Companies invest thousands in Trade Shows and Conferences. But despite the sums involved, commercial results are frequently disappointing.

Managers and executives often justify the investment (to shareholders and themselves) with comments such as: ‘we need to be seen at (the event)’ or ‘it is hard to quantify what we get out of the event but I’m sure we cover our costs’.

The reality is that it is perfectly possible to quantify results. And it is perfectly possible to get great returns from your investment in Trade Shows.

Attract the right visitors

1. You do not want to attract visitors with acknowledged needs who are looking for solutions.

Yes, you read that sentence correctly. At a trade show the competitive environment is weighted heavily in favour of the buyer. There is a concentration of vendors (other exhibitors) and buyers know it. Visitors who attend trade shows in search of a solution are usually in a later stage of the buying cycle. The trade show visit is used for due dilligence and to beat suppliers up on price.

2. You do want to attract decision makers and influencers with new and interesting insights into their business problems.

The trade show is your opportunity to start building relationships with key players in the marketplace. Rather than simply fill your stand with ‘me too’ products and solutions, use the event to educate the marketplace. Get involved with the lecture programme; provide case studies and get your representatives to talk about business issues rather than product specifications. This will attract individuals and organisations at early stages of the buying cycle. They have yet acknowledge they may have a problem and you are now positioned to influence their buying decsions.

Keep the conversation going

Building relationships with organisations early in the buying cycle has an incredibly positive effect on your sales ratios and margin. But catching people early stage means that you have to keep the conversation going over the longer term. It may be superficially more attractive to discuss the quote you sent to a trade show visitor you just met. But your real returns are delivered when you close that deal with an organisation you have spent time understanding and nurturing. Jonathan Calver’s paper: ‘Converting Trade Show Leads into Qualified Opportunities’ provides insights on how to achieve this cost effectively. His paper highlights where most companies go wrong – and how to fix it. It is well worth the read.

It is important to get Trade Shows right.

You invest significant sums on promoting your business through trade shows. You should be maximising the return on that investment. And whilst we would not suggest you turn away ‘visitors looking for a solution’ (that would be rude), expending too much effort on chasing competitive opportunities with reduced margins just is not sensible. Focus your attention on building relationships for the long term: it will pay dividends.

If you would like Jonathan Calver’s paper on the subject: Click Here

When it comes to lead generation too many organisations rely on third party lists (or poor quality ‘in-house’ lists).

The results are always disappointing and frequently appalling.

Well designed, updated and administered emailable databases will deliver results well above industry standards. If you are currently experiencing open rates below 15% and ‘click through’ rates lower than 10% then you may wish to read further.

What is an eMailable database?

Well it is more than a list of names and email addresses of ‘prospects’. A database consists of:

1. Individuals with whom you have an active or latent commercial relationship.

2. Individual, personal email addresses.

3. Individual permission to communicate via email.

4. Individual intelligence: you know exactly where the individual is in the buying cycle.

Note the use of individual: email marketing is not mass marketing. Organisations and colleagues who talk of ‘eshots’ and ‘email blasts’ just do not get it; they need education. An emailable database is a valuable resource that delivers regular revenue. A simple list will perform badly, damage your digital reputation and cost you money.

Jonathan Calver’s White Paper on ‘How to Build an eMailable Database‘ provides an insight into what it takes to start improving your campaign rates. If you would like it: Click Here

Building rather than buying your list.

When you build your own database you embed value:

1. It contains historical data: all the interactions you have had with the individuals in the database.

2. It is far more responsive than a ‘bought list’ or sending campaigns via third parties.

5 List Building Strategies:

1. Raid the Sales Team.

They might not like it at first but when you start to deliver real opportunities into their laps they will soon forgive you. Your sales team will have built up some serious intelligence on potential customers: it belongs to the company, not on a sales executives private spreadsheet, outlook file or notebook. Do not underestimate the level of authority you may need to extract this information. But the leads belong to the company, not the individual.

2. Purchase a list to get you started

Working in conjunction with telemarketing (either internally or externally) a bought list can provide you with enough information to start really building intelligence into your database. Remember, at this point you are not selling. You are simply getting enough information and permission to start email campaigns.

