Pinterest Promoted Pins Continue To Drive Results

Initial Pilot Stage

As you will remember it has been around six months since Pinterest first announced that it was increasing the number of businesses that were added to its original Promoted Pins platform for businesses. Originally Pinterest was selectively testing the platform with hand picked large businesses which included such well known brands as: Banana Republic, Kraft, Nestle, Target and Walt Disney Parks, with this initial trial of Promoted Pins being done on a CPM basis, based on the number of generated impressions.  These brands had been signed to initial three to six month contracts ranging in value of between one to two million dollars highlighting the significant outlay for their participation in the platform testing stage.

This is in contrast to the classic SME Pinterest  self serve advertising which is the traditional Google Adwords type Cost Per Click(CPC) where the business only pays if the viewer clicks on the pin.
Preference to Early Subscribers To Waiting List

From that original period, Pinterest set up a wait list and has been preferentially been offering the service to those on the list and those with a proven history of utilising Pinterest. 

Self Serve Advertising Platform

It should be noted that although this latter option is proving to be yet another highly effective promotional tool to serious market brands, the more affordable self-serve platform advertising is available and sustainable in a promotional mix to a to wider group of customers with the Google adwords approach to bidding on results from Search results. 

Continued Growth Of Pinterest

It is sometimes difficult to believe that Pinterest is only around four years old and although it's size in absolute terms at around seventy million users is modest by comparison to the likes of Facebook with around 1.3 billion and Google plus with over five hundred million, its true power of Pinterest lies not in its' absolute size but rather on the fact that it is second only to Facebook as a driver of inbound  links. 

Expanding Demographic

Furthermore its original demographic of female users with mobile devices with a clear purchasing intent has certainly been expanded with now around 30% of its users being male, further reinforcing the tremendous potential the platform has for an ever growing list of consumer and business brands.

Businesses will of course continue to receive invitations to join the promoted pins platform and inevitably it will be opened up to all brands I suspect.

Key Features and Benefits

 If and when you do join you too will be able to avail yourself of its key features and benefits which include the ability to:

• Target your Promoted Pins to potential customers
• Promote with no minimum spend and no fixed timelines
• Promote your best pins so they come up in search results
• Adopt a pay per click approach to promoting on Pinterest
• Utilise Pinterst metrics to effectively determine what works and what doesn't
  So for now if you are interested put your name on a waiting list and watch this space.

naturally if you'd like to learn more about Twitter, any of the other Social Media Marketing platforms of digital media in general, simply attend any of the free Digital Enterprise Workshops listed here on: www.vecci.org.au/dep/workshops
and sign up for any of the seven free two hour workshops which will also automatically qualify you for a free four hour coaching session specifically focused on your business needs.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele - See more at: http://roadscholarsmarketing.blogspot.com.au/#sthash.KCqZzHBi.dpuf

Free Digital Training and Coaching

Naturally if you'd like to learn more about Twitter, any of the other Social Media Marketing platforms of digital media in general, simply attend any of the free Digital Enterprise Workshops listed here on: www.vecci.org.au/dep/workshops  and sign up for any of the seven free two hour workshops which will also automatically qualify you for a free four hour coaching session specifically focused on your business needs.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele.

Being Green Products Combining Being Good And Being Green All In One Attractive Package

Background

As the months roll on now and we enter the second year of the phenomenally successful Digital Enterprise Program (DEP), I still never stop being so pleased to see genuine SME businesses in their infancy understanding the  nature and importance of the marketer's mantra, namely:
Find and fill the customers unmet need.

This was beautifully reinforced again the other day when doing a coaching session with an exciting young business Being Green, which sells floor care products that are both environmentally friendly and importantly, top performing compared to the other available rival options.        

 

                                                                                       

The Unmet Need

In the case of these products what I found was that rival products either offered multiple product colours that were not  required, limited colour ranges or a lack of complete accessories that would almost certainly be needed including appropriately designed application cloths and scratch sticks not for the floor but for the coated layer that often has been applied to the hard floor, whether it be wood vinyl or other surface type.
Meeting The Unmet Need

When we look at the Being Green Floor Repair Kits (as pictured above), we can being to see why their is so much to like about this particular brand and product range and how it addresses the unmet needs of the market place outlined above.

 Specifically these packs come not only with the predominant colour that corresponds to your particular floor type, but also the likely complimentary colour that will often also be required when repairing any scuff, crack, chip, gouge or scratch marks.

As well as that each pack comes with a purpose made application cloth to apply and shine the wax based repair stick colour as well as an additional pack of scratch stick that can be effectively applied to the transparent, coated layers that are on top of the floor they protect.

Providing Additional Value

To round off a truly impressive total value proposition, the Being Green product range are both non toxic and environmentally friendly, ensuring both the safety of family members and also not adversely adding to alarmingly high levels of difficult to dispose of waste.

I would describe this product as intuitive, useful, laden with economic value and truly attuned to the   needs of its target market audience and as such deserves to have great success.  To have a better look at this and the other equally impressive product lines Being Green have simply click on this link:  http://beinggreen.net.au/

And naturally if you'd like to learn more about Twitter, any of the other Social Media Marketing platforms of digital media in general, simply attend any of the free Digital Enterprise Workshops listed here on: www.vecci.org.au/dep/workshops
and sign up for any of the seven free two hour workshops which will also automatically qualify you for a free four hour coaching session specifically focused on your business needs.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele

And naturally if you'd like to learn more about Twitter, any of the other Social Media Marketing platforms of digital media in general, simply attend any of the free Digital Enterprise Workshops listed here on:
www.vecci.org.au/dep/workshops
and sign up for any of the seven free two hour workshops which will also automatically qualify you for a free four hour coaching session specifically focused on your business needs.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele. - See more at: http://roadscholarsmarketing.blogspot.com.au/#sthash.lfyhG9mI.dpuf

And naturally if you'd like to learn more about Twitter, any of the other Social Media Marketing platforms of digital media in general, simply attend any of the free Digital Enterprise Workshops listed here on:
www.vecci.org.au/dep/workshops
and sign up for any of the seven free two hour workshops which will also automatically qualify you for a free four hour coaching session specifically focused on your business needs.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele. - See more at: http://roadscholarsmarketing.blogspot.com.au/#sthash.lfyhG9mI.dpuf

Seven Tips For Twitter Business Success

Today's Road Scholars blog post takes a close look at the key behaviours known to drive higher levels of performance, reach and engagement in what is arguably the most dynamic and talked about digital platform in the world.

