The OMC Email Marketing Council was lucky to have the fabulous Jason Baer as our guest speaker today.  (Sign up for the Council and get more great stuff like this!)

Yes, I mean THAT Jason Baer   The OMC bloggger, speaker and all around luminary, and founder of Convince & Convert, a consultancy that works with PR firms and corporations helping them leverage email and other social media.

Here are my (raw!) notes.  Some great nuggets in there!

Enjoy – and thanks so much Jason!

Cheers,

Stephanie
Email Marketing Council Chair

Jason Baer On How Email and Social Media Work Together:
• Good email and social media do the same thing:  engage, converse, convert/sell.
• Email is fine as a way to introduce your brand, but it’s really good at building your brand among your current customers.
• Social media is like a public CRM system. You strengthen the relationships but you do it as everyone is watching.  It’s a public interaction, with a personal touch.  People who look at social media as a way to get more customers, but it’s doesn’t’ really work as a “new SEO. “
• What do consumers want out of social media relationship. Consumers want to flip the switch on traditional relationships. It’s not the old “master and servant” relationship where the brand targets the consumer for some demo- or psychographic reason.  The brand says, I will push you info and you can buy our stuff. Thank you very much.”  And we’ll send you email hoping you will buy more stuff. But now, consumers want to have a sense of who these companies are, what do they stand for. Where are they operating in the world. Consumers want to be a peer with a brand.  Have a seat at the table and have a conversation.

Social media humanizes brands. Makes them feel more real.

Example – Comcast.  They got ripped up by a customer who posted a very negative video that was viewed millions of times. Very embarrassing for the company.  They could have just run and hid, but they did not.   People talk about you, and you are better served to get involved.  Comcast took up this cause and developed a program to find blog posts and any other content that complained and answer those people and take those conversations offline and they truly wanted to help people They now have 12 full time people manning Twitter around customer service issues.  Why does this work? It shows them to be a company that cares about customers.    Similarly, Ford does the same thing, has a human being who responds to consumer issues and concerns.  He’s way out there.

From a brand standpoint, Jason calls this “marketing sideways,” focusing on something unexpected. Heinz Ketchup has a program, “talk to the plant.”  You think, hey ketchup is boring!  But they don’t focus on the typical ketchup attributes like viscosity or taste. They focus on what makes ketchup what it is – great tomatoes.  They took two tomato plants. One had a computer that would talk to the plant.  Consumers would talk to the plant via this system. They measured the impact of the talk on the plant itself.  And had a whole campaign around it. Why does this work?  I feel so much more strongly about the Heinz program. I feel like Heinz gets it.

ROI for social media is difficult. I advocate focusing on bottom line metrics like LTV, AOS, reduction in service calls. All the things that point to a company that is anticipating customer needs and solving problems. It’s the same way you measure customer service ROI, or email ROI.  It’s about the relationship over time.

• Social media consumers want to know about the brand as people. Make people the star, not the brand.  Develop a 3-D picture of the company, content that is interesting, focused on the business but not expressly.

• There is an opportunity cost to social media silence. If you are not engaging through these channels, then your competitors will have an advantage.  You need to be where your customers and prospects are.

• Start by listening to the conversation (e.g.: Technorati is free, Radian6 is paid service).

It’s got to be about strategy, though.  The challenge is to not just do tactics, “Hey we need a Facebook page.”  Don’t think of tools first. Think of customers first.  Do this analysis and really think about your strategy – are you trying to reach new people, to engage with current customers and turn them into ambassadors?  What sort of social media users are your customers? Will they make a viral video for you or do they just want to read blog posts.

• MySpace definitely skews younger in audience.  MySpace is really becoming less of a social network, and more of an entertainment portal. So strong in music and video.
• LinkedIn covers the professional market, and anything job related.  Their usage has doubled recently b/c people are using it for job hunting.  IN has come a long way – now more integrated with other applications.
• Facebook has an average age of over 35, and the difference demographically between FB and IN is narrowing. Just yesterday, FB changed all the brand pages, so they now work the way individual pages work.  Allows more interaction. Just changed in the past 12 hours!
• Twitter is harder to pinpoint, use is done from so many different platforms. Pew just released a State of the TwitterSphere report, and they say, 11% of US Adults use Twitter, up from 5% a month earlier.  Older than you think – median age on Twitter = 31, MS = 27, FB = 27, IN = 41. Yowsa!  Other findings:  Twitter more likely to live in urban areas.  Twitter more likely to use wireless access or via mobile device.

Email and Social media points of conversion:
• SWYN – links from email to share with your network.  ESPs are now offering these links.  This might be interesting for identify the active group.  Let’s friend them up.
• Sharing interesting and compelling information is appropriate.  But it will go beyond your existing customer list, and can be leveraged.
• Think 360 degrees.  How can your content be consumed in various touch points.  Look at Papa John’s – a couple hundred thousand FB fans, and you get free pizza. They sell millions of dollars worth of pizza.  Use email to drive people to FB and visa versa.
• Cross Pollinate.  Invite fans to sign up for your email program from your social network programs.
• Maintain multiple touch points.  Your corporate sig file should include these multiple modes of communication.  The same way you would as a professional in your  email sig line.  In some ways you may be better served to move them to your social network rather than your website.
• Use the data.
• Get the basics right first.  If you can’t build an effective and high response email program, focus on that first!  Then move into other channels.

Resources from Jason
7 Must Haves in your Social Media Strategy – and link to the Planning Worksheet Jason mentioned:    http://www.mpdailyfix.com/2008/12/its_fantastic_that_interest_in.html
22 Ways to Dominate Linked In (for individuals) – http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-marketing/linkedin-22-ways-to-dominate/
Marketing Sideways:  http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-marketing-sideways/
3 Absurdly Easy Ways to Link Email and Social:  http://www.convinceandconvert.com/email-marketing-advice/tie-together-social-media-and-email/
Pew Report: State of the TwitterSphere – http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/276/report_display.asp