I Think in Campaigns

It’s hard to imagine how pervasive social networking has become in the everyday consumer’s life in such a relatively short time.  Today, there are more visits to Facebook than Google.  It’s also hard to imagine how difficult it has been for marketers to integrate this new channel and medium into their everyday efforts.  Why?  We decided to do a little homework and actually ask CMOs and marketers.

Their answer? “Because all you vendors make it so damn hard.  And, because every time I ask about the ROI of the stuff, I hear something like ‘Well, what’s the ROI of putting your pants on in the morning?’  I don’t need cute, I need results.  And, results that won’t create brain-damage in the process.”

I’m paraphrasing just a bit – but, only a bit.  Marketers told us that they work in campaigns – that they spend $500 billion a year in a high-velocity bid to continually hit numbers and acquire new customers.  But, that beyond hiring 10 people to monitor Twitter or setting up a Facebook fan page, everything else in social required a 3-6 month project plan, complicated workflow design and rules, and a web-development team at the ready.  Their world, they said, moves much faster than that.  It moves at campaign speed.

I’m paraphrasing just a bit – but, only a bit.  Marketers told us that they work in campaigns – that they spend $500 billion a year in a high-velocity bid to continually hit numbers and acquire new customers.  But, that beyond hiring 10 people to monitor Twitter or setting up a Facebook fan page, everything else in social required a 3-6 month project plan, complicated workflow design and rules, and a web-development team at the ready.  Their world, they said, moves much faster than that.  It moves at campaign speed.

The Next Generation in Social Marketing: Crowd Factory Social Campaign

Well, that sounded like an opportunity to actually solve a problem.  Today, we are announcing the next generation in social marketing – the first Social Campaign application.  An application that allows marketers to incorporate social into all their campaigns in a matter of minutes; an application that shows them black and white ROI for each social campaign, for each social interaction; and an application that allows marketers to develop a social database for even better segmentation and targeting.

Simply said, CrowdWorks – Social Campaign delivers Social ROI. Easy.

Fast and Simple

When did people get the idea that we could all just stop doing marketing while we spent 6 months figuring out “what to do with social”?  Demands on the marketer come fast and furious – we don’t have time to wait for a complicated deployment plan or IT resources.  We need to move at campaign speed.

CrowdWorks Social Campaign is the first social marketing application to offer marketers a solution that is easy to use and fast to deploy – all without the need for IT resources.  How does ten minutes sound?

Tailor the Message

Just because the world is social doesn’t mean that we as marketers have to completely abdicate our ability and right to try and get our message out there.  Consumers like to hear – and spread – authentic offers and communications.

CrowdWorks Social Campaign is the first social marketing application that allows marketers to tailor messages to be carried across social networks in an authentic way.  Marketers can influence the offer and the message – and because the message is useful and consistent with end users’ experiences, they are excited to share them.  It’s a win-win.

Built-in Social ROI

Do you feel comfortable telling your boss that the ROI for social “is so obvious we don’t need to track it”?  I wouldn’t.  Social is a new behavior on the web.  Remember the “new economy”?  It wasn’t so new.  It turned out that the rules didn’t actually change – businesses still had to actually make money.  And, marketers still need to show an ROI for campaigns.

CrowdWorks Social Campaign is the first social marketing application to track click-level, individual-level, and campaign level data so that you can tell exactly how many conversions and revenue someone generated through their social activity.  I said it in the press release, and I’ll say it here, Social Campaign can make heroes out of marketers everywhere.

The Payoff

Customers that have already started using the new application are seeing results that range from a 4x to 15x lift on the return to their campaigns.  It is literally transforming the shape of the marketing funnel!  And, it takes 10 minutes to get live.  One analyst that we briefed said, “Your approach is so unique…you are driving simplicity…everyone else is making things more complex…don’t change a thing!”

The Conversation

Based on our customer discussions and the research we are doing with marketers, we’re hearing a strong need to make things simpler, faster, and more impactful.  The Social Campaign application represents the new frontier in social for marketers – easy-to-use applications that show direct ROI.  Our mission at Crowd Factory is to make heroes out of marketers everywhere.  Let’s start a dialogue…tell us what you need here. From here it gets interesting.