Culture Sculpture

Beyond the Flat World of Clicks – The First Measure is Referrals and Rewards

Updated 08/12/20

I’m afraid to share this article because in marketing, all we do is talk about clicks, and it’s all many marketers really believe in. I hear this “truth” repeated on podcasts, where Experts talk about the shifts of social media and mobile, then say they are not driving revenue, with the measuring stick being the click and immediate conversion.

These same people often laugh at branding as wasted time, focusing only on the conversion that happens 1-20% of the time – your results may vary 😉 so it’s not a guarantee.

Today social and mobile forces are changing the way we interact with devices connecting us to the Internet – the click is based on having a mouse, so when someone is on an iPad, will the new words be “Slide here”?

No, but Click Here is so Wayback Machine (and still used someplaces, especially to those who grew up with it).

Before you dismiss me as some insane ranter howling for a world of social engagements, let me introduce you  the first step of demand generation that is developing, outside of clicks and focused more on referrals and rewards, with some specific advice on how to manage this new world.

Step 1. Brevenue – Branding Metrics Leading to Conversion

After reading a great article called The Future of Advertising will be Integrated, it got me thinking about this from the perspective of integrating the first step in social and mobile lead generation, based on what brands consider important:

 

    • Generating Awareness

 

    • Creating Familiarity

 

    • Promoting Consideration

 

Notice how none of these are measured by the click, because a click is an action that leads to conversion.  Anyone who has tried to integrate this direct marketing approach into social media has found it doesn’t work – just look at the sad clickthroughs and banned accounts at Facebook – and determined that social media is not a great advertising platform.

You can’t apply an old model to a new world of marketing, where the audience talks and even attacks in comments outside of your control. In this era, if you don’t get complaints or trolled, you haven’t reached enough people.

The key here is to be remembered, and in a social context, if the promotion – usually a discussion of a relevant topic to the brand/product, a survey, and/or a viral promotion that does not sell, but instead invites exploration of key topics and emotional meanings to the product through personal interaction – works, people invite friends.

They connect the promotion to others they know, to show them something new..in fact, the first wave of visitors from social media are often the curators, the editors, the people with too much time, and not the buyers.

The invite brings the buyers, who are much more likely to react to a subtle call to action, more than the first ones. So if you crowd the promotion with calls to action from direct marketing, it reads like marketing speak and turns people off…because they are there to connect, to recommend, and to find value.

Reading the statistics of how few people actually do this – some will rate/review, some will write, but like most people, most will just watch – you get the sense that the referral is what the first step of demand generation is about.

Is this a click?  Not really, because it doesn’t convert, it spreads the word, the heart of viral marketing. Look back at those brand phrases as you design your social promotions – maybe even your Facebook ads – because advertising in the traditional sense does not work.  Here’s a few ideas of what might work.

Action Step: Get them to React and Act,

Measuring the Referral and Not the Click

  1. Start with your headline, creating an initial statement and a short, focused question that evokes emotion. Just like direct marketing, it’s all about the headline, but this headline doesn’t have a call to action, it has a call to feel and to react, giving feedeback. Engage the person reading (and hopefully viewing this by using video and visuals wherever possible, since visuals count more than text in social media) to feel, and to share that feeling with others.
  2. Instead of “What do you think?”, try “What do you feel”, and make it clear where you stand, and be sure you can handle being wrong, because that first wave of people are determining whether you have the right to be exposed to their followers, to their friends, and to their audience. They don’t have to agree with you, in fact if you do this right, many will not and will state their opinions. These opinions create social proof, ie branding metrics (see above), and if/when people who are invited come, they will look to see if there is any activity, if anyone cares…
  3. Define the intent you want to create, not in terms of a purchase (that comes with rewards), in terms of getting a reaction, being remembered, and as brands say, promoting consideration. Consider this the referral intent, because in a connected world, referral is one of the likely intentions.  What makes your headline worth their while, to turn off their ADD I’ve seen this all is soooo boring mentality and move into action, the action of inviting?
  4. Measure how many people refer others, including Tweets, Facebook posts, and if possible, a short link that is used for invitations, and change that link daily since most social media conversastions have a life span of 2-3 days tops.
  5. Involve people in a timely discussion that is related to your product or service, and take a stand – right and wrong, left and right, challenge people to say something and invite others who share their opinion.
  6. Include a gentle link (with a reward, trackable to drive to either some form of registration at your site or sale, though sale should be worded in language that makes them want to explore.  For example, “Here’s one of our solutions to this discussion to compare to yours,” and link that to your conversion page – though make it a landing page for social media, repeating the question/discussion at the top (just like you do keywords at the top for Google pages), and if possible integrate the discussion into the page, so the product sale is related to the discussion.

Hmm,…maybe not for direct marketers looking for immediate conversion, because what the Internet has done so well so far is identifying purchase intent, mainly through Google search. So our marketing business grows slowly, but people aren’t going to search that much more, and of course the Google paradigm – the altar of text ads and clicks – isn’t going away.

Yet there’s something new developing and even smart marketers I know, who say they test, aren’t giving it focus until someone else proves it.  Smart marketers always test 10% of their ads, so why not test your social media and make this an experimental 10% driven by branding metrics, not immediate conversion metrics?  The next step is the reward, the subject of my next post.

Is there a world beyond clicks for your business?  Does branding lead generation, before revenue, make any sense to you (lead generation in the context of generating traffic here, not a specific filling in of a form)?

 


You May Also Like These Topics...

Culture Sculpture Podcast – The Origin Story

You want to share your story, so you begin writing it down, separate from your audience. You try to deliver something to make them notice. What you’re doing is pitching darts at a target that doesn’t exist, because the dynamic nature of content marketing and social media means the old ways don’t work. Broadcasting tons […]

4 Content Strategy Lessons, 50 million visitors and 20 years later

You’ve heard about building communities by creating your own content, yet look around and except for a few celebrities and Interwebs celebrities, that model doesn’t often work because the audience is watching instead of participating. In this podcast (edited from my Origin Story), I’m sharing the 4 lessons learned in building an organic community built […]

Because content marketing tastes like my first cappucino in Florence

As the nutty aroma of my first cappucino enveloped my senses, I walked into Florence, Italy for the first time – eyes wide open, shaking from the coffee and witnessing the wild breeze. Remember the first time you visited a place where every sight, sound, and action seemed so special? Because when you visit a new […]

“We are not only what we read. We are how we read.”

You’re invited  to briefly dive, instead of another listicle or inspiring weekend vision….into a new discussion, from an article written in 2008  that struck a nerve even more today. Irony Disclosure: Dr. Mani Sivasubramanian and I shared this discussion on Facebook – between pictures of food and cats. “We are not only what we read. We are how we read.” Maryanne […]

Tags: , , ,
Previous Post

Rewards Marketing for Friends and Customers – an old model in a new world of mobile and social

Next Post

What’s Your Facebook Farmville Water? Why Farmville (LG>DP) is Changing Your Business Into Games with Rewards

The Growth Generation Method

Simply Responsive LLC
2485 Notre Dame Blvd. Suite 370 #35
Chico, CA.
(530) 235-6331