Mal Gordon – How to Sell on the Web

A lot of businesses don’t ‘get’ social media. They’ve been bombarding their audiences with marketing messages in a one way process for so long that it can come as quite a shock that the audience can now talk back and are more than willing to do so.

Many businesses do ‘get’ social media and use it wisely like the team from Galleria Toyota.

They are using Twitter and Facebook well because they:

Communicate regularly

You’ll usually see about one update or tweet per day from the team which is a good effort in comparison to many other local businesses that often abandon their Twitter account or Facebook page after a handful of messages. They also aren’t over communicating and bombarding their audience which can turn them off.

Engage their audience

Galleria Toyota regularly fosters conversations with and engages their audience by asking for feedback and opinions as well as holding competitions like the recent photo contest.

Use Multimedia

Their Facebook page is often updated with photos and includes a tab for their Youtube channel. Images and videos tend to be more engaging and better received by audiences than plain status updates on Facebook.

Are Building Rapport

Messages about the Royal Show and other community events as well as pictures of muffins from the local bakery franchise. Galleria Toyota understand that social media isn’t about the hard sell. It’s a great tool to add value to the lives of potential and existing customers on a regular basis so that you can remain constantly front of mind.

I may not plan on buying a car in the next few weeks but when the time comes, I can guarantee you that Galleria Toyota will be popping into my head as a preferred supplier that I have warm and fuzzy feelings for thanks to their effective use of social media.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to market on Twitter. Here are some examples where marketers didn’t get it right.

An automatically generated direct message upon follow that was way off target.

And some Tweep thought that they would spam me with their offers of plus size women’s clothing.

The beauty of social media is that it allows us to connect with like minded people which makes for very highly targetted and appropriate word of mouth marketing. The whole direct mail scattershot approach that turns it into a numbers game kinda defeats the purpose.

Another great video from the Commoncraft team.

Recently, I chanced upon the following short commercial.

After having a quiet giggle to myself and taking a moment to reflect on the creativity that went into the production I did what the advertisers were hoping I would do (and to a degree are now counting on) – I shared it on Facebook and Twitter.

Do you see what happened there?

I just spammed passed on to 300 odd of my closest Facebook and 1200 odd of my closest Twitter friends/fans/followers/disciples their advertising and they didn’t pay me a penny for my efforts or time. I have been using the sharing tools for so long now that I now share material that I deem great and relevant to my audience instinctively. How effective your advertising campaign will be now depends on how likely it will be passed on by consumers.

The balance of power has changed forever. Traditional marketers now have no choice but to engage with their audiences on their terms.

This means that if a campaign is not:

then it will not be embraced and passed on by the ever more time poor audience.

This is how advertising works nowadays. To win as an online marketer nowadays you have to:

1. Get the Audience’s Attention

Get the audiences attention FIRST….then deliver the message. I see many clever campaigns delivering many clever ideas yet still failing because they never got their audience’s attention in the first place. Wanna get someone’s attention? Do something outrageous like having a bunch of men do wildy creative and inventive things with everyday items like beer bottles.

2. Have a Unique Message or Proposition

Heineken Men With Talent offers up inventive and entertaining uses for the humble beer bottle – a mundane, everyday item. The creativity and originality of the thinking behind the ad makes it stand out from the hundreds of other, more mundane ads that I was bombarded with on the day I first noticed and watched this ad. I can’t recall any other commercial message I was bombarded with on the day I first saw this but I do recall this ad in its entirety because it was just so different and entertaining.

I believe that some people are able to tap their creativity better than others so if you feel that you’re not up to the task (and if I pushed you you’d be surprised at what you can come up) then you can hire someone else to come up with the concepts.

3. Make Your Content Easy to Share

I originally found this video in my Facebook newstream. I tracked the video back to it’s Youtube point of origin so that I could take advantage of the inbuilt sharing buttons that are automatically inserted into every video uploaded. I then preceded to share this video with my 300 Facebook friends and 1219 Twitter followers.

Notice how this article has ‘share’ and ‘like’ buttons for social networks too. I want to make it as easy as possible to share my content so that it too can go viral.

Make sharing as easy as possible for your audience and they will be more inclined to pass your content on just as I have done here.

Conclusion

Advertising has always been a game of survival of the fittest. If you create attention grabbing and inventive work that engages your audience then you will be rewarded just as I rewarded Heineken by passing on their good work to you. If you choose to take the conventional, unimaginative and unengaging road then prepare to be ignored and fall by the wayside. Make no mistake, the competition is tough but for the few who do succeed, the rewards are well worth it.