The term “social marketing” has gotten an exorbitant amount of attention lately in both the blogosphere and in the marketing journals. After reading a pretty interesting post on the Spare Change blog titled: An Open Letter to New “Social Marketers”, I felt compelled to throw in my two cents on the subject. The argument made was that the term Social Marketing is being mis-used by the masses of markets and bloggers.

Nedra Kline Weinreich, author of Spare Change offer this definition of Social Marketing, “I would define it as the use of marketing techniques to bring about positive behavior change related to health and social issues.”

In my opinion there is no question that her definition fits the term, but the problem is that the term has gotten so much usage in relation to “marketing via blogging, podcasting, and viral campaigns”, that the power of the crowds may have overtaken the logical approach in this case.

Stepping back from the hype, I would like to propose an idea, that social marketing is simpler then any of the definitions that we have been offered. The health and social issues definition is two restrictive because the term “social” applies to far more then social services issues such as health care, and community services.

And connecting the term to communication platforms such as blogs, podcasts, and video sharing is inaccurate as well, because these are channels that can be used for just about everything, and “social” is not a technology or marketing term.

To me, social marketing means: the communication of personal feelings about a product, service, or issue between people.

This may be very close to the definition of word of mouth marketing but I feel that word of mouth is more intentional then social marketing. It is the active promotion of a product or service between people.

Just my thoughts, let me know what you think and be sure to check out Nedra Weinreich’s blog for lots of great insight on the subject.

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The Power of Promoters

In a recent article titled Lead Generation Through Referrals, written by Michael E. Gerber, best selling author and prominent small business speaker, Gerber writes about two very interesting topics, one is the fact that before you ask for referrals, you have to ask your customers the ultimate question: Would you refer us to a friend? The question is part of the Net Promoter ranking process developed by author and loyalty expert, Fred Reichheld.

Simple having a referral program and creating an incentive is not really going to help if you do not have a group of highly satisfied customers. These are the folks that are willing to dip into their rolodex and tap out a few emails to friends touting the benefits of your great product. The rest of the folks simply cannot be bothered to act as a promoter for you, because they didn’t have an amazing experience with your business.

Mr. Gerber goes on to discuss the importance of a referral system, which he describes simply as a documented process for soliciting, collecting, and following up with referrals.

At PromoterForce we take this a few steps further by offering a complete referral solution, including marketing and communication tools for promoters to make impactful referrals. But Mr. Gerber makes the crucial connection between businesses Net Promoter Score and their ability to attract referrals, and the value and need for a simple system to manage this process.

Be sure to check out the article and readers comments.

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Referral Marketing -

Word of Mouth or Viral Marketing is the #1 marketing channel of the 500 fastest growing private companies, according to a recent Inc. 500 survey.

How are you using referrals to drive highly qualified leads to your business? Do you have a system in place that delivers consistent and predictable results? Do you reward your customers for providing referrals?

Help us learn more about this marketing method by taking 5 minutes to complete this anonymous survey for business owners and marketers:
Click here to take this short survey

Thank you in advance

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Word of Mouth or Viral Marketing #1 Marketing Method of 2006 Inc. 500 CEOs

How are the 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies expanding thier cleint lists? Check out the latest edition of Inc. Magazine for all the details about the 2006 Inc.500 growth companies.

Of particular interest to us at PromoterForce was their annual Big Picture Survey, which poses many questions to the CEO’s of these rapidly growing firms. When asked which channels they will use to advertise or market their products, a resounding 82% said they will use Word of Mouth or Viral Marketing, more then any other channel mentioned in the survey results.

If Word of Mouth is the #1 marketing channel of the 500 fastest growing private companies, then there is clearly a broad need in the marketplace for an effective system for creating and managing viral word of mouth referral campaigns.

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Last week we launched a short survey using SurveyMonkey. We are researching Referral Marketing in general, as well as gauging basic interest in the PromoterForce Referral Marketing solution.

Without a customer base to send the survey to, or purchasing sample audience from a market research firm, we are challenged with getting people to take the survey.

This reinforces the disjointed and segmented nature of marketing to the Small Business audience. When the decision makers are so busy managing their basic business activities, how to you grab their attention?

So far we have posted the survey on a few forum/community sites that target small business.

1) The QuickBooks Community

2) Embark Community Connection

3) The Go Big Network

4) Kauffman eVenturing Blog

The results have been pretty slim so far, and we are definitely looking at some other options, including Chambers of Commerce, going door-to-door, as well as reaching out to friends to contact their friends.

