Relevant Content

A few days ago, while scrolling thru my RSS feeds, I came across the following header:

Ben & Jerry's Drops Email Marketing In Favor of Social Media

I had to read the article.

It appears that in the UK, Ben & Jerry has decided to drop their email marketing strategy. The article stated that customers “disliked the email despite loving the brand.” But, the author didn’t go deeper to try and find out WHY the newsletter was disliked.

Many social media experts have argued that traditional marketing is intrusive: your program is interrupted in order to bring you a commercial; or the magazine article you are reading is continued on a page following some advertisements.

The email newsletter, although not considered “traditional” marketing, could also be seen as intrusive or interruptive marketing. But, it still doesn’t make sense for a company to drop the entire email marketing campaign when all the quantifiable metrics still show it to be one of the most effective forms of communication marketing.

My question to Ben & Jerry’s is: why was the email newsletter disliked? Was it a technical issue? With more and more people checking their email on mobile devices, was the newsletter formatted for the proper delivery vehicle?

Was the issue content? What kind of information was being disseminated in the newsletter? Was it geographically important information, or was everyone in the B&J database getting the same information, regardless of where they lived? Were they offering “relevant content”, or were they just using the newsletter to keep their name/brand in front of customers?

I can’t answer the questions because I have never gotten one of their email newsletters. Right now, I wish I had...just to see why it was so disliked by customers who clearly love the brand. As of this writing, I have signed up to receive future ChunkMail…you can too. Just click here.

Regardless of the reason customers disliked the email, you shouldn’t just drop the campaign. You should work on integrating email and social marketing so they work in conjunction with each other and with traditional print marketing. According to Information Week, “Almost 40% of consumers consult Facebook and Twitter to complement the information, deals, and news they receive from companies via e-mail marketing…”

No matter the delivery vehicle of your message (social, email, or traditional marketing channels), the single most important component should be content.

Is your content relevant? Are you talking about noteworthy issues like new flavors or new sales promotions or new location openings? Or are you talking simply to hear yourself talk?

Gen-Y consumers like their content in 140 characters or less. As marketers, we need to be brief, concise and most important…relevant. Our customers will eventually stop listening to us, or (worse) listen to someone else, if we are providing information and content that is both useless and irrelevant.

Foodservice, beverages and Social Media

The foodservice industry is best described as a "mature" or "seasoned" industry. The leader's, and I count myself among those, are almost (if not completely) digital immigrants. Information flow in the foodservice industry happens at snail pace, and sometimes even slower.

Social Media is a MUCH younger industry, inhabited by much younger people, and information flows at real-time speed. To me, that is one of the benefits of social media...instant feedback.

This week, I attended a trade conference in Chicago. It was a joint program of the Foodservice Manufacturers Association (IFMA) and the Foodservice Distributors Association (IFDA). It was the first time both sides had formally met as a single conference.

I personally thought the conference, as an initial attempt, was a success. There was an educational component, with real life case studies from both sides, and the format fostered an open dialog between us all. In future events, I hope they place more emphasis on the open dialog portion, because many of us felt that was the biggest benefit, and where most of the learning happened.

One of the educational sections of the conference, on the second day, was devoted to "Social Media Marketing for Independent Operators." The 40 min block opened with Erik Qualman's video "Socialnomics" which led into a discussion from two distributors having success with social media. For those not in attendance, the two distributors are BenEKeith Foods and Shamrock Foods Corp.

First, I love Erik's video. I loved it the first time I saw it. If you haven't seen it yet, click on the link above. This video was so personally moving, it got me to buy his book...not once, but several times. I own a hard copy, which I will have him sign for me next time I see him. I own a digital version which permanently resides on my iPad. And, I bought several hard copies to give to peers for them to read.

In simplistic terms, one of the important messages Erik delivers is, "consumers are talking, are you listening?" My industry, or at least a large portion of it, isn't listening. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say we are not communicating efficiently, at least not by today's standards.

How do I know? What's my basis for making a statement like that one? Easy. If you have a twitter account, search for #iismc10. That was the hash-tag assigned to the conference. Scroll thru the conversations, not so much for the content but for the participants IN the conversation. You'll notice only a select few (@ThirsTeaCorp for one) participating in the online conversation.

But it's not all doom and gloom for the industry. One of the manufacturing leaders has embarked on a new (for them) social media marketing campaign. The concept, as I understand it, is for this manufacturer to offer coupons on Facebook. The coupons would be for a local, cooperating eatery and would offer a discount on one of the manufacturer's menu items. Coupons, set up as a click-thru ad, would be geographically filtered to a specified area around the restaurant.

To me, this seems like a "safe" way for foodservice to stick their toes in the waters of social media marketing. The manufacturer is running a campaign that has been done before, in other market segments, to varying degrees of success. It will help build strategic partnerships between manufacturer and operator. It will have quantifiable results. And, it will eventually evolve into much more creative ways to communicate with and engage consumers.

The "buzzwords" bandied about at our conference were "transparency", "efficiency", "open communication", "trust"...we used these words to describe what we felt would make our channel (manufacturer - broker - distributor - operator - consumer) more effective. It's fitting that those are the same words used to describe the benefits of social media.

Social media is not a fad. It's here to stay. It is changing the way people communicate and listen. It is not conducive to secrecy, so we are forced to become more transparent and open. These things will lead to trust. And trust, from supplier to broker to distributor to operator to consumer, will lead to better products...better offerings...better efficiency...and better relationships.

Since our industry is built on relationships, we should start participating in the conversations and work on building better, stronger ones.