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Archive for November, 2009

pURLs – Relevance in Marketing or Just Expensive Personalization?

Editor’s note: Today’s post was written by Ted Vinzani and originally appeared on his blog, RelevanceSells. It is reprinted here with permission. At Dukky, we’re all about relevance in marketing, so it seemed like a natural fit.

The Personal URL (pURL) is a direct marketing tactic. Currently, it just might be the most effective method to encourage someone to look at a particular website. This tactic holds a number of possibilities to bring Relevance to your Marketing efforts.

I say “might be the most effective method” because you can waste a lot of money doing pURL campaigns incorrectly. A pURL simply combines a website address with the name of a specific prospect. For example:

http://www.YourName.YourDomain.com
or
http://www.TedVinzani.RelevanceSells.com (not a valid link)

If your name was in that link, you’d wake up and pay more attention to the email, direct mailer, brochure, or whatever the marketing piece that included your Personal URL.

Though many people by now have seen a pURL with their name included, seeing this type of link still captures their attention, if not their imagination. It’s the kind of marketing prospects identify with.

pURL Success and a Conference

On behalf of a client, in the Spring of 2007 I attended a conference for marketing professionals in the insurance industry. My client developed a powerful portal that could be used by an insurance company’s field sale agents to perform their own local advertising and marketing, among many other things.

We had the names, titles, addresses, and email addresses of most of the conference attendees. We sent a mailer with the envelope addressed using a handwriting font, and their own pURL printed at a jaunty angle to the side. Inside the package we included a 4″ x 5.25″ card. Here’s side one of that insert card:

pURL Side of the Insert Card

Notice the simple message. (By the way, this site is no longer active.)

You see, the attendees to this conference basically do two things, brand and advertise the company, AND support the advertising efforts of the field sales agencies.

Field insurance sales agency advertising does two things: 1) generate leads for local selling and 2) recruit new sales representatives. My client’s portal did just that. In addition, the portal made sure the insurance company’s brand was protected in local advertising while preventing the field agency from violating state and national compliance regulations imposed on all insurance and financial services companies.

Our pURL took the person to a mock-up portal with their name and company prominently displayed. While there, they could look at and modify on the fly, personalized, brand protected examples of local advertising. Also, every ad mock-up generated by the portal had the individual’s own name, address, etc. prominently displayed on the mock-up. And they could change their information, press ‘update,’ and see the new info in the mock-up in seconds.

We wanted the attendees to go to the pURL website ahead of time, and a number of them did, but what we really wanted was for them to look for me at the conference for a conversation.

While at the conference, I had my laptop and wireless capabilities. I’d simply enter their name in the pURL format and show each attendee right there how the portal would work for them.

Why This Campaign Succeeded

The target audience really was interested in lead generation and recruiting
The call to action was the conversation, though going to the site was great
Therefore, the message was relevant and the call to action was logical

pURL Failure and a Trade Show

My second example revolves around an industry event also. Actually it is not a failure for pURL technology, just a failure to market properly. No tactic is either good or bad, it’s all in the execution.

In defense of the marketing communications client I worked with, we had just been given marketing responsibilities for this health and wellness technology startup with just about a month to go before the event. This new product to us was one of those rare, absolutely new and unheard of technologies that created a new marketplace. It was sort of like how no one knew they’d want a home computer in 1979.

So, we were tasked with a tightly deadlined marketing project before we could do our market analysis. The event was a Wellness Coaching trade show and conference for personal trainers and lifestyle coaches working in this growing health and wellness arena. Most of these coaches trained individuals or small businesses.

The goal of the show for our startup company client was to have these coaches come by and sign up to be distributors and dealers. To that end, the pURL campaign was designed to bring prospects to the booth. Hopefully they would look at the technology on the website ahead of time and get excited about the potential.

A guru in the industry had just written a new book, and the hook was an opportunity for the pURL receiver to go to the site and enter a drawing for a copy of this new bestseller.

The database of attendees held several thousand names, and each one received an oversized, personalized postcard with their own pURL prominently displayed as well as the contest offer. The website was a topnotch design effort utilizing video and excellent graphics.

The mechanics of this campaign, the oversized postcard, the beautiful website we designed, were all strong – but not enough. There was a fundamental flaw. Read more

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The Big Warm Up’s Viral Marketing Push

Editor’s note: Today’s post was written by Dan Dunlop, president of Jennings Advertising Agency. It was originally printed on his blog, The Healthcare Marketer.

