With more than 41 million Facebook fans and over 537 million Google results, it is no secret I am not the only one mildly obsessed with Lady Gaga. And while admit that I enjoy her as an entertainer, I am equally as fascinated with how she has developed her brand in a few short years.

In less than 4 years, Lady Gaga has grown her net worth to $110 Million. She is responsible for shaking up an industry that has been struggling to adapt to technological advances since 2005 when digital downloads gained mainstream acceptance and labels struggled to combat piracy. Her strategy started with taking advantage of the power of social media to connect with her target audience through YouTube, Facebook and Twitter and has grown to include partnerships with MAC Cosmetics, Polaroid and Google Chrome.

Gaga's "Born This Way" album cover. 2011 Interscope Records.

Businesses can learn a lot about social media from the Queen of Pop. Lady Gaga uses emotion, engagement and interactivity to connect with her audience (little monsters) and in exchange builds trust. Her little monsters trust her, her brands and her partnerships – all contributing to her net worth.

Here are 3 quick practices that can help your company be more successful when using social media to engage with prospects and customers.

1. Cultivate your Audience by making sure your content is relevant.
2. Embrace Technology and use it to communicate and interact with your audience.
3. Keep it Simple and provide a clear path for your audience.

Social media has been key to the success of Lady Gaga and can help grow your business too! How is your business using social media to interact with clients and prospects? If you need help executing a social media plan, contact @canyoncomm – we’d love to help!

Companies use e-mail marketing for all sorts of reasons – from engaging new prospects to staying in touch with existing customers.  If your inbox looks anything like mine, not a day goes by that you don’t have 10+ e-newsletters, webinar invitations or product updates in your inbox.

With so many companies using e-mail marketing as part of their marcom strategy, competition for mind share is high. So how can you ensure that your e-mail is a highly successful campaign tactic ? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Get to the point.  Be brief.  Use a landing page or microsite to share additional detail.
2. Highlight the benefit.  The subject line and the headline are great places to work in the benefit to get the audience engaged and lead to higher conversion.
3. Focus on one call to action.  Lead the audience to the action you want them to take instead of presenting choices. If you have more than one, consider testing them. 
4. Capture information.  If you are driving the audience to a landing page – offer something of value and capture information in exchange.  

A fellow Canyonite recently shared this highly engaging e-mail marketing example from M86 Security. The company gets your initial attention with a personalized e-mail subject line followed by an immediate benefit (e.g., Julie: Play “Crack the Cybercrime”, Win an iPad 2). Next, since they have your attention, they take you to a microsite where they ask four short questions that are relevant to internet security. After you answer the questions, they end with a form that requests you to confirm your contact information – which you absolutely want to do in case you are the lucky winner! They also take the opportunity to capture BANT information that can be used to qualify leads.

Gamification has been a part of the B2C industry for a while, but as you can see from the above example, B2B digital marketing strategies are starting to introduce the concept to engage prospects.

What was the last online game you played? What new digital strategies are you implementing in your marketing plan?

image credits: M86 Security

Did you know that the first online, clickable display ad appeared in 1993 for a now-defunct Silicon Valley law firm? Now, in 2011 display ads are on almost every site we visit and have evolved from a clickable image to formats including video and rich-media. These ads are critical to the success of the internet and have become a cost efficient way to engage your target audiences. Businesses continue to realize the importance of online and the proof lies in the increase of 2010 internet revenue growth to second, only behind TV.  

In B2B, display ads play a critical role in brand awareness and can be used to promote lead nurturing activities. Display ads drive traffic to webinars, support promotions and encourage prospects to download whitepapers and case studies. Like any marketing tactic, success of your display campaign relies on identifying and reaching your target audience with content that connects with them.

Thanks to a fellow Canyonite, I recently discovered Bizo. For those of you who haven’t heard of Bizo, it is a company that specializes in targeting business audiences through display advertising and offers an analytic platform called Bizographics. They analytics provide detailed insight into who is visiting your site by industry, company size, title and more. Bizo allows you to target a specific business audience through display advertising based on the segments you choose to target. Combining display with search will increase reach of your target audience and can increase your search conversion by up to 31% (salesforce.com).

If you have a success story with display ads, share it with us! If you have a favorite display ad, we would love to see it. If you are looking for a way to put display to work for your organization, contact Canyon.

With B2B marketing budgets reported to increase in online areas this year, we can expect to see a lot of web site improvements, more regular SEO updates and significant growth in the presence that businesses have in social media.

Web sites, SEO and social media all have one successful driver in common…content.  And while individually they have best practices for tone and format, the content must be engaging to your target audience.

As you are investing in your online resources, here are a few steps you can take to ensure your content stays relevant.

1. Research – Engage in quarterly research with new, existing and lost clients. Use your clients as a resource to gain insight into key decision factors and how the industry is changing based on their needs. Use this information to generate content for your web site, as a guide for discussions in social media and for SEO.
2. Test & Measure – Test and measure content to see how your target audience reacts to it. Google Analytics is just one great resource to measure web traffic, page views, click through rates and time spent on your web site. There are also analytic tools to measure the impact of your social media efforts.
3. Update – With content management systems like MODX and WordPress, updating web content is easy, so you can keep content relevant and engaging. When your web content calls for updating, don’t forget to update your SEO so that your audience can find you. Whether you are using Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or a blog, successful social media also calls for consistently updated content. 
4. Repeat – Set a schedule and stick to it. Continue to evaluate, test & measure and update your content as needed so that your audience stays engaged longer and you are generating higher quality leads. 

Looking to get the best results from your online assets – contact Canyon today.  Our PR team and a digital team are ready to make your assets work for you!