Everywhere you turn, business pundits, bloggers, or magazines are encouraging you to replace traditional “interruptive” outbound marketing methods with contemporary “permission-based” social media techniques. There is a lot to be said for what you can learn from even a minimal social media effort.

But, if you’re like most marketers, you probably use some combination of SEO, display advertising, and email marketing. These tactics have fueled your business with sales and leads for years. Is it not a bit hasty to suggest that we all ditch these proven methods in favor of a Facebook page or a Twitter feed?

There’s no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Your paid media and permission-based media can work together to boost ROI when you learn to leverage the connection between them. The following is a realistic, 90 day action plan that outlines how “traditional” online paid media can be combined with inbound social media.

First 30 Days: Mine your social networks to learn more about your customer.
While many consumers are quick to criticize traditional paid for online techniques, these criticisms tend to be misplaced. The problem of course is not that SEO, display advertising, or emails are bad ways to reach your audience. Instead, problems occur when the content of these messages is bland or untargeted.

Too many advertisements reflect what your agency’s creative people assumed your customers wanted to see rather than what they really wanted to see. It is here that social media can be used to breathe new life into the traditional marketing mediums. If you already have an actively maintained Facebook page or Twitter feed, you can use them to collect valuable customer input. Your social media can be used as a live focus group that produces unfiltered feelings about your brand. These two direct input accounts are a treasure trove of valuable data that can be used to “tune” ad campaigns.

When you utilize the sites to collect input this data can include:

• How your customers and prospects voted on polls
• Frequently asked questions (other than those you’ve answered elsewhere)
• Recurring complaints or grievances
• Extremely positive or negative things said about your products or brand
• Experiences (good or bad) customers have had with competitors
• Pay special attention to what content was re-tweeted, clicked, Liked, and shared the most.

The goal for this first 30 day period  is to probe, collect, analyze and create a customer centric point of view. The theories you have about your customers may differ from what those customers truly think and express about your company and your products or services though social media.

Summary: Your marketing budget is limited. Your ads must express the most powerful, attention-getting statement of value you can possibly produce. What better place to find out what this is than the candid remarks of your own customers?

Next 30 Days: Craft a content-driven marketing strategy
Content is the catalyst for building a relationship with prospects in a social media world. Content transcends websites, social networks, and formats. I once worked on the Black and Decker Power Tools advertising account. We were fond of reminding the creative team that nobody ever bought a drill for themselves just because they wanted a drill. They bought it because they needed to make a hole. So, we needed to focus the content about making holes.

Just as like those who bought drills didn’t want a drill, it’s highly likely that those who buy your product actually want whatever tangible benefit(s) your product gives them. To sell more products, lead with information that strongly connects with the underlying reasons people want buy. Advertising can rarely do this as well. Not only are most prospects skeptical of messages that contain overt sales pitches there is rarely enough space or reader time to build a story.

An article, on the other hand, bypasses this resistance. Articles or posts are best written when they put information first and selling second. Your content needs to reflect your understanding of your customer’s problems that you learned from studying their social media interactions. The result you are looking for is to have prospects see your product as a genuine solution to their challenges before you ask them to take action.

Remember to include a call-to-action on your content landing page too, whether that is a newsletter subscription, webinar or whitepaper sign-up, or even a product offer. You might be surprised by the conversion rate.

Turning content into new customers:
Step 1: Understand what content your current customers respond to.

Step 2: Create a dynamically updating content widget of the good stuff.

Step 3: Do a media buy. Distribute your widget on a widget network or exchange.

Step 4: Implement a remarketing pixel on your content landing pages. Preferably, create multiple segments across your content for more precise targeting (we’ll use this in later).

Monitor responses:

• Monitor your blog (or content landing page) with your analytic tools.

• Determine which metrics to track and focus on  but, Keep it simple.
• Establish a schedule for periodically reviewing response data.

Summary: The second 30 days has been focused on building a relationship with prospects. What works with your current customers can be used to attract new ones. Use your current audience’s feedback and engagement behavior to help craft a content driven marketing campaign designed to attract new prospects.

Last 30 Days: Sharpen your outbound marketing and selling effort.

Now you can head back to the drawing board and sharpen your communication to these same prospects and customers using your insights as to what they think, feel, and desire.

Use your scheduled response review times to meaningfully reflect on how your current ads could be improved. Naturally, you’ll want to give each ad enough time to accumulate meaningful response (do not assume that a new ad is a failure based on one day). That said, your goal is to repeatedly hit the market with new and relevant content in order to remarket to your hot prospects and proven buyers. Fortunately, because you segmented them by their language, actions, and buying patterns, you can craft unique ads targeted to each group instead of showing one generic ad to everyone.

But, before you allocate your marketing budgets you need to take a hard look at what outbound marketing is getting for you. In a study conducted by Hubspot released in early 2010 they identified three significant changes:

(1) Inbound Marketing Channels Continue to Deliver Dramatically Lower Cost Per Lead Than Outbound Channels Do

Businesses spending 50% or more of their marketing budget on inbound marketing activities spent 60% less per lead than businesses spending 50% or more of their marketing budget on outbound channels. This number is remarkably consistent with the 61% lower cost businesses reported a year ago. Clearly, inbound marketing channels are maintaining their low-cost advantage.

(2) Social Media and Blogs Are the Most Rapidly Expanding Category in the Overall Marketing Budget

Social media and blogs are becoming marketing powerhouses. They are the fastest growing category in lead generation budgets and they continue to be ranked as the lowest cost lead generation channel. In addition, more than any other channel, social media was ranked as a source of leads that has become more important in the last six months.

(3) Businesses Are Generating Real Customers with Social Media and Blogs

Some organizations are still unsure about the utility of social media and blogs. Are potential customers really reading Twitter? Does Facebook do anything more than build brand awareness? The answer is YES! For Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and company blogs over 40% of respondents who use those services for marketing have acquired a customer through each of those channels. Social Media is not just for brand awareness; it can be used to directly generate leads that translate into customers

Putting it all together
While this is an ongoing process, a sharp marketer or consultant could ideally put this approach into action within 90 days. Coordinating your traditional outbound and new inbound marketing efforts can be a complicated process. You need to systematically monitor response, interact with prospects, and segment them based on what you discover. There are a few new consultative services like Short-Order Marketing that can provide integrated management support. Please call us at 704-542-9104 or via our web/blog site www.somallc.com for more information.