If you were to ask me what Starbucks is good at I probably wouldn’t say ‘coffee’. What Starbucks is brilliant at is loyalty. I’ve had better and cheaper coffee than I’ve had at Starbucks, yet I continue to gravitate towards their outlets because I enjoy the experience. The coffee business as a whole has realised that loyalty is critical to it survival. Starbucks are the leaders in this space and their mobile apps offer a lesson to us in other businesses.

Starbucks have already leveraged location-based technologies to improve the findability of their stores. They have transferred their plastic loyalty cards to mobile and now they are making payments seamless. Log on to your Starbucks app on your phone, it produces a bar-code which is scanned at the cash desk; your account is deducted with the relevant amount and your loyalty points are  for your next free coffee. totted

Starbucks understand their customers deeply and as a result can create innovative Internet-based solutions that make the purchase process better (easier and quicker) while maximising loyalty. A very smooth transition from ‘bricks and mortar’ to ‘bricks and taps’.

(Note that the apps are not yet available in Ireland.)

100% of respondents either completely agree or somewhat agree that as consumers today they are more informed in their purchase and media consumption decisions. At the other end of the spectrum, just over half of respondents say that the Internet has made them less loyal to fewer big brands.

These are the actual statements that were presented:

The survey remains open for a few more days so please take a minute to complete it:

The past decade, of helping businesses devise and implement e-commerce strategies that enable them to compete online, has been a constant learning about:

• how customers use the Internet to solve their problems;
• how to create products and compelling online sales processes that maximise conversions;
• how to  engage with customers in meaningful ways using the ever-expanding and changing range of social application;
• how to implement e-commerce systems cost-effectively;
• how to structure organisations and their processes to ensure that they operate efficiently in an Internet economy and
• how to measure and improve the return on investment that those organisations have made in e-commerce.

There exists a collective wisdom about how to succeed at doing business online and yet I struggle to find a single place where the insights that have been learned by all of us working in e-commerce have been collated. With that in mind, I am kick-starting a project to distill all of the insights I have gained over the years into a coherent framework that will hopefully be useful for others.

It looks like the project will initially take the shape of a manual that would offer a framework for managers to transform their business or ideas into a successful online operation. Given the ever changing nature of this arena however, any static manual would be quickly dated so I will also be working on a platform that would enable the framework to continually evolve. The working title for the project is “Sell More Online” – alluding to the fact that while most businesses have a website that generates some sales, very many are struggling to understand how to really make their investment in the web deliver significant returns.

Over the coming weeks (and months) I’ll be elaborating concepts from framework here on this blog. Hopefully this will help me gain some early validation, so please share your thoughts on these with me.

Also, I have identified a number of business owners and managers that are eager to participate by working through the framework in their business. If you are in the process of investing in your e-commerce strategy and would like to participate in this project please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

This is an extract from an article published recently in the Sales Institute‘s magazine to their members. Click here to download the complete article.

The most popular Irish Facebook pages include musicians, alcohol brands and Ryanair

A visitor to this blog asked where she could find out which Irish corporates had the most popular Facebook pages. The answer wasn’t immediately clear to me and a after a little digging I discovered that this information isn’t readily available.

Here is my best stab at the most popular Irish brands on Facebook ranked by the number of people that “like” their page. I’ve only included the pages that are managed by Irish brands. The data has been pulled from a number of sources but principally from a search of Facebook’s pages directory.

