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Why Your Company Needs New Marketing and PR 2.0
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What are New Marketing and PR 2.0?
New Marketing and PR 2.0 offer a completely new collection of powerful tactics and strategies to find new business, nurture existing relationships, and empower viral growth. Your business needs to become insanely good at these new tools if it's going to evolve and thrive.
These techniques will allow you to create new business far more cheaply and easily by strengthening your customers' trust and advocacy. And they allow new customers to quickly form a powerful bond of trust with your company. You get happier customers and greater profits.
New Marketing takes its tactics from one-to-one marketing, permission marketing, referral marketing, share-of-customer, customer-focused marketing and relationship marketing. It also uses new social media to enable explosive, exponential growth at a minimal cost.
Allow me to suggest that you reallocate a very modest percentage of your marketing resources to New Marketing and PR 2.0 this year. There's no other expenditure you can make in 2008 that can bring you this kind of profitability and ROI.
Now is Gone
A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs
In 190 concise pages (a great plane read), Livingston spells out what you need to know and do to thrive in the Age of Conversation.
Now Is Gone: A Primer on New Media for Executives and Entrepreneurs
Amazon Price: $10.17 (as of 12/04/2008) 
Now is Gone, Geoff Livingston & Brian Solis
Put some service back into customer service and put some relationships back into public relations. In the world of social media, companies will get the communities of customers they deserve.
Using Social Media to Build Relationships with Your Customers
Why you need a social media expert
Whether your customer is technically savvy or not, virtually every customer today seeks greater opportunities for information, socialization, and connection.We've passed through the Information Age, and we're now in the Age of Conversation. Customers talk with one another. Prospects talk with one another. And all of them expect to be able to talk with you—in a frank and far-reaching conversation.
As Web 2.0 continues to gain acceptance and understanding, your company needs to create the tools to engage in that conversation in a meaningful way.
Social media isn't just a new place to put ads. It represents a new way of doing business, holding an ongoing and dynamic two-way conversation with your customers. It has significant risks and pitfalls. It calls for some key resources you might not have in place now. It also holds the opportunity for supercharged growth and customer loyalty.
There's a wide array of new Web tools that can help you "flip the funnel" and inspire your customers to do your marketing for you. Not just to their friends, colleagues, and family, but to the world at large.
Flipping the Funnel
Creating passionate advocates for your point of view
If you haven't seen it yet, Seth Godin's eBook on Flipping the Funnel walks you through the basic strategy of using Web 2.0 tools to facilitate conversation about your company or project. Whether you're responsible for a big company or a small one, Flipping the Funnel is required reading.
21st-century success depends on your customers becoming your most passionate champions. There's no amount of marketing or PR you can do that can compete with a lively conversation held among your customers, whether that conversation is positive or negative. (If you don't believe me, ask AOL, Apple or Dell.)
Flipping the funnel calls on a constellation of strengths including authenticity, respect for customers, blackbelt communication skills and a compelling story to tell. Without each of these elements, your organization can't leverage its most important asset—your customers.
Content is Still King
New Marketing and PR 2.0 demand better content than ever before
Some social media experts will tell you that the message is dead. That misses the point. Stiff, overhyped corporate messaging has been replaced by something much more flexible and robust: the story.
In the Age of Conversation, your story must be compelling, unique and irresistibly repeatable. It must be absolutely consistent across every medium—not just your blogs and ads, but your help desk, your community actions, your supply chain.
Social media pros are consummate storytellers, able to tell and retell your story in a million ways for a million different audiences, retaining the core that makes the story uniquely yours.
Sonia Simone on Copyblogger
The #1-Rated Blog on the Web for Content Marketing
Sonia Simone on Copyblogger
Copyblogger was ranked #1 on Junta42's list of top content marketing blogs.
Permission Marketing: Managing the Nano-Attention Span
Attracting and holding attention in the age of media clutter
The techniques of permission and relationship marketing, creating rich and ongoing connections with customers, have emerged as the only truly viable response to clutter. These strategies go hand in hand with a social media program, and are the best way to build on the awareness that social media generates.
A permission-based conversation allows your organization to step out of the noise and confusion of clutter and created relevant, valued messages that don't fall victim to the Delete key.
