Would you dare to share!

Today, we are bombarded by promotional e-Mails, overflowing advertisement web banners, unknown Facebook invitations and wall posts… Personal Touch is one of the most important success factors for any e-Marketing and social media campaigns. In our own experience, by addressing the recipients’ individual names in an e-Mail, the eDM open rate can actually be increased considerably. However, in order to do this, one needs to diligently collect and update the distribution list on a better eDM platform. The eDM platform should be good enough to cater multiple languages including Traditional Chinese & Simplified Chinese as well as SMS Text Messaging with programmable follow up actions to create a tailor-made user experience.

In order to win over the e-Marketing & Social Media game, you need to dare to share as a person. We have seen many e-Campaigns running in the past couple of years, though Think Virally will always be the best way to win, the traditional Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing is the basis for Viral Marketing. WOM is based on personal relationship and trust, if you cannot build up this personal trust, you will never get very far!

Personal Touch is also about the language you use, in a lot of cases of Social Media Marketing, you really have to use colloquial language to get resonance or echoes from your target audiences. We often have arguments and clashes with our clients about using colloquial language versus formal written language, for example, on wall posts of Facebook. Corporate Communication Managers and PR Managers do not like us as they have very restricted guidelines on the tone of communication. However, they really have to tune their mindsets and maybe have a new job position open as Social Media Communications Manager to be more socialable!

Responsiveness & interactive conversation is another area of the challenge if you dare to share on Social Media. The question is do you have dedicated staff to respond to the “happy” problem when your target audiences/customers are really responding to your invitation and comments and how quick can you respond? A typical answer I give out often is 24 hours at maximum you shall respond to the comments. Well, you have the choice to do it yourself or to hire some consultants like Adams to do for you.

Copyright (c) 2011. By Matthew Kwan, Principal Consultant
Adams Company Limited
W:www.adamshk.com FB:facebook.com/adams.news

Think Virally!

Dear Friend,

Hope you are enjoying the hot summer despite the unstable weather in Hong Kong in the last 2 weeks!

It has been a great honor for me to have the chance to present at The Entrepreneurs’ Network last week in Hong Kong on the topic of “Think Virally to Expand Your Business!”. We have an overwhelming crowd of over 50 successful entrepreneurs from different businesses gathered at the event. It is my belief now that if you want to be winning in this Internet Age, you have to Think Virally!!

Think Virally is not natural to many of us even if we have many years of experience in Sales & Marketing. However, if we are back to basic, it is only about building a mass network of Word Of Mouth (WOM) marketing. The question is HOW to build this network. Facebook is definitely the easiest to access network on the face of the earth with over 500 million users but we are not talking about single way of communication! So we need to think of ways that you can leverage what existing community you have on it (or any other social network) and try to come up with sales/marketing programs that will attract people to spread the news for you through their own networks of communities. You really have to think of (marketing) messages that is asking the audience to take action for other people/friends’ sake! It always has to be Win-Win, nobody is going to take your message to their friends if they are not winning themselves!

We have seen many different successful and famous brands are putting a lot of efforts on social media these days but they are not really thinking virally. A lot of the campaigns we see today are still at the pre-social media stage of just using social media as merely another advertising channel but nothing else! In the last 2 years, Adams has collaborated with different clients to build Facebook campaigns to reach favorable results based only on one single idea, Viral Effectiveness. If it is Viral Effective, it will help you to grow Brand Awareness, Sales and Customer Database at an exponential rate! For example, we helped a sportswear chain during FIFA World Cup period to create a game for people to tag friends on Facebook to form football team to get prize/gift/discount at their chain stores. Imagine the Multiplying Effect of forming just a team of 7 people and the 7 people to form another 7 teams…! I think, by now, you should have got my point if you want to be successful in your sales & marketing campaigns, then you have to Think Virally to Expand Your Business!

Three weeks ago, we launched a training course called “Strategy of e-Marketing & Social Media Marketing” which to be held at the beautiful and modern hotel The Mira Hotel Hong Kong. The response was overwhelming and the class was full within the first few days of registration and we had to arrange a bigger room to accommodate all the attendees. Hence, we decided to arrange one more additional class on September 8, 2011 at The Mira Hotel Hong Kong again. If you or your friends are interested, please feel free to register on http://www.adamshk.com/events/course20110908.htm.