1. U2
   http://www.facebook.com/u2
   3,364,402
2. Baileys
   http://www.facebook.com/Baileys
   850,305
3. Westlife
   http://www.facebook.com/Westlife
   410,063
4. Guinness GB
   http://www.facebook.com/Guinnessgb
   289,963
5. Guinness Ireland
   http://www.facebook.com/GuinnessIreland
   129,026
6. Oxegen
   http://www.facebook.com/oxegen
   102,714
7. Jameson Whiskey
   http://www.facebook.com/jamesonwhiskey
   90,171
8. Captain Morgan
   http://www.facebook.com/CaptainMorganIreland
   59,918
9. Ryanair
   http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ryanair/24694184960
   46,454
10. The Saw Doctors
    http://www.facebook.com/sawdoctors
    47,321
11. Hostel World
    http://www.facebook.com/hostelworldcom
    42,937
12. Electric Picnic
    http://www.facebook.com/ElectricPicnic
    41,278
13. Munster Rugby
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Limerick-Ireland/Munster-rugby-club-fan-page/36613502000
    30,733
14. Smirnoff Ireland
    http://www.facebook.com/SmirnoffIreland
    28,346
15. Pogues
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Pogues/
    25,910
16. Spin 1038
    http://www.facebook.com/spin1038
    24,543
17. Guinness Rugby Supporters Ireland
    http://www.facebook.com/GuinnessRugbyIreland
    24,118
18. Irish Cancer Society
    http://www.facebook.com/IrishCancerSociety
    23,812
19. Tourism Ireland
    http://www.facebook.com/Ireland
    23,452
20. Leinster Rugby
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dublin-Ireland/Leinster-Rugby/25793755239
    21,533
21. Discover Ireland GB
    http://www.facebook.com/DiscoverIrelandGB
    19,409
22. Starbucks Ireland
    http://www.facebook.com/starbucksireland
    19,232
23. Allhorse
    http://www.facebook.com/Allhorse
    18,735
24. Jagermeister Ireland
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jagermeister-Ireland/184728954003
    18,020
25. Ireland Deserves Sun
    http://www.facebook.com/IrelandDeservesSun
    17,967
26. Barry’s Tea
    http://www.facebook.com/BarrysTea
    17,220
27. Mr Tayto
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mr-Tayto/6763632581
    15,690
28. Irish Blood Transfusion Service
    http://www.facebook.com/giveblood
    15,669
29. Special Olympics Ireland
    http://www.facebook.com/SpecialOlympicsIreland
    15,181
30. IRISH RUGBY TEAM
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/IRISH-RUGBY-TEAM/50621768957
    14,907
31. Amnesty International Ireland
    http://www.facebook.com/amnestyinternationalireland
    13,736
32. Meteor
    http://www.facebook.com/meteor
    13,557
33. Topflight Holidays
    http://www.facebook.com/topflight
    12,438
34. 98FM
    http://www.facebook.com/pages/98FM/70730467584
    12,433
35. Champion Sports
    http://www.facebook.com/championsportsireland
    11,736
36. Pigsback
    http://www.facebook.com/pigsback
    11,460
37. Ben & Jerry’s Ireland
    http://www.facebook.com/BenandJerrysIreland
    10,470

I’m bound to have missed plenty, so if you know of some that I’ve omitted please leave a comment below and I’ll update the list.

Even the little ones are getting excited about Weedle

Increasingly, social media tools are being used by everyone to connect skilled professionals with the people who need them. Business owners and managers are creating Facebook pages to seek to spread the word through the largest global social network. When informing our purchase decisions we increasingly tap into our online networks, such as Twitter, to ask our contacts there what products or services they recommend.

Currently there is no single large-scale way of harnessing the power of word of mouth referrals for people offering skilled services. This is one of the big ideas behind Weedle and one of the main the reasons I joined the company last February.

Weedle enables you to create a personal web page where  you can showcase any skill, expertise or talent that you have. You can add text and rich media such as images, video, presentations, documents and many other file formats. You can then promote your skill page to your family, friends and contacts. This means that in the first instance they will be more likely to use you in future. But it also means that they will be more likely to recommend you to their friends.

The next time someone searches for your skill on Weedle they will immediately see in how many ways they are connected with you; for example if you both grew up together, attended the same college or university, worked together or have a friend in common. We all prefer to do business with people we know. Furthermore, anyone who views your skill page will immediately see the recommendations for you from people whose knowledge and opinions they respect. We are more likely to trust what people we know say before the ratings or reviews of anonymous strangers.

This is the thinking behind Weedle and already people from over fifty countries around the world have started showcasing their skills, expertise and talents there.

