Too often there is a discussion about which is the ‘best’ online marketing tactic or channel (e.g. Facebook vs. Twitter or social vs. email) as if we can only choose one.  As marketers, we need to focus on having conversations with our consumers how they want and where they want.  For some, that is still email and for others it might be Twitter, Facebook, or something entirely different.  The more places we can be providing relevant content and useful information, the more successful we will be.

We recently conducted a number of online surveys for one of our clients in order to get a better sense of the audience overlap among their Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and email newsletter subscribers. What we found was interesting:

• 40% of Twitter followers didn’t subscribe to the email newsletter and 60% weren’t Facebook fans
• 50% of Facebook fans didn’t subscribe to the email newsletter and only 5% were Twitter followers

While there is some overlap, our client is getting a much greater reach by embracing all three channels than if they were only using any single one.

So instead of focusing on the ‘or’ (e.g. is Twitter or Facebook better), think about the ‘and’ – how we can best use all of channels and tactics like Facebook AND Twitter AND email AND video AND ….

I can’t count the number of Website redesigns that I have been involved with over the years, but I find them to be a little like renovations to a house: the process can be painful but when you are done, the results can be spectacular.

We just passed the one year anniversary of the launch of new website for one of our clients, Wilton.  Wilton is a leader in cake and dessert decorating, cookie making and celebrations, and throughout its 80-year-history, one of Wilton’s primary goals has been to educate and inspire dessert decorators of all skill levels.  The company’s Web site, Wilton.com, has played an important role by offering a vast collection of decorating ideas, recipes and techniques.

This website redesign had a number of challenges (thousands of pages of content that needed to be reorganized, integrating new functionality, etc.) but the redesign was critical to the success of the online marketing plan we developed for Wilton.

Quite honestly, the results surpassed our expectations – we have seen significant improvements in almost every key metric that we track, including the following:

• 190 percent increase in the volume of projects and recipes viewed by Wilton consumers
• 35 percent increase in total number of Web site visits
• 50 percent growth in returning visitors
• 20 percent improvement in product views
• 32 percent increase in the number of new visitors
• 82 percent growth in the number of searches for local Wilton Method classes
• 35 percent decrease in search results page abandonment
• 20 percent increase in estimated Web site driven revenue

One of the reasons why I think we achieved the results we did is that everything was tied to an online marketing goal or objective and those were connected to the overall business strategy.  In other words, we justified everything we did by showing how it was going to positively impact the bottom line.  I can’t say that all web redesigns will provide the results that Wilton’s did, but it does serve as yet one more example of how well a new website can pay-off.

Twitter is growing like gangbusters (45 million visitors in June according to comScore), but there are a number of people who believe Twitter is a fad and are relatively dismissive of it.  I don’t have a crystal ball, and I have no way of knowing whether Twitter will become the next Second Life.  However, I do know that given the number of people currently using Twitter and the results I see from our clients and other companies, every marketer needs to seriously consider what role technologies like Twitter play in the mix. 

The reality is that there are probably people tweeting (a twitter post) about your company, your products, and your categories and you need to, at a minimum, be listening to those conversations.  Beyond monitoring, it may not make sense for your company to be engaged in Twitter but more thought needs to be given to that decision than just dismissing it because someone just doesn’t get Twitter.