I am not sure how many of you are having problem in managing the post 80’s employees, CAPITAL is collaborating with McDonald’s, Sony Computer…to come up with a wonderful 2-day course to cover how to motivate and manage post 80’s employees on July 29-30. In the last few days of registration, you may enjoy 5% discount by registering through Adams on http://adamshk.com/events/capital20110729.htm

Finally, I have written another article on “Giving up is a way to gain!” for a professional institution in Hong Kong which you can find it on our slideshare page http://www.slideshare.net/adamshk. A number of the prioritization and planning skills covered in the article are the essence of what I have learnt throughout my career! Hope you will enjoy it.

Thank you for your continued support and I look forward to connecting with you soon!

Best regards,

Matthew

Matthew Kwan

Principal Consultant

Adams Company Limited

www.adamshk.com

Social Media: Business or Not??

Dear Friend,

Greetings to you!

I am so glad to share with you that we had a very successful event with Wisers Information Limited (Wisers) earlier this month on the topic of “Brand Formula through Social Media”. The event was FULL HOUSE in a room packed with 160 people coming mainly from companies of Banking & Finance, Government & NGO’s and Marketing Professionals. I was thrilled to speak alongside with domain experts from Greenpeace, Ogilvy and Wisers. If you are interested to view my presentation, please feel free to check it out on http://www.slideshare.net/adamshk/adams-wisers-social-media-seminar-20110602

Facebook

So, do you think you can get business through your Facebook Account or Facebook Fan Page or Facebook Groups or Facebook Social Ad? If I have lost you on these terms, you definitely need to get yourself educated on the differences, otherwise you will not be very successful to promote your company/products/services using Facebook. Why am I pinpointing on Facebook? It is because there are more than 3 Million registered users using Facebook in Hong Kong which is about 75% of the total Internet population in Hong Kong. This is a serious matter as there is no single advertising media have this kind of direct reach on a personal basis than Facebook in Hong Kong and in the world. There are actually more than 500 Million Facebook users in the World which contribute to more than 25% of the worldwide Internet population. The most important success factor is to ensure there is element of “Viral Effective”. Majority of Adams’ larger projects in the last 2 years are all related to Facebook and we always think Virally to bring pivotal results for our customers. You may read more on our methodology and philosophy on http://www.adamshk.com/e-Marketing/social_media.htm

Twitter

Are you really ready to engage with the customers and do business? According to a article on www.mad.co.uk, Dell managed to make over US$6.5 Million sales throughTwitter alone by end of 2009 and US President Obama is having over 8M followers on Twitter alone. However, Twitter is not so popular in Hong Kong as it does not offer Traditional Chinese interface but Adams is recommending customers to use Twitter as a connector to multiple Social Media. There are actually a number of way of doing it if you know the right tools. It is highly effective for disseminating your company and product news to multiple channels.

YouTube

Do you know Hong Kong is one of the highest visit location of YouTube? Do you know you can actually post Video advertisements (Traditionally only available on TV) right next to videos of your target customers when they search for interested topics? It can be so targeted and relevant and effective but we do not see a lot of these advertisements yet in Hong Kong. Are you aware that we live in post-modern age that people enjoy watch videos than purely reading texts? Have you opened you YouTube channel for your company yet, showing demos, advertisements, testimonials, events….to create a prominent online presence? What I am trying to say here is that a lot of companies are lacking behind on using YouTube tactically and effectively. The potential results can be exponential if you are doing it right. Adams has started helping customer to place their TVC’s on YouTube for quite sometime and the ROI’s are very clear.

China

Earlier, www.renren.com (人人網) has merged with www.kaixin.com to form the largest Social Media Network in China. On May 4, 2011, RenRen.com has become the first ever Social Media Network being listed on New York Stock Exchange raising US$743.4 million with highest trading price at US$21.93 on the first day of trading. There are many business implications with its huge growth potentials. If you are planning to reach customers in China, then you really have to understand Sina’s Weibo (microblogging site equivalent to Twitter), Youku.com and Tudu.com (Video Broadcasting sites equivalent to YouTube), Baidu Tieba (China’s largest discussion forum) and a whole bunch of other Social Media Network sites. The competitions are furious and extremely exciting. However, the cost of exploration is not small at all! Adams is actively helping customers to use the most relevant and prominent social media in China to create most effective online presence and awareness.

