Consultants many times answer this question with “It depends”. I tend to lean towards full disclosure. While I am not the first to disclose what a Community Manager makes, I may be the first to disclose the costs involved in social media in comparison with other forms of traditional media.

I tell companies that I usually charge $499 to setup a blog site, tuned for the search engines, loaded with features and set to effectively market their product. This blog also allows them the ability to update their own content.

“Well.. I don’t have time to write my own content” is the next thing that my clients usually say. OK, I can create unique, creative content to build your brand for between $200 and $300 per month.

$499 one time.
$250/mos.
Total first year investment: $3,499

Once presented with the initial years expense many owners will balk at the price stating that they cannot commit that sort of funding to this type of marketing. So, I then set off to find out what these businesses were spending on other sorts of media advertising.

• 10 day radio spot on one station in a medium sized market: $10,000-$15,000

• Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising: $3,500 per month
  • Total first year investment for ONE PPC campaign: $42,000

• Billboard cost: $1,000 and $2,500 per month
  • Total first year investment for ONE billboard ad: $12,000-$30,000

• Direct postcard mailing to 10,000 households: $3,800 one time
  • Total first year investment to send out 4 postcards per year: $15,200

• Yellow Pages 1 inch listing: $30-175 per month
  • Total first year investment for ONE Yellow Pages 1 inch listing: $360-$2,100

• Two magnetic signs for your car/truck: $300 one time cost

• Pack of 1,000 business cards: $50 one time cost

As you can see, my social media rates sit somewhere between  the 1 inch advertisement in the yellow pages and sending out 10,000 post cards 4 times a year. Available 7x24x365 social media is a very affordable form of advertising. And unlike the yellow pages or post cards, your customer distribution grows exponentially for free. Say 1000 people look at your blog in the first month. 3,000 in the third, and so on and so on. Very quickly you find that you have exceeded the distribution targets of both the yellow pages and direct mail campaigns.

Now that I have fully enraged Community Managers everywhere by revealing my Social Media pricing, I have to throw out a few caveats.

• First, I am a full-time blogger and can handle multiple campaigns at once. We buy in bulk and pass the savings on to you!
• Second, I live in the Midwest so I don’t have the overhead my friends on the coasts do.
• Third, while my rates demonstrate my average blogging and SM consulting fees, I do have several customers with complex needs who pay significantly higher rates.

Again I have to ask.. Are you paying too much for your Social Media campaign?
Is it slurping up cash like a freight train? Does it keep you from paying your utility bill or from sleeping at night? Then yes.. you are probably paying too much, but overall social media has demonstrated that it can be highly effective at reaching more people who are better targets for your advertising dollars with a higher propensity to buy. Think higher conversion. Think Socially.

So how do these forms of advertising and marketing aid our local plumber or roofer’s business when:

• Their customers will never email a request for service.
• They receive their service calls by phone, and usually when something is broken and needs to be fixed.
• A Real-life Reputation for being honest, reliable and trustworthy is not equivalent to online reputation points and scoring.
• Their real-life local competition reaps more financial benefit than any online competition will.

So, with those out of the way, are there any compelling reasons why a plumber (for example) would want to engage in digital marketing or social media?

• Search Engine placement. With a growing majority of people “Googling” their search results to find a local product or service, your placement in the results are key. Have you setup your Google business profile yet? You will want to be the first hit when people search for service + city/location.
• Online reputation. While word of mouth reputation is still the most truest and effective form of reputation gain/loss for the “plumber”, a blog site that includes customer comments (rants or raves) could bring positive buzz about your services, increasing the effectiveness of your search engine placement and competitive edge.
• Affordability. Many times contractors and other businesses have loads of information that they need/want or are required to share with their customers. Things like contractor license numbers, privacy notices, financing terms, or legal documentation can be easily stored, referenced and posted for customers (either current or potential) to view. Think of the cost of mailing this information or printing it out for each customer versus posting it on your company blog.
• Keyword definitions. I once owned a small computer store and on my website I posted an ATI video card along with its SKU number. When folks entered that SKU into the search engine my website was the first hit. I sold 11,000 video cards that month, making me the largest distributor of ATI video cards in the state of Ohio. This trend lasted only a few months until the biggie parts distributors caught on and cannibalized my trendy marketing work. If your business has keywords or product SKU’s you need to own them digitally.

Are there any other “good reasons” you can think of for digital marketing that would enhance a contractor’s business? At the end of the day it comes down to a customer picking up the phone and dialing a number and listening to the reassuring confidence of the contractor who wants to earn their business.

One of the first tables I wanted to hit was the RainMakers out of Indy. I spent all two hours there and were not able to find their table. They must have been cloaked.

What I was pleasantly surprised about was the number of social media folks there, as well as the over-riding buzz about social media within the conversations.

I wanted to give a run down of the folks that I spoke with and received business cards from. You would be surprised about how many people with tables did not have business cards to share.

Tim Wanwick with All-World Travel here in Dayton. I would absolutely love to bring unique and interested would-be travelers to your door.

ChrisChaffin, Rocky (RockOn) VanBrimmer, and Mary Wehrle from Start Engaging Others. A social media company that appears to be out of the Columbus/Lancaster area. I’ll definitely be darkening their URL in days to come to see what goodness they are up to!

