Selling Social Media To Corporations

I attended the GIMA holiday party last night, and was once again surprised at the bigger companies in St Louis that are interactive marketing experts. The funniest moment was when a young lady registered surprise to find out Durbin Media is a social media marketing company, and headquartered in St Louis. I think a lot of people still think you have to be on the coast to be relevant, and that still bothers me. To be fair, most of our social media clients in the first year, 2006, were from the coasts, but that has changed in 2007.

That's not the point of the post, though, it's the idea of selling the enterprise on social media strategies.

Step 1: Scale Your Prices.
Just because a blog can be made cheap, doesn't mean that the writing, and the commenting, and the "blogging" can be done cheaply. Money has to be spent on marketing and manpower, and if it's a big company looking for big results, the price tag starts at the $10,000 mark. Many blog consultants, who are used to working with small companies, vastly underprice themselves, and deliver little value ultimately they are just being paid to write (and copywriters are better at it then bloggers).

Companies don't respond to a budget of a few thousand, because it costs more to listen to you, give you approval, and pay your invoices, then it does to actually pay your fee.

Step 2: Understand Your Value
Companies aren't stupid. If you charge a small company $1000 and you charge a large company $10,000 without changing your services, you're walking a dangerous line, and probably won't sell the larger firm.

Figure out what a 10,, 20, 30, and $50,000 project looks like, and really dig deep to understand what value you can bring. A company will pay attention to a $50,000 price tag, but they aren't going to accept intangible benefits as metrics. With $50,000, can you deliver more traffic, more eyeballs, increase sales, cut costs, or provide public relations that are of greater worth than your competitors? Will your social media project yield results, or are you simply looking to get paid to "try." Public Relations firms are struggling with this, as they charge $10,000 a month to get you in the papers, but get paid whether or not you're successful. SEO Firms can charge $10,000 a month to get you on the first page of Google, but if they don't convert traffic to sales, they won't stick around.

The biggest mistake I see from competitors is selling services rival to PR firms and SEO firms, without showing a measurable return on the money spent. If you charge only $5,000 a month, but can't show results, the company won't hire you.


Step 3: Train your manpower well, and do it before you start a project:

Most companies want internal experience, but often will turn to you to do what they don't have the experience to do. It's one thing to offer consulting, and another entirely to actually execute the program. You cannot overestimate your ability to perform. From using Digg and StumbleUpon, to comment and link campaigns, to searching data and getting involved in communities, social media takes time.

And there's that pesky reality that you can't fake it. If you're not actively involved in the campaign, leaving a few comments isn't going to work. And that means you need help. It means you'll have train people ahead of time. And their back-ups.

Step 4: Sell to People Who want to be Sold to:
The final step in selling to corporation is finding decision makers who want social media, and don't have to be convinced. A lot of time is wasted explaining what you're doing, but what executives want is results, not understanding. They're paying you to get the job done, not to fill their mind with ideas of using Jajah to improve customer service (I have a great program built around that if you're curious).

Sell the benefits, and be prepared to execute the idea. In corporate America, the goal is to be a fast second, which is why selling your ideas to people who know nothing about blogs or Facebook is a lost cause.

Step 5: Make Sure You Have Examples of What You Do:
Lots of marketing companies say they offer blog services, or a social media program. Very few of them even have their own blogs, or Facebook or MySpace pages. They're responding to a demand from clients, but they can't do it for themselves.

Your biggest advantage as a blogger is that you are one. Work that advantage. Show your success, and compare it to your rivals. Everyone knows great salespeople, but few people know great bloggers. If you are one, it should be obvious, and it will help you close.

And on that note - I found this blogger on Digg - great information on improving your blog's reach and influence.