Yesterday I received an email from a colleague and the header read: “Join me in making a difference.” The body of the email read: “This story inspired me to make a difference. Watch it to the end – YOU ARE IN THE VIDEO.” And there was a link to a video from a group called The Big Warm Up. That was all the context I had before I clicked on the link.

When I clicked on the link I was taken to a video, what looked like a TV commercial, promoting a coat donation program sponsored by Lands’ End. The Big Warm Up is an effort to help make the winter season warmer for homeless people nationwide. When you donate a gently-used coat you’ll get 20% off a new coat at any Lands’ End Shop at Sears through 11/30.

The spot is engaging and features great music (no voice over). The cool thing is that at the end of the spot your name actually appears on the label of one of the used coats that has found its way to a new owner. And the copy on the last slide actually refers to you by name. I recorded the spot using my Flip camera and uploaded it YouTube. See the spot below; and please forgive the quality.

Big Warm Up Video

When you go to the Big Warm Up website, you can enter info about the person to whom you will be sending the link, and that allows for the customization. This is a very cool use of technology. It reminds me of PURL technology we use with direct mail – where we send a consumer a direct mail piece that includes a custom URL where they will receive a personalized greeting. Check it out and let me know what you think. Go to http://www.video.bigwarmup.com or view my customized video at http://video.bigwarmup.com/index.php?code=679n777KEU73WoM61Luc.

To get the full story about the Big Warm Up, go to www.bigwarmup.com. They’ve got a cool website. By the way, this is a great example of echo branding by Lands’ end and Sears – marketing shared values. Extremely well done.

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Is Direct Mail Making a Comeback?

Editor’s Note: This post was written by Damon Samuel and was originally posted on his blog, Broadcast Thoughts. It is reprinted here with permission. In the post, Damon explains how better targeting, among other factors, has helped improve direct mail response rates at the marketing agency he works for. At Dukky, we integrate social and viral sharing with direct response campaigns through the use of social PURLs, and use the information gathered to help improve targeting and response in future campaigns.

For years people have derided junk mail. It is the bastard step child of marketing. No one likes receiving junk mail. But the fact is, it works.

Now I’m the first to admit that response rates are poor. Last DMA stat I saw was 1.8%. But the fact remains, it can be highly profitable. And in a time where my mail box is the emptiest I can ever remember I believe Direct Mail is showing strong signs of life.

Here are a few reasons I think DM is gaining strength.

First has to do with a direct mail campaign we have done for a client. In interests of not violating confidentiality all I’ll say is the response rate this year is nearly double from 2 years ago and up 50% from last year. Revenues are also way up. Granted we had better targeting which drove a lot of the positive change.

Second, the offers and pieces I do receive are more valuable. With rising costs of doing campaigns the companies that continue to use direct mail are investing heavily in it. When I get a credit offer it always has very generous terms with extravagant perks. Or in the case of the Porsche Panamera launch piece, the creative cost a fortune. It was a well designed box shipped overnight with color samples and design documents and probably cost $20-$40 to mail all told. Of course a single response is worth thousands for them.

Third, companies are using analytics more effectively. See point 1, my client utilized better targeting. Example 2, my wife and I both received offers from a credit issuer on the same day. I usually round file my direct mail pieces unless I am specifically looking for that product. I opened both of these since they obviously had different creatives. The offer and message treatments were equal but I could tell you which creative would have been more likely to generate a response. Here’s a hint, it was the one with the value proposition clearly displayed at the top of the messaging.

Last, direct mail stands out in a world of email spam. I have 5 email accounts and can also receive communication through two social networking sites. I also have a blog that accepts comments. I am inundated with electronic communication. I also believe many companies over communicate via email when consumers opt in. I just don’t need 2 emails a week. In fact I typically opt out after a few weeks at that rate. Share of active attention is a premium. I can delete an email in seconds along with 30 others in the same click. It takes me 20 seconds to walk from the mail box to the garage while I am purposely sorting through my mail before I reach a trash can. The DM piece guarantees I will at least see its shell.

E-marketing is fantastic and is here to stay. Just don’t write off direct mail just yet. There is still plenty of evidence that when the right piece with the right offer hits the right consumer a company can make millions.

