The iPad and Kindle are the top prizes of 2010

Karmaback runs sweepstakes and contests for companies that want more fans and followers on Twitter and Facebook.  We’ve run hundreds of contests in 2010, and to our shock and awe the top prizes by a landslide were the iPad and the Kindle.  These $150-$500 prizes were about 150% more effective at “earning” fans and followers than prizes less than $150.  In fact, the iPad and Kindle, specifically, were 120% better at earning fans and followers than prizes above $500 (even prizes such as Football Tickets and $2,500 vacation packages).  If you are considering running a Sweepstakes or Contest, there are a few key things to consider when choosing a prize:

  1. Ideally pick a prize that is relevant to your business or customer.  Picking a relevant prize is the MAIN way you will attract the “right” new fans and followers.
  2. Choose a prize between $150-$500 in value.
  3. Consider an iPad or Kindle (perhaps preloaded with your marketing material or application)…
So, why were the iPad and Kindle so successful?  I believe the reason is that people: 1.) don’t already have one.  2.) do want one. and 3.) aren’t yet ready to “actually” buy one.
Now, go, Get Some!
Karmaback

Confusing Marketing doesn’t Work.

Have you ever seen a TV commercial that made you go… huh, what was that about?  Did you ever wonder who the heck that ad was targeting?  GoDaddy is a good example… their early TV commercials made no sense… many people still don’t know they are a registrar and web hosting company.  I recently watched a Chevy commercial with 3 guys in a car, they turn on the CD player, and it’s kids music thumping… I didn’t get it.  Am I supposed to want this embarrassment for myself?  Confusing marketing doesn’t work.  If your target audience doesn’t know who you are AND why you exist, you may as well have not bothered to tell them who you are.

Some companies websites are the worst (examples: http://www.rootlearning.com/ , http://www.motive.com/ , many, many more).  That clever Flash animation you have: I didn’t watch it.  That annoying “auto-play” audio you launch when I hit your site: made me close your site in 1 second.  The funky, indirect, “marketing-speak” on your home-page: might be good for SEO, but please, just TELL ME WHAT YOU DO!  Directness is valued by customers who are shopping for your goods.  Leave the indirect stuff for latter pages.. and always open and close with directness… it works.

Sales is about People, not Presentations

Your slide deck may be the best in the world.  Your pitch smooth as butter.  Your suit as fine as none other.  Yet, you continue to lose the sale to Alex, who uses no slides at all.  You better wise up and realize that sales is about people, not presentations.

Alex understands what sales is… and here is what he knows.

  1. If you can’t engage with the prospect, and get them talking, they will never remember a thing you say.
  2. If you don’t understand the needs of the prospect, both functionally in the business and personally, you will never be able to “show him the solution”.
  3. No matter how much you love your solution and think its the best, there are always alternatives and selling is showing that your option is the one that best solves the prospect’s need.
Where are your slides Alex?  I have some, but I’d rather send them to you after our meeting.
Why is that, that is odd?  Yes, I hear that, but I would rather spend the time learning about your problems than looking at my pictures…  if there is a fit, we’ll find it together and I’ll give you materials you need to sell internally.
Sales is about people.  Them not you.  Please, please, sales-people, stop with the slides already.

The Holidays Unmotivates Us

The holidays are a time for family, fun, rest, relaxation, party, presents, remembrance, and faith.  What the holidays are not are a time of work.  We feel deserving of a break.  Even if we have to be “on the clock” we don’t give much effort, and certainly can barely focus.  Why then do we force ourselves and our employees to punch in during these two weeks?  They aren’t going to do their best work, and probably don’t even want to be there.  My advice?  Go home.  Be with your family.  Come back in January recharged for success.

