Missing Out on Social Media Sales? Get A Second Chance with Touch Marketing

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By Hector Cisneros

With organic social media marketing venues like "Facebook and Twitter showing weaker results than in the past, we thought it would be a good idea to talk about some marketing venues that are producing tangible marketing returns on your current investments. In particular, touch marketing has always been a good way to garner additional sales from customers and would-be prospects. In this episode of Working the Web to Win, we will take a hard look at a few tried and true touch marketing methods that always generate recurring sales. So read on and tune into this weeks Blog Talk Radio episode listed below as we delve into "How to Get a Second Bite out of the Apple with Touch Marketing.




So, why Touch Marketing? Why does it work? It works because there is less between you, your message and the customer or prospect! Touch marketing comes in many forms that we have talked about in past blogs. A search on the keyword "email" on this blog will bring up several articles which address email marketing from several different angles. In fact, a couple of our articles go into details of the hows and whys of email marketing. These include; "Opt-In Email Marketing is a Low-Cost Secret Weapon - Here are our Top 7 Tips", "Email Marketing in the 21st Century" and "21 Century Email - What's New, What Works, What's Scary" 

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Each one of these articles takes a hard look at email marketing from a different perspective to help the reader obtain a better overview of what is necessary for achieving success. In our article called "How to Stop Sir Spamalot", we addressed the important issue of spam, how to avoid creating it and how to stop from overloading your inbox. In our article called - "Going Postal With Touch Marketing", we discussed several ways to successfully engage in various forms of touch marketing including social touch marketing. And in "A Movie in Every Mailbox" we discussed how to use videos as part of direct email and other forms of message marketing.

Touch Marketing Prerequisites - Any successful touch marketing campaign needs to make sure that prerequisite elements (aka best practices) are adhered to. For one, you have to have a targeted audience, customer or prospect list that is screened and tested. This list has to be built, rented or purchased and has to include a significant number of subscribers (1000 is a good starting number). It's also important that the subscribers have opted into your list. Two, you must have a legitimate product or service that fills a need. Three you always need to include a clear call to action and four you need a compelling offer that triggers the customer or prospect to take the next step, immediately. Now let's look at what kinds of touch marketing is available today.

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Touch marketing today consists of many disciplines.  These still include old school newsletters, postcards, lumpy mail, catalogs and a whole hoard of digital methodologies. Don't sell old school snail mail methodologies short. They are relatively more expensive than their digital counterparts, but they still work well for a multitude of companies that have the wherewithal to create, print and distribute such touch pieces. 

Take for example companies like Cabelas and Kennesaw Cutleries.

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Although both of these companies have a strong web presence, they also engage in an ongoing mail order catalog business. The main problem for small companies is the cost. Although newsletters can be handled in smaller quantities, printing and distributing mail-order catalogs is in a much higher category of expense and logistics. Still, if you want to engage in touch marketing, I recommend using postcards in quantities of 25 to 1000 pieces. The smaller quantity allows you to engage in quick delivery and complete follow-up (you can call all 25 recipients in seven days or less). The larger snail mail quantity is more of a shotgun approach where you hope you will get "callbacks" in the 1 to 3% range. Again this number can be improved with significant followup and a very compelling offer.

21st Century Digital Touch Marketing consists of; e-newsletters, direct email marketing, text messaging, video emails, video newsletters, vlogs, social media posting, direct messaging on social media and blogging.  Now let's look at each of these methods individually. 

Email newsletters and Direct Email Marketing have been around since the early 1990s (aka AOL days). Today, email marketing in all its forms is a tried, true and cost-effective method to reach out and stay in touch with customers and prospects. It can incorporate images, pictures, charts, videos, pdf attachments and more. The hardest part of email touch marketing is building, renting or buying your list. This list must be a double opt-in subscriber list where the database contains contact information from people who have given permission to receive your emails. If you don't have permission to contact them you are spamming them (read How to Stop Sir Spamalot for more information about the consequences of spamming). 

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If you want to enhance your emails and e-newsletters, you can incorporate links to, and/or embed videos and podcasts. This creates a true multimedia experience for subscribers and can enhance your chances of closing a sale. Along these same lines, is the addition of PDF attachments or brochures and even mini catalogs.

Text Messaging has also been around since the early 1990s and is an effective method to connect and market to a loyal list of opt-in subscribers. Like email marketing, this method requires the building, renting or buying of your subscriber list and must include all touch marketing prerequisites to achieve success.