3. Telemarketing with a valuable offer

If you cold call someone, ask for their email address and permission to email, you will probably get a ‘No’. Hopefully it will be a polite, ‘not company policy’ rather than a short expletive! However, if you have a valuable offer of interest: a Sample, White Paper’, ‘Case Study’ etc. you are far more likely to get a positive response. And if the individual appreciates the offer, you will have started to build the commercial relationship.

4. Convert your Direct Mail list to an eMail list

Look at your most responsive, regular direct mail contacts. Working with them first to attain their email address should be relatively easy: they already have a relationship with you and should be willing to provide email addresses.

5. Use social media & website interactions to capture data

Many organisations have ’subscribe to our newsletter’ options on their websites. But they don’t deliver that many quality leads. However, if you provide useful information through social networking sites (blogs, White papers etc). people will access that information and provide you with their email address as a quid pro quo. If you then match your communications to their stage of the buying cycle you will start to build a strong pipeline of potential business.

Take your time

Building a valuable resource like an emailable database takes time. Do not expect to have 30,000 individuals waiting to receive your next email in two weeks time. Rather, focus on quality. 200 good quality emailable records per month will deliver read rates above 40% and click throughs of around 30%. That will significantly improve your digital reputation. It will also improve the quality of the leads that are passed to your sales team.

If you would like to read the full White Paper Click here

There are 8 common marketing problems shared by most companies and whilst not every company experiences all the problems at the same time, it is fair to assume that we have all encountered these issues in the past.

Below is an abridged version of Jonathan Calver’s fine White Paper on Marketing Efficiencies. If you would like to download the paper Click here

Problem 1: Insufficient focus on Target Companies

Target companies are organisations you should be doing business with. They are absolutely not the largest, most prestigious companies, nor are they every organisation that expresses an interest in your products. They are those companies which you can sell to with the minimum of effort and the maximum of profit. Examine your current customers. Which customers ’suit’ your organisation the best? Who do you deliver great service and products to efficiently?

By identifying those organisations that ‘fit’ your company best you can start to develop an Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).

Problem 2: Reliance on Mass Marketing Techniques

Mass marketing works OK for simple, FMCG products. Unfortunately some B-2-B organisations use similar methods to generate leads for their sales teams.

If anyone in your marketing department uses the phrase: ‘email blast’ or ‘eshot’ then shoot them now: they are seriously damaging your company, your departments reputation and your prospects. You need to develop multi-phase communications. Dialogues that recognise where buying teams are in the purchasing process and communicate accordingly.

Problem 3: Low Quality Marketing Collateral

Are you willing to be judged by the quality of your White Papers, Case Studies and Market Communications? Have you got sufficient material to develop a sensible business argument?

Many organisations have a good ‘White Paper’ in them but one is not enough. And in today’s multi-channel fast moving communication stream you need to invest in regular, good quality pieces. If you don’t, you will lose your audience.

Problem 4: Poor Response Rates

If you solve the first three issues, your response rates will improve. Do not be fooled into thinking that ‘industry average’ rates are good. They are not. If you are not regularly hitting open rates above 25% and read rates (click through) above 30% then you are failing.

Response rates improve dramatically with good quality materials targeted at the right individuals.

Problem 5: Loose Lead Qualification

Does the sales team fight over the leads you pass to them or are they rarely followed up? In an effort to ‘hit the numbers’ marketing teams will put anyone who has opened an email, registered on the website or downloaded a paper into the ‘to call list’.

The result is an increasingly disillusioned sales team and genuine opportunities being ‘overlooked’ in the noise.

Problem 6: Lack of Marketing Consistency

Marketing thrives on momentum. Communicate your value propositions regularly and you will generate a consistent flow of well qualified leads. Many companies take a ‘campaign approach’ this has a ’stop-start’ effect that creates great surges of leads followed by periods of quiet.

Most companies are unable to manage in the ‘rush’ and are overstaffed when it goes quiet.

