Am I on Target? - Defining My Customer

It is is time to switch into a higher gear with our Social Media class, and we are starting to think about some marketing strategies for promoting a business online, while using Social Media Tools.  This week we are focusing on the Target Market.  Our assignment is to decide on a business we want to promote (real or fictitious) as we do our ongoing projects for the semester, and to think about whom is going to be the core customer group we are targeting for that business.  

I am sort of in a limbo today for choosing my project business for the class (so my choice will be updated shortly in my next blog once I have more information)  – I have a close friend who is running a Non Profit Foundation called the Sabrina Keller Foundation which supports education and research for the (SADS)  - Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome Organization, as well as offers college scholarships for young women involved with San Diego County Girl Scouts.  Sabrina Keller was a star in the San Diego Girl Scouts Organization, and I invite you to learn a little more about Sabrina's story at the foundations website. 

I am currently waiting to hear back from my friend the director of the organization; to see if she could use my assistance in developing her social media for the foundation. She has a good start with a Website and Facebook page, as well as some other tools, so I will have to get back to you my reading audience when I confirm my ability to help her with her social media needs. 

In the interim I have begun an analysis to discover who might be a good core customer group for the Sabrina Keller Foundation – which I have briefly outlined here:

• Financial Supporters - Money Donors
• Volunteers - Time Donors
• Girl Scouts – customers – volunteers  – beneficiaries
• SADS Organization & other Non-profits

This will be a difficult organization to promote because a nonprofit does not have “customers” in the traditional sense – it will require a different kind of thinking and process for targeting and consumer engagement strategies.  So if this is the project I take on - it will definitely be a challenging learning experience.  

As I don’t know what the dynamics or needs for the Foundation’s director might be at this point. I am going to define my core customer group with my current knowledge from looking at the Foundations website and Facebook Pages.  

The donor and volunteer demographics would be the families or friends- parents and grandparents (ages 12 -85) of adolescent and teenage children – those who might relate to the psychographic thought of potentially losing their child to a sudden illness; or those parents who have already experienced the loss of a child, as well as those who are battling with the potential loss of one currently (living or fighting with heart disease). The girl scouts themselves are also important stakeholders as the recipients of the scholarship rewards, and we would have to reach out to them to inform them of the scholarship opportunities, as well as to become volunteers themselves. They might be especially good targets for using social media, developing social content, and becoming thought leaders online. The SADS organization would most likely be a supplier for educational marketing materials, as well as a customer-consumer, as some of the proceeds from the Sabrina Keller Foundation events likely goes to support their initiatives.  

As we can see there is a lot of demographic and psychographic crossover involved within the foundation’s stakeholders – I think when I have an opportunity to get some further reflection with the foundations director, I will be able to better focus in on a core demographic group or stakeholder. 

My current evaluation for the foundations core target market - would be to target the parents - most likely between the ages of their early-thirties to mid-sixties (32- 65); concentrating on the parents of former and current girl scouts who live in San Diego County. There would have to be a lot of crossover with messages and content reflecting interests for both the parents and their children - girl scout members.  

I would like to develop some kind of campaign that could expand my audience to people beyond the local San Diego Girl Scouts to increase donations, but I think that would be a larger perhaps life time project beyond the scope of my current class. 

I also have another fictitious business in mind (a dream of mine) which I had developed for another class in the past - in case the Sabrina Keller Foundation Social Media project does not turn into a viable option for me. 

I have outlined my other business and target customer group for a Retail Paint & Decorating Store as follows:

Dekor Me Professional will actually be targeting three separate but interconnected segments of the entire San Diego County (and maybe southern Orange County). These three segments will include the professional interior designer, the building and painting contractor, and their most likely upscale homeowner/customers and clientele. Age ranges will vary based on the clientele (contractor, consumer, or designer) but most likely will be between the ages of 25 to 65 years of age (homeowners; working and retired professionals, designers, and contractors). 