Blogs and Facebook are not enough; you need to create a solid permission campaign to complement and follow through on your social media presence.
Entering the Web 2.0 Conversation
New media relations: a new way of relating to customers and the general public
New social media is fundamentally about conversation—with your customers, with new media, and with the general public.
When you develop relationships with the bloggers and social media communities in your industry, you can participate in the conversation in a meaningful way.
Blogs, forums, social media platforms like Facebook, and even tools like Twitter create an environment for a rich multifaceted conversation. The intelligent organization uses this new environment to create remarkable connections with customers (insulating you from the fact that your competition is never more than two clicks away) and to drive product development based on customer demand.
This conversation lies at the heart of New Marketing, and it requires a deft hand. Transparency and authenticity are non-negotiable, but they need to be balanced with sound business judgment. Companies that master this conversation will master the 21st century economy.
The worst thing you can do is try to engineer a fake conversation. Social media users are frighteningly adept at spotting astroturf. There are no short cuts.
How About SEO?
SEO (search engine optimization) is the subject of a lot of discussion and controversy, but it fundamentally depends on the same thing that great customer relationships do—high-quality content.The practice of SEO evolves daily, and tricks that worked yesterday are useless (or harmful) today. Robust participation in social media is probably the most effective way to organically improve SERP placement.
Search engine placement in 2008 depends on first-rate content, well optimized for search engine as well as human readability.
Forget black-hat (or even gray-hat) techniques—Google catches on to them faster than you can learn them. True organic SEO is the only right way to improve your search engine placement.
The Constant Evolution of Web 2.0 Tools
Staying on top of the newest vehicles for conversation
Facebook or MySpace? Forums or blogs? What about Twitter? Could we get a listing in Wikipedia or Mahalo, and should we even try? Should we do all of those?
Is that even possible?
Trying to fully grasp the nuances of every Web 2.0 platform is a little like trying to memorize the Yellow Pages. It isn't very useful, and it probably isn't humanly possible. Fortunately, the conversation itself will guide you to the right opportunities for your organization. It requires dedicated resources, immersed in the culture and daily activity of the new Web, but very little beyond that.
Just as word of mouth will guide customers to your organization, it will guide your organization to the best new conversations taking place for your customers. But you have to have the resources in place to follow that lead.
Who's Sonia Simone?
Someone who can make your company more profitable
I've been a marketer for about 12 years, a professional writer for 20, and a fully engaged citizen of online community since 1989.My career has always focused on forging strong bonds through better communication. Over the past four years, I've been working with an industry-leading luxury travel company as director of customer communication.
In my first year with the company, we went from getting about 26% of our new business from referrals to a little over 47%. (We also cut our marketing budget by just over half.)
This program took customers who were happy with a product and turned them into members who are loyal advocates of an institution.
Relationship marketing and communication have been key to the growth of the company. We've also used social media to spark conversations among our customers, and give them a platform to share the depth of their experiences with others.
Our customers are passionate advocates who refer their friends and colleagues naturally. Disengaged or unhappy customers won't refer their friends under any circumstances.
I've spent 20 years helping companies create more remarkable relationships with customers. I've also been active in social media since 1989, and held my first paid position in social media in 1993.
So What Am I Selling?
The opportunity for a more remarkable relationship with your customers
I'm looking for another opportunity to take a company to an industry leadership position using new media tools.You're looking to "recession-proof" your company, to save money on your marketing, and to take your business to an exponentially more effective and profitable level. I think we can help each other with our goals.
Put simply, you need a Director of Social Media.
What does a Director of Social Media do?
- Builds a viable strategy to participate in the World Wide Web 2.0 conversation, using forums, blogs, social media platforms, and the tremendous range of constantly evolving tools.
- Develops the right message, language and story for your organization in a new media environment.
- Creates a permission strategy that connects you directly with your audience in a meaningful and rich way.
- Conducts new media training for executives and anyone in your organization who participates in the social media environment
- Stays on top of the latest new media opportunities and environments, and analyzes which are the best fit for your company.
- Works with your Search Engine Optimization team to create the information-rich, frequently updated content that gets rewarded on SERPs. For many organizations, participation in new social media can serve as a complete and robust SEO strategy.