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Disney Takes Viral Marketing Through the Looking Glass

Kudos to Disney’s marketing team for coming up with inventive ways to promote the new “Alice in Wonderland” movie on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. Not that they have to market to me, mind you…I mean, come on-the movie is being made by Tim Burton, in 3-D no less, and Johnny Depp is the Mad Hatter. That in and of itself was enough for me. My calendar is marked, and if I didn’t hear anything further from Disney until March 5th, I’d still show up at the theater.

Of course, let’s pretend, just for a minute, that not everyone shares my obsession with Tim Burton movies that feature Johnny Depp. What’s Disney doing to build buzz around the movie? So far, much of their strategy is focused on engaging fans through Twitter and Facebook. On Facebook, Disney initially set up fan pages for the White Queen, the Red Queen and the Mad Hatter. Then, they invited fans to join the “army” of their favorite character, promising that the teaser trailer for the movie would be released on the fan page of the character with the largest army on July 24th.

The Mad Hatter won the contest, so his Facebook Fan Page has become the focus of Disney’s marketing efforts. Earlier this month, they started a new contest on the Mad Hatter’s page, promising to release 3 new posters to fans-as long as the fans satisfy the Mad Hatter’s demands for increasing number of “likes.” First it was !,000 likes, then 7,500. Now, to release the third poster, he wants 9,000.

Then, on July 23rd at Comic-con, Disney announced that they would be having a secret tea party and that everyone should follow @importantdate on Twitter for details. The Twitter account, written in the “voice” of the Mad Hatter, advised followers how to pick up invitations for the “tea party,” which turned out to be an installation of the Alice in Wonderland Touring Exhibition , with props and scenes from the movie. This first “tea party,” held on July 24th, proved so popular that Disney held additional “tea parties” on the July 25th and 26th, as well.

All in all, this is a fun and interesting example of a viral marketing campaign from a well-established brand. The way Disney has the Facebook page set up, fans are encouraged to promote the movie by the promise of seeing more material from the film.

However, social media marketing is about more than getting your fans your advertise your product for you. After all, you can build awareness simply by plastering ads everywhere. It’s also about building relationships. At Dukky, we strongly believe that when you build a relationship with your customers through social media, they are more likely to convert than if you simply pepper with advertising. Time and time again, we have confirmed this through our dashboards and analytics.

Through social media channels, Disney is giving fans a chance to “step inside” the movie and pretend to interact with the characters. These relationships will serve them well when the movie comes out, as these customers will be more likely not only to buy movie tickets, but also to buy DVDs and associated merchandise.

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How Social Media Influences

Editor’s Note: Today’s post was written by David Finch and originally published on the Social Media Explorer blog. It is reprinted here with permission.

OK, I admit, social media has influenced me. I can’t recall the last time I purchased something because of an advertisement I’ve seen or heard. Every decision seems to be influenced by conversations I’ve had or overheard from social media channels.

Think about how social media has influenced you. What was your last purchase? How about the last new restaurant you ate at? What was the last thing you read? What was the last electronic gadget you bought? Have you purchased a car recently? If you think about it long enough you agree that most things you do and buy have been influenced by conversations you’ve had both offline and online.

While on vacation last week, I began to take note of the things I was using that I have been influenced by because of social media. I thought I would share my list with you, as well as who brought it on my radar.

iPhone Apps:
BrightKite – Brightkite is a location-based social network. In real time you can see where your friends are and what they’re up to. (@chrisbrogan)
Loopt – Loopt shows you who’s around, where to go and what to do. (@geoffliving)
Gypsii - Gypsii allows you to create places, locate people, explore the world around you. (@jasonfalls)
iTalk – iTalk allows you to turn your iPhone into a high quality-recording device. (@cc_chapman)

Tools:
Feedly – Feedly takes the content from your Google Reader and weaves it into a magazine style start page. (@hallicious)
Seesmic Desktop – Seesmic Desktop is an application that allows you to follow and converse with your Twitter and Facebook friends all in one place. (@loic)
Friendfeed – FriendFeed enables you to discover and discuss the interesting content your friends find on the web. (@scobleizer)

Gadgets:
iPhone 3G S – Do I really need a description?? It’s the ultimate phone on the market.
Kindle 2 – Amazon’s wireless reading device that allows me to read books, blogs, magazines and newspapers all from one portable device.

