Pubcon Keynote by Jeffrey Eisenberg

This is a live blog post.  Sorry for typos, mispellings and random quotes that I liked.

Jeffrey Eisenberg.

What bugs me about social media is that people think it’s like Media.

Why the yellow brick road – Don’t look at the man behind the curtain – Wizard of Oz.

70% of americans are checking their social media updates twice a week.

In March of 2010 Facebook was delivering more traffic than Facebook.  Is social media important.,  Absolutely because they want to sell you ads.  People are spending tons of money on social media.  56.8 Billion dollars will be spent this year on generating website traffic.  Companies spend $92 to bring traffic to their site but only $1 to convert them.  They ignore their conversion rates.  Let’s take you down the yellow brick road!

1.  Transparency is not your choice.  Only Authenticity is.

When you’re a kid you are told to keep secrets.  That is no longer the case.  If you have anyone else involved in your company like customers or employees then you are no longer keeping the secret.  You are now opened and being transparent.  Advertising accelerates the inevitable.  By having the ads you can spark the conversation.  This can cause your customers to talk and your employees to engage.  (Non related quote).  You have to advertise if your company is not remarkable.  – Jeffrey Eisenberg.  For years we would say we are the best, we are the greatest but eventually the world moves forward and finds you.

2.  u.g.c. & The Tom Sawyer Effect.

How many people are copywriters?  Like Tom Sawyer, Amazon turned reviews into something like a selling feature.   They added in reviews, top rated and used their users to generate content.  Amazon was the first social media site because of their user generated reviews and content.  Best Buy now says you can buy on our price, we’ll sell you on service.

3.  The pressure is on to monetize.

The current marketing budget spending on social media.

• Aug. 2009 – 3.5%
• Feb. 2010 – 5.6%
• Aug. 2010 – 5.9%
• Feb. 2011 – 5.6%

I have never seen an industry as so guilable as online marketers.  They believe everyone is an expert if they hype themselves up.  I don’t know any other fields where if you haven’t done anything for at least 20 years, you are not an expert.  So where do all these social media experts come from?  They just pitch themselves as experts and find people to believe it.

4.  Marketing vs. Promotion.

What are the 4 P’s of marketing?  Price, Product, Placement and Promotion.  So what are people forgetting.  They are focused on driving millions of visitors and forgetting to convert them.  People forget about giving a good user experience and tracking ROI.  We need to stop pushing our efforts on promotion and build a great experience.  That helps you build word of mouth.  When was the last time you saw an amazon.com commercial?  They provide a great user experience and it generates their word of mouth.

5.  W.O.M. is truly remarkable.  (Note to all of you, Jeff loves Beef ribs!)

W.O.M. is triggered when your customer experiences something far beyond what was expected, for better or for worse.  Slightly exceeding their expectations just won’t do it.

• Word of mouth is about exceeding expectations.
• Architecturally – Is the design or the actual building unique and will it make people want to talk.
• Kinetic – How they perform.  Look at the people who throw the fish in Seattle.  People talk about it.
• Generous – Do you give something extra or for free or over deliver for free.  It gets people to talk and recommend you.
• and/or Identity – The Mets.  You will lose interest in baseball by July because the won’t win, but you identify with them so you stick by them.

Companies who did this well include Amazon, Starbucks, Zappos, Google and Facebook.  Zappos gave free shipping and threw in something extra.  They want people to call in and talk to them.

6.  The Scarecrow Worships ROI

What is the return?  Not everything has a return.  What is the return on being nice to your spouse.  It just makes your life easier.  In Aprill 1999, www.cluetrain.com was launched and published 95 self-evident truths.  They predated social media but they defined it in what it is now.

7.  Don’t be rude.

Listen to your customers.  You can find out what they are saying and use it to better your customer service.  Build new product lines, etc…  (Duh!!!)  Sorry, I hate that part and hate having to repeat it over and over. Delta’s Facebook fan page pitches booking a flight.  that is out of place as people are looking for info, not to be pitched.

8.  Why do people unfriend you on Facebook.

You over commented.  You got repetitive.  You over messaged them or invited them.  It gets annoying.  It reminds you of something else, Email.  People started turning away from email because it got spammy and not about them.  Your social media and Facebook has to be about them, not you.

8.  Tools, Tasks and Buying Experiences.

Computers and Geeks.  Start to finish.  Humans using software make a couple of connections and look but go pretty much directly to the purchase.  Humans shopping on their own, they shop around and make a ton of stops.  CSEs, PPC, Reviews, etc…  It’s all about understanding motivation.  The behavior we exhibit is based on emotions and what we are feeling or thinking.

(You have to get people into shopping mode is the next 5 minutes.  Here are a bunch of posts with that in it.)

Webtrends say you can reduce the problem of click through by using Friend of Fan targeting.  This is supposed to help ads last three times as long as before users get sick of them and stop clicking.

9.  Conversion, Like the Emerald City Is a Journey Not a Destination.

Conversion rate is a measure of your ability to persuade visitors to take the action you want your visitors to take.  Proflowers is one of the highest converting sites online.  (To bad they have all the adware Affiliates).  Use senses to help drive ads.  Make sure your ads bring you to relevant messaging and you live up to your promise in your ads.  Think about what the people were thinking when they did a search for a term and think about how to satisfy that need if you are going to show an ad.  (Side note – use your negative keywords and don’t interrupt their fun.)

10.  AIDAS & Providing Persuasive Momentum.

Online you don’t persuade me.  Instead you guide me down your path and marketing path to want to buy your product.  Each step helps convince me that your product is the best and then I want to buy.  There is no gravity online.  None of your customers have to make it to the bottom,,,i.e. you can drive a million visitors to your site but they don’t have to make it to the checkout process.  Making it to the checkout is gravity and your sales funnel.  Your sales funnel and gravity is how you can make it to the end by convincing them with your messages, marketing and ease of use to make a sale.

It isn’t about just bringing people to your site.  It is about getting them educated and excited and then making them want to buy.  Don’t shove sales down their throat.  Make them want to shop and give you their contact info.

Wrap up.  Glinda shocks Dorothy that all she needed to do was click her shoes to get home.  Dorothy realized how easy it was.  There’s no place like home.  It’s about the relationships you build.  Those relationships can drive traffic but they don’t drive the conversion.  It is up to you to drive the sales.