One of the early benefits of creating a social platform such as Weedle, where skills are the focal point, is that Google returns Weedle web pages quite high in the rankings when someone searches for a skill that happens to be listed there. In the same way as other social platforms optimise for your name (search for your name on Google and there’s a good chance one of your social network profiles will appear on the first page) Weedle optimizes for your skill. People who know you by name will search that way, but people who don’t know you but who need your skill, will search for your skill title. This is Weedle’s initial SEO (search engine optimisation) benefit.

You can connect with me on Weedle on my personal page weedle.com/brendan.hughes – anyone who joins early can claim their personal web address before it is gone. I would love to hear your thoughts on the concept behind Weedle and on how we have implemented the platform to date. Join Weedle today to see how it works and please, please send us your feedback.

Traditional approaches to online sales seek to draw as many customers as possible into the top of your funnel and then focus on optimising the sales funnel to maximize the numbers coming out the other end. Strategies to pile the volumes into the top of the funnel typically rely on expensive marketing approaches that are focused on critical mass. Since the funnel can only be optimised so much, the imperative is to push as many into the top as possible. But isn’t there something terribly frustrating with losing ninety-nine out of every one hundred customers that come to you?

The traditional conversion funnel, with volumes driven by expensive marketing.

An alternative approach is now made possible by the social web and the social media tools that are readily available to new marketers. Stop spending effort and cash on the large volumes, but focus instead on the one happy customer. Each individual’s sphere of influence has grown exponentially thanks to the social web. Your task now is to harness the power of this and enable and support your fans to spread the word to their networks. Optimise your megaphone:

The megaphone approach; enable and reward your fans to share

This approach doesn’t cost you marketing bucks. One happy customer will readily share their satisfaction if you provide the right conditions:

Hot Sharing – Forget hot leads and focus on hot sharing. At the point when your customer is happiest with you, provide them with easy to use tools enabling them to share their positivity towards you with their friends. Only you will know what a happy customer looks like for your business. Leverage all of the social tools that exist to enable them to tell the world about you. This type of word of mouth endorsement will be far more effective than all of the advertising that you might pay expensive agencies to create for you.

Reward Positivity – If you want to encourage positivity and sharing, reward it. Your happy customers will do it anyway but by showing them that you appreciate it, more of your happy customers will be likely to do it. Find appropriate rewards that suit your product. Give them discounts. Give them increased profile. Or maybe just say “Thanks”.

Engage with Your Biggest Critics – Believe it or not, your biggest critics can often become your biggest fans. Vocal critics online can have a damaging effect on your reputation. Often these are happy customers that have been turned by something in your processes into frustrated unhappy customers. Where they have legitimate reason to be annoyed, engage with them and show them that you are listening and attempting to fix the problem. There are so few businesses doing this in an authentic manner, that you might be surprised at the positive response you get. Where they are being unreasonable, your reasonableness will become very obvious to everyone else who is watching the conversation.

Stop spending a fortune dragging those thousands or millions of customer into fundamentally inefficient funnels. Spend time making it easy and interesting for your happy customers to become megaphones for your business.

—— YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN: ——-

TechCrunch Disrupt NYC – Attend for Free as a Guest of Weedle

I am attending, on behalf of Weedle, the TechCrunch Disrupt event which is taking place in New York  between Monday 24th to Wednesday 26th of May. If you are also attending drop me a line and I’d love to hook up for a chat. We have a second ticket for the event that we would like to give to readers of our Weedle blog. All you have to do is tell us why you’d like to attend and the ticket goes to the first name out of a hat this Thursday. – B

———————————————————————————

Imagine the power of going to a shopping website and seeing which of your friends like that site. Implement this on your checkout page and see what impact it makes.

There is a real opportunity here for brands. 50,o00 websites have already implemented this new feature from Facebook that was only released literally days ago.

Here is a grat article from Mashable on the e-commerce opportunities that exist from this new feature from Facebook – 5 Ways Facebook Will Impact E-commerce.

Social media purists will balk at the notion… using authentic person-to-person communications merely to game the search engines. Realistically, the businesses that are using social media in this way won’t see much return for their investment; since the SEO (search engine optimisation) benefits are fairly limited.