Summary

Ultimately, we are living in an Internet Age, people tend to find you through Search Engines and Social Media than anything else. We are talking about Online PR and Online Branding exercise here. It is exactly the same as you would do it in the old days, you need to manage your public facing communications to get the best branding, perception and awareness. If you do not act now, it is going to be too late as your competitors are out there looking for ways to penetrate the market any minute NOW using Social Media. We see a lot of companies have started their effort in testing the effect of Social Media Marketing but we also see too many cases that the companies are not having a clear strategy! If you would like to understand more how to plan your Social Media Marketing Strategy for your special business, please do not hesitate and contact us on +852 27239977 or email us at admin@adamshk.com .

Best regards,

Matthew

Matthew Kwan

Principal Consultant

Adams Company Limited

Facebook: facebook.com/adams.news

Twitter: twitter.com/adams_hk

YouTube: youtube.com/adamshongkong

Slideshare: slideshare.net/adamshk

Blog: adamshk.com/blog

China Online Purchase reached RMB498B in 2010. Seize the OPPORTUNITIES NOW!

Copyright © 2011 Matthew Kwan, Principal Consultant, Adams Company Limited (www.adamshk.com)

According CNNIC (www.cnnic.cn 中國互聯網路訊息中心) report released in January 2011, China’s Internet users reached to 457M users (of 1.8B in the world) by end of 2010. In addition, www.news.cn (新華網) on May 4, 2011 is reporting that the total purchase online in China in 2010 is RMB498B and 70% of the deals are done on www.taoboa.com (淘寶網).

Did these figures impress you?? There is a very huge market in China and you can actually reach target customers with very targeted approach which traditional media cannot provide you. You can select by age, sex, education background, job titles, interests, living standards…etc according to the demographics available from different websites and organizations databases. You can use multi-levels communications available online including emails, text messages, display advertisements, social media and etc to reach your most wanted customers.

At the same time, there are just so many opportunities with the ever rising number of tourists from China that you can really attract them to come to your shops in Hong Kong through many innovative channels including shopping tours and coupons mailing.

The ecosystems and players in China is very different from Hong Kong and rest of the world. Hence, you really need to pick the right tools and channels extremely carefully. Otherwise, you may end up spending a lot of money without any result by the scale of this big country. Adams has been working extremely to line up many excellent channels for companies to develop their China market, here are a few options you may consider:

Baidu Search Engine

Adams is helping customers to publicize their company, products, brands, services using the No.1 search engine in China, Baidu. Other than advertising, we are also help our customers to create an online presence on Baidu related products including Baike (Wiki), ZhiDao (Knowledge), TieBa (Forum), KongJian (Blog) and etc which are proofed to be very effective. The daily budget for advertising is as low as RMB 50 per day.

D&B Direct Marketing for China

Adams is partnering of D&B Hong Kong, one of the largest customer database companies in the world over 100 years history, to provide very detailed and comprehensive both consumer and business database service that you can reach your customers in China by direct mailing, e-mails, SMS, MMS.

China Post Direct Mailing

Adams is helping customers to sort out most relevant target audience as specific as province, city, area, street, estate by the characteristics of the posting behavior to uniquely identify your customers.

China Online/Internet Payment

Adams is engaging the most popular internet payment gateways in China and methods that customers collect money and payment at ease and to receive payments over the Internet from China directly to banks in Hong Kong with peace of mind. The one time setup charge is as low as HK$3000.

China Toll Free Direct Call Number

Adams is a partner of the ONLY official distributor of the China Toll Free Direct Call number company in Hong Kong that can provide a PRC telephone number that can be routed to Hong Kong and anywhere in the world. This can certainly increase your accessibility and customer service level to your customers in China.

If you are interested of any of the above services that help you to grow and develop your market in China, please feel free to contact us anytime on +852 2723 9977 or admin@adamshk.com. Alternatively, please visit: www.adamshk.com/e-Marketing/china.htm or more information.

Mobile Marketing is the way to GO!

Copyright © 2011 Matthew Kwan, Principal Consultant, Adams Company Limited (www.adamshk.com)

We see exciting trend in mobile marketingand there are many opportunities in promoting your services and products through this new channel and media. We now partner with various mobile coupon websites to let you upload your promotional items for as less as $1500 per item for mobile phones (iPhone, Android, Nokia…etc) to download.

On the same trend, we also offer customers to advertise on Google network to show their promotional messages and advertisements onmobile ready websites. The coverage is huge and very targeted which you may choose nature of websites, gender and age of the audience and etc.

In the last few months, we have actively working with major telecom carriers in Hong Kong to help our customers to do targeted & location based SMS text messages to selected customer segment. For example, sending text messages to people with mobile phone bill over HK$500 with International Roaming record who uses Blackberries Phones and office location is in Central.