Main Street Conference speaker focuses on importance of social media
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on March 18, 2016 1:46 PM
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Alan Campbell
Pamela Herrmann, president of The Paragon Effect, gives the keynote address Thursday during the opening event of the second day of the North Carolina Main Street Conference at the Paramount Theatre.
It is more imperative than ever to be using social media to grow small businesses and reach new customers.
If your business isn't using every facet of social media to reach its customers, it's doomed.
Pamela Herrmann, president of The Paragon Effect, delivered this advice and more to community leaders and small business owners gathered in the Paramount Theatre Thursday morning as the second day of the North Carolina Main Street Conference kicked off with Herrmann's keynote address.
Ms. Herrmann said 68 percent of people have a smart phone, on which they download apps such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram and Twitter.
Utilizing these by using key words to optimize online searches, such as "best coffee in Goldsboro," can propel your business to the top of search engine results and bring new customers in.
"The purpose of business is really simple. We've gotta get the customers, we've gotta keep the customers," Ms. Herrmann said. "If you don't have customers, you just have a really cool hobby."
The problem, Ms. Herrmann said, is that businesses aren't utilizing social media, and losing customers because of it. When businesses lose customers and therefore sales, the following shuttering of the business's doors is "totally in their control," she said.
"What they lack is awareness as to how to most effectively market their business in today's economy with technology," Ms. Herrmann said.
To successfully market a business, there are two metrics a business owner needs to know: the cost of acquiring a customer, and the lifetime value of a customer.
Customer acquisition cost, as Ms. Herrmann called it, is simply how much you spend on advertising and how many customers that advertising brings in. So, if a business owner spends $800 and gains 32 customers, their customer acquisition cost is $25.
An example of the lifetime value of a customer can be found in lawn care, where if you do five years of business at $250 per pear with a single customer, the lifetime value of that customer is $1,250.
Knowing these metrics can be the key when it comes to utilizing social media for marketing, as businesses must pay to boost posts or use different strategies to get their content on a person's news feed or timeline.
"This is the most plain way I can say it -- people used to recommend online marketing, now it's a requirement. It's an absolute essential," Ms. Herrmann said. "It's not enough to have a website, the website has to be mobile responsive because that's where most people are searching for their solutions. It's close to 75 percent of all searches that are done on a mobile device. Google will de-list you in the search results if your website is not mobile responsive."
Ms. Herrmann said there are five reasons businesses fail:
* They didn't listen to their customers.
* They didn't market online.
* They didn't have a system to track and measure metrics.
* They didn't leverage future growth.
* They didn't adapt to a changing market.
These reasons for failure can be where social media and online marketing makes or breaks a business.
Whatever type of service and experience a business offers, people will talk about it on social media, Ms. Herrmann said.
This happens on social media sites, but also on Trip Advisor where people can give a rating of one to five stars. More likely than not, people will either be entirely pleased and give a five star review, or entirely displeased and give a one star review -- there is no middle ground.
But worse, Ms. Herrmann said, is when no businesses vie for the top spot on search results on Google and other sites.
When Ms. Herrmann searched "Top 10 restaurants in Goldsboro" on Google, she was given only links to directories and not links to business websites themselves. This pushes a business toward being irrelevant or hard to find, which can spell doomsday for small businesses.
"If you're not relevant, your business has a time stamp on it. Plain and simple," Ms. Herrmann said.