This 20-minute webinar will share simple tips on the:
• Importance of integrated marketing
• Rise of content marketing
• New advertising solutions that can help you acquire more customers

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All of these innovations provide consumers with a better experience with more relevant ads, customized content, and less spam while giving advertisers more confidence in the performance of online ads.

While this technological transformation is enabling a richer and more personalized web, it also raises new privacy concerns for consumers as their data is being analyzed and shared. The increasing lack of clarity about data practices for technology providers and consumers alike will likely impede further growth in online advertising.

While conventional wisdom might hold that regulation is harmful to an industry, we believe closer regulation of online advertising will promote continued innovation by allowing companies to better understand the rules while giving consumers and brands more confidence to engage with online media.

Regulation provides guidelines, promotes growth

Already, our industry is working hard to establish its own rules. The Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) has been very forward looking and has done a great job establishing standard guidelines (such as how to opt-out). The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has also done a tremendous job by establishing a set of principles that govern what is reasonable for online privacy. And together, the NAI and IAB have released the CLEAR Ad specification advocating notices in online ads to tell consumers what information was used to deliver the ad to them, and how that information was collected.

These are important steps to protect privacy. Unfortunately, these institutions are still not well recognized by consumers, and because they are opt-in for advertisers, there remains a profusion of bad practices including use of flash-based cookies, IP targeting, deceptive offers that auto-bill credit cards, and many others.

Absent legislation, some advertisers may try to out-compete others by using practices that work against the long term interests of the ecosystem. Over time, these practices erode the foundation for exciting industry changes, increased use of online services by consumers, and brands’ adoption of advertising technology.

That’s why formal regulation is needed – not only to clarify what the right guidelines are, but also to make sure everyone follows them so that the advertising industry will continue to move forward.

The current state of regulation

Today the federal rules are vague on what is permissible and what is not. If you ask ten experts you are likely to get ten different answers. And we are entering a world where most innovative advertising practices are poorly understood by consumers or unknown altogether. It will take some time and debate before the dust settles and the guidelines are set.

What is clear, however, is that we are in an era where consumers are only slowly awakening to what data is readily available in the 50 milliseconds it takes to serve them an ad. And if consumers cannot fully grasp the implications of behavioral advertising, they will shy away from participation – and brands will be reluctant to drive spending to mistrusted technology.

Specific industry guidelines from Washington would be the clearest signal to consumers and brands that it is safe to participate, enabling innovation to move forward by providing much needed clarity.

Right now there is a healthy debate over the draft legislation put together by Congressman Boucher. Both industry advocates and privacy advocates raise legitimate concerns, and it’s clear that there is work left to do to strike the right balance between the benefits of better advertising and consumer expectations of privacy.

While some pieces of the draft legislation need to be changed, the spirit of the bill is a good one: clarify the rules and make online advertising safer for consumers, content, and brands. Clear federal guidelines are what we need to realize the full potential of our industry.

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The first step towards better marketing is a better understanding of your customers, and companies are using Rapleaf to discover the “Four Ws” of their audience in order to personalize interactions and socializing CRM systems:

• Who: demographics, occupation, location and more
• What: interests, brand affinities, lifestyles, and influence
• Where: social sites used and online hangouts
• With Whom: friends and associates

2. Segmenting communication and offers

No one likes receiving information that’s irrelevant to them, especially in the inbox. To avoid “spamming” customers, consider building more details segments of customers based on social media memberships, demographics, and influence, as well as purchasing behavior and other information based on your interactions.

One client was able to achieve an email open rate and click-through rate of 68% and 35%, respectively, just by sending a Twitter-related email to only customers who used Twitter!

3. Growing social media presence (faster, more effectively)

It’s now clear that social media is not a fad and that companies lose out by not having a presence online. By tying in email marketing along with social insights from Rapleaf, you should be able to boost your online fan base very quickly.

4. Identifying the most influential customers for word-of-mouth marketing

In a time where people trust other consumers more than they trust brands, knowing who your most influential customers are has never been more important. After identifying them, be sure to take good care of them with brand loyalty programs, special offers, and VIP treatment.

5. Setting up customer service flags for influencers

To avoid an online PR crises and to facilitate more positive word-of-mouth marketing, make sure to flag your influencers in your CRM system so that everyone – from marketing to customer service – knows that they need to make the best impression possible.

Just ask Southwest Airlines – a passenger they kicked off for being overweight was actually an actor with over 1.5 million followers online, and he made sure that all of them knew about his negative experience multiple times.

