As the digital landscape continues to progress and develop many areas and channels grow with it. Facebook, founded by Mark Zuckerberg has been one of the fastest growing forms of social networking. This network has 700 million users and over 700 billion minutes a month are used connecting on Facebook (Chang, A. 2011). Social networking has become a way of communication and expression that has become embedded in our society. If marketers want to succeed they will have to learn to co-exist with the digital channel, as consumers have grown very attached to it (Chang, A. 2011).

Marketers favour Facebook because it is virtually free and can reach a vast amount of consumers. The marketing world is always changing and in recent years we have come to understand that consumers want to have a relationship with the company, they want to feel appreciated. In this age its not how big and how much advertising your company is doing its how fast its reaching its target audience (Hansson, L et al 2013). Waterstones needs to focus on creating a campaign that gets its consumers talking and feeling involved. Starbucks launched a Facebook campaign called “MyStarbucksIdeas” it allowed consumers to create input on products, express opinions, discuss and share ideas (Hansson, L et al 2013).

Consumers have a direct line of communication to voice their wants and needs, share information, provide input and feedback to the company. The ability to write reviews about products and share information between Facebook friends has taken the traditional WOM to a whole new level (Hansson, L et al 2013). If consumers have positive perception of products and services they will share it with their friends. Facebook has created so many opportunities for companies looking to broaden their target audience and increase sales. Companies can now seek out consumers that they believe are the most appropriate of their services or products (Hansson, L et al 2013).

However like any other form of marketing there are DOS and DONTS, the following article out line the 6 biggest mistakes people make with marketing on Facebook:

• Using a personal Facebook page instead of a brand page for your organization
• Using Facebook’s default “Boost post” advertising product
• Failing to track your conversations
• Buying fans
• Posting poor quality content
• Leaving the about section incomplete

-(Maffin, T 2014)

Have a look at the following website for more helpful tips on using Facebook as a marketing/advertising tool.

There can be some disadvantages to using Facebook campaigns, its not easy to engage consumers attention as they can be distracted talking to friends, looking at other posts, sharing videos and photos. Following on from that if consumers can share and discuss positivity surrounding the companies product or service they can also share negative comments; this can be damaging and disheartening to the company’s image. Operating on Facebook is essential for a company to gain digital presence but it is also a highly competitive environment.

I remember reading about one scenario at Dominos where two employees were joking around making sandwiches, whilst putting cheese up their noses. They posted the video on YouTube and it went viral creative a negative perspective and image in the eyes of consumers. Using social networking sites for marketing can be risky if it is not managed closely. Going viral is also a positive if the company does something good and had the opportunity to go viral it reaps a lot of rewards.

Check out the following website for more advantages and disadvantages about using Facebook campaigns.

References

Hansson, L., Wrangmo, A., Solberg Søilen, K., Centrum för innovations-, entreprenörskaps- och lärandeforskning (CIEL), Centre for Technology, Innovation and Marketing Management (CTIM2), Sektionen för ekonomi och teknik (SET) & Högskolan i Halmstad 2013, “Optimal ways for companies to use Facebook as a marketing channel”, Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 112-126.

Chang, A. 2011, “WEB 2.0 Social Network Sites and Facebook Marketing”, Binus Business Review, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 708-717.

Maffin, T 2014, ‘The 6 biggest mistakes people make with marketing on Facebook’, Communication World, 31, 2, pp. 26-28, Communication & Mass Media Complete, EBSCOhost, viewed 11 April 2016.

There is a fine line between what can be considered promotional email marketing and what is considered Spam. Spam is defined as an email sent to a consumer without consent and a direct purpose to fulfil the consumers wants and needs (Reimers, V., et al 2016). Therefore the email is considered useless to the consumer. Retailers have learned to love email marketing, it grew in popularity after the recession as marketers began to understand the benefits and cost effective approach to marketing. Given that I have recommended Waterstones should implement an email marketing campaign to strengthen their customers relationships and online sales this post aims to identify what is email marketing and what is spam.

The digital shift has been growing for years making the Internet the largest channel for effective shopping. For many brick and mortar companies who have long been dependent on physical shoppers this caused huge losses for them. Waterstones saw first hand how online retailing took the industry by storm. Consumers like shopping online because it’s less effort, time, cost effective and have a variety of products and information at their fingertips (Reimers, V., et al 2016). Consumers have really developed a strong relationship with online retailing over the past few years and marketers have realised that email marketing and online shopping has formed a close relationship (Reimers, V., et al 2016). To say that the two are synonymous is an understatement.

However despite the two concepts having a close relationship one must recognise the consumer’s perspective when it comes to their personal domains. Email inbox and text messages are a direct link into the consumer’s life, and in order for email marketing to be effective it cant be annoying. Experts have found that the average consumer receives 177 emails a year from one company and given that a single consumer tends to subscribe to more that one company that’s a lot of emails (Morrison, M. 2012)! That is why the opt-in and opt-out tool was created by the anti spam legislation Reimers, V., et al 2016). The theory behind the opt-in and opt-out tool is that if the consumer signs up to receive emails from the given company then they are more likely to actually buy something, generating online sales and customer retention (Reimers, V., et al 2016).

Finding the balance is key when deciding the volume of emails to send to a consumer. The email must provide and cater information to the consumer wants and needs to not be considered spam. Emails are an effective way of telling consumers about new of existing products and must be done so in a form that is appealing graphical emails are more likely to boost response rates then text based (Storey, P.L. 2009). E-mail marketing is an essential tool for companies like Waterstones to use the following national survey exemplifies why:

• 52% of respondents said that professional emails give them a more favourable opinion of the store
• 48% feel “more loyal” toward the retailer as a result of the messages
• 88% said a retailer’s email prompted them to download/print out a coupon
• 75% said it led them to buy a product online
• 67% said email prompted an offline purchase
• 60% were moved to try a new product
• -(Storey, P.L. 2009)

The following post by Benchmark outlines opt in email marketing vs. spam and the advantages and disadvantages of using opt-in email marketing.

If you’re looking for examples of e-mail marketing campaigns I recommend the following link.

References

Reimers, V., Chao, C. & Gorman, S. 2016, “Permission email marketing and its influence on online shopping”, Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics, vol. 28, no. 2, pp. 308-322.

Morrison, M. 2012, “Consumers balance on verge of ‘offer anarchy’; Email marketing is a cost-effective tool, but as marketers overdo it they risk long-term brand damage”, Advertising Age, vol. 83, no. 7, pp. 24.

Storey, P.L. 2009, “OPTIMIZING YOUR WEBSITE: SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION, PAY PER CLICK, EMAIL MARKETING”, International Journal of Pharmaceutical Compounding, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 312.