvement and in that regard to that I have a couple thoughts right now.

 

I’ll start off talking directly about your Constant Contact newsletter, and then expand into ideas for your Facebook page.

 

 

The first, is that your marketing message and engagement efforts could use some refinement, because your click-through rate is an opportunity to measure response to your "engagement" efforts. I put engagement in quotes because there are a couple different forms of engagement, and in this case I am referring to the passive engagement that comes when you place a marketing message out in the world that can be responded too with minimal buy-in effort or currency, and your own response to that effort is limited in scope as well.

 

 

For example, in your Constant Contact newsletter you say "One photo chosen at random showing a happy military child will win a Robby the C-130 T-Shirt!", is an example of passive engagement because you are offering a chance for your viewers to interact with you, but not everyone will get necessarily direct response from you (according to the between the lines rules established by the newsletter copy only 1 person will get that response by winning a t-shirt).

 

 

In regard to your photo contest, and now I'm really just thinking out loud, you might improve engagement by increasing the sense of opportunity with the contest. For example, if the contest language read, "The photo of the happiest child will win a Robby the C-130 T-Shirt!" you are increasing the emotional incentive for someone to submit an image, because if they think they have a great photo of a happy child then their is that emotional kick to submit...I do have mixed feelings about this suggestion, because in this case, by keeping it random, you are acknowledging that the more happy children in military families, the better...and in my suggestion the underlying implication is that one military child can be (better) happier then another..

 

 

So, of course, any changes you make to your marketing message will have to be well thought out because there are so many emotional and political implications when it comes to your subject matter. I included the above example, because it does a good job of illustrating how you could potentially increase your click-through rate by offering a more impactful emotional incentive. However, as I mention above, I'm not sure that moving in such a direction is in line with your brand, and I hope you can use it to stir your own thoughts in these regards.

 

 

In regard to active engagement, let's look at your Robby the C-130 Facebook page. Active engagement opportunities are when your visitor/customer/fan has the opportunity to share input, and you have the opportunity to directly respond to that input publicly or privately. (Yes, it is possible that a passive engagement strategy could lead to active engagement with a fan through email dialogue..)

 

 

There are a couple different directions that you can go with this. Some people are very polite, and respond to every fan. And other times you see brands or celebrities that never respond to any fan(because the comment volume is to high), and only instead produce content for the fans to consume.

 

 

In your case, I suggest the polite approach, with a response to every Fan’s Facebook comment that you can. This way you are actively engaging every fan, which could potentially lead to more super-fan conversion, and/or more opportunities for engagement.

 

 

How do you know what to post on your Facebook Fanpage?  Trial and error, with further refinement as you start seeing results in one direction or another, is a good strategy to start with.

 

The key is that once you find what works best, move in that direction and don't retreat towards marketing copy or strategy that has failed you. In your case you already have a few good examples of what can work and what doesn't.

 

 

Taking a look at your fanpage, you will see that your most recent post, from February 11th, was different, in terms of content, then your prior posts. In it you are asking a question, and you got two more responses then most of your other posts. Now two total may not seem like allot, but you can cultivate that energy by responding to it.

 

 

Sweat equity, the act of paying into your marketing with your time and energy, is extremely useful in social marketing. Putting energy and attention towards your fans shows them that you care about their opinions.

 

 

The whole point of a Facebook Fanpage, or Twiter feed, is not to do it because the experts say to do it, or because that's the way marketing happens in 2011. You need to use the Facebook Page as an opportunity to share unique news about your brand with your fanbase, or use it to interact with your fanbase.

 

 

In regard to unique news, the more complete and self-contained your post, the better.

 

When you posted

 

"Sign up for the Robby the C-130 newsletter for subscriber-only news, articles, and contests." 

 

That's great, but how do I sign up? I'm a busy military parent, and I don't have time to track down the link...And now that I’m thinking about it, why should I sign up? What's so special about these subscriber-only news, articles, and contests?

 

 

This may sound a little pedantic, as you know what's so special about it, after all, you wrote it. But you need to give incentive that gives as much of clue as possible as to what the content is, and be as specific as possible within your encapsulation. People like to know what they are "buying" into, so the more helpful you can be in that regard, and the more information you can provide, the better your conversion will be.

 

 

 

This another one of those 5am posts where it all makes sense to me right now, as I read it over. But does it all make sense to you?

 

Do you have any questions about what I said above?

 

bradley flora

SPANnet.org

 

 

 

 

Permalink Reply by Tominda Adkins on February 23, 2011 at 12:04pm

Beth,

 

As a promotional user of Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads myself, I find that I get the most responses when I ask fans and followers to contribute to topics that aren't directly promotional. For instance, in my most recent blog post, I list words that I inexplicably hate and ask readers to comment and list theirs (posting links to fbook/twitter of course). I got 4 responses overnight, which--for a blog with only 23 listed followers--is great.

 

I do update everyone on the book's progress consistently, but I try to keep my content 50/50 (about the book/about something fun and quasi-related), while leaving space for interaction. People love giving their opinions! As other people comment, their friends pop in to see what they're doing, look around to see who I am, and maybe dig a little deeper to see what my book is all about. That might result in one or two more book sales . . . and down the road, ten more book sales, and a year from now, fifty, and so on. Long tail!

 

Just keep your content engaging, and don't focus so much on leading the followers you already have to your book. They know about it. Give them room to contribute and express themselves, and eventually, they'll bring others to your book.

 

Tominda Adkins

www.readvessel.com