It doesn't matter if you are in a Small and Medium Enterprise, a one man band, or a Large Enterprise, you cannot fail to have heard about social media and Pull Marketing. But what is it? Is it for you!? And how do you engage in it.
Pull Marketing is simply being where your customers need when THEY are looking for information. It's not about shouting about how many bits and bites your software has, or how brilliant your events are. In fact, in most cases you don't have to shout at all. It's about being there for your customers, engaging them where they are, and entering into discussions with your customers and prospects.
There are great examples of pull marketing everywhere. Discussions on Linkedin, where customers are searching for answers and companies are engaging with them where they go. Here on the SCN, where you might be looking for more detailed information and the experts and commentators on the forums engage with you. Utlimately the goal is the same as PUSH Marketing. It's to get the prospective customers to recognise you as their choice and to convert.
We have had a number of examples of great PULL successes here at SAP. A customer, who was on social media, being negative about one of our products, who we then engaged, brought to an event, spoke to and addressed those discussions. That customer has now bought the same software they were negative about. It's not all online, but in a lot of cases, it's where it now starts.
65% of people will use the web to research things before they even speak to you as a vendor, so being where they are is so important. So how do you do it?!
There are so many ways to get out there. The main ones of Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc are excellent at getting your message out to your audience. They can be used in different ways. Facebook in a more friendly, human way, Twitter with quick snappy questions and queries and Linkedin for more detailed discussions and Q&A.
But growing your audience is hard on these. Getting in front of the influencers is key. Using tools such as Netbase, Traackr, Linkdex and Buzzsumo.com can help you find these influencers and increase your share of voice. Getting them on board not only spreads your message, but also adds weight to it, as they are seen as authorities in these market places.
You can go into Google+, Linkedin and Facebook and search for relevant communities. For example, if your message is SME specific, start looking for the SME communities. When you post in these places, when relevant, add these communities to your sharing. It increases your reach for your posts and can also start to engage discussion with like minded people in those groups.
Co created marketing is something that I was introduced to last week, and kinda makes a lot of sense. Ask questions on your forums, get people to answer them and include them and their answers in your future posts. It all means you can collect insights and data about people and their thoughts, trends in the industry.. and not pay for it. A double bonus! 🙂
At SAP, we have set up the Pull marketing Lessons, where we cover a lot of these topics and try and educate our organisation into how to use Social media. This is key to how we are going to be successful as a company, sharing, discussing and engaging with our prospects and customers.
Engagement from our internal team has always been one issue and thats something we want to try and improve in 2014... I would love to hear any ideas others have as to how you have approached this in 2014, so please reply to me and let me hear from you!
Thanks!
