Lesson #14 - Analyze That!

The following post analyzes Facebook and email data from the ABC Company, a health-oriented company located in Central Florida. You will also find some simple suggestions that I think the ABC Company could greatly benefit from by implementing into their IMC strategy.

Key Findings

• Facebook
•  ABC Company has a decent number of page likes with 880; however, with over 300 thousands “friends of fans,” ABC Company has potential for a great deal more page likes
• The company’s Facebook demographic is very clearly females ages 25-34 living in Orlando, FL
• The post on June 2^nd, “Today is national cancer survivor’s day” created the most virality, even though its reach was the smallest. The ratio of reach an engaged users equaling this high virality percentage.
• There seems to have been an increase in total reach around the same time the email was sent out on May 21^st

• Email
• Nearly 3,000 emails were sent on May 21^st and less than 20 of those emails were not successfully delivered
• Only 25% of all delivered emails were actually opened
• Out of the 25% opened, there was only a 10% click rate

Room for Improvement

• Facebook
• While they are clearly trying to implement themed posts with things like Thirsty Thursday and Wellness Wednesday, these posts have little engagement compared to other posts. While posing questions to audience members may seem like a great idea, this style of posting doesn’t always resonate with followers. Maybe trying different approaches like including links to related articles, promoting ABC Company events or posting photos/videos to related information could help boost the engagement rate.
•  Email
• While we do not know what was specifically covered in this email, it is clear that ABC Company needs to rethink their email strategy. With 99% delivery rate, they have done a great job at keeping their email database updated; however, with only a 25% open rate, they need to take a different look at their approach. Maybe by modifying the subject line of the email by including better keywords or an incentive would encourage more subscribers to open the email. In addition, to help improve the click rate of opened emails, ABC Company needs to create more stimulating content and include a more definitive call to actions to encourage readers to click the links in the email.

Using Other Channels

Utilizing more of the available IMC channels would be a great way to spread the ABC Company message. Ensuring that there is an email address submission field on their website will help to keep their email database up to date and accurate. Also, ABC Company should be including links/buttons on their website to all of the social media sites. Creating a Google+ profile could prove to be very beneficial for the ABC Company. As a member of the healthcare society, ABC Company could spread their message by interacting with and joining industry circles and communities via Google+, helping to strengthen their reputation and credibility. In addition to Google+, ABC Company should also be utilizing a blogging platform. The healthcare industry has endless topics that could easily be discussed on a professional blog and this would be a relatively simple way to get your voice heard and your brand in front of a larger audience – especially when used in conjunction with a Google+ page as sharing your blog posts on Google+ will help to increase their searchability. Sharing the content from the blog on Facebook and Twitter are additional ways to ensure that your content is getting seen by the most possible viewers.

Looking to the Future

Taking advantage of ABC Company’s distinct demographic (25-34 year old females in Orlando, FL) would be the best way to gain more interaction and engagement. Catering posts and content towards this demographic could prove quite beneficial for the ABC Company as they clearly dominate the total reach and engagement levels already. Posting informational videos on keeping your skin young or how to lose that left over baby weight are typical things that this demographic would be interested in learning about.

Getting more involved in healthcare expos and conferences could be a great addition to the ABC Company’s IMC strategy. Sharing their attendance at conferences via email and social media with their subscribers would help to establish the brand’s credibility and encourage their followers to share their own expo experiences. Utilizing pre-, live post-event promotion/marketing would help to increase ABC Company’s social visibility and potentially drive more traffic to their website.

All in all, ABC Company has the beginnings of a great IMC strategy. With some simple tweaks and additions, ABC Company could be up and running in no time!

{Let's Make A Connection}

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Lesson #13 - Little Trendyz Analysis

The following is a brief analysis of a Mom-owned business, Little Trendyz. This is a portion of my final project and does not contain any detailed evaluations. I have created a separate document that contains my full evaluation of this company, as well as a list of recommendations for improving Little Trendyz’ integrated marketing campaign and social media strategy.