If only I could listen to myself…

Social Brand Evangelism

In Social Networks like Facebook and Twitter, there are a subset of people that are extremely vocal in their support of a brand, product, or company.  For some reason, this group of people (call them Social Brand Evangelists), find some pleasure in touting their love of a product (iPhones, iPads, graphics cards, TVs, XBOX, t-shirts, or whatever).  Here is the dirty secret…  I think most of these Social Brand Evangelists are “on the payroll” or “in it for something else”.  The loudest proponents and evangelists are employees and especially marketing employees… they constantly blab about themselves, share links about their companies, and the like.  The second set are doing it for 1 reason: to try to win something…  a contest or a sweepstakes system (such as Karmaback’s own system) prompted them to share to enter to win (this is not a bad thing).

But magic hour happens, in my mind, in the truly informal.  The Social Brand Evangelist who does NOT squawk off constantly about a brand, but who makes a subtle recommendation to a friend JUST at the right time!

How can you make your customers so delighted, that when no-one is looking (not contest, no sweepstakes, no employees)… they make the recommendation to a friend because they think it’s the right recommendation?

If you can do that… you’ve won.

Measuring is different than Succeeding

Many marketing executives believe in measuring effectiveness.  From Google Analytics to Conversion Tracking to “Share of Voice”, the importance of measurements is growing rapidly.  In order to succeed though, we marketers have to actually do something with the data.  Make more rational decisions.  Invest more deeply in the  things that work.  Why would any rational person want to invest in something they know doesn’t work?  And without measurement, why would any rational person invest in something they don’t know if it works or not?

Why Social Marketing Works, and Sometimes Doesn’t…

Did you ever wonder how Papa Johns Pizza got to 1.5MM Fans on Facebook?  Do you wonder if they make money on Facebook?  Why does Ford run TV commercials pushing people to their Fanpage?  Are companies making money with Twitter?  The short answer is: Social Marketing pays… usually.

Papa Johns:
  They are incredibly consistent on their Facebook and Twitter Pages.  1 Contest or Sweepstakes a week.  At least 1 coupon per week… and all involving their fans.  As a consumer, it PAYS to follow Papa Johns (discounts/contests/more).  This eMarketer.com study shows that 65% of daily followers want Deals and Sales! Papa Johns is capitalizing with REGULAR deals and sales… and it is working.

Ford:
  Are 440,000 people following Ford on Facebook to get a deal?  Probably not, a cursory glance shows that most engagements on Ford’s Facebook page are questions or comments for Ford.  Would Ford’s fans enter a contest to win a Car… probably yes.  But Ford doesn’t run such contests very often. If they did, they’d have a lot more fans…. but would they sell more cars?  Maybe.  But the direct line of sales success from couponing is not there for Ford like it is for Papa Johns.  So, is Ford making money on social?  Nobody knows… probably not even Ford!

I think companies need to wise up and realize that a small consumer purchase on Facebook (like Pizza) works only because it is measurable by coupons.   Cars, B2B, and other big purchases need to figure out a way to see if Social is worthwhile very fast!

The “Tree of Business”

To so many people, business is confusing.  It’s hard to understand, and we fear the unknown.  To the most “daring” among us, we embark on starting and running our own companies (I’m on Startup #2).  When people begin to think about starting this insane ride that is “self-employed”… it may be helpful to think of business as a tree.

First, the most important question:
What kind of business do you want to build?
1. A Tree that grows large and bears regular fruit.  (a for-profit business, but limited in size)
2. A Tree that stays small, and has just enough fruit to feed yourself & family.  (a for-profit business, often called a lifestyle business).
3. A Tree that sprouts many other trees and grows into an orchard or a forest (a huge corporation that someday may IPO – Initial Public Offering).
4. A Tree that gives any excess fruit away to charity (a non-profit)
5. A Tree that you plan to grow quickly, by feeding the tree its own fruit, and then someday sell the tree to someone that is building and orchard or wants to keep the fruit for themself.  (a for-profit business, designed for acquisition).

Knowing what you want out of your business can be extremely helpful in deciding A.) What to do.  and B.) When to feel successful. and C.) How to get your starting soil (investment).

Enjoy your fruit!

Decision Making Angst: Why being “undecided” is painful and what to do about it.