Problem 7: Inadequate Marketing Measurement

Most organisations measure ROI based upon ‘leads generated’. However, as most leads are poorly defined, the information obtained is next to useless. measuring website visits gives you nice graphs and open rates provide a talking point. But this is the equivalent of measuring the success of a bridge building project by looking at the size of the trenches dug. OK the foundations may look nice but are you building a bridge?

Waterfall Rates are a much more effective measure if you would like to know more about these Click Here.

Problem 8: Insufficient Marketing Resources or Know-How

Many Business to Business organisations ’scrimp’ on marketing. Companies are regularly ‘technology led’ or ’sales led’, they are very rarely ‘marketing led’. But the sad fact for technology companies is that marketing matters: you may be able to do very clever things with software or engineering. But if there is not a market for your product, you will lose money.

For most, not investing in marketing is a false economy. For the smaller concern there are plenty of organisations and consultants who will deliver excellent programmes and drive your sales.

You may agree or disagree with the points raised, Please feel free to comment.

For further reading, the full white paper, written by Jonathan Calver can be downloaded here.

Businesses lose thousands every day through ineffective telemarketing.

No matter how well trained or dedicated, telemarketing professionals without proper support and pre-planning will lose opportunities and marketing investment will be wasted. The damage will be significant: poor telemarketing execution damages reputations. There are brands and companies synonymous with ‘hard sell’: you do not want to be counted amongst them.

Where did those leads go?

Most companies have thought leadership campaigns and generate significant interest on their blogs and websites. Direct mail pieces are well thought through and targeted. Email campaigns are effective; white papers are downloaded and visitor numbers increase. But despite doing ‘everything right’ companies still fail to develop a reasonable number of opportunities for the investment made.

The problem is that poor co-ordination and a lack of timely information means that most leads generated by marketing are wasted.

Often, getting a complete record of an individual’s interactions with an organisation is difficult if not impossible. Leads get passed to telemarketing because they ‘downloaded a White Paper’ but the neither telemarketer nor the company know that the prospect accessed the company’s website on several separate occasions, read case studies and product information.

Put simply data collection is not sophisticated enough to spot opportunities. Jonathan Calver discusses how to address this issue in ‘Lead Profiling to Accelerate Sales’.

For a copy: Click here

The second problem is that telemarketing agencies (and even internal sales resources) respond too late.

There is only one thing that cools faster than a ‘warm lead’ and that is a ‘hot lead’.

When someone is pre-disposed to purchase; customer service rules. Take your time over recognising their interest and they are likely to find another vendor. The fact is your prospects are bombarded with information on a daily basis. Getting a spreadsheet with 200 ‘warm leads’ to your telemarketing agency within 48 hours is no longer good enough. You are effectively giving the agency a list to cold call. And the results will be poor.

Telemarketing can only be effective if leads are processed immediately.

Getting it right

With multiple agencies, different departments, products, divisions and campaigns, getting everyone onto the same page may appear to be an impossible task. But it is not. Infrastructure and systems exist that link each element of your campaigns, your team and your marketplace. And they do it securely: you do not have to let third parties into your databases.

The Paper: Marketing Operations, shows how companies can co-ordinate multiple campaigns with feeds from Web Analytics through to eMail and deliver a 360 degree picture of a prospect directly to a telemarketer who can act on it.

If you would like it: Click Here

Telemarketing can be effective when supported by good planning and co-ordinated execution. That way your agents will be calling the right person, at the right time and have the right conversation.

Most telemarketing is ineffective.

Yet in a triumph of hope over experience companies still persist, using a mixture of false logic and assumption to justify the spend. Part of the problem rests with telemarketing agencies themselves. Telemarketing is frequently sold by the man-day. It is simply not in the agencies’ interest to be too successful: it reduces the number of days worked. This has lead to a situation where standard industry performance (80 calls per day, one appointment booked) is seen as acceptable.

This ’standard’ performance represents failure. It is perfectly possible to regularly deliver call ratios of 1 to 2. That is one appointment for every two telephone calls completed.

And this is how to do it….

