Small Business Labs

Baby Boomers and Social Media

Marketing Charts has a good article on a survey of online baby boomers (born 1946 to 1964) social media usage.  The survey was done by ThirdAge and JWT Boom.   Key quote:

"People over age 40 participate heavily in word-of-mouth and value personal recommendations and expert opinions, but they have not embraced social networking or blogs despite being heavy users of other online services..."

The survey said only 22% of the respondents used social networking.  It also found their boomer respondents expressed "little or no interest" in the following activities:

• 67% writing blogs
• 63% in participating in general social networking
• 55% listening to podcasts

I find the survey results credible and roughly consistent with other studies on this subject.  I also see this data as "half full."  By that I mean I think it is impressive that 22% of online boomers are using social networking.  Given the short period of time online social networking has been around, this indicates that boomer social media usage is growing very rapidly. 

But it also means that while growing rapidly, online social media usage is not yet mainstream for baby boomers.

I saw this on the Masterful Marketing blog via MyVenturepad.

Duct Tape Marketing on Social Media Marketing

The always excellent Duct Tape Marketing blog has a post on social media marketing called The Ultimate Social Marketing Question.  According to the post, the ultimate question is:

"What do I want the relationship with my customer to look and feel like?

I would add to this "what do my existing and future customers want our relationship to look and feel like?" After answering these questions you can (quote from the post):

"...determine if you can enhance and amplify that relationship by setting up a Facebook group, finding and being found on LinkedIn, installing Twhirl to keep up with your Twitter world, creating and promoting company videos on YouTube, building networks within StumbleUpon or, lest we forget the obvious, blogging."

You can also decide not to use social media marketing if it doesn't fit your needs or the needs of your customers.    

I've posted recently on the debate around whether or not to use social media marketing methods.  Duct Tape's post provides a simple and concise framework for deciding. 

eBay Auctions Going Away?

Businessweek has a story called Auctions on eBay: A Dying Breed that discusses the shift away from online auctions.  Key quote:

At the current pace, this may be the first year that eBay generates more revenue from fixed-price sales than from auctions, analysts say. "The bloom is well off the rose with regard to the online-auction thing," says Tim Boyd, an analyst with American Technology Research. "Auctions are losing a ton of share, and fixed price has been gaining pretty steadily."

According to the article, search engines have made it much easier to find good deals online and consumers prefer the simplicity and ease of buying fixed cost products over participating in auctions. 

The article ends with a somewhat ominous quote from a long time eBay seller who has recently stopped selling on eBay:

"Many auctioneers may have no choice but to close shop, says Hershenson, adding, "Their latest changes will have the result of ending auctions as we know it on eBay.""

The Changing Role of the Press Release

The Society for New Communications Research recently released a study on the changing role of off and online press releases.  Based on a survey of both small business owners and PR and marketing employees of larger corporations, the Society found:

• New Goals and priorities for press releases are emerging - In addition to reaching the press and announcing news, releases are increasingly being used to directly reach customers, add to corporate visability and improve search engine optimization. 
• Bloggers have joined traditional media as key press release targets - a bit over two-thirds of survey respondents said it was important or very important to reach bloggers with press releases.
• Measurement Continues to be a Challenge - PR has always been hard to measure and the same is true for online press releases. 

As this survey shows, a growing number of small businesses are using online press releases to accomplish a mix of marketing goals.  Often small businesses are not doing a traditional press release, but instead simply posting the release on their site and sending it directly to bloggers, online news sites and customers.  This is not only cheaper, but helps with search engine optimization and provides more online website content. 

Hubspot Webinar on Inbound Marketing

I follow the Hubspot marketing blog and find their information on online marketing both useful and interesting.  They are hosting a free webinar on what they call "inbound marketing" next week.  It is on June 4th at 2:00pm eastern.  Here is the webinar description from the sign up page:

"Today, buyers start their purchasing process on the Internet, in the search engines, blogs, and social media. In order to remain competitive, your business needs to leverage the Internet to reach buyers directly in this new media world.  Attend this free webinar to learn how to get started marketing on the web - get found online and engage more prospective customers directly."