All About Little Trendyz

Little Trendyz was created by new mom Lisa Feder Youngelson when she and her best friend decided to pursue an infant sleepwear innovation. Frustrated with the footed pajama options on the market, Lisa developed a product that helped to avoid the constant re-snapping and cold zippers associated with typical footed pajamas. She coined this new product “Zippyz” – a footed pajama with three snaps on the chest and zipper from the baby’s foot to stomach. Zippyz are made from a combination of bamboo and organic cotton, making them eco-friendly and soft!

The target audience for this product is pretty straight forward – new and expecting parents and friends and family of those who are new to parenthood.  With unique designs for both baby boys and baby girls, Zippyz are a stylish and affordable (costing just under $25 each) sleepwear option for your little bundle of joy.

Strengths

The strength of Little Trendyz lies within its product. Zippyz is a one-of-a-kind product, allowing Little Trendyz the opportunity to truly take hold of a unique branch of this particular market. With celebrity endorsers like Giuliana Rancic and national recognition from the Huggies brand, Little Trendyz has positioned themselves extremely well.

Weaknesses

The strength of this company also happens to be its overall weakness. While their product is great, the lack of design options and style variations makes it exceptionally more difficult to market to a wide audience. The need to wash certain items separately from other clothing, as well as not being able to dry Zippyz in a machine seems contradictory to Little Trendyz’ overall desire to save time in a busy parent’s life. In addition, Little Trendyz lack of social presence and consistent branding is only hurting their success potential.

Opportunities

The potential for growth is exponential, if Little Trendyz markets themselves correctly. With the celebrity endorsements and national recognition mentioned above, Little Trendyz has potential to gain additional funding for their product and become more exposed to nationwide retailers. In order to truly reach their full potential, Little Trendyz needs to be placed in actual major-market stores and not just base themselves online or with independent retailers.

Threats

The threats to Zippyz specifically lie in the ability for a national retailer to create a similar product at a much lower cost. With the ability to create a similar product at a lower cost, big box retailers like Target or Babies R Us can then use their resources to better market the product and sell the product at a lower cost to consumers.

Integrated Marketing Campaign

The benefits of utilizing an integrated marketing campaign are outstanding for Little Trendyz. By implementing various elements of an IMC strategy, Little Trendyz would be able to promote themselves in a more accessible way and allow themselves to reach a larger portion of their target audience. Resources like social media sites, email marketing, unique blogs and an interactive and informative website are all relatively simple steps Little Trendyz can take to creating a successful integrated marketing campaign. While consumers may be increasingly inundated with promotions and information from brands around the world, in order to be successful Little Trendyz must ensure that their name and message is reaching their potential consumers more often than not.

Revamping most of their social media sites, ensuring consistent branding on all channels, updating their blog – currently there is one blog listed on their website and a different one listed on Google when Little Trendyz is searched – and implementing new ideas such as an email campaign and print advertisements are some of the suggestions I have for elevating Little Trendyz professional presence.

As I stated previously, my full length analysis will contain a more in depth look at the various ways Little Trendyz can capitalize on their unique product and tweak their current way of marketing to reach an even larger audience.

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Lesson #11 - Grow Your World

The International Spa Association recently held their annual conference and expo at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. According to their website,

“The annual event provides an opportunity to network with spa industry professionals, 30+ educational speakers covering a variety of business-related topics, the latest trends in spa products and much more! In addition, the ISPA Expo brings together the leading product suppliers in the industry for one-on-one time with spa decision-makers.”

While the expo only ran October 21^st through October 23^rd, the ISPA began utilizing their social and internet platforms to spread the word and create excitement among attendees weeks before the conference kick-off.

Prior to the beginning of the expo, ISPA shared ideas on what to pack for your trip to Las Vegas on their blog and uploaded a PDF conference and expo guide to their website with information on sponsors and events. They even shared photos on Instagram of their supply truck, the expo set-up process and goodie bags the thousands of attendees would be receiving. All of their pre-event social activity was meant to help their attendees prepare for the event, as well as create excitement for the event among staff and attendees alike.

Pre-Event, Event and Post-Event Social Activity

Their pre-event promotion mainly focused on utilizing their Twitter and Facebook accounts to keep their followers updated on the event progress. They would tweet and post essentially the same things on both platforms, generally posting quick blurbs about where the staff was and what they were doing. Occasionally, they would encourage viewers to click on the link to their event specific website for more in depth information.