This demographic was very wide for my brick and mortar paint store strategy, so I think I will be targeting the home designer as my core target customer for the social media project; focusing on woman and the professional interior designer - women between the ages of 25 and 65. With modest incomes and spending habits that are dictated by their often upscale clientele – homeowners and decision makers who also are generally the women (household decision makers).   

An Analysis of Some Favorite Websites

The assignment for my social media class tonight; is to find two of the most frequented websites that I like to visit, and analyze them for their aesthetics and principles of good web design.  Why they are effective, what could be improved, and what makes me come back to them.

At first I was having a hard time to think of some sites I like to frequent. I can’t honestly say I keep up with all the popular websites - but I am trying to do that more - now that I am becoming an expert on social media. I use “My Yahoo” as my home page. What makes it effective for me is the interchangeability of the page.  I have placed a lot of news and content modules on my page; they center on headlines, politics, recent events, and popular culture.

I also have added my LinkedIn account (RSS feeds), so I can see my network contacts, or what the business and professional blogs I’m following are currently saying. I also have modules on the weather, local movie times, and the stock market, which I like to follow up with daily.  Much of what I usually visit on the web, unless it involves doing research for a class, or something I am looking up specifically through Google. I will generally find linked through MyYahoo webpage first.  

What brings me back to Yahoo is they have everything I need, information wise, from the news media to shopping; right there at my finger tips on the front page (my home page).  Yahoo isn’t trying to be a “landing” or “destination page” as their business model; instead it is trying to be a “starting page”, for the internet user and their web surfing activities.

Yahoo is using a good web design with a symmetrical and blocked out content format that is interchangeable on the MyYahoo page; allowing their users to make their own customized starting page or web portal to other web places. They have links located at the top of the page, which are linked to various topics that readers will have interest; such as sports, finance or entertainment. They also have links at top for some social sites like Flickr, which is their partner for managing their users’ photo and image content.

I wasn’t quite sure that the example of the MyYahoo page fit the instructions for this social media class assignment correctly – it essentially is a “Web Portal Page” -not so much a business or ecommerce website. So I toiled a bit to come up with two more websites I wanted to talk about specifically. Until I read my emails today when I had found some websites which I do get some value from quite often.  

The First one is a stock analysis website called “Seeking Alpha.”  Seeking Alpha is sort of like a Wikipedia for stock investors. People can go on there and write public articles or blogs, and do their own analysis on companies/stocks, financial news, and events that are important to investors or traders.  There are mostly experienced traders who write articles or comments on the site. I find the range of expertise usually is from the experienced novice up to a full blown professional stock trader. Many of them are “thought and opinion leaders;” some of them are often shorting a stock, and they will try desperately to persuade others to their opinions - trying to get their readers to sell. It’s rather fun to read the comments between these people, because everyone has a different opinion on where their favorite or not so favorite stocks are headed in price.    

The site is well designed and the content is all blocked out in format - into a two or three column design. It is clean and simple with limited colors, not at all cluttered. And the headings or titles contrast with the content beneath.  It does not have a multitude of social media links available - with only Twitter and Facebook icons - located in the bottom of the footer. Although I do think it has two of the most important or relevant social media tools available, ones that would be of interest to finance professionals or traders who are the most likely to visit the site. Most other types of social media tools wouldn’t be related, or would not create much interest for these more often than likely upscale consumers.  But I do think one room for improvement they could do with the social media tools, is to add the website “LinkedIn” – which is also geared more to the professional and business people. So I am a little confused why that website wasn’t found here. It should be.

What brings me back to the site is the trusted news and financial information from the website administrators, as well as the novice to expert user-commenters, who often have varied opinions on the stock market. I even have an email alert which sends me notices when an article is posted by these users concerning my own holdings. It does a good job of keeping me informed with what might be important to me personally. I also like the headlines feature on their front page – it is dynamic and rotates every few minutes or seconds - re- ordering what top ten articles are being read the most at that moment.   

