Social Media Seminar Series

Join me for a Social Media Seminar Series brought to you by Evolve Bank and Trust!  You’ll leave this series of seminar with a complete understanding of how to make your phone ring using FREE Social Media and email marketing.  Contact Matt Directly to take advantage of a few half-price tickets I have reserved.Evolve Bank and Trust Marketing Seminars

Is Your Business Easy To Find Online?

Doug Smith - Cincinnati Radio Marketing Consultant
Doug Smith - Cincinnati Radio Marketing Consultant

Last night, thanks to yet another big thunderstorm, most of my area lost power.  Having no lights was one thing, but no power to a sump pump was another.  My wife and I spent four hours at my mother-in-laws house bailing water out of the sump pump so her basement didn’t flood.  Fill a bucket, run upstairs to the kitchen, empty the bucket in the sink, run downstairs, and repeat….for four solid hours!

Just a few years ago, the only way I could have stayed in contact with the outside world would have been to call someone on my cell phone or turn on a battery operated radio.  But, thanks to my smart-phone, I was able to contact friends via Facebook who had also lost power and we kept each other updated on if, or when, power had been restored to their area.  I was able to price generators at a local home improvement store, obtain updates on the power issues from multiple news outlets, and use The Weather Channel app to keep an eye on the weather in hopes that the rain would stop and give us a break on our sump pump efforts.

In the best of times, and in the worst of times, technology makes it easier than ever to find what you need when you need it.

Are you making it easy for your customers to find you when they need you?

As I always say, the point of advertising is to educate your customers about your business BEFORE they need you, so that WHEN then need you they will FIND you.  Times have changed and your marketing efforts need to match the times.  If you are not educating your customers about your goods and services on a consistent basis, as well as building your digital footprint, there is a good chance your biggest competitor is.  In time, you could find yourself under water…… and trust me, bailing yourself out is no fun.

Doug Smith is a Senior Account Executive for WREW Rewind 94.9 and www.cincysavers.com in Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky.  You can contact Doug at  (513) 535-9123 or dosmith@hubbardinteractive.com

Matt In The News!

Facebook is a growing part of many companies’ marketing efforts. Many Procter & Gamble Co. brands, for example, have hundreds of thousands of fans. Pringles, with nearly 11 million “likes” on its Facebook page, is the 71st most-liked page on the social networking site.

Matt Plapp, president of Driven Media Solutions, said even companies with big numbers need to talk to those fans. [click above to read more]

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Swinging into social media, Golf Exchange sees success

Check out this great article from the December 31st edition of the Cincinnati Business Courier on The Golf Exchange, one of Driven Media Solutions clients.

Social media is a way to stay in touch with friends or watch funny videos of people getting hurt or kittens wearing mittens.

But for many retailers, sites such as Facebook and Twitter have become key components of advertising and marketing plans. And at the Golf Exchange in Florence, co-owners Jason Fryia and Mark Krahe say social media has helped boost sales by as much as 20 percent during what is typically the slowest time of the year.

“Social media is a way for us, for free, to get our message out there,” Fryia said. “We’re not even scratching the surface yet.” MORE…

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Increase your sales without spending MONEY!

Can you increase your sales without spending MONEY?

Matt Plapp - Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky Marketing & Social Media Consultant
Matt Plapp - Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky Marketing & Social Media Consultant

It’s amazing to see the results of your own work.  I’ve always told my customers and anyone who will listen that “Marketing is hard, but advertising is easy”.  Many people don’t understand what I mean when I say that.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen business owners opt for buying advertising on mass media that they shouldn’t buy (because their budget is too small) and then wonder why nothing happened.  Well for the past few months I’ve been working with a great new client, The Golf Exchange in Florence Kentucky.  The owners Jason and Mark are hungry, aggressive and they understand that their biggest strength is running their golf store and not marketing.  The first time I met them, I knew we would do some great things together.  They’ve entrusted the marketing to me.  And things are rocking.  October and November have been record months and it’s not a coincidence that those are the 2 months we’ve been working together (FYI, October & November are typically slow months in the golf business in our area for obvious reasons).  Now, my head is not big enough to believe that’s all to the marketing plan we’ve put in place, but I know we are moving the needle.

What have we done?  Have we bought a bunch of media and let the reps write our commercials (like many business owners do).  Did we put an ad in the paper and watch the door?  Or did we create a really clever direct mail piece with a terrible offer and blanked Northern Kentuck… NO!

We rolled up our sleeves and put in place a Grass Roots Guerrilla Marketing Campaign.  We used something better than cash, we used our team of employees.

First we hit Social Media with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and You Tube.  Next we created an 8-week series of in-store golf seminars.  We also filmed the seminars and created  short videos to post on YouTube, their website and facebook.  We re-branded the website and made it easier to use.  Then we launched our E-Newsletter to help promote the above items.  Plus we started capturing all of our customers contact information and put in place a Customer Follow-Up Program through F.U.$.$.  And, last but not least, we’ve started trained the employees about all these new marketing programs, how they can help and guess what…they are helping drive the machine that we’ve created.