6. Growing customer base by comparing customers vs. prospects

One way to increase the conversions of prospects to customers is understand the social behavior of your customers and to see how they differ from your prospects. Are they based near metropolitan areas? Do most of them belong to certain demographics, or use certain social media sites? Once you know who your customers are and what they look like, you can go look for more people like them.

A major online university we worked with studied the difference between enrolled and prospective students and found that prospective students were 400% more likely to enroll if they had a friend who was already enrolled.

Want to try Rapleaf for yourself?

You can experiment with our API for free (for up to 1,000 queries per month).

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To help clarify what social CRM is, we’ve listed two of the best articles we’ve come across. While there are a lot of papers on this topic (some of which are very pricey), these two are not only free but also do the best job of aggregating and presenting information clearly. Enjoy!

The Social Contract: Customers, Companies, Communities, Conversations in the Age of the Collaborative Relationship

By Brent Leary et al.

This e-book is a great collection of short, eye-opening vignettes from 15 experts on how they’re building deeper relationships with today’s “social customers.” Topics include best practices, lessons learned, and the positive impacts of emphasizing social CRM. Contributing experts include DirecTV’s SVP of customer care, Barnes & Noble’s VP of social media, and the author of Your Call Is (Not That) Important to Us.

Social CRM: The New Rules of Relationship Management

by Jeremiah Owyang and Ray Wang at the Altimeter Group

This paper is a good primer on what social CRM consists of and its impact across all aspects of business. Not only does it provide guidance on what’s important and recommendations for getting started, it also breaks down social CRM into 18 use cases across marketing, sales, support, innovation, collaboration, and the customer experience.

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As primary season gets into full-swing and campaigns across the country prepare for the November 2010 general election, we at Rapleaf’s Political Division believe that the following three technologies that will be game changers for 2010.

1. Influencer Identification (+ Word of Mouth Marketing)

Singling out highly influential people and getting them to spread a message is nothing new—that’s the whole idea behind high-profile and celebrity endorsements.  But the rapid rise of social media has not only made it easier to measure someone’s influence, it’s also ushered in a new breed of influencers. Today, the most influential bloggers and Tweeters  can propagate a message to hundreds of thousands of people with the click of a button.

The hardest part is knowing who the influencers are – once a campaign overlays influence with voter data, it’s easy to see who the cream of the advocate crop is and who should receive extra time and special care throughout campaign season.

Rapleaf recently worked with a campaign to identify the top 50 most influential supporters online. The candidate then called each one individually to thank them for their support, asked if they wanted to be involved more actively, and also sent them seemingly small tokens of appreciation. The campaign ended up with 800,000 more people learning about their cause when the influencers tweeted about their experience.

2. SMS Messaging

Did you know that 84% of people in the US have cell phones? That’s a higher percentage than people who own PCs and televisions. This means that campaigns can reach a good chunk of their audience on a device that they carry around with them all the time.

But there are many other benefits to using text messaging. First, communication via text messages can help campaigns cut down on volunteer hours at the phone banks.  Furthermore, text messages are just as focused as direct mail or online ads, but seem to get much more attention from people.

By far the best benefit, however, is that text messages can be timed to be sent during important events. For example, Scott Brown’s senate campaign used SMS messaging with deadly consequences: every time rival Martha Coakley made a radio appearance, Brown’s campaign alerted supporters via text messaging with details about the appearance and encouraged them to call in and ask hard questions. This led to a flustered Coakley and a senate seat for Brown.  We expect to see this method employed across the country in 2010.

3. Online Advertising: Focused Delivery to Ideal Constituents

Over the last few decades, campaigns and political consultants have gotten really good at using continuously-refined models to identify their ideal constituents and engage them with direct mail and phone calls. But unlike online display advertising, there is a lot of overhead involved with these traditional off-line methods.

Within the past year, it’s become possible for campaigns to serve ads based on both geography and political affiliation. Compared to ads on content networks, this type of advertising enables campaigns to show messages to their ideal audience more cheaply, quickly, and effectively – every person who sees the message is someone who the campaign wants to see the message. Rapleaf is working with some early adopters who have embraced this technology and are already delivering online ads based on voting and donation history, as well as political affinities.

Which technologies do you think will have the biggest impact on the 2010 elections?

Rapleaf Careers

Interested in technology and politics? Rapleaf has the ideal job for you – advising campaigns on the latest technology to help them generate buzz and reach their constituents more effectively. We also offer nice referral rewards for full-time hires. For more information, please email political@rapleaf.com.

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