Three conditions for success

In last week’s article ‘Why telemarketing fails‘ we identified three conditions that have to be in place before the telemarketing call is made:

1. Call the right number (the decision maker’s direct dial).
2. Catch the decision maker at the right time (make sure they are in ‘buying mode’).
3. Have the right conversation (be on the same page).

If any one of these conditions is not met the call is likely to result in failure.

How humans make friends

No one is going to sign a six figure cheque for your product or service unless they trust your organisation and have the confidence that you can deliver on your promises. Put simply; they have to build a relationship with your company. Most cold calling takes place when there is no relationship.

Information led marketing can help you start to build that relationship. This relies upon good quality, useful material being made available to your target market. Interested individuals will access the information, comment on the content and start to build a relationship with your organisation. We can track this activity. This approach has several built-in advantages:

1. The information you provide enhances your organisation’s reputation for thought leadership in the marketplace.
2. Interested individuals build a relationship with your organisation: they are more likely to accept a ‘phone call.
3. Sales professionals can track individual’s interest in subjects, making the call more focused.
4. Time is not wasted calling the vast majority of the database (who have no interest or need for your product today).
5. We can identify, through browsing patterns, organisations and individuals entering the buying cycle.
6. The number of sales enquiries increases (yes, prospects will call you and request meetings).
7. Good quality information positions you as a business partner: not just a cold calling salesperson.

It ain’t rocket science but it does need co-ordination and work

Of course many companies use a blend of consultative solution selling, white papers and case studies to generate leads. Often with mixed results. Success relies on planning, co-ordination and infrastructure. There is little point in exciting interest only to follow-up several days later. Timeliness is everything.

Campaigning must be blended to include passive and active marketing. Reliance on one channel (PPC, Social, eMail) will reduce the number of opportunities generated. Finally any white papers, case studies and ROI calculators that are commissioned need to develop a logical and compelling business argument.

Our final article in the series looks at the infrastructure, systems and working practices organisations need to develop to deliver effective telemarketing.

Telemarketing gets a bad press. And deservedly so.

Often costly, frequently delivering dreadful results: it’s surprising that we have a telemarketing industry at all. Yet despite years of evidence, companies continue to spend thousands on this activity.

When it comes to telemarketing there appears to be a ‘Lottery Mentality’. Organisations suspend logic in the hope that one day they will get lucky.

This article identifies why most telemarketing fails and what can be done to improve results.

Telemarketing’s most costly errors

In 2005 we published a paper: Cold Calling is Obsolete. It is a sad fact that very little has moved on in five years. Success ratios, if anything, have declined. A good telemarketer will make around 80 calls per day, speak to perhaps 10 people and may make one poorly qualified appointment. These ratios make tele-prospecting for sales professionals uneconomic: no wonder the activity is outsourced.

Planning to fail

The major reason why telemarketing campaigns fail is because it is almost impossible to get through to the ‘right’ person. Receptionists and PAs are trained to filter telemarketing calls. Even when a telemarketer does get to speak to someone in authority they are unlikely to receive a positive reception. The result is a day full of rejection and frustration, leading to the second source of failure: high staff turnover.

If a telemarketing company can keep staff for an average of 9-12 months they are doing well. Most retain staff for an average 3-6 months. Inexperienced staff are unlikely to engage senior decision makers in sensible, relevant business discussions.

Finally telemarketing is rude and might even be illegal. Normal human communications do not involve wandering around the streets trying to engage perfect strangers in conversation. No wonder telemarketing is so unpopular. To prevent cold calls organisations have registered with the Commercial Telephone Preference System (CTPS) which means if you call them you could be liable for a fine.

Getting telemarketing right

Telemarketing is very effective when executed properly. It can be as simple as a two minute conversation leading to a genuine business meeting. To achieve this three things have to be in place before the call is made:

1. Call the right number.

It may sound trite but the fact is most telemarketers call the wrong number because they do not have the direct dial number of the decision maker. Calling the decision maker directly means that conversation is initiated at the right level. Cutting out receptionists also improves success ratios.

2. Catch the decision maker at the right time.

It is pointless to call someone only to learn that they have just ordered what you are selling. Getting to the decision maker when they are entering the buying cycle improves the chances of success significantly.