THE RESULTS

  1. 1. As mentioned the best October & November EVER!
  2. 2. A Social Media Following upwards of 700 in under 6 weeks
  3. 3. Seminar attendance of the following
    1. a. Week 1 = 30
    2. b. Week 2 = 43
    3. c. Week 3 = 50
    4. d. Week 4 = 64
    5. e. Week 5 = 83
    6. 4. Email Newsletter opened by over 1,000 customers over 3 emails
    7. 5. 17 You Tube Videos viewed over 350 times.
    8. 6. Website Traffic up 33.29% in October & 37.92% in November.
    9. 7. Some great PR by the local press about 1 of our events.

Guess how much we’ve spent to do all of this?  Aprox $500 (a banner, few signs and fliers).  Yes, we fought the urge to buy advertising, put our feet up and wait for customers to come to us.  We put a true, HARD CORE, Guerrilla Marketing plan in place and WE made it happen. The owners and employees all bought into the system and took this to a whole new level.  This is why I always say “Marketing is hard, but advertising is easy!”  Now keep in mind, all of this was done in the OFF SEASON.  Just wait until we get some sun and temperatures in the 80’s !!!

Matt Plapp is a the President of Driven Media Solutions, a Full Service Marketing Firm in the Cincinnati Northern Kentucky area specializing in small business marketing via grass-roots, events, Guerrilla, online and social media marketing. You can contact him at matt@mattplapp.wpengine.com or www.mattplapp.com.

Matt featured with P & G in Biz Courier Article!

John Newberry Cincinnati Business Courier Business Courier Cincinnati – by Jon Newberry

Date: Thursday, November 11, 2010, 2:23pm EST

Read more: Viral videos spread sales for Procter & Gamble | Business Courier

Scenes from one of Procter & Gamble Co.’s latest viral video campaigns: A young woman gets on a water slide, but instead of sliding down she sticks to it like glue. In another, a boyfriend tumbles out a window while trying to hurriedly pull off his girlfriend’s uncooperative stockings.
“Happy with your razor?” the tagline asks, directing viewers to a Russian website for Venus shaving products at www.school-of-date.ru. They’re part of the latest

Proctor & Gamble Viral Videos
Earlier this year, P&G’s “Smell like a man, man” videos were a huge internet success. Read more: Viral videos spread sales for Procter & Gamble | Business Courier

attempt by P&G to engage global consumers via online videos and social media, in this case targeting Russian women concerned about razor stubble.

Created by Ogilvy Group in Russia, the water slide video won a “Silver Drum” at the 17th annual Golden Drum International Advertising Festival in Slovenia last month.
The videos follow Cincinnati-based P&G’s wildly successful “Smell like a man, man” campaign earlier this year for Old Spice body wash. Featuring actor Isaiah Mustafa, clad in a white towel, those videos garnered millions of views and massive publicity for the venerable P&G brand. At one point in July, Old Spice accounted for eight of the top 11 most-popular videos on YouTube, and more than a million people registered as fans on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, said Gillette spokesman Mike Norton in Boston.
‘The tools are out there’
Smaller businesses with more limited budgets aren’t likely to achieve that level of success, but they can learn from P&G’s experience and use online videos and social media to boost awareness with a targeted audience.
“It’s a gold mine for small businesses,” said Matt Plapp, president of Northern Kentucky-based Driven Media Solutions. The marketing firm focuses on digital and social media, managing about 150 Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn pages for small businesses. It also provides a range of marketing services for other clients.
Plapp relates the story of a trade show that he attended recently with officials from Blue Ash-based Ficks Reed, a maker of high-end wicker furniture. When the company’s CEO fell asleep on a chaise lounge during the show, Plapp shot some video of him, mostly to embarrass him, he said. Then a customer came along and was so impressed he bought $10,000 worth of furniture on the spot. So Plapp took the footage and whipped up a quick online video, uploaded it to YouTube, and sent an e-mail blast to all of Ficks Reed’s online subscribers.
“This is what’s great about digital media. We spent nothing on it. It took all of about 20 minutes,” said Plapp. “The tools are out there for every small business.”
Ken Williamson, senior vice president of On Location Multimedia in Cincinnati, said the cost of professionally produced videos is quite flexible, ranging from as little as $500 for a talking-head format to as much as $20,000 for a more elaborate production. Because they appear so small on screen, the picture quality is of secondary importance to the concept.
“Most of your money should be spent on the development of the idea. The real key is the creative concept,” said Williamson, whose company does videos, website development and digital photography.
For P&G, the secret to its Old Spice campaign, in addition to “absolutely great creative” from the Weiden+Kennedy ad agency, was the eye-opening consumer insight that “women were key purchasers of body wash for men,” Norton said. “That changed our conversation. Now we’re talking to both men and women.”
P&G is mum on specifics, but Norton said U.S. sales and volumes for Old Spice body wash and deodorant have increased in the “high-single to low-double digits” compared to last year.
“Old Spice is now No. 1 in body wash and deodorant,” Norton said. Previously it was neck and neck with Unilever’s Axe, he said.
P&G global marketing spokeswoman Tressie Rose said reapplying the successful elements of the Old Spice campaign isn’t limited to videos.
Viral videos can be one digital element within the total campaign, she said.
Read more: Viral videos spread sales for Procter & Gamble | Business Courier