Seven Of The Best

1. Make your Tweets 120 characters or less.
Everyone knows that you can put up to 140 characters on your Tweets but don't.
It's important to leave at least 20 characters for people to add their take to what you've tweeted.

2. Use URL shorteners
Again to further maximise your available space the use of URL shorteners such as:
Bit.ly and Goo.gl. Using them will not only free up valuable space but the added advantage is that these created links can be tracked to provide valuable data on the movement of the link through the net.

3. Define your Raison D'Etre
Make it clear what your stand for and by definition why anyone would want to follow you and what it is that they would be learning as a result. All good writers have a broad, overarching narrative that they work under. What's yours?

4. Understand who your ideal target market is
OK you know who they are so what is the likely reason they will want to be there. What are their needs? Information on what.
Demographic, Geographic, Psychographic and behavioural criteria to completely define who you're trying to attract.

5. Vary your choice of media.
Information is more interesting when it is blended with different media options. Twitter has of course bought Vine which allows you to use short 15 second videos.

6. Generate Excitement.
Excitement can be generated in a number of ways. Run a competition, offer special promotions, provide discounts, offer advance access, etc.

7. Use Twitter Analytics.
As in the case of every type of social media platform and central website hub, it is vital to be able to go to the source and keeps close tabs on both how effective you efforts are and also what your key rivals are doing and why they are doing it. To help you with this, Twitter offers the power of Twitter Analytics. Analytics provides insight into user demographics, sentiment analysis, interests, locations and behavioural data.

Bonus. Plus 1.

8. Frequency

Send 4-8 tweets daily
Re-tweet 4 interesting tweets each day
Add hashtags to increase the chance that your tweet will be found.

So by adding these KPI's your tweeting I'm confident that you too will increase your satisfaction, engagement and ultimately business success on Twitter for your company or brand. And a always remember that if you'd like to know more about Twitter, Social Media or any other aspect of marketing, simply And naturally if you'd like to learn more about Twitter, any of the other Social Media Marketing platforms of digital media in general, simply attend any of the free Digital Enterprise Workshops listed here on:
www.vecci.org.au/dep/workshops
and sign up for any of the seven free two hour workshops which will also automatically qualify you for a free four hour coaching session specifically focused on your business needs.

So until next time, good luck and good marketing.
Regards,
Daniele.

Why Are Key Success Factors So Important For Business Success

Welcome Back For 2015

Hello again everyone and a very happy new year to you all as we usher in 2015 in what will undoubtedly be a very dynamic and interesting year in marketing and social media.

And to kick us off for January you may remember a while back I wrote a blog post on the key criteria for determining how you accurately establish which potential market segment or segments are the most viable for you and your business, as an important preface to choosing which segments your business will or won't target.

Segment First

Once the business has decided what criteria they wish to segment the market with as detailed in an earlier post but most commonly including some combination of the following dimensions:

1. Demographic
2. Geographic
3. Psychographic
4. Behavioural

From there, specific and defined smaller market segments will emerge and can be individually evaluated on the basis of the Key Success Factors (KSF's).

Key Success Factors

Key (or as it's also sometimes referred to as Critical) Success Factors are those factors that the business deems critical to achieve to be able to be viable within any particular market space to be able to effectively position your brand, consistently meet customer needs, cope with competitive brands, whilst always running efficiently enough to make the whole process economically viable and ultimately profitable. It is not an easy process and may explain why around eighty percent of start-up businesses fail within the first five years of starting business operations.

Examples of KSF's

There are many common examples of widely used KSF's in business that can relate to multiple markets that include but are not limited to:

• Availability to funding or lines of credit
• Expertise and specific skill sets
• Ability to bring in additional employees
• Access to multi skilled employees that can perform multiple roles
• Access to additional warehousing space
• Ability to apply and receive council permits
• Eligibility for government grants and support schemes
•  Ability to leverage economies of scale
• Potential to form strategic alliances with complementary businesses and brands
• Expertise in cost minimisation, debt collection and short terms of payment
• The ability to effectively differentiate the businesses product and positioning
• Sales expertise that can effectively drive qualified sales leads and top line sales
  
  
  

  The Matching Process

  The final step naturally will be  simply a process of objectively matching the compatibility of what each segment requires a business to have and or do to what it has or can get, to see how viable that market slice is for that organisation.  Additionally specific KPI's can then be formulated to ensure that the business continues to achieve necessary standards over time in each of these critical performance areas which again will help maintain long term success.
  
  There is a full and detailed explanation of this process also provided on the Dan & Matt video series of twelve workshops that fully explores the subtleties and nuances of the process in greater detail and can be obtained online at:
  www.danandmatt.com 
  
  
  You will be able to get the full program beautifully packaged with a genuine 30 day money back guarantee if the program does not fully meet your needs.
  
  
  So until next time everyone, good luck and good marketing.
  
  
  Regards,
  Daniele.