3. Have the right conversation.

Trying to sell complex services and products over the ‘phone can lead to confusion. This is especially true when the telemarketer is inexperienced. Get the decision maker on the ’same page’ before you make the call. It makes for sensible business discussions and improves the chances of success.

Summary

Getting telemarketing right means preparation: targeting the right person at the right time and having the right conversations. Outsourcing to a traditional telemarketing agency will not deliver this level of preparation and the result will be failure.

Do not be fooled into accepting ‘industry standard success metrics’. Setting your targets so low that you are bound to hit them is a particularly destructive form of failure. Over the next two weeks we will be showing you how to get the intelligence you need to prepare a successful telemarketing campaign.

In the meantime you may wish to review Cold Calling is Obsolete, which details why telemarketing on its own will never deliver success. To get a copy Click Here

It’s the dream: set up a web shop, fill it with exciting new products, make checkout and shipping easy, sit back and wait for the millions to roll in.

But success is never simple.

Getting an eCommerce site up and running is just the start. To attract customers you need to build the right web presence. This is not the same as Search Engine Optimisation, a site with not particularly good SEO can regularly outperform search engine optimised sites, provided the site administrator gets the web presence right.

Web Presence

Put simply, web presence is just ‘being there’. Getting in front of the right eyes at the right time. Two years ago this meant getting a good page position when someone searched for your product or services on Google. But habits change and so should your tactics.

The Shopping Mall Analogy.

Mall shopping is more than a simple way to acquire essential items. It is a social event. Malls contain cinemas, eateries, coffee outlets and, oh yes, shops. Success in the Mall means attracting footfall. A similar approach is needed if your eCommerce site is to be effective.

Over the last couple of years the internet has become a playground: a place for entertainment and people now use the web differently. Facebook provides social engagment, You Tube, entertainment and a ’slew’ of gaming sites have been set up.

To get noticed, to attract footfall, you need to get your offers and posters out into the Internet Mall. But blanket marketing and advertising becomes very expensive, very quickly.

The Internet as a Series of ‘Hot Spots’

Noticed how market traders with the best patter attract the largest crowds? It is the same online; you need good patter to attract attention. Comment knowledgeby and regularly on products and developments in your marketplace and you will develop a following. But it is not enough to simply create that following on your own site.

In the same way that posters and leaflet distributors direct shoppers in the Mall to particular retail outlets, you need to blogs, groups and fan pages that direct people to your site. Build these assets in hot spots, where your customers congregate. Create hot spots of your own: authoritative, entertaining content and customers will come flocking.

And you do not have to do all the work yourself. Atracting 4,000 interested shoppers to your site each month might deliver a respectable income but a network of 200 affiliates and recommenders will deliver an obscene income.

Building your eCommerce site is just the start. Success only looks easy when you have done all the hard work: building the blogs, creating the content, attracting a following and recruiting your affiliates.

Good luck.

Last week we promised we would show you how digital marketing can help you compete for and win new business. The following article is the result of over ten years experience, thousands of successful client campaigns (and quite a few successful campaigns of our own). It should help you design and execute your own revenue generating activity.

Attraction is not enough

There are plenty of marketing agencies and ‘experts’ who will wax lyrical about search engine optimisation, pay per click campaigns, even social marketing. The hard fact is that no matter how attractive and ‘on brand’ your site is and no matter how much you spend getting noticed on line, it will not deliver a return on investment. In fact many executives see the company website as an ‘Internet Tax’: they know they have to pay for a website and invest in getting it prominant but they also know that (in most cases) the business generated does not equal the money invested.

The reason is that for major considered purchases people buy from people: not websites. Who amongst you would invest tens of thousands of pounds on a software system simply by searching the web, popping the product in your virtual shopping basket and proceeding to the checkout?

Most B2B products are complex a mixture of product, service and require a long term partnership if the purchase is going to provide a good return on investment.

Simply ‘hanging out a website’ will not do. Organisations have to be pro-active.