A blog is certainly a good tool to have in your search engine marketing strategy. However it is not the fact that it is a blog per se, but more that it is a part of your website that is regularly updated with fresh content covering a wide range of topics. You could achieve this without actually using blog software.

I haven’t heard too many talk about the identifiable SEO benefits of Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. That’s because there are not too many. Having them will certainly ensure that your tentacles on the web are wider. Ideally you want as many of the search results for your key terms to be occupied with properties you own.

It would be remiss of me not to mention Weedle here. Already we’ve seen some surprising results for people who have created skill profiles on the platform which has been live for just six weeks. For example, undertake a search today for “tax specialist San Francisco” or “carpenter, joiner or kitchen fitter Ireland” on Google.com and note that the number one organic result in each case is a Weedle profile.

The search benefits from engaging with social media are important but they should not be the reason that you engage with it. Social media, gives you the opportunity to engage in word of mouth marketing of your business. It enables you and others on social media platforms to talk about what’s good about your business, your products or your services.

Social media provides you with opportunities to enable your fans to testify to your greatness. In doing so, and because they are doing it on social media applications, they are telling all of their friends directly what they think about you. They are marketing you to their friends. facilitate, encourage and reward your fans who share what they like about you. This is what social media engagement can do for you and it is far more powerful marketing than SEO.

Facebook this week announced some changes to how they make this process easier for your fans. CNN covers it here. They have changed the “Become a fan” button on your business’s Facebook page to “Like”. Facebook know that “like” is going to get more clicks for you than “become a fan”. As you know, when someone “like’s” your page, all of their friends can see that action. This is the nub of how social marketing works.

Facebook also announced that it is stretching its own tentacles beyond its own website and is going to follow you wherever you go on the web. Each time you visit another website, Facebook will know, without you having to log on to Facebook each time, and will let your friend’s know what you think about the various websites you visit. Facebook naturally needs to take its application to the next level and with 400 million users globally has the scale to do this. Many have already expressed privacy concerns about this move, but Facebook’s scale means that regardless of these concerns you will start to see your friends’ Facebook faces, and they yours, on very many of the websites you visit from now on.

The social marketing opportunity for website and businesses owners with these developments is very clear. Old school digital marketing agencies now need to catch up.

1. Be transparent. Transparency is different to honesty. Honest is when you are asked a direct question. Transparency doesn’t require a question. It is an attitude that shows people the inside of your organisation and invites your customers to participate in the journey you are on. Enable them to collaborate with you on developments – this will engender a greater sense of ownership and loyalty.
2. Deal with customer service issues. Since your customers don’t have a one-dimensional view of you, you fail them when you take a one-dimensional view of them. You might consider what you are doing on Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare as a marketing activity, but your customers consider it as another way to tell you about their experiences with you. Deal with it.
3. Don’t stop talking when bad stuff happens. You immediately lose credibility in what you are doing. Get the PR guys on board from the start. If they don’t get social media, fire them – they will do you a big disservice when you really need them to help you with the crisis that will inevitably happen.
4. Give something of value. Providing your fans with content that is relevant to them that they will be interested in is bread and butter. But your fans who engage regularly are your best marketing tool. Reward them with stuff they really want and will remember you for – free stuff they will like, exclusive invites to events or gigs that no one else can get and even really decent discounts on your products or the products of others.
5. Entertain. We very often use social media sites as an escape from the hum drum of nine-to-five. Brands that help to enrich that time by amusing or sharing the unusual and remarkable will be rewarded with repeat visits. There are but a few social media brands that I check out on a daily basis to see what’s new, interesting and amusing – as a result I am much more tolerant of the things they do wrong.
6. Facilitate conversation. A really powerful thing for a brand to do is to be the facilitator of conversation. You don’t always need to be in the centre – you won’t be able to economically sustain it anyway. Create forums for people to interact with each other to talk and share the things that interest them. Enable them to talk about your brand. Don’t step in to dominate the conversation; only to show you are listening, to clarify where clarification is required and to demonstrate how you are responding with action.

What do ya think?