Companies  of all sizes plan to increase spending on digital marketing and social media but CMOs don’t believe their social media activities are well integrated with their companies’ overall marketing strategies. In fact, 42 percent rate this integration as below average and only 11 percent of CMOs said their company was “very effective” in integrating social media into their marketing strategies. This suggests an urgency to utilize social media even before a comprehensive plan is developed which today could lead to a waste of resources.  Online Strategic Solutions provides real strategy, real implementation and measurable results to help your brand succeed in a consumer empowered world.

Your Problem: “You not only need a new digital marketing strategy, you need one that can implemented effectively and drive business and brand objectives.

Whether money is tight or times are good, everybody is bent on improving their business performance based on metrics. Every dollar you spend on your interactive initiatives  has to provide impactful results with measurable and real ROI.  What separates Online Strategic Solutions from other consultants is that we start by developing a complete understanding of your internal and external barriers.

We’ll start by asking you a lot of questions about your company, brand, customers, prospects and business objectives.  As we begin to understand your business we’ll start to develop a digital strategy that can be implemented within your environment and more importantly be measured back to your marketing objectives.  We’ll even stay with you through implementation and recommend changes or additions based on what’s happening in the digital marketing space (for example the new Facebook brand pages).

We also have the unique ability to see your company or brand as consumers see you.  We’ll make sure that your brand is personally relevant to empowered consumers and develop a strategy that helps talk with consumers rather than push sales information.

In summary Online Strategic Solutions is about delivering measurable results because when you look good we look good.

Digital marketing is moving rapidly.  What worked yesterday may not work today and don’t buy into the hype that social media is going to save your brand.   Any digital marketing strategy you implement has to directly support your business objectives. How do you know you need help?   Do any of these statements apply to you ?

1. You don’t  have a strategic Internet marketing plan or your Internet marketing plan is still in development.

2. When you try and implement changes to your website, you wind up with a timeline that is unrealistic.

3. Our competitors are jumping ahead of us in online marketing.

4. You have never conducted a SWOT of our competitors websites.

5. You want to look at a social media marketing but you’re not sure where to start.

6. You pay a lot of money for search engine marketing, but all you have to show for it is quantitative data with no real ROI attached.

7. You have a lot of visitors to your website, but your conversion rate is declining or is flat.

8. My IT people are frustrated because they don’t understand marketing and I don’t understand things like technical and functional requirement needs.

9. I really don’t know what the ROI is for our website right now or how to improve it.

10. I don’t know what our customers are saying about us online.

Right now there is a good chance that your competitors are investing in improving their online marketing efforts.  Since the Internet continues to evolve, companies that don’t make changes now are going to be left behind and miss a valuable opportunity to get closer to their customers.

1. Less is the new more.

2. Nobody cares about your brand except you and your employees.

3. You need to listen to what your customers are saying about your product/brand online.

4. Stop thinking products and start thinking relationships

5. Products have to market themselves by forging relationships with consumers.

6. We live in a reputation economy so you had better listen to what your customers are saying about you

7. Price is not the only currency today

8. Consumers have more power than you and they are laughing at your advertising.

9. Social media is not a golden bridge to meeting your business objectives.

10. Think-Implement-Measure-Optomize everything you do online

SITUATION:

Biotech, venture capital funded,  company in pre-launch for a new pharmaceutical product wanted to determine the where to invest marketing budgets when the product is approved by the FDA.

ACTION:

Develop a complete understanding of the product and target audience.  Developed a SWOT analysis and presented to senior management for approval.  Recommend and lead market research (qualitative) with target audience and health care professionals to determine where the marketing emphasis should be on launch.  Continue with market research as required to ensure that resulting strategies are inline with target audience expectations.

RESULTS:

• Research clearly showed that the launch emphasis should be on patients not health care professionals.

• Best way to reach the target audience is through multiple content distribution online.

• Follow-up research indicated that target audience is actually four sub-segments each with a different need.

• Tested different messages for each sub-segment, developed decision tree analysis to overcome barriers and increase conversion.

SITUATION:

Consumer products company that makes custom ice cream and sells their products via online has a high shopping cart abandonment rate (74%).  Determine why consumers were going through the process of shopping but failing to complete purchase.

ACTION:

Complete evaluation of the purchase process via in depth web analytic software indicated that 85% of shopping cart abandonment was happing in step 4 of the purchase process.  Develop A B testing to test an easy checkout system consisting of 1 step instead of 5 steps showed that conversion increased 54% when website visitors had only one step to purchase their products.   Also asked consumers who purchased if they would be available to fill out a survey for 15% future purchases.

RESULTS:

• Survey indicated that consumers felt the FED-X shipping costs were too expensive to place orders.

• Developed a “free-shipping” offer for consumers who ordered 5 flavors.  Analysis indicated that that at this level the company would still meet profit per sale expectations.

• Shopping cart abandonment rate decreased to 35%.

• Reduced shipping method from overnight to two day resulting in 45% cost savings.

SITUATION:

Car brand wanted to try to increase sales within a certain market where sales were below the rest of the country. Dealers were complaining that a local marketing plan was needed to boost sales.

ACTION:

Develop a local based search engine marketing plan and customized home page for the market in the Midwest.  Review the database of people who opted in for eMails and micro-segment messages with special incentives for the market. Hold a chat with a brand representative via Twitter to answer questions about the brand.

RESULTS:

• Within the first month of implementation traffic to the localized home page increased over 400%.

• We had over 50 people via the online Twitter chat with 40% of them going to their dealer resulting in 10 sales and an ROI of over 5:1

SITUATION:

Client wanted a complete overview and competitive analysis of social media use for consumer packaged product (electronics).  Client had a website but had not developed any social media strategy.

ACTION:

Developed a slide presentation for senior executives on social media 101.  Explained social media benefits and liabilities and recommended an integrated marketing social media strategy that could easily be implemented via their customer service department. Sat with customer service managers to develop, implement and measure social media strategy on Twitter.

RESULTS:

Customer satisfaction survey from people who used social media indicated a positive attitude about the brand and company.  Calls to customer service department declined 12%.   Also included a click to chat, click to call option on website which in turn increased customer satisfaction.  Company executives are knowledgeable on social media but more importantly their social media strategy is providing a meaningful ROI.

OTHER CURRENT WORK:

• Authored position paper on latest interactive marketing for top New York agency to send to their clients.

• Authored direct-to-consumer marketing column for Pharma-Live (Med Ad News)

• Author monthly column for PM 360 Magazine on Direct to Consumer marketing.

Thought leader on interactive marketing and social media in an age of empowered consumers.

I offer a wide range of consulting services.  Initial consultations and request to review information and make recommendations start at $2,000

Comments or questions are welcome.

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