I like webinars, especially when they are free.

Lack of Integrity in Hearst Magazine Marketing Update

About a year and half ago I posted on Hearst Magazines sending me a fake collections letter.  I used it as an example of unethical marketing.  I also used it as an example of how unethical marketing programs are going be uncovered and publicized via the Internet. 

I was reviewing my web traffic reports and found that my original post continues to be one of my most popular posts in terms of visits and page views.  The traffic all comes from search engines.  The post page has a Google page rank of 3 and it shows up in the top 10  search results for a variety of 3 and 3+ search terms related to Hearst Magazines. 

Since traffic to this post continues to grow my guess is Hearst is still using unethical marketing practices.  This is unfortunate.  While they may be gaining short term revenue from their tactics, I continue to believe they are hurting themselves and in the long run they will feel the impact.  Whether or not Hearst cares to admit and/or recognize it, marketing transparency is here to stay and unethical business practice will increasingly be exposed. 

Nascar Fans Big Consumers and Owners of Small Businesses

If you've ever wondered why Nascar races are mostly moving advertising billboards, take a look at the study press release pdf done by Scarborough Sports Marketing.  Key quote:

"Nascar fans are top-spenders in big ticket retail categories, avid tech consumers, and influencers when it comes to making business purchasing decisions."

According to Scarborough, Nascar fans are also "13% more likely than the national average to be small business owners."

Marketing Charts has more information on the study.

Valentine's Day and Small Business

Email marketing company Constant Contact conducts an annual survey of their customers looking at the Valentine's day outlook for small business sales.  According to survey, 46% of small businesses expect strong valentine's day sales this year and 68% are planning a special promotion.

Neuromarketing and Wine Pricing

The term neuromarketing generally refers to the use of brain scans using medical imaging equipment to develop marketing messages and advertising.  Basically, researchers hook people up to MRI machines and watch how their brains react to marketing pitches. 

Over the last decade MRI machines have gotten much smaller. This allows for much less intrusive scans.  People can now be scanned while sitting realtively comfortably in a chair.   This, coupled with lower costs, has created the opportunity for both academic researchers and marketing practioners to investigate neuromarketing. 

CNET has an article on a neuromarketing experiment done by researchers from CalTech and Stanford.  So does the London Times.  The research looked at the brain activity of research subjects as they drank wine.  They found as the price of the wine goes up, so the does the sensation of pleasantness.  Key quote:

"that the sensation of pleasantness that people experience when tasting wine is linked directly to its price. And that's true even when, unbeknownst to the test subjects, it's exactly the same Cabernet Sauvignon with a dramatically different price tag."

Other neuromarketing studies have also shown that price and image have a major impact on how consumers perceive a product.

Large corporations are starting to actively experiment with neuromarketing.  Expect to see many more neuromarketing studies over the next few years.

Google and Small Businesses Marketing

Last week Google hosted a symposium on local markets and local advertising.  About 120 people attended and for most it was their first visit to the famed Google Plex. All appeared to be wowed. 

There were presentations on adwords and mobile advertising.  But for me the 3 key take aways were:

1.  Google continues to work very hard to better enable small business marketing.  Quote from one of the Googlers:

"Our goal is to provide small businesses with the ability to out-market large corporations."

2.  How quickly local and mobile advertising is advancing.  If anything they are moving faster than we forecasted in our report on the Connected Entrepreneur last summer. 

3.  How few small businesses have the technical skills to fully take advantage of online marketing.  Google sees this problem and is doing several things to address it.  They are planning to release a simplified version of adwords in the near future.  They are also developing relationships with 3rd parties to create marketing solutions for small businesses.   The goal of these relationships is to eliminate or at least minimize the technical complexity of adwords and search engine marketing (and, of course, to sell more ads).   

One thing we keep seeing in our research is a growing "digital divide" between tech savy and technically challenged small businesses.  As online local and mobile advertising continue to advance we see this divide getting bigger.