The other website I like to talk about and visit occasionally is “Ticketmaster.”   It too is very clean with aesthetics and uses a two or three column format for text and content placement, as well as a dynamic heading–banner that changes constantly, highlighting upcoming concerts and events.  Links by genre are located on the left hand side; they are simple, clean and easy to read. Although the simple design is attractive, I think the links and some of the titles in the sidebar could do better, if they stood out a little more, perhaps with bolder fonts or a little more color added.  

One feature I like that keeps me coming back often, besides they are generally a monopoly business for concert tickets; is if you are a registered user, they will know who you are and recommend music that reflects your tastes, from your past ticket purchases, or from the events and bands you were previously  researching online.

It has Facebook Social Media tools embedded right into their pages; where they are highlight upcoming bands. Facebook users following Ticketmaster can make comments on their bands for other followers to see. Ticketmaster is even using these comments as a marketing tool to draw users in to purchase special ticket packages; where they have a chance to meet their favorite artists in person. They make it seem as if the artist is personally inviting them to take a tour of the music arena/venue. It is quite clever.  

Branding Your Business: Company Webpages, Social Content, Aesthetics and Design

A thoughtful Business Owner or Company that is going to be successful in the new Digital Economy - will take the time to improve their Internet Marketing efforts; as well as develop an active Social-Media-Presence. 

A good first step for a business owner is to start out with creating or extending their Comprehensive Brand for their company offline, and then adopting that image for their online presence. A well-planned business strategy for doing online marketing, should include creating a thoughtfully Branded and well-designed Company Webpage or Website.  

Once a company has developed their own webpage with their own unique characteristics or brand, that image should be carried or extended into their social media efforts. Uniformity, color, contrast, content emphasis, aesthetics, brand and design, should all be developed with the target market – your potential consumers - in mind.  

The following websites (Apple, Ford, and Toyota) are good examples of well-designed, well planned and thoughtfully Branded Business Images, which keeps the consumer engaged and interested in the marketing materials. 

On these business marketing websites you will see it's easy for a visitor to locate and find social-media-icons and other webpage-links, which are conveniently located near the top of their webpage banners and/or in the bottom of the footers on each of these popular company's webpages, for easy navigation to social media and other key website sections. 

Each company’s website and their various webpages are highly branded, uniform and consistent; so the user does not get confused, and they know confidently that they are on the correct webpage. Logos, banners, and titles for each page are highly visible; and the paragraphs, fonts, text, spacing, or images, vary within the content, which helps to show contrasts within the reading materials. 

The entire website is pleasing to the visitor's eyes. We can also recognize the consistent branding and we will see these colors, logos, slogans and other themes located elsewhere in their business marketing efforts - whether through advertising offline, or online, and in their actual business locations. The branding is uniform throughout all communications with the public and their customers.   

The following small businesses and their websites (TEC Welding Products, Swagelok, G-Force Pace Cars, and Permaculture / Raising Chickens) have some work to do with branding their internet presence. All four business–websites are guilty to varying degrees for failing to be consistent with their social media, company branding, or visual aesthetics; some of them are showing little or no content uniformity within their webpage designs.  

Two of the businesses (Tec Welding, G-Force Pace Cars) are apparently not using or linking to any social media at all, and they do not seem to be  trying to create any kind of interactive two-way social communications with their customers (except with the traditional use of an email link). 

“G-Force Pace Cars” has some YouTube videos embedded into their company webpage, but it makes no apparent efforts to have their visitors participate through the social media; and there are no links to any other social websites. Also the text paragraphs with their business related content are misaligned and the words are centered wrong – giving the webpage a cluttered look with a non symmetrical web design. The homepage is really long with its length (and it does not provide any kind of return-to-the-top link), and the content is bunched up and very crowded; which makes web-links hard to see as they are not clearly marked. “Tec Welding Products” also have failed to link or utilize any social media marketing tools to attract any socially inclined consumers; and they too have misaligned the textual-content in a fashion that causes a cluttered look. Spacing is crowded with their web links bunched up on the left hand side; Images and pictures are bunched up together against the paragraphs. Uniformity of their brand and content is badly lacking for both of these two small business sites. 

