I’m going to take you back, all the way back to a commercial in 1996 for Bush’s Baked Beans. The spokesman of the bean company, Jay Bush, reveals that the delicious success of his baked beans “lies in a secret family recipe that the company guards closely,’ and the only other living creature who knows this secret is his loyal dog, Duke. The commercial ends with us discovering that Duke can in fact, speak and can repeat what he hears… to which the owner says ‘Uh Oh’!
This got me thinking… in a world where there are dozens of brands of baked beans – and hundreds of social applications - what is it that makes the top companies stand out?
What is it that makes Bush’s Baked Beans not just unique… but BETTER? And how can this help your marketing efforts?
When it comes to Bush’s beans we may not know the answer (I’m guessing smoked paprika), but when dealing with social media the answer is clear: the secret sauce consists of 2 simple ingredients - Speed and Relevancy. If you can deliver a personal message that is relevant to each visitor that enters your site- at the exact moment they enter your site- then you have discovered the secret sauce of marketing.
Let’s take a closer look at the top 6 ‘social networks’ and learn how you can incorporate the ‘Speed and relevancy’ sauce to your B2B website.
Take an interactive social network and add a suit; that’s Linkedin. Compared to January 2011, the site’s members have grown by 45% worldwide! Linkedin found a niche that was begging to be filled: it provided a homebase for conference attendants, business contacts and everything corporate to combine… while still maintaining a friendly ambiance. If you look at the stats, 77% of linkedin users are age 25 and above and the top 2 most prominent industries on the site are the financial and high tech sectors. This is the one stop shop for finding leads, nurturing seeds and learning about the influential players in your field. With constant group discussions and real-time updates from the right folks, linkedin took advantage of the secret recipe. Speed +Relevancy = Linkedin Success.
There are more searches on Twitter each month than on Yahoo and Bing combined (that’s 24 billion searches), 11 accounts are created every second and over 57% of companies use twitter as part of their social media marketing. With a limit of 140 characters, you have no choice but to get right to the point. Each tweet is cushioned in a newsfeed that is built for skimming and scanning. Marketers are challenged to come up with a clever sentence – jam packed with keywords- and attach a link so that the right person will see the perfect ratio of relevant content. This is how the culture of hashtags arose…and the reason why twitter will continue to rise in an information-overloaded world. Speed +Relevancy = Twitter Success.
Pinterest, Instagram and Youtube
It’s Visual Time! There’s a reason Pinterest gets 12 million unique visitors a month, Instagram has 5 million uploaded images and Youtube reported over 730 million clicks for Gangham Style . People like pictures. By typing into a simple, user friendly search bar, Each of these 3 platforms delivers the user exactly what he’s looking for-in the form of a picture, video or image. Naturally your eyes wander to all the content..most often perfectly related to your search. Do you feel like posting a pic or video? As soon as you click on ‘upload’ the world is your audience. And let’s face it, who doesn’t want to see a chocolate mousse cheesecake or a dancing Korean man? Speed +Relevancy = Visual App Success.
Facebook is one of the top 10 apps downloaded on the iPhone. This success is due to the ease at which users can interact; you can like, share, or comment on a post in the blink of an eye. Pages are separated by interests and groups that the user seeks. For instance, if you are a fan who’s perusing the Nike page, you are entering a world of pictures, quotations and stories that are relevant to you …you expect to see high energy, sports themed posts and stories of athleticism. Better yet, you don’t even have to enter the Nike page, just ‘follow’ them and the content magically appears before you. Did you like what you saw? Sure you did… so Facebook made it pretty darn easy to spread the love. Speed + Relevancy = Facebook Success.
So there you have it: Speed plus Relevant content is the secret recipe behind all these social sites… But what happens when a visitor comes to YOUR WEBSITE? How Do you apply the Secret Recipe to your B2B website?
It’s simple: Real time inbound marketing (RTIM) allows you to become the Bush’s Baked Beans of the business world.
How?
First Ingredient -SPEED…REAL-TIME SPEED
57% of people will abandon a webpage after 3 seconds, and 75% of users report increased levels of stress and anger after not finding what they need on a website. In the Business world, timing is everything. You must be fast. How fast? You must be automatic. RTIM software detects and analyzes visitors as they enter your site and auto-engages them in real time. It’s a 3 step process:
Step 1. Check out who comes to your site based on industry, location and behavior (search terms, referral sites etc..)
Step 2. Create groups or segments with targeted campaigns pre-set so that the prospect receives personalized messages in real time.
Step 3: SIT BACK AND REACT as your campaigns auto-engage visitors in real-time, as they enter your site.
Second Ingredient -RELEVANCY
10-15 seconds after you view a webpage your short term memory forgets what it saw. This is why the conversion rate for emails (1-1.5%) is so low. You may think that your prospects don’t care about your company or product, but in many cases they don’t even remember who you are! Your email has now been clumped into a pile and tagged with the word Spam. And what about static pages? If you deliver the same message to a mobile developer and a banker, you might as well say goodbye …
So there you have it! Unless Duke speaks up, we may never know the secret sauce that makes Bush’s Baked Beans the top seller but, if you want to know how to optimize your marketing efforts and convert happy, interested customers…Real Time Marketing Software is your answer!
Bon Appetit!
The post What Do Baked Beans Have to Do with the Top 6 Social Media Networks? appeared first on Insightera Blog.