During the actual event, ISPA focused on using a combination of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to engage with their attendees. They encouraged attendees to utilize the ISPA2013 and GrowYourWorld hashtags on all social platforms pre-, during and post-event as well. They posted real-time event updates to their Twitter account and would often retweet follower’s posts about a specific speaker or experience they had during the event. They also used Facebook to communicate event updates and highlights in essentially the same format as Twitter, just not as frequently or in as great volume.

While their business Instagram did not see that much action during the event, they did encourage attendees to utilize #ISPA2013 and #GrowYourWorld for a chance to be uploaded onto the event website. There is a specific section titled #ISPA2013 that housed several of the Instagram photos that used the event hashtag. Looking at the section now, it clearly did not archive all of the photos that were posted with that hashtag. It seems to serve the purpose of encouraging attendees to use the Instagram platform and search the hashtag themselves.

Post-event activity has not been very exciting to be quite honest with you. While they posted a few farewell tweets to Twitter and posts to Facebook, there has not been much buzz surrounding event post happening. ISPA did try to keep the buzz going by posting this to both their Twitter and Facebook accounts:

It doesn’t seem to have worked very well though – only gaining 5 likes on Facebook!

Key Social Platforms Utilized

While we have already discussed most of the social media platforms ISPA utilized for their expo promotion, let’s revisit a few and discover some new ones!

Facebook: ISPA utilized their company Facebook page to post updates via text and photos prior to the event and during the actual event. The Facebook page kept attendees engaged by using consistent hashtags in #ISPA2013 and #GrowYourWorld and providing links to speaker bios and website information when necessary. The Facebook page utilized for this event was the company’s main fan page, so it’s hard to tell how much of the follower interaction was directly connected to the event attendees.

Twitter: ISPA utilized two different Twitter accounts to promote this event pre-, during and post-event dates. I actually didn’t realize there were two accounts until I clicked on one of the items retweeted and it took me to a completely different ISPA Twitter account. It looks like they had a pre-established company Twitter account and an event specific Twitter account. While the majority of the posts are the same, the user interaction differs between accounts clearly showing that not all followers are followers of both accounts. Even though there are apparently two separate accounts doing much of the same work, Twitter still seemed to be the easiest and most effective way for ISPA to communicate with their attendees. With quick, short bursts of information and a link you can click to gather more information, it makes sense that on-the-move event goers would gravitate towards Twitter more than any other platform.

YouTube: While there was nothing posted on their YouTube page that directly correlated with their annual expo, it’s worthy to note that they do have an account. The account seems to only be updated when an executive member has some type of quarterly update or a new study has been completed. In fact, the 2013 study was referenced in one of their pre-event posts on Facebook and Twitter.

Instagram: This platform was utilized mainly during the event and was predominately attendee driven. As I noted before, ISPA uploaded a few pre-event and live event photos but the majority of the Instagram traffic came from attendees posting their own photos and including the consistent hashtags #ISPA2013 or #GrowYourWorld. This platform, along with Twitter, are the easiest to use on-the-go and from a mobile device making them the perfect duo for event communication and engagement.

Pinterest: Oddly enough, ISPA also has a Pinterest account. They posted a few things pre-event, showcasing their award recipients, their chairman’s update video and a link back to their blog for tips on preparing for the ISPA 2013 Expo. It’s a very strange use of Pinterest given ISPA’s industry and the plethora of ideas and products they could be posting to Pinterest boards that are directly related to their profession.

Website: The event specific website was really just a place for attendees to go to gain general information on specific events, exhibits and sponsors leading up to, during and after the event. Nothing too exciting to talk about with this platform as it is a necessary tool with every large corporate event.

Mobile Application: ISPA did encourage their attendees to download and use their event specific mobile app on their smart phone devices. They posted on both Facebook and Twitter the link to download the app prior to arriving at the event which allowed attendees to gain up to the minute information, access to accurate event schedules and instant alerts sent directly to their phones.

Types of Content Shared

The majority of content shared by ISPA before, during and after the event included photos about the event or attendees enjoying event experiences, reminders on what specific events were coming up and links back to the event specific website. The same or similar content was shared on all of their social platforms (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) and tended to be more informational than truly engaging. Little was mentioned about specific vendors and/or sponsors; however, there is a tab dedicated to sponsors on the event specific website.