The other two business websites (Swagelok, Permaculture) are improving with their utilization of social media tools, and although hard to find, they have at least placed a few social media icons somewhere on their webpages:

The Swagelok Company Website is the better example of the four small businesses, with the development of some organized branding. They have been able to better manage their content alignment and some of their basic website aesthetics. But the web design still has some element crowding issues with their content placement and images; the small, plain looking text appears to make the content look fairly boring.  Little contrast is seen between the use of the font sizes and other objects. It needs to have some more differentiation amongst its various webpage elements.  

The other business (Permaculture - “Raising Chickens”) is a blogging website that is about “Perma-Culture,” - whatever that might be.  It is very confusing as it is not clearly marked. It has no logo or outstanding webpage titles, to tell us what the website content might be, nor does it indicate clearly what we are about to be reading. The fonts are all the same throughout the page, and even at the start of some of the webpage titles, the paragraph-sentences are not capitalized.  Also the paragraph spacing and other elements are very random and it looks long and difficult to read. 

In summary as you can see with some of the differences in these seven examples, compared between Apple Computer, two major car companies Toyota and Ford, as well as the four smaller more disorganized local businesses. There is a lot to be gained for your success and your company's customer-outreach efforts, when you can develop your offline, online, and overall image or brand-marketing together. And when combined with a matching social media presence that is appealing, relevant, uniform, socially interactive, and visually consistent with your brand. You will ensure you can control your online image, as well as be found across all the new and old media channels. 

Does Your Business Need to Get More Social? – Check Out Some of the Competition:

Here are some examples of some Non profits & Company Websites that are using Social Media effectively to build and engage with their customer-base as well as promote their Company Brands:

The San Francisco Giants – have the 3^rd largest MLB team following (with over 2 million followers) of social media users behind only the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. But according to an article in Forbes Magazine (http://onforb.es/XU31E5), they are the number one team with fan engagement, using social media which leads to increases in actual ticket sales. 

The social links on their site include; Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, MLB.com, MLB – At Bat, and an Internal Email application. http://sanfrancisco.giants.mlb.com/index.jsp?c_id=sf

Recruit Military (RM) is a job (military-to-civilian) referral site for veterans that help transitioning military personnel find jobs or start their own businesses; as well as provide assistance/education to improve ongoing career skills. 

RM is using social media tools effectively such as through their Facebook to promote career fairs and other events; with content and comments from users and supporters - including military facts, quotes and related images.Their Social Webpages/website appear to be quite active with their followers and user commentary.  The social links on their site include; Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, and  YouTube.

Drum Corps International (DCI - http://www.dci.org/ ) is a nonprofit private musical youth activity that holds shows & competitions every summer across the United States, as well as in Canada, and sometimes internationally. It promotes Youth Music Education, Dance, Choreography and Pageantry. 

I was once a proud member of this activity (the now defunct “Valley Fever” from Modesto, Ca.) when I was in high school and during some of my younger college years.

DCI has been using social media for several years now; engaging their young and old audiences alike - through live & recorded news and music feeds (RSS) and VideoPodcasts on their website; as well as on Twitter, Facebook, and TheFanNetwork. Their email marketing is targeted and run weekly for both their subscribing (paid access) and non-subscribing members.  

 

Score – is a nonprofit organization designed to assist Entrepreneurs and Small Business Owners to succeed in their business projects and other endeavors, through mentorships, counseling and seminars provided by volunteers & local business leaders. The organization also promotes, utilizes and teaches business how to use social media tools effectively. The social media tools that I found on their website included; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, YouTube, Pinterest, Google+, and RSS.

Lastly there is the Estancia, an Upscale Hotel in La Jolla Ca., that is highly active online and uses a myriad of social media tools including  Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, TripAdvisor, Yelp, Flicker and Instagram.