Here’s a link to the survey, take a moment to fill it out, and please let us know if you have any ideas on reaching out to this market.

Discussion about Referral vs. Affiliate Marketing with Wil Shroter, Founder and CEO of Go Big Network (www.gobignetwork.com)

Last week I posted a survey about the PromoterForce product concept in the Forum section of Go Big Network. Go Big is a popular site for early stage entrepreneurs seeking advice and connection with investors. After posting my survey Wil Shroter, founder and CEO of GoBig replied back asking if PromoterForce was an affiliate marketing company, and if so, what made it different from the many existing players in that space.

The subsequent conversation really helped me understand why PromoterForce was different and what makes this market so important. To me it is all about trust.

Here are a few excerpts from our discussion:

Hasan: Wil, Thanks for the info, the affiliate marketing space is definitely established and offers solutions for both large and small firms.

With that in mind, I wanted to get your and the Go Big community’s feedback on to two things:

1) While the terms Affiliate Marketing and Referral Marketing are often used interchangeably, I see a big difference between the two. An Affiliate program is great for complementary offerings to targeted customer groups, for example a business plan consultant may want to join Go Big’s affiliate program because Go Big is complementary to her offering and has relevance to her audience.

Alternatively, a Referral program is a more intimate. Going back to the business plan consultant example, she may also want to offer an incentive based referral program to her clients, partners, and people on her mailing list. Her offer to this group is, you have benefited from the value of my service, if you know of anyone who may have a similar need as yourself, we would really appreciate it if you referred them to us, and by the way, we offer a 1 year subscription to The Economist.com for every referral.

The value for the customer is not the reward (subscription to Economist.com), it is sharing a trusted and valuable resource with friends, family and colleagues that have a specific need.

The value from the prospect is getting a recommendation from someone they trust about a service provider that can fulfill their need.

For each of these groups, the value is centered around receiving a recommendation for fulfilling a specific need from a trusted contact.

The PF service is a platform for creating the referral programs, managing rewards, and provides tools for the promoter to make referrals.

Promoterforce is a spoke in a business’ marketing strategy. My example was a consultant, but the offering is applicable to a wide range of service providers, such as construction, medical and wellness, design and creative services, food and entertainment service (floral, catering, rentals) and many more.

So, my question is, is the difference and value between Affiliate and Referral clear? And could you see yourself using this service to grow your business or to make referrals to businesses that you are a satisfied customer of?

2) I need some help getting feedback on the business concept and market need, are there any additional websites you would recommend posting my survey on, keeping in mind that my target market here is small to medium sized business?

Thanks for the questions, I’m learning a lot about focusing and differentiating my value proposition.

Wil: Hasan - that was a great description of the difference between the two, and you’re absolutely right - I was focused on affiliate marketing, not referrals.

I also agree with your assessment of the value of referral programs.

I really like the way American Express has created a simple, yet useful shopping experience for the Member Rewards. I do believe that if I could earn more “points” by making successful referrals of different products to friends, and the shopping experience were useful/valuable, I would probably engage in more referral programs based on that provider.

I know of lots of salespeople that are given “EY Points” that they use to buy stuff. The administration of the program by a 3rd party makes the program easy to implement and valuable to the employees. So I would definitely see the value in this.

Here’s something else to think about - offering rewards that have nothing to do with the product itself would be very useful. For example, at Go BIG, our members may not care about getting a 25% discount on their subscriptions or requests, but may be motivated if the reward were something more useful or valuable to them (like $10 towards shopping for every new user).

So that part I like a lot.

(end)

Click here to read the complete discussion

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Welcome to the brand new PromterForce.com blog. This unique blog presents you with an exclusive look inside “the garage”, at an early-stage start-up company.

PromoterForce Inc., develops easy to use and extremely effective web-based marketing tools for attracting highly qualified new prospects to small and medium sized businesses. Today is officially day one in our quest to build a world class company. We believe most mass-media advertising is usually annoying, sometimes amusing and almost always ineffective. Alternatively, we are huge promoters of timely, trustworthy marketing communications.

We are a small business. We influenced by the power of entrepreneurship and know that economic opportunity is the key to social empowerment, innovation, and prosperity. We are part of the new generation of passionate and efficient entrepreneurs.

It is our goal to build a highly profitable company that delivers an exceptional customer experience while employing, partnering and serving interesting people and companies.

We are PromoterForce.com