Hashtags, Retweets and Vendor Highlights

Consistent hashtags were used throughout each of the social outlets before, during and after the expo events, including #ISPA2013 and #GrowYourWorld. While there were no specific platforms dedicated to truly highlighting their vendors, they did occasionally retweet vendors who specifically called out one of their Twitter handles. Aside from retweeting the occasional vendor, ISPA did a decent job at retweeting attendees when they posted relevant comments or thoughts about a key-

note speaker or experience.

Sponsor Promotion

ISPA did not do a great deal of sponsor promotion on their various online and social media sites. Each of the sponsors were spelled out in the PDF event guide and the larger sponsors were showcased on the Sponsors tab of the event specific website. With such a large conference, it is difficult (if not impossible) to give face time to every single sponsor. With that being said, retweeting more of their sponsor’s posts (both large and small sponsors) would be a great way to meet in the middle next year!

Additional IMC Examples

While the event was promoted via their company website and their various social media outlets, there seemed to be a disctint lack of promotion elsewhere. This could be because I am not “plugged-in” to the spa culture, but other than self-promotion in the spa industry’s magazine, Pulse, I could not find any other attempts at marketing this event. Granted that could be because this event is truly for industry professionals; if that’s the case, they probably all know about the event already and are anticipating registering so there may not be a large need for multichannel promotion.

Consistent Branding and Theming

Overall, branding and theming was relatively consistent throughout the entire event and on all social and online outlets. The same logo and colors were used on their event specific website, PDF event guide and Twitter background. The same company logo was consistently used at the profile photo for their various social media outlets as well, making it easy to find the correct profile to explore. Like I mentioned earlier, they consistently used the same hashtags on all available outlets with #ISPA2013 and #GrowYourWorld.

This Stood Out to Me

The Relaxation Area really stood out as unique to me. While this wasn’t promoted a lot on their social media sites (one or two references at the most), this was probably one of the most frequented areas of the entire expo. The Relaxation Area allowed attendees to experience complimentary spa treatments from industry professionals and various sponsors. This was a chance for attendees to not only experience great service, but to get a first-hand look at specific products that they could potentially utilize in their own practice. Obviously, this is something that you are probably only going to find a spa expo and I wish it would have been showcased more!

Room to Improve

Overall, I think ISPA did a great job at utilizing various methods of the internet and social media to promote their event at different stages along the way. However, I wish there would have been more pre-event activity to help create more buzz and excitement among attendees. I imagine that the industry professionals attending this expo get extremely excited about the event and it would have been nice to see ISPA encourage more engagement among attendees and staff members. By actively posting articles on the ISPA blog or updating an event specific Facebook page, they could easily prompt social engagement from readers and followers. Retweeting and sharing user’s posts would be a simple and quick way to encourage and maintain engagement and conversation as well.

This week’s focus really got me thinking about how exciting and entertaining it must be to run the social media aspect of a large event. Having worked in event planning for the past three years and being a part of some very large conventions from an operations standpoint, I know how busy those staff member and meeting planners really are. I think it would be beneficial for any large event to have dedicated staff members whose sole purposes are to update and maintain the event specific social media. I mean, let’s be honest, that would be the BEST job ever!

{Let's Make A Connection}

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Lesson #7 - Serious Social Savviness

Welcome back! We’ve been talking a lot about the different social media platforms that exist and how important it is for companies to incorporate those outlets into their integrated marketing campaigns. But, it’s not just about incorporating every social outlet available; it’s about incorporating the RIGHT platforms for your brand and including a consistent look and message on each of those platforms. Let’s take a look at three brands that are doing an outstanding job of incorporating consistent branding and messaging on their social platforms.

