You can either create your own survey using the Lab42 dashboard or they’ll do it for you. After selecting your target market, they launch the survey across various social networks and social media partner sites that offer virtual currency in exchange for the respondents’ time and opinion. By reaching out to the desired audience of their client’s target market, the Lab42 research team is able to return results in just a few days, with packages that start at just $500.
Another example: Peer-to-peer promotion.
Calyp is a network that rewards consumers with cash, gifts and discounts for promoting products they like with their friends and networks.
Using either the Calyp mobile app or Calyp.com, an endorser can broadcast a Calyp link—through a text message, blog post or social status update—that features her favorite line of clothing, for example, and let people know there’s a big sale going on. When her friends or followers click on the link, she gets the credit.
Getting your business into the Calyp network will run anywhere from $950 to $25,000 a month, so it’s not cheap. Blue Calypso, the company behind Calyp, says the investment pays off.
Blue Calypso says it has launched more than 400 campaigns, reaching more than 1.15 million mobile and social media consumers with a 325 percent click-through rate and 21 percent intent to purchase.
“We’re not a good fit for a new business,” says Sabrina Dee, Blue Calypso’s CMO. “It’s about using your loyal customers that love you and can speak with an education about your brand because they use your brand—sharing with people that are like-minded about why they would also like it.”
8. Social Analytics
Today there are great analytics tools that help brands engage with customers and potential customers on social networks. Here’s a slide show of the best social CRM programs that features several good ones.
“I believe that one of the most important trends in the market is the increasing participation of consumers/customers on social networks, and the 'big data' problem - and opportunity - it is creating for marketers who can effective analyze and act on that data,” says Chris Selland, CMO for social marketing platform Terametric and expert on the Focus network.
“Traditionally, marketers have focused on analyzing data that is theirs - visitors to our Web site, callers to our call center. But social data lives on social networks - outside the walls of the organization…It does not belong to the company, but the ability to analyze and act effectively on it is key,” he says.
9. Web
Is your Web site doing the best job it can for you?
Plenty of great tools now exist for getting measurable data about the effectiveness of your site design and how well you’re marketing to your traffic.
EyeTrackShop is different. It’s a Sweden-based digital marketing research firm with offices in New York and Los Angeles that conducts eye-tracking studies to gauge the effectiveness of not only Web site pages but also online ads, banner ads, print ads and packing designs to see if your audience will notice what you want them to. Some of their clients include P&G, Google, SnapFish and Clorox.
You simply send your sample design to EyeTrackShop, along with the demographic you want to test. From there, EyeTrackShop enlists its U.S. database of 6 million users who use their own Web cams to send video to EyeTrackShop, which then uses retina scanners to gauge gaze duration and location.
EyeTrackShop says it returns results in 48 hours, charges $2,500 for one stimuli test and $1,800 for two tests.
Another useful tool you might check out is Gigya, which you can use on your Web site to allow users to login using their preferred social identity.
While you can use something like Facebook for Websites to let people log on using Facebook, if you want to save the development time, Gigya offers what it calls a "Super API" which lets users to log in to your site with over 25 different identity providers such as Facebook, Google, Twitter, AOL, Yahoo and more. The company says you’d be surprised how many people choose to log in with non-Facebook identities.
Gigya also offers a suite of social plugins that can to your site features such as comments, sharing, ratings and reviews, games and chat.
When users log in to your site using their social identities, they grant access to data inside their social apps which Gigya can then collect and store on your behalf. For marketing purposes, this can allow you to not only serve them specific content, but targeted ads as well.
10. Deals
Daily Deal sites are everywhere and whether using them is good for business is a topic Inc. has written about elsewhere.
Signpost, however, does it differently than most. Instead of taking a share of each deal—money that should be going into your pocket—it lets you set up as many deals as you want on its platform and only charges you $99 a month (with the first month free).
Its self-service platform gives merchants complete control over the discount amount, when
each deal is announced, the timeframe in which the deals can be redeemed, and the limit of how many deals can be sold.
Signpost markets the deals businesses create through its Web site, daily newsletter and social media following.
What Else?
Whew! That’s quite a round up, but no doubt much more could have been mentioned.
What else should be on this list?
