Market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey and iModerate Research released a study recently that says a fan/follower of a brand on Twitter or Facebook is more likely to buy from or recommend those brands than they were prior to following the brand. Though Facebook and Twitter were both effective, the difference in the percentage between the two sites is, at the very least, interesting.

Chadwick Martin Bailey - iModerate Research Technologies Study

Twitter followers are far more likely to buy or recommend a brand to others.  They’re 19% more likely to recommend a brand than a Facebook follower.  So, obviously Twitter is the superior marketing tool.  Or is it?

Facebook has far more users (over 400 million compared to Twitter’s 75 million), and is much more user-friendly.  It even looks non-threatening, like a little, social networking puppy.  Twitter’s #hash tags, on the other hand, are ugly little monsters.

But when you think about it, hash tags and retweets are part of what makes Twitter cool and different.  Twitter has always been the beautiful-on-the-inside social networking site.

Having an online presence on both sites can be beneficial in different ways.  Twitter is all about the simple text and/or link post.  Short, sweet, to the point.  Facebook has become a great place for many types of media, links and information to be posted.

Think about the strengths of each site to determine which one might be better for whatever content or message you’re posting.  If you want to share a new video, Facebook is going to allow you to post it straight to your profile, whereas with Twitter, you’ll have to provide a link to it.  If you want to let people know that you just posted dates for the new tour, then post it on both sites.  There are even applications out there that will allow you to post to both Twitter and Facebook in one post, like Twitter on Facebook.

No one approach is going to work for everyone.  Depending on your brand, your target market, and the content you’re posting, one site may be more effective than the other.  But the most important thing to understand is they’re both pieces of a holistic marketing approach.

fan
noun
a person who has a strong interest in or admiration for a particular sport, art form, or famous person.

Facebook pulled an interesting marketing strategy  this week by replacing its “fan” buttons with “like” buttons. On the surface it seems like just a minor grammatical change, but the ramifications of this small action can be huge. According to Facebook, the reason for this change was a “part of [their] ongoing efforts to improve the user experience, increase engagement and promote consistency across Facebook, [they] are changing the language [they] use when people connect to [their] Brand Pages. People will soon connect with [their] Brand Pages by clicking “Like” rather than “Become a Fan.” People already “Like” their friends’ status updates, photos and links everyday. In fact, people click “Like” almost two times more than they click “Become a Fan” everyday”.

Will this plan actually work?

I am not convinced. One of the reasons social networking has become so popular is because it opens up brands to the consumer, allowing them to access ‘their’  brands on-demand. This can inspire more than just a “like” feeling, it creates a fan. This is what marketers have been trying to get their consumers to be: brand-loyal fans!  I can guarantee a “fan” will buy a band t-shirt, someone who just likes a band probably will not. While this new “liking” strategy may get more people to “like” a brand, I would like to point out that quality is way more important than quantity when it comes to social and email marketing campaigns. It is the fan, the super-loyal user, that will always click on your email and will always engage with your brand on social sites and will bring you the most return on your marketing investments.

And how do fans feel about this?! I think some of them feel a demotion in status from a FAN who attended every single one of band x’s tour dates last year and has band x’s tattoo, to someone who has been to just one show. Fans love being fans, they love the status and they are your most brand-loyal consumer. Engage them instead of losing them in the crowd.

Yes, I went and yes it was bad ass.

Granted we grew up on these movies and as a 9 year old, the Millennium Falcon was one of my most prized possessions, but the thrill these days is in the experience. The full orchestra, massive HD screens and a well coordinated narration through the saga is a must see event.

Needless to say, FanMail is really excited to be supporting this through our clients Another Planet Entertainment as it travels the world. Check out the tour dates, take the family and be ready to experience a really one of a kind concert event.

One of our newest clients, Them Crooked Vultures, are something to write home to your Mom about. Not just because they are a SUPERgroup made up of drummer Dave Grohl (Nirvana, Foo Fighters), vocalist and guitarist Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) and bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin), but because their marketing and email strategy is highly effective in growing their fans and subscriber list.

So, a good friend of mine in the HR industry emailed me the other day with a question about open rates. Yes, that’s right, even my non-work, non-marketing friends think about these things.  So my friend hits me up with the following scenario:  She is responsible for a regular newsletter that her company sends out to all associates, partners, clients and other industry professionals.  However, even though the content is very relevant and timely and the list is composed of people in the HR field, she was only seeing open rates of around 12-13%. Always looking to improve her performance, she asked if I had any thoughts or tips to offer.  Now anybody who knows me will tell you that I can’t say no to a friend in need–especially when they are need of marketing advice.

