The From Line

Trend:

The trend of using “Social CRM” for marketing is probably more myth than reality. People are talking about rounding out customer profiles with social data, but is anything actually happening to prove ROI? 

Social media management tools can be useful at managing outbound messages, and deferring inbound messages to customer service. Social media management tools can be useful at managing outbound messages, and deferring inbound messages to customer service. These tools are available for free (Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Gist) or via subscription (Sprout Social, Involver, Vitrue).

What’s emerging now is the belief that marketers, not customer service reps, need to capture as much publicly-available social data on their customers and dump it into their databases. But the value is still TBD. And as online privacy issues continue to take shape, thus limiting easily-accessible social data, can simply knowing that a customer is on Facebook help to effectively engage prospects in a real way?

TAKEAWAY

“Social CRM”  might be  just a case  of “all  sizzle and  no steak.”  In other  words,  marketers  have  convinced  other  marketers  they need  the stuff,  but there  isn’t much  substance.

Bacon of the Month Club for Valentine's Day? Or Panties of the Month?

Regardless of what you sell, your company may just have a big opportunity gift right under your noses. Continue reading for more on what the publishing industry did right and what we can learn from subscription-based business models...

Trend: The Return of Subscription-Based Business Models

Established by the publishing industry with magazines and Book of the Month Club, many retailers looking to break into an already-competitive market are turning to the subscription model. Rather than selling a single product and hoping for the customer to return for more, ecommerce sites such as Panty by Post, Men are Useless and Blue Bottle Coffee Company are hoping larger single receipts through subscription packages are the answer to bigger returns.

Today’s Facebook universal messaging system announcement sheds light on a growing industry with an increase in opportunities for marketers.

Facebook messaging, which adds email to their system for the first time, will focus on four channels of communication: SMS, Facebook messaging, IM and email. Facebook users will have the ability to obtain @facebook.com email addresses as part of the new system.

Three Predictions for 2011 and Beyond:
#1: The Like Button Will Become a Universal Multichannel Opt-In
Rather than requiring individuals complete forms, the Facebook Like button will become a universal opt-in method. This will prove to be beneficial to marketers. Because Facebook’s system will automatically detect where the user is located (either at a computer, on their mobile device or completely offline), only one method of communication will be required to reach subscribers.

#2: Facebook Messaging Will Force a 2-Way Dialogue
With today’s announcement, businesses reaching out to Facebook users must be aware of the differences between current email clients and the modern messaging system. From now on, messaging experiences of users will gradually morph from formal, lengthy messages to shorter and more personal communications.

#3: A Decreased Need for Multichannel Solutions
Once Facebook messaging adopts traditional email protocols such as IMAP, marketers will no longer need to create separate messages for each channel. With a universal messaging system, the need for single-channel technologies (such as SMS-only or email-only messaging vendors) will fall by the wayside and only a single system will be necessary.

Last night I received a message from Facebook regarding our Fan Page. The stats were rather vague but still helpful. Here are the stats that were reported:

+xxx Fans this week (xxx total Fans) x Wall Posts, Comments, and Likes this week (x last week) xxxx Visits to your page this week (xxx Visits last week)
The message looked a bit spammy at first until I checked out the headers. Plus the email address that it was sent to is only used for Facebook so that helped with the legitimacy in my mind.
According to an article from Mashable the feature has not been officially announced yet but jives with January’s rollout of Post Insights which tells you the reach and feedback level of each item you post to a Fan Page.