First up is Target. Target can be found on all the major social platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and even LinkedIn. Target does a great job at incorporating a consistent look on each of their pages; most notably, the profile thumbnail photo on each platform is the same. Target’s red target logo is easily identifiable and respected, by using this as their profile photo alone drives traffic to their sites. Their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages are all similar in the items they are promoting at the tops of the pages. Currently, Halloween costumes, décor, and other offerings are being highlighted in these areas. The Target Google+ page is a little different in that only a recent article with the Halloween hashtag is promoting the holiday, rather than their cover photo or background photo. In a similar fashion, Target’s LinkedIn page is very professional and clearly a business space. There are no advertisements or product pushing here. Instead, there are articles about resume writing, charity work, and flu shots. Clearly focusing more on Target’s business side rather than their in-store marketing side.

The content on Target’s Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram pages is updated every day at the least, but usually multiple times a day. Their LinkedIn profile usually has one post every day or every other day. Target’s Google+ page, on the other hand, only has four posts total beginning on September 30^th. I’m not sure if this is just a glitch on my computer or maybe Target is just new to the Google+ world. If that’s the case, hopefully they will begin to use this platform more frequently and effectively.

Target does a great job of using various hashtags on all of their sites (with the exception of LinkedIn) to help users search through content and to join in conversations. Also, each platforms clearly lists the Target website in the “About  Me” section and generally includes the website link in each posts. They do not, however, do a very good job of promoting their other social outlets. You cannot find a link to their Facebook on their Twitter page or their Instgram handle on their Facebook page. They do, however, tend to post the same images/stories on each of their social outlets.

Next up we have T.J.Maxx. Much like Target, T.J.Maxx is present on all of the major social media outlets including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and Pinterest. Also, similar to Target, their profile photo is the same on each and every social outlet; creating a consistent and familiar place for fans and followers to connect and explore. Each of their pages have a similar look and feel (even the photos to the right are hard to tell apart), showcasing the latest fashion trends, current product offerings, and style tips and tricks.

Their content is updated extremely frequently, unlike Target who has a few platforms that are lacking in the department. T.J.Maxx generally posts multiple times a day on each of their social media outlets; their Google+ page tends to only be updated once a day or several times every other day, but still keeps content fresh and current. Also, each of their social media outlets lists their website at the top of each page, but only occasionally includes the URL in their actual posts.

T.J.Maxx uses hashtags incredibly well, especially when promoting their Maxxinista campaign. All of their social outlets encourage fans to share a photo of themselves in their latest T.J.Maxx finds and post it on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram with the #Maxxinista for a chance to win a $1000 gift card. The one downside of their social media outlets is that they do not do a very good job of promoting each other; there are no “find us on Facebook” links on their Twitter page or a “follow us on Instagram” on their Facebook page.

Last but not least, we have Ebay, the king of online auctions! Ebay can also be found on all of the major social media outlets including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and YouTube. Also, just like Target and T.J.Maxx, Ebay uses the exact same logo as their profile photos on every social media platform, allowing fans and followers to quickly find their pages when searching. Unlike the other two brands I’ve mentioned, Ebay does an incredible job of including their various social media accounts on each of their pages. You can find Ebay’s Facebook and YouTube handles on the background of their Twitter page, there are buttons at the top of their Facebook pages that link you to their Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube pages, and they have included the same buttons on their YouTube page. The exception to this would be their Instagram and Google+ page, neither one of these outlets includes anything but the Ebay URL (which the other three platforms include as well).

For the most part, each of other social media platforms showcases the incredible items that you can find on their website. The use of hashtags is not as prominent on the Ebay pages as the other two brands we’ve talked about; they usually keep it to a general #ebay that is used predominately on their Instagram page and nowhere else. As mentioned before, their website URL is listed at the top of each of their pages, but Ebay also does a great job of including a specific link on each of their posts. For example, if the post is a photo of a Halloween costume, the link attached will take you directly to the page where you can purchase said costume. Ebay’s YouTube channel is unique in that it showcases not just their products, but ways to use and get creative with their products. This helps to create a sense of industry knowledge with their fans and followers, furthering their followers trust and loyalty with the brand. In addition, their social platforms are updated on an extremely frequent basis, generally posting multiple pieces of content each day.

Overall, each of these three brands does a great job at balancing the use of multiple social media platforms. While there are a few things that could be improved with each of these brands, they have an incredible foundation created and the sky is really the limit. These are all great examples of brands embracing social into their integrated marketing campaigns and not being afraid to set the bar extremely high for their competitors. 

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