So, I took a look at one of her emails and talked with her about their audience and engagement process and came up with the following points that are relevant for all email marketers, even those of us concentrating in music media marketing.

Full disclosure: My friend and the company she works for are not FanMail clients and are not associated with FanMail or ExactTarget.

The first thing I did was look at the email for design and content best practices.  In terms of design, it was flawless: coherent and non-distracting themes, organized content areas, even bookmarks for easy navigation. As for the content, well, there is not a lot that can be done to jazz up new court interpretations of hiring standards or how federal workers’ compensation regulations have changed. I mean this is a human resources newsletter, not a concert promoters‘ show calendar or a record label’s new artist announcement.  The main thing that I pointed out here was to break up the copy with an image now and then to keep things interesting to the eye.

The second thing I looked at was the list. Who is on it? What kind of communication would this qualify as? While some of the subscribers are clients, the primary purpose of the newsletter is to keep HR industry professionals informed and up-to-date. This means that this would qualify as a B2B (business-to-business) send instead of a B2C (business-to-customer) send.  Typically, one would expect to get above average open rates on a B2B send, definitely not the 12-13% that she was seeing. That’s when I noticed that a large number of the subscribers were employees of the company–wait, I’ve seen something like this before! I asked her how many of her coworkers read their emails on their blackberry. Most, if not all, she surmised, because the company provides them with blackberries. Many people only read the text version of email on their smart phones, or don’t load the images at least. This means that they don’t get counted as an open because open tracking requires images to be loaded from the email server.  When we compared click-through rates to open rates, this point was further proved. According to their click-tracking one would expect an open rate of around 40-50%, which indicates that many more emails are being opened then the numbers show.

The final point I raised was the ESP being used. As I have noted before, sending emails on an ESP with a less than stellar sender reputation is like throwing emails away, or at least into the junk-mail folder which is basically the same thing.  With communication and effective engagement being the cornerstone of successful fan relationship management and fan marketing, our clients (whether they are festival and events promoters or small independent artists) would be losing money if we did not provide them with the absolute best in deliverability, even if the cost of services was less because the drop in revenue due to poor deliverability would far outweigh the savings. So my suggestion here was to get a deliverability report from their ESP and to also set up a bunch of test accounts across several domains (gmail, hotmail/live, yahoo, etc.) and test if the emails are making it to the inbox or the junk folder.

As with all metrics, open rates are only a small snap-shot, they do not tell the whole story. However, they do give a good first impression of the effectiveness of a send.  The three things to consider when trying to improve this number are design/content of the email itself, the quality and composition of the subscriber list, and the deliverability of the email which is based upon sender IP reputation.  By keeping an eye on these factors, it is possible to see open rates that many of us dream about. So keep working and improving and tuning your processes and let’s get as many people opening your emails as possible.

Just a heads up that today is the last day to use the SXSW panel picker to choose which panels you might want to see. Take 2 seconds and give the FanCentric Future panel a vote: http://tinyurl.com/lec5mh

For those who missed it last year... check out the overview and the slide deck.

———

On October 14th we will be joined by our client Road Runner Records in the Media & Entertainment Solutions Showcase at ExactTarget Connections 09 in Indianapolis. This is the largest direct marketing conference in the world and is a super valuable and insightful event for any direct or interactive marketer. If you are going be there, hit us up so that we can hang out.

————–

On October 19th, The A2IM will be presenting a Tech Day for their members prior to CMJ. We have been asked to participate on the panel discussing direct and email marketing. If you are an A2IM member and going to be in NYC for CMJ, check out this event and hit me up to hang out.

In their words:

Hosted by the A2IM New Media Committee, this Tech Day will feature presentations and question & answer sessions on the topics of Email Marketing and Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) Marketing.  It will be our 3rd such event and the two previous have been very informative and no doubt benefited the members who attended.

Following Tech Day, A2IM will host a Cocktail Party starting at 6pm and open to all members.  Last February’s pre-Digital Music Forum: East and last October’s pre-CMJ Tech Day and Cocktail Party were both great successes with over 70 attendees at each Tech Day and over 130 attendees at each Cocktail Party.