Peter Haigh, agency manager with HBW Insurance.

Mya Jackson Brown from Mary Kay. She was so sweet that I couldn’t help but to lay some free tips on how she can build her online network through LinkedIn and Facebook. I also promised her that if she would keep visiting my blog that I will be sure to write up new tips for her.

Nicole Amsler of Keylocke Services. Now Nicole definitely wins the “best business card” award of the evening, even beating my snazzy blue bird. Nicole is a Writer and Marketing Consultant. Nicole’s booth was really well put together and she had near constant foot traffic. Note to self: Nicole is going somewhere!

James Reynolds from Cox Publishing (Dayton Daily News). James introduced me to the new advertising and direct marketing business they have gotten into. While their prices are still high by Social Media standards, they are much more reasonable than I would have thought. They even throw in the use of their address lists which can be premiere since they are delivery machine!

Jon Cowell from Select Signs. I spoke to Jon first this evening and he was a very good ice-breaker. If I had a mind to wrap up my Accord I would definitely be calling Jon.

Julie Chamberlain with Graphic Impact Communications. Julie is the only soul that I recognized there. She has a great heart and I hope to encourage her to grow her business into the “third rail” of marketing. (Social Media) Even just setting up Digital Outposts, Julie could begin to have conversations with potential clients.

Overall no regrets other than I would have loved to have spoken to more of the folks there. I have such a passion for what I do I have a hard time just delivering the elevator speech.

Well.. Off to prepare for the Social Media Breakfast up in Toledo tomorrow EARLY.

Easy. The repeat purchase and established buyer demographic cost the least amount of money to market to. They require little encouragement to enter the buy cycle, and put up little resistance to “spin doctoring” of feature enhancements. This is not to say that new consumers are not sought out, it is just that they cost more to sell the product to. It takes more advertising “buy now” statements, broader and longer sales campaigns and more deeply discounted product mixes (coupons).

What tools do we have to sell to the consumers not currently polarized towards your product or service?

Social media specialists and community managers are able to dissect consumer sentiment through the words of the general public. Social media allows prospective consumers who are considering options to read first hand accounts of the experience of those who already have purchased the product. Consider eBay’s scoring system. If a prospective buyer sees a Seller Rating of 87%, that consumer may be less likely to make that purchase. Likewise, if the seller has a 100% rating and has sold thousands of items to the public, they feel reasonably sure that the product is as advertised and that the product was delivered successfully.

Social media goes even a step forward by allowing marketing professionals to create traditional copy based on an analysis of the product dialogue that the consumers are engaging in. New product benefits can be discovered, others that were felt to be benefits may turn out to be serious product flaws.

Ignorance of consumer sentiment creates weakly competing markets, manufactures inferior and low quality products and reduces the overall product receptivity of the public.

Case in point, in 1996 I built a website for a local HVAC technician. One of the important characteristics he wanted to stress was that all of the part numbers were on his site. More specifically, each stocking unit was different so he wanted his customers to relay to him EXACTLY what they needed.

Three months after the site launch the HVAC technician called me and asked me to correct a part number on the site. He had a guy in Iowa (We are in Ohio) called him after visiting the site who wanted to buy a dozen of his high-end air conditioning units. Apparently the customer searched the web and found his website by way of the part numbers.

OK, I used that story to set the table for the idea that preparation for future business success can be almost as important as retention of current customers. This small-town HVAC technician was radically transformed by a simple introduction of new technology. He very quickly became one of the largest wholesalers of HVAC equipment in the area, mainly due to his ability to reach new customers with his product messaging.When the “local” HVAC guys were still scurrying around on repair jobs, this guy had semi-trucks backing up into his residential neighborhood to ship his goods. It transformed his business.

Social media allows a seller of a product or service to first build a close-knit “family” of followers, feed them with product giveaways, funny musings or powerful insights, and most importantly participate in a continued dialogue with them about their product or service. Imagine if the marketing team at Proctor and Gamble was able to poll facebook users on the new scent of Tide. No more closed studies or highly paid “scentologists”. Once the big companies catch on to Social Media uses, their cash investments can then help to guarantee tens of thousands of faithful “friends” and tens of millions more hits on their website.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be digging more into the topic of Social Media and its facility to transform business.

Either by API call, the rendering of a messaging service (such as XMPP) or even the use of asynchronous email these service providers such as Facebook/LinkedIn, and this WordPress blog all rely on the system independence of each other, as well as the loose coupling of the integration modules that bind them.

So, this is to inform my LinkedIn followers that you will begin to see feeds from my personal blog entitled Bash Foo for the Soul at http://bashfoo.com. I’ll only be throwing over self-authored professional material to LinkedIn while continuing to share my brief rants, even briefer Tweets, and multimedia extravaganzas with my supportive “Foo” audience.

Dinner was swordfish and rice as today (now rather yesterday) was Good Friday. Went to service with Gin, Connor and Mikey. I was very happy to have both my boys in attendance. The service was good and they did a bit of a skit. Way different than the RC ways of the cross.

Came home and got to level 8 on Smoothie Moves. Now that is one accomplishment!

Night all!