Getting Pro-Active (the wrong way)

Most companies use tried and tested methods to promote their business. If every other lemming is heading to the ‘Trade Show’ we should tag along; shouldn’t we? I have never heard an argument for trade show attendance that did not sound like an excuse:

• ‘We have to go to be seen’.
• ‘If we win just one piece of business it will pay for itself’.
• ‘It is a great networking opportunity’.

So companies spend upwards of £30,000 just to share their competitive positioning and sales materials with all their competitors!

Do not think that you’ll be entertaining lots of qualified buyers on your stand: most trade show attendees are the office staff on a day out (competing to see who can collect the most freebees). If there are any senior buyers, the day will have been planned and they are likely to be evaluating options or doing due diligence before making a major purchase. If you know about the opportunity and have had a chance to progress through the early stages of the sale, great, (you do not need to be at the show). If you don’t know about the opportunity, forget it: at this stage you are unlikely to influence the outcome.

Another popular waste of money is outbound cold calling/telemarketing. It simply does not work.

Telemarketers are targeted on identifying opportunities. So guess what? They identify some. No matter how poorly qualified, the telemarketer, desperate to make the mortgage payment that month, will grasp at any straw to hit the numbers: the result is a slew of poorly qualified names and telephone numbers that will leave your sales professionals exasperated.

And do not get me started on mailshots.

Next to cold calling, junk mail is the next most hated form of marketing. Poorly directed, often irrelevant, rarely read: if you want to annoy the marketplace, associate your company with the destruction of the rainforests and melting the polar ice cap. Then be my guest: plan a mailshot today!

To get a mail noticed you will have to spend thousands designing a new and ingenious piece of origami that delights and amuses. This creates two commercial risks: if the prospect hasn’t had their eye taken out by the mailshot springing out of the carton, they are more likely to be interested in the origami than your product. (Unless, of course, you are an origami producer).

Getting Pro-Active (the right way)

Digital marketing can and does deliver significant return on investment. The website does not have to be a cost centre: it can be the source of your success. Intelligent marketing blends outbound digital activity with networking and information sharing. It enables discourse with your company, allowing you to craft well thought through and robust business arguments with prospects and customers. But it requires infrastructure, co-ordination and sustained effort.

Doing ‘an email blast’ is neither intelligent nor blended. Organisations that view their website as a living, changing beast are starting to win new business and post good growth. Remarkable in a time of financial austerity and economic uncertainty.

But there have to be losers. Perhaps they can be seen flocking down a motorway to an exhibition near you?

An Invitation

APM Digital are inviting business leaders, sales and marketing directors from finance, technology, engineering and consultancy firms to discuss and debate business generation over lunch at a central London location. Attendance is by invitation only and will not exceed eight. The guest list will not include direct competitors.

If you would like to join the debate either leave a comment and register your interest in the ‘London Debate’.

If your website was created eight months ago it is unlikely to be effective: because Google has deemed it to be out of date.

By autumn last year, Google’s Real Time Web Search had started to deliver results based upon timeliness and relevance. Which means that, if you do not update content frequently, your visibility to search engines will suffer.

Why is this an issue?

The fact is companies spend thousands on designing, building and populating their websites with compelling (search engine friendly) content. Building these sites takes time, plenty of late night discussions and heaps of intellectual, psychological and emotional energy. Renewing or replacing your website isn’t something most companies want to repeat on a regular basis. However, the trend is for search to take more notice of the latest events and information posted on social media and news sites.

And most company websites are just not (and arguably should not be) built for this kind of activity. The company website, the foundation of your web-presence and embodiment of your brand will simply slide from view. And slide very quickly.

So, if your company website is part of your marketing activity you need to think seriously about how you are going to compete for prominence.

Playing by the new rules

Google, Yahoo, Ask et al. have changed the rules: they are looking for recent, fresh information and they are looking for it in places traditional company websites do not inhabit. This does not mean you have to throw away your carefully crafted and expensive website: far from it. But it does mean you are going to have to stretch your presence across the web.

