There are certain buzzwords in any industry that some find bothersome. For example, the term, “Pre-owned” as a euphemism for used in the automotive business has always made me a little crazy. A pre-owned car is new. It hasn’t been owned yet, it’s pre-owned. If it is simply previously owned by someone else that isn’t you, then it has been used.
Now that I’ve got that out...
“Green Marketing” is one of those buzz terms for the advertising industry that gets to me in a similar way. I’ve heard this term used in multiple ways, which probably adds to why it is so bothersome. Some use it as a marketing badge of honor, as in “This company only uses 100% recycled material.” In other words, they are marketing the fact that the company is green. Others have used it as a process by which they market, as in “We only want to advertise in non-print, energy efficient ways.” In this way, they are publishing their marketing in green ways.
Both are great ideas, that have been overdone in many cliche ways. Images of your logo with leaves sprouting, or of hands gently cupping a growing tree, a recycling symbol superimposed over your logo, etc. have all been done a lot. If you are trying to reach a new audience, these will most likely not work.
A customer’s willingness to do business with a specific brand or company has a hierarchy, with certain factors outweighing others. For 99% of your customers, they are:
- Perceived value.
- Ease of obtaining/using product or service.
- Environmental impact of brand/company.
In other words, a company needs to sell a product or offer a service that has the best value, with the easiest usage, first and second. Although I list environment third, it’s a far third. In the mind of your customer, it’s most likely like this:
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| You correctly assumed the green slice is the environmental impact. |
Unless your business is tied with your competition on the other two fronts, I wouldn’t suggest focusing a ton of marketing on the green front. If your company is in need of some public relations messaging, or you are trying to wok on some brand loyalty, it can be useful, but as a tool to drive new business, it isn’t high on the recommendation list.
One of the more prominent leadership models you hear about recently is this concept of leading from the middle. This is usually compared to two other leadership strategies, such as leading from the rear, and leading from the front. From the rear is like being a general in a battlefield, shouting orders of what you want done, without getting involved in the fray. Leading from the front often times turns into being a micro-manager, charging forward to do everything yourself while your employees wait for you to do it for them. Leading from the middle is hard, requires a lot of work, and that your team be in sync with both the short term and long term goals.
Social media is always, without fail, leading from the middle.
You simply cannot micro-manage social media, as one person cannot be truly “Social”. You need a team of people. The good news is, you have a company, which has people. You have a customer base that is made up of people. That means there’s plenty of people that you need to communicate and interact with your company profile. An enthusiastic employee base to start the exponential growth of your site, as your primary brand ambassadors, is essential.
Now, having a little bit of the old “General” style leadership, when it comes to getting the ball rolling, makes life a little easier. If you have the authority to tell your people, “Since I haven’t shut off Facebook at work on the computers, and since we’re having this little contest going on our Facebook page, I’d appreciate it that when you’re on Facebook during work hours, on my dime, you participate a little...”
With that being said, if you think you can effectively create a social media experience that your employees and your customers take advantage of by leading from the rear, barking out orders, you are gravely mistaken. You can’t order people to be social. As soon as you try to command a lot of social interaction, your quality goes down the tubes, and you end up commanding mostly yourself. At that point, you’re trying to micro-manage social, which we already said simply doesn’t work.
So, how do you effectively lead from the middle? It starts by letting everyone involved, both internally in externally, know what you are hoping to accomplish. Both internal and external clients need to have a reason to interact with you. If they see the value in what you are hoping to achieve, then you can move forward. There needs to be an incentive, whether it is intrinsic in the interaction itself or additional to it.
Then, you need to do it.
Here’s the tricky part. If you cannot effectively run a social media campaign from the middle, because you have neither the time or the skill to do so, you’d better empower the person you have running it with some authority. There’s nothing worse than a Content Producer sending out emails, begging people, “Can you please go on Facebook and help with our contest?” and being completely ignored, while the boss is saying to that same Content Producer, “Why aren’t you getting people to participate?” We’ve seen those types of social media strategies. They last around six months, end in complete failure, and propagate the idea that social media “Just doesn’t work.”
Are you ready to lead from the middle?
I was surfing through some different news blogs, and noticed some of the banner ads. Obviously, I’m a little biased about the quality of ads; although none of them were as bad looking as the design above, there were some that came close. What made many of these worse was where they pointed to, if they somehow managed to interest anyone enough to click them.
Free hint: a 404 page does not make the best target for your ad...
Tell me if this sounds familiar to anyone: Conceptualize the end result first. (Otherwise known as, have a goal...)
Many times, it seems as though there is no concept for the banner ad’s use, other than whatever is on the actual banner. Someone comes up with a great new marketing slogan, and an artist takes it and runs with it, and out of this creative medley comes a beautiful 728X90 ad that can only be summed up in one way: “Wow.” This wonderful piece of art is uploaded onto an ad server, and it is linked to a homepage, and customers flood your site. Once there, they poke around for a minute, maybe two, and your analytics for the month show an increase in two main areas: number of hits, and bounce rate.
Building your banner ads backwards, and starting with the goal first, then building the funnel to get to said goal, and finally ending with the banner ad, tends to have analytics that point to accomplishments, rather than simply traffic and bounce rates.
Directions we’d recommend:
- A landing page that allows the user to easily buy whatever goods or products the banner ad promoted.
- A landing page with useful information, a specific call to action, and tracking capabilities.
- A landing page with an interactive experience, like a game, that builds additional brand loyalty.
Note: All of these start with “Landing Page”. None say, “Dump them on your homepage, and hope they find something that catches their eye.”
There’s a ton of different outcomes for your landing pages; we discussed three general ideas. Feel free to brag about your accomplishments in the comment section below.
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