The fun part is that everybody is carrying little computers around in their pockets which brings endless chances to interact with an artist, events or each other.

The challenge for many direct music marketers is figuring out how to own the relationship. (ie having permission to contact a fan directly in the future).

To that end, we are happy to introduce “LIVE CAPTURE” which uses sms protocols to collect an email address and trigger the associated responses and confirmation messaging.

Wanna try it out? On your cell phone text “stubbs” to 88769 to see the whole process at work.

Notice that the goal here isn’t to grow a mobile fan base or collect a cell phone number to blast messages. That is so 2006 and has kind of lost the shiny “second coming of Christ” luster that it once had. (after all a mobile fan base is kind of limited and many folks see mobile marketing as highly intrusive).

The goal here is to collect an email permission in a live environment or as a means to maximize print advertising. This takes a direct live experience and translates it into a direct online experience which has real lifetime value and depth and color.

Goodbye ye ‘ol beat up clipboard that the merch table. Goodbye endless hours of having interns transcribe email addresses by hand. Hello instant gratification!

The best part is that early indications are showing that LIVE CAPTURE can be one of the fastest email list growth mechanisms out there. Of course it has be done right. It has to be promoted with savvy, in the right places, with the right incentive like an unreleased MP3 or live show. After all, if people don’t know or don’t care then they won’t sign up.

Expensive? NOPE. There aren’t any upfront costs. We set it up and customize everything to your needs and only charge based on the number of subscribers you actually collect.

Oh interactive marketing bliss!

Well folks, things have been busy. I don’t mean just normal busy, but really busy. The winds of change are in effect and everywhere pundits and experts and music geeks are shouting, “but you’ve got to have a relationship with your fans!” and “email works!, social networking works!, Communicate, communicate, build a fanbase” We are seeing first hand the success and revenue which properly executed direct to fan initiatives can drive. As our friend Ian recently said, ” The business is changing, artists have choice, and artists will find partners to help them get done what they need to.”

To that end we are thrilled to welcome new clients like DJ Shadow (yeah, I’m a huge fan), Beck, Cucu Diamantes, Sugar Ray and Bad Lieutenant and who have all launched new fan marketing campaigns to connect more closely with core fans.

One of the most exciting new clients in the mix is Them Crooked Vultures – a super group made up Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme and Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones. The mystery around this group is only starting to become clear, so join their list to get the scoop.

Outside of the music space we are thrilled to present our new client Coach Pete Carroll. On top of being the well known coach for the USC Trojans, he is a inspired author, speaker, leader and mentor. His “Win Forever” philosophy has not only led the USC football team to win the last 74 of 83 games but is now the topic for an upcoming book, DVD and educational track. We are thrilled to be working with such a leader.

We have also been busy playing with new features which are helping our clients acquire, retain and grow their fan bases. Social Forward is a new feature which encourages your fans to pass on content from your emails.

Social Forward from David DeVore on Vimeo.

This really is the coolest thing since sliced bread since it vastly expands the ability of your content to be viral as well as your ability to track the reach of a message. Early indications are showing 80 times the pass around which normally happens from traditional Forward to a Friend. All the major social networks are supported and full tracking is available.

We also have a new user community, which looks to expand the knowledge and support which all clients have through 3sixty.

Highlights from our new community include:

• Home page: Topics of recent interest (for example : how to add web-collection forms to facebook). You can also find announcements, new feature highlights & navigation for the entire support desk

• Knowledge Base: Segmented support topics on an array of topics.  From the ‘Getting Started’ page to help jump start your new account to ‘Additional Software Tools’, the FanMail Knowledge Base is the place to find information, documentation, videos and much more on a vast array of topic
• Submit a problem or issue: Using the ‘Submit a request’ tab, you can create a ticket and a direct line of communication with our account management team.  Your ticket will be noted and work will begin immediately to answer your question.
• Track your support requests: You can log into the Knowledge Base to track the results of your submitted ticket.  Here you will see updates and notifications made by our account management team.

Lastly, we are seeing some massive early results through our text collect (also called Capture) technology which collects email addresses through SMS.

The Capture Package can help you:
•     Grow your list of mobile subscribers through Text Capture
•     Engage mobile subscribers through Voting and Keyword Response
•     Increase subscriber conversion from offline to online

Early indicators are showing that when this is executed correctly Text Collect can be one of the fastest list growth mechanisms out there. We we be excited to post some real case studies and results over the next few weeks.

Cheers!
David