Creating conversations is hard, despite all the knowledge and tools at our disposal today. It should be easier than ever, right? Not quite. As is all too often the case, fear can get in the way. More specifically, fear of the social media unknown.

For many marketers, that includes the biggest “what if” of all: What if someone talks badly about your brand? The simple fact is consumers are already talking. Therefore, learning how to spark and manage conversations isn't only essential on today’s social internet, but it might just save your job or, better yet, get you promoted.

To do it right, marketers must abandon their comfort zone of hiding behind their marketing efforts, including crafting and delivering messages, measuring sales, and then hitting the rinse and repeat button. Instead, they must be open, transparent, adventurous and unafraid. So what’s the formula for sparking and facilitating a great conversation? Here are a few suggestions from my recent blog on eM+C. More. 

According to a recent Mzinga and Babson survey, 84% of professionals worldwide do not currently measure the ROI of their social media efforts. Pretty shocking considering today’s economic environment and the enormous pressures placed on marketers to deliver more with less. However, as is the case with any new medium, many marketers are experimenting with social media and are still, for the most part, trying to figure out how social media fits into their overall marketing efforts. As a result, measurement is often overlooked.

Therefore, when a company creates a unique and interesting program and takes the time to measure its success, it is important to share the inside scope so we can all learn. One interesting example is what Mint.com recently did by combining the power of email marketing with social media.

Launched in 2007, Mint.com has quickly become America’s No. 1 online personal finance service. Mint’s intelligent and easy-to-use approach to money management has quickly attracted more than 1.5 million users to date. Given its online audience and technologically savvy user base, Mint.com recently turned to the power of email marketing and socialized it to further drive new customer acquisition.

So what did they do? Working with StrongMail (disclosure – I currently sit on the board of directors at StrongMail) Mint.com took the time to understand user motivations and tested a series of incentives to encourage existing email subscribers to “invite” others within their social network (email, facebook, twitter, etc.) to join Mint.com. The winning campaign – one that not only encourage the most sharing but drove the most conversions -- appealed to Mint.com’s existing users by providing them “insider status” through access to beta features and products prior to their roll-out to general users. In the end, the campaign drove one new user/customer for every 2.6 invite clicks – impressive. While the testing of various offers was insightful, the ability to drive new users/customers and to tag existing users as “influencers” (based on their sharing activity, conversion rate and desire for insider knowledge) was even more impressive.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Mint.com case study check out my column or you can register for the upcoming DMA/PMN Social Media Spotlight event where StrongMail will be presented the case study in-depth. Details about the event can be found on our website. Space is limited so act now.

‘Til Next Time