Today I did a trunk show in the same town, in the high end gift
shop. Their two primary forms of promotion are Facebook and their
1,000 person e-mail list. Nearly sold out in 5 hours. BIG day -
huge sales, high end items flying out the door, folks buying
multiple high end items.
Congratulations on your sales.
There is a question though. You attribute your success to “Facebook
and the their (gift shop) 1,000 person e-mail list.” How do you
determine what sales were due to the gift shop’s e-mail list and
those sales that were due to ‘Facebook’?
Hard to say what came from where, but they do routinely have folks
come in within hours of a FB post asking for what they posted. They
had posted invitations on FB, and at least part of the people who
came had rsvp’d to those saying they would come. They are moving
almost totally to internet marketing.
Sam's and Costco are membership clubs, not "savings cards." I'm
sure they gather sales and demographic data, but not at the
personal level. Any advertising I get from them is the same
advertising every member in the area gets.
Having toiled for some years in the variable data mines, yes, it’s
almost certain that all your customer record data is in fact
associated with your name. (or with some other easily identifiable
datapoint.) Having never seen Costco or Sam’s data, I can’t say that
with iron-clad certainty, but unless they went to a certain amount of
extra trouble to deliberately obfuscate their own data, it’s
individually identifiable. (And when have we known WalMart to spend
money it didn’t have to? Just to reassure customers??)
The more accurately they can identify a customer, the more the
data’s worth, both to them, for internal marketing use, and later on,
if they feel like selling it.
Me? I never give a straight answer, or real name when filling out
those card applications. And I change them every six months or so.
Johannes von Doe is a perennial favorite. (Or variations thereon.)
The drawback to that is that they can still track you by credit card
#, but that takes a bit of extra work, so usually they don’t bother.
Sam's and Costco are membership clubs, not "savings cards." I'm
sure they gather sales and demographic data, but not at the
personal level. Any advertising I get from them is the same
advertising every member in the area gets.
Don’t be so sure.
My local supermarket gave me a savings card, works ok. But every
register receipt has coupons printed just for the type of stuff I
buy. I have loaned my card to people behind me at the checkout to
save them a couple of bucks, but they do end up with coupons for cat
food.
Sam's and Costco are membership clubs, not "savings cards." I'm
sure they gather sales and demographic data, but not at the
personal level
Sorry, not buying it (yeah, it’s a pun…) These are large
sophisticated organizations and they are gathering any
way they can. And using it to generalte targeted ads emailed to you,
etc. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though it does give one
pause.
Sorry, not buying it (yeah, it's a pun...) These are large
sophisticated organizations and they are gathering any
way they can. And using it to generalte targeted ads emailed to
you, etc. This is not necessarily a bad thing, though it does give
one pause.
I’ve been a Costco member since they bought out Price Club (about 20
yrs) I’ve never given either my email address & all I get is a
monthly flier, by snail mail, with the specials in it.
I have bought things from Costco via the internet, but haven’t
gotten any junk mail or other adds from them via the internet
I don’t care who the merchant is, even if I’ve done business with
them for a number of year, unless I expect an internet reply to a
query, they don’t get my email address unless they mine it froma
request I make to them…
If you don’t want a lot of spam & junk mail keep you email addy to
yourself.
Sorry, not buying it (yeah, it's a pun...) These are large
sophisticated organizations and they are gathering any
way they can. And using it to generalte targeted ads emailed to
you, etc.
But they aren’t. I am a member of both organizations, and both have
my email address. I get the same ads other members get. If they’re
“targeted”, they’re doing a lousy job of it.
Having toiled for some years in the variable data mines, yes, it's
almost certain that all your customer record data is in fact
associated with your name. (or with some other easily identifiable
datapoint.
I don’t think I explained myself well. Certainly buying records are
associated with individual accounts (and can be subpoenaed) but they
don’t, currently, use that to target advertising to
individuals. That’s probably next year :-(.
We bought our business on the 1st of December. It was an opportunity
that fell into our laps and rightly or wrongly we used most of the
cash we could raise to purchase it. So there we were right in the
height of the Xmas season reorganizing the store and trying to drum
up business. We tried the traditional forms of advertising (print
and radio) and had our website up and running. And in a kind of
desperation we also turned to Facebook as just another way to get
our name out there.
To date its Facebook that has been the best way of attracting
customers. It was fairly easy to set up a business page, where basic
to who we are and what we do is provided. Kate also
updates our page almost on a daily basis, providing pictures of
stock ordered and stock that has arrived. As we can track visits we
know we have people check out our page on a daily basis. In fact a
customer told us today that she checks out our page so she knows what
she wants has come in.
We have also used their advertising feature, which we have found to
be the most cost effective form of advertising. For every 11 cents we
pay, we know someone has at least looked at our page, something that
traditional adverts can’t promise. Right now we have over 90 fans,
so again we know that every time Kate posts updates that update will
go to all our fans pages. Not only does that mean that 90+ people are
seeing our updates, but also our fans friends and family are seeing
it as well.
So to date we have found Facebook not only worth the effort, but in
many ways the reason why we’re managing to turn a (very) small
profit for such a new business.
I don't think I explained myself well. Certainly buying records
are associated with individual accounts (and can be subpoenaed) but
they don't, currently, use that to target advertising
to individuals. That's probably next year :-(.