“So, clearly Karmaback has speed, responsiveness, and price going for them,” Carol says, “but Wildfire looks to have more clients.”  “So, Adam, which Sweepstakes company are we going to go with?  Karmaback or Wildfire?”.  Carol looked on, red eyes staring, heart pounding faster than it should, and clearly stressed.

Adam looked back wide-eyed and confused.  “Carol, we’ve just started looking at options, we have weeks yet before we need to decide.” Adam is confused because he asked Carol to find a good Sweepstakes company only yesterday.  Where is all this angst coming from?  What is the rush?  The deadline is months away.

A few days later, Adam has learned more about Wildfireapp and Karmaback and now his eyes are red, palms too sweaty.  “They both have positive aspects,” he says, “lets just pick one and be done with it.”.

WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is classic cognitive dissonance causing an irrational behavior.  Is “just pick one” really a good way to make an important business decision?  After you’ve picked one, the next thing is rationalization and confirmation bias and a whole bunch of other “post-decision” justifications.  Why? The angst is over, now you have to justify that you are a rational person… even though you just weren’t.

When faced with tough decisions social experts believe that cognitive dissonance causes humans that hold different conflicting possibilities in their heads get added stress and discomfort while the two are debated.  This leads to a “rush” to find an answer in order to “reduce dissonance” and the discomfort of indecision.

There is only one way I know of to confront and defeat the cognitive dissonance of decisions… creating decision criteria.  No, the cognitive dissonance is not “gone”, we humans still feel it… it still presses on us.  However, as business people, we have to at least TRY to make rational decisions.  It’s why we are leaders, managers, and in the game in the first place.

So, to defeat the angst of decision making, you can only make as rational a decision as possible with criteria that make sense.

Here are the steps that work for me:
1.) ignore all data collected so far.  Just forget it.  save it for later in the process.
2.) imagine you have no data, and create a “table” or list of information you would LIKE to have about all the choices prior to making a decision.
3.) select which data are “go/no-go”/ must-have items. and circle them.
4.) collect data, get samples, find as many options as you can… and fill out the table.
5.) eliminate all choices that are “no-go”.
6.) evaluate the remaining choices FAVORING the ones that you have more data for…. (better to know than to guess).  *THIS STEP IS CRUCIAL.  If you are having trouble collecting data for an option, in my experience, its not a very good option.
7.) pick the best choice based on the data you collected and the criteria… in the event of a tie, pick the one that contacted you/you got data for first.  (Speed matters).

Enjoy.

Decision made.

Dissonance over.

And you made a rational decision in the face of stress.

Nice job Adam and Carol, you rock.

You must have picked Karmaback 🙂

Custom made chairs, feel better on your bum.

Ever bought something “custom made”?  Measurements, colors, shapes, style, fit, finish, and polish… all to your bum’s liking?  If you had to wait 3-months for that chair, dang… you may never try it.  Imagine if you could get custom-made stuff in about the same time as a normal chair… a few days or minutes… at the same price.    WHO WOULD BUY A NORMAL CHAIR?  (especially if the price were the same?)?

No, I don’t sell chairs (Sorry).  Karmaback, though, is now offering custom made “Social Applications” with the speed of a custom chair (days not months)…. at the same price as others charge for “normal white label apps” (e.g. non-custom).  Want us to build YOUR custom Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Web, iPhone, or iPad app (or any combination there-of)?    Shoot us an email: support@karmaback.com  and we’ll reply with a Bid and an ETA within 24-hours.  (or call us for an instant bid: 1 (888) 406-5033 )

There are 2 key elements here that make this offer special (and so far REALLY successful):
1.) Time.  We make bids in 24-hours or less.  We build almost anything in just a few days (add a few more days for iPhone/iPad 🙂 ).
2.) Price.  We do this at prices other folks charge for their standard cookie-cutter solutions.

So, if you have a business, and want to figure out how to increase sales: consider:
Try CUSTOM.  It works if you can deliver in SPEEDY times and at FAIR prices.

Who wouldn’t want a comfortable butt?