INSIDE:

Stay in the Game
Competition is an inherent part of most businesses. If a competitor isn’t offering a certain service, you can gain an advantage by offering what they’re lacking—and vice versa. It can be stressful, particularly if your business isn’t the one on top. But in most situations, there are always options and deals to be made.

Consider, for example, the competition between Blockbuster and Netflix. Netflix has taken the movie-rental scene by storm, leaving Blockbuster scrambling for ways to keep up. Blockbuster has undoubtedly taken a hit—in 2009 the company suffered a 49% increase in loss and a $1 billion decrease in revenue, according to an LA Times article. And though Blockbuster has made an effort to remain on the same page as Netflix by offering an online subscription service, the company hasn’t matched the free streaming service (included with the monthly subscription fee) offered by Netflix—Blockbuster subscribers have to pay per movie download.

But despite these setbacks, Blockbuster is still fighting to remain in the game. The company recently made a deal with certain movie studios that allows it to make new releases immediately available to its customers, whereas Netflix has to wait 28 days before it can release these same movies. And in response to the recently popular Redboxes, Blockbuster has its own set of movie-rental kiosks in the works.

In the throes of competition, someone is always on top, and someone is always on bottom. Business owners who continue to look for opportunity can keep the fight alive.

Opting Out—But Not Gone
Nobody wants to lose customers. As marketers, we do what we can to hang onto our clients. When it comes to email marketing, we often view the dreaded “unsubscribe” option as a terminal end to the relationship with the customer.

This isn’t necessarily the case. Customers who opt out of receiving your emails may just want to clear up some inbox space, and may still want to hear from you via email—just not as frequently.

A Retail Email Unsubscribe Benchmark Study conducted by Smith-Harmon found that an increasing number of retailers are giving email subscribers the option to reduce the frequency of emails they receive. In addition, marketers should consider that unsubscribers, though opting out of email, may appreciate other communications options such as RSS feeds and social sites. But according to the study, very few online retailers are offering these options to customers who choose to unsubscribe.

The study also found that retailers are requiring more clicks for individuals to opt out (whereas the “spam” button only requires one click) and few convey a polite departing message to customers who unsubscribe.

Extending more options and a little courtesy to unsubscribing customers can make all the difference in whether they feel it’s worth continuing to hear from you in one form or another.

Less is More
The war of the social networking sites rages on, and has now resulted in the demise of AOL’s social site Bebo. AOL acquired Bebo in March 2008 for $850 million, and has since realized that the cost to save the floundering social site would be substantial, and not worth the effort given the competitive nature of social media.

What does this mean for social marketing? That there is one less social site to worry about—if you were even worrying about this one at all (and given the current state of Bebo, it’s likely that you weren’t). On first entering the social marketing field, it may seem necessary to have a hand in every social platform that’s out there. But, as evidenced by Bebo’s situation, some are likely not worth the effort.

Less popular social sites are weeding themselves out while the stronger, more popular sites are settling into their dominant positions, creating a main focal point for social marketers.

Thrusting a network into the social medial realm doesn’t automatically make it social—people make it social. And if people aren’t there, social marketers are better off focusing their attention elsewhere.

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April W. Boone             April@GMStheBest.biz
John Boone                  John@GMStheBest.biz
Laura McGill                Laura@GMStheBest.biz