You were clear, it’s just that most emphatically, they do
microtarget the adverts. That’s what I was doing, toiling in the VDP
mines. If your local store isn’t obviously doing it, it’s not for
lack of wanting to. (Data monkeys are expensive, you see…)
The ROI is vastly greater for microtargeted adverts than it is for
more generic ads.
(Typical mass mail return rates are considered great if they crack
3%. Individually targeted campaigns often reach north of 40%.) (Yeah,
I know mass mail isn’t grocery tapes, but those are the figures I
have in my head at the moment.)
It wierds people out in some circumstances, so sometimes they go to
some small trouble to make it look a little less specific than it
really is.
I have bought things from Costco via the internet, but haven't
gotten any junk mail or other adds from them via the internet
This is not aimed at you, Dave, or anyone-- but this is not what I
meant, exactly. It is much more sophisticated and subtle. Right now,
I’m using gmail. All along the right side of my screen is a column
of ads. They all have to do with jewelry. They are called “sponsored
links” in this case. There are ads in, above and around almost every
page we use. We almost stop really seeing them. Few of those ads are
random-- they’re selected just for you. I looked up a product one
day on Amazon, didn’t log in or order, then went to Facebook (I
think-- somewhere unrelated, anyway) and there, on the side, was an
ad for that exact type of product.
Certainly buying records are associated with individual accounts
(and can be subpoenaed) but they don't, currently, use that
to target advertising to individuals. That's probably
next year :-(.
Just recently I heard on BBC broadcast - One company set up
monitoring station on one of the highways in England. Whenever a car
passes, they would access DMV records using licence plate, create
custom tailored ad, and display it for the driver some miles down the
road. The spot, where the ad would play on one of the billboards, was
computed using car speed and direction.
People were outraged and the operation was shut down, but it does
demonstrate the thinking patterns of ad execs.
If facebook plumbs the depths of members’ contacts lists to suggest
new friends, are you sure you want to be ‘friends’ with internet
users unknown to you? I’m not on FB and I’m not certain how it works
but I’d be concerned about the company I keep.
“Friending” is a two way street - you can’t be ‘friends’ with someone
without either accepting their request or them accepting your
request. The only people I "friend’ that I don’t know personally are
metalsmiths/jewelers that I know in name and am intersted in
following their work.
People who are NOT my ‘friends’ still see my work if I post it
because it shows up on THEIR friends pages. There is no direct
connection between me and the ‘unknowns’.
If they want to know about a piece I’ve made, or something I’ve
posted, they can find me (through links to my blog or they can
message me). In that sense it is no different than receiving an
inquiry from a personal website. Except that on FB there is a
‘network’ that serves as a built in ‘marketing’ tool.
In some ways FB is not that much different from blogging and forums
(Orchid on Ganoksin included). People interact with whom they choose
to interact with. People you don’t know read your posts. etc. It is
up to you to decided what you put out there, how much you
make public (email address, etc) and then to whom you will respond,
interact, or make part of your closer circle.
I personally am not using FB to target customers. For me its a
simple way to keep in touch with some friends, both new and old. But
I can say that a LOT of people use Facebook - from all demographics.
I’ve found it interesting to see all the various demographics
represented. For me, there just hasn’t been a negative side at this
point.
Although back to the original question and the subject of this
thread - is it worth the effort? Depends on what one is looking for.
To me, there is FAR too much extraneous crap to dig through to make
it worth MY time right now to be an active participant. I check in
rarely, but I do have my blog set to feed directly in to FB so it
posts there even when I don’t log in.
That has been helpful to me as I receive a lot of comments on my blog
posts through FB. I also have my Etsy shop set to feed directly to
FB, so when I am active on Etsy, it gets sent directly to FB, I don’t
have to log in to FB for it to be update. I guess you could say FB is
worth my effort to use remotely (or passively). I put minimal effort
into actually BEING on FB.
In keeping with our Facebook discussion, this came in from Register.com today by e-mail:
Tip of The Month
Social media can no longer be ignored in today's world of online
marketing. From presidential campaigns to computer sales, they
are having an impact like never before. People are using social
media globally to debate important social issues and they are
becoming a recognized source of breaking news. Just look at the
recent events in
Haiti and the flourish of activity through Facebook and Twitter.
Tip: Keep in mind that social media applications are all about
building relationships.
Many small business owners don't see how Twitter can help them
market their business. But many major retailers have already
gotten the hang of the Internet's fastest-growing and most
talked-about social media site and are using it to their
advantage. Click here on tips for using Twitter to grow your
business
Again, those of you who ignore this segment in your marketing
plan are, I believe, rather like those folks who initially
ignored tv and radio when they first came out, and those who
didn't want to upgrade to computers, and then didn't want to have
a web presence. The world changes. We must keep up with those
changes, and how our targeted customers use them. I think you
will find that most people of middle
income and higher use the internet widely in shopping and
keeping in touch with friends and family. That is probably the
main market segment for most of us. I believe in using as many
means as I can afford to reach my market as widely as possible,
within my budget constraints. Ignoring what is largely a free way
to reach customers is counter-productive to me.
I have had a number of people tell me I should join Facebook. I
finally took the time last week to join & put together info. I was
able to link to my Esty shop which is a nice feature. I also built a
separate page for my business. I was not difficult and did not take
much time. You can say all you want about it being a waste of time,
but I have sold 3 necklaces and a pair of earrings as a result of FB,
so I think that as a marketing tool - it works. This is an added
method for getting you work out there for people to see. Everyone has
to decide for themselves whether it is something they want to do.