- Leverages what's great about traditional marketing—communication of customer benefits and your unique value proposition—in a new media environment, keeping the right tone for this new audience.
- Develops "flipping the funnel" strategies to reach out to new audiences, including viral tactics such as YouTube or Facebook campaigns (and including robust follow-up that lets you benefit from those campaigns).
(And if you're a bit old-fashioned and you like to see a traditional resume, click here to download mine.)
The Remarkable Communication Blog
When Seth Godin, maybe the 21st century's most powerful marketing voice, tells you "boy, you totally nailed it," that's a pretty good sign. His subsequent link to my marketing communication blog brought me thousands of new readers, many of whom have gone on to subscribe to my feed and my email newsletter.
That vote of confidence meant a lot to me, as his permission marketing model is without question the most sound and reliable model for growing a company in the information-cluttered world of new social media. Godin validated the model I've always been drawn to, based on making your offering and your relationship more remarkable.
In addition to my popular personal blog, I write a well-received corporate blog and moderate a customer forum that creates additional loyalty and advocacy for my company. And this is in an industry whose customers aren't the "blognoscenti"—fewer than 10% read even a single blog other than my company's.
Remarkable Communication has earned attention and backlinks from Technorati-100 bloggers including Seth Godin, Brian Clark (Copyblogger), Darren Rowse (Problogger), and Dosh Dosh. And I built these links organically within two months of starting the blog.
Earlier this year, Brian Clark of Copyblogger invited me to be one of two regular guest bloggers. I write weekly on Copyblogger about using content to create stronger, more powerful connections with customers.
The remarkable communication blog is probably the best way for you to find out more about me—if my writing style, personality, and approach would be a good fit for your company.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byA Few Important Books
Permission Marketing : Turning Strangers Into Friends And Friends Into Customers
Amazon Price: $16.50 (as of 12/04/2008)
The One to One Future (One to One)
Amazon Price: (as of 12/04/2008)
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
Amazon Price: $9.43 (as of 12/04/2008)
Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability, 2nd Edition
Amazon Price: $26.40 (as of 12/04/2008)
Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing out of Sync?
Amazon Price: $15.57 (as of 12/04/2008)
Articles About Smart (and Not-Smart) Uses of Web 2.0 in Business, PR and Marketing
- Velocity, Flexibility, Economy. Chris Brogan on what social media can offer the "traditional" company.
- Sample Social Media Toolkit. Chris Brogan's list of some good starter tools for social media participation.
- Blogs Will Change Your Business, Business Week. Two years old and still highly relevant.
- The Web 2.0 World is Drunk on Its Own Kool-Aid, Steve Rubel
- Web 2.0 dead? Don't be silly, it's just starting, B.L. Ochman
- Why the Community CEO Doesn't Work, Allen Stern. The real meat of this one is in the comments. No answers here, just important questions.
I'd Love to Hear Your Thoughts
Effective communication is a conversation—it always goes two ways.
Let me know what you think about customer marcom, your company or industry's marketing, the brilliance of Seth, or whatever strikes your fancy . . .
squiddles wrote...
Hi, Nice lens, You are invited to join my group - THE BIG SHOW I look forward to seeing your lenses there.
Posted May 06, 2008
AllAboutTheBuzz wrote...
Hi Sonia. I have many wonderful ideas on what I would like to do. I was searching for someone like yourself with your abilities to possibly work with. I strongly believe that nothing is coincidental and that events and circumstances happen for a reason because they are drawn together thru like thoughts. And Whola! I'm at your lens. I live in Columbus, Ohio. I'm sure there are probably some people in this area I could speak with. However, I came accross you first. If you have any suggestions on any referrals in this area or if A business relationship would work with you, I would like to hear. Thank you.
Posted February 26, 2008
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sonia_simone
Marketer, writer, editor, tinkerer, obsessive, bookworm, bleeding heart, analyst, and wannabe geek.
What's here
- Now is Gone
- Now is Gone, Geoff Livingston & Brian Solis
- Using Social Media to Build Relationships with Your Customers
- Flipping the Funnel
- Content is Still King
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