Social Media may have started out as a teenagers’ playground: a place to swap music, post video and hang out. It has rapidly evolved into a powerful business medium. LinkedIn membership exceeded 50 million professionals last October and it has been adding a million members every 12 days since. A political campaign without a social media element has, within the last eighteen months, become unthinkable.

The message is simple: a traditional company website is no longer enough. To build reputation and presence your organisation needs to compete in the social media space.

Getting it right

This is not about opening a ‘Twitter’ account and telling the world what you had for breakfast. It is about sharing useful information with your supporters, customers and potential customers. The 140-character limit of a ‘Twitter’ post is unlikely to carry that kind of information.

Companies need to develop a network of assets that have the flexibility to be updated regularly and be intrinsically linked to the ‘social web’. A good place to start is with a Blog. But care has to be taken. Many blogs exist in obscure and crowded spaces. Companies that start blogging on a shared ‘blogging’ provider find it difficult to get visited or read. Executives become disheartened when carefully drafted articles attract no interest. And the activity is retired early as an interesting experiment but ‘of limited use.’

To be effective, your blog needs its own place on the web (a distinct web address), active management (a designated editor in chief who ensures quality articles are published regularly) and co-ordinated campaigning (email, PR, social postings) to ensure all your hard work does not languish in obscurity.

The rewards can be great: after six months activity small IT support company in Cambridgeshire started to win significant volumes of new business.

Next week we will look at developing strategies for the new competitive environment.

Facebook can be dangerous for business.

Many organisations have rushed blindly into putting up a facebook page and engaging via Twitter without analysing the potential downside. Just like any powerful tool, facebook has to be treated with care; there are benefits but get it wrong and your organisation could lose money and reputation.

Before launching your facebook campaign consider the following:

This space is not for rent.

Facebook allows anyone freedom to create just about any group, provided it is legal and decent. Many organisations have taken advantage. They have increased their web presence and built an enviable following of loyal supporters. However, investing significant time, effort and money in third party assets could be short-sighted.

Social sites can and do shut down groups. Every facebook user has the right to report any group and many social sites take a ‘risk adverse’ approach. So, if someone complains (even without justification) that your group is misleading, you are likely to be shut down. You will not only lose reputation; you will lose you contacts and all the investment in building your group.

Policies change: what might be free today may become very expensive tomorrow. We have seen how Google mutated from a completely free service to the most powerful advertising organisation on earth. Today facebook has over 300 million subscribers and it is starting to flex its commercial muscle. We simply do not know how long commercial group pages will remain free.

Dangerous praise

Word of mouth marketing is great but again, it is not without risk. False claims made on your behalf by a well meaning but misinformed supporter could prove costly, especially if your company initiated the process. For example: if an organisation provides a product free to consumers it is potentially liable for any misleading  blog posts.

Ouch.

You could be forgiven for wanting to return to a simpler time; when all your advertisements were vetted by the legal department before publication!

All that lovely data

The social media business is all about data collection and consumer profiling. Knowing, on a massive scale, individual preferences, hobbies and lifestyles is a marketers dream. But it also creates risk for organisations. A successful facebook group will have thousands of followers. Create an application: a game or interactive survey and you will obtain a great deal of information about your consumers. This information not only has to be protected, it has to be collected in accordance with local data protection laws. And how often do you see a privacy statement or terms of use link on a facebook page?

That’s right. Not often.

In enthusiastically following a social media strategy organisations could be unwittingly setting themselves up for potentially expensive litigation. Organisations need to understand the sensitive nature of information that flows through social media. They should recognise the serious compliance and litigation risks that the collection and distribution of such information entails.

There are contractual tools to mitigate these risks, including properly drafted privacy policies and terms of use. A trip to your legal department will help you understand your obligations under all applicable data privacy and security laws, and help you build a nuts and bolts plan to meet those obligations.

Just because there are risks, does not mean you should not do it

Social media is the marketing phenomenon of the new millennia. It provides great opportunities to really understand customers on an individual basis and to engage in deep and meaningful dialogue. It has already started to revolutionise industry and the genie cannot be put back into the bottle. Organisations looking to benefit from the medium can, provided they treat social media with the respect it deserves.