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Internet Radio and Podcasting -  Podcasting has been around since the 1980s. Internet Radio has been in existence since 1993.  Both allow you to directly interact with a live audience. Both of these media require marketing to build an audience, but once that is in place, it can pay for itself by allowing you to sell advertising space on the shows. This medium is also great fodder for your social nets and it can be the vehicle that allows you to grow your social following. Our internet radio show was started in 2012 and we have aired 370 plus live shows to date. Our best show had 80k downloads in one month.

Internet video, Vlogging, and WebTV - A mainstay today is using

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videos on social networks like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Vimeo and others. Some would say that video is a touch market unto itself. However, most internet video channels like YouTube and Vimeo have all the hallmarks of mainstream social networks and as such are used with and shared on these mainstream social networks. The Working the Web to Win WebTV show grew out of our simulcasting our internet radio show which was streamed live to YouTube back in 2012. We have since simulcasted about 350 live WebTV shows since that time. Like internet radio and podcasting, these shows are great fodder for the social networks.

Social media posting - Posting curated and authoritative content to the

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top social networks is a mainstay method of touch marketing today. The problem most companies are having today is getting seen in the news feed or timeline. Success today requires that you have a loyal audience that has tagged you as a friend, family member, or high-value connection, otherwise your post won't get seen. The good news is that organic social media is still free and you can inexpensively boost posts targeting your prospects and clients so that your posts and ads will be seen. 

Blogging for Business - Blogging is an audience building and branding

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method of touch marketing. Like all touch marketing systems, you have to have to either build, buy or rent an audience. The advantages of a blog is, that it is a full multimedia product. I often hear the cliche, "content is king" and with blogging, this can be true. However, successful blogging requires that you produce content that is of high quality, is authoritative in nature, is relevant to your audience, along with being timely and useful as well. Otherwise, it's just useless noise.  On top of this, you also have to reach a large audience for it to be effective. Yes, it can be used to build trust and credibility, even if your audience is small. However, this touch medium really shines when it is presented to a larger audience. Also, don't forget that this media requires the same prerequisites as all the other touch marketing methods listed in this article.

If what I have told you so far isn't enough to convince you that touch marketing is right for your company, then here are 12 more reasons why you should use touch marketing as part of your overall strategy.

1. It's inexpensive to engage in
2. It's almost instantaneous 
3. It's easy to measure your results
4. It can be constructed and sent out quickly 

   

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5. It can be highly targeted 
6. You can use a variety of enhancing media 
7. It's a great supplement to Blogging 
8. It's a great supplement to WebTV and Internet Radio 
9. It's another way to get people to share your message
10. It's a great way to recycle other content you have created
11. You can directly sell in email, e-newsletters and direct messages
12. It can have a very high return on investment

In summary, touch marketing is made of both digital and analog methods that can provide systematic contact messages designed to allow you to connect, communicate and sell products and services to existing customers and prospects. All touch marketing methods require the inclusion of the four prerequisite items listed at the beginning of this article. Also, it is important to provide high-quality, authoritative, relevant, timely and useful messages, products or services as well. Failure to include these prerequisites will most often lead to diminishing returns or outright failure. At Working the Web to Win, our team has been helping companies succeed at touch marketing for more than ten years. I always like to say that "It always makes sense to do things right, because, in truth, there is no cheap way of doing things wrong."

That's my opinion; I look forward to reading yours.

This article provides a dozen reasons why touch marketing should be part of every business marketing strategy. The article further provides details on many different analog and digital touch marketing methods that can be used, and it includes a formula for success that any company can use and succeed with. Lastly, this article also provides links to many other articles including a link to the BlogTalkRadio show that goes with this article.

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If you found this article useful, please share it with friends, family, and co-workers. I recommend checking out the links on the blog, along with checking out other related articles on our Show Notes Page.  Also, don’t forget to listen to the BlogTalkRadio show on this subject. If you have a related useful comment or opinion about this article, leave it in the comment section of this blog. Also, don’t forget to  share us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn as well.

Hector Cisneros is COO and Director of Social Media Marketing at Working the Web to Win, an award-winning Internet marketing company based in Jacksonville, Florida.  He is also the co-host of the weekly Internet radio show, "Working the Web to Win" on BlogTalkRadio.com, which airs every Tuesday at 4 p.m. Eastern. Hector is a syndicated writer and published author of “60 Seconds to Success” and the co-author along with his business partner Carl Weiss of their hit book also called “Working the Web to Win.”