Books:
The Power of Less by Leo Babauta – The Power of Less is a blueprint for taking our lives back from the clutter, noise, and unnecessary work that fills a modern day. (@jasonfalls)
Ignore Everybody by Hugh MacLeod – Ignore Everybody takes you through the process of how new ideas emerge in a cynical, risk-averse world? Where does inspiration come from? What does it take to make a living as a creative person?
Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life by Neil Strauss - Amazon describes this book as, “It’s one man’s story of a dangerous world-and how to stay alive in it.” (@justinlevy) Read more

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5 Ways to Start a Marketing Pandemic

Viral marketing is a powerful yet unpredictable way to get the word out about your brand. Ideally, viral campaigns take off like the bubonic plague in medieval Europe, which spread so quickly that it reached over 100 million people in just 4 years. However, many campaigns that were designed to go viral act more like the “bird flu” from a few years ago: they never quite take off like they are expected to.

Would you like to create a campaign that’s truly contagious? Here are 5 things to keep in mind:

Give it Away

Everyone loves saving money. One of the most sure-fire ways to create a contagious campaign is to give away free goodies, or at least offer a substantial discount to people who participate. At Dukky, we also incentivize sharing by offering additional discounts to customers who share their offers on social networking sites.

Make it Shareable

Clever ads and great offers alone aren’t enough-you also need to make it easy for consumers to spread the word about your campaign. First, you need to understand your audience’s motivations for sharing and design your content accordingly. As Dukky’ s Kristen Sullivan told CRM Magazine, “People often share content online for selfish reasons. They want their friends to think they’re funny, hip, or just thinking of them.” Create something that people will want to share.

Second, make it easy for people to share your content. Include “share” buttons on your web pages that make it easy to repost them on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Why So Serious?

These days, we spend most of our waking hours pursued by advertising in one form or another. How will your campaign stand out? The CRM Magazine article referenced above recommends sending in the clowns, noting that “Humor is one of the most valuable components of a viral campaign.”

Nudity helps, too, as Zappos shoes recently found out when its “World’s Fastest Nudist” campaign went viral, attracting the attention of news outlets like CNN (see this article in the New York Times for details). But if naked people aren’t compatible with your brand, don’t worry- G-rated humor is fine, too!

Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

Offering freebies is a great way to create a campaign that goes viral-but if you aren’t prepared to put your money where your mouth is, it can backfire. KFC learned this the hard way with its “UNFry Day” promotion-when the response exceeded expectations and stores stopped taking coupons for free chicken, people got upset.

Don’t try too hard

Ultimately, trying too hard to create a viral campaign can be self-defeating. In CRM Magazine, Forrester vice president and principal analyst Shar VanBoskirk recommends focusing on creating a “customer-centric strategy” instead of a “viral strategy.” And David Raab, partner of Raab Associates and author of The Marketing Performance Measurement Toolkit, told CRM that “you do your best to make something that’s going to appeal to the public.” But in the end “some things catch fire, some don’t.”

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Companies Plan to Maintain or Increase Their Social Media Investment

Editor’s note: Today’s post was written by Devin Sugameli of the Kbuzz, and originally appeared on the Buzzmarketing Daily blog. It has been reprinted here with permission. Enjoy!

A recent Deloitte study found that of over 400 companies surveyed, including both smaller businesses and Fortune 100 companies, 94% planned to maintain or increase investments in their social media communities. This is great news if for no other reason than it implies that companies are starting to see social media as a real investment rather than a quick fix. As AdAge stated in their “Ten Things Social Media Can’t Do” article today, social media cannot be approached as a short-term project. Far too many companies make the mistake of throwing up a Facebook page and waiting for a flood of fans, or otherwise find that their goals for the first few months of their social media campaign were set too high. Engaging your fan communities online takes time, especially if you’re building those communities from scratch.

This isn’t to say that you can’t have a truly innovative campaign that goes viral, accomplishing a huge amount of buzz in a short period of time – it’s just not the norm. If you’re expecting immediate results, you might be sorely disappointed. And it would be a shame to dismiss social media so quickly before having the chance to realize its full potential! Yet, according to the Deloitte survey, many companies are still struggling to successfully engage with their customers. Here are a few tips to keep your audience interested and measure returns on your social media spend:

Ask them what they want! One of the easiest ways to find out what interests your audience is to ask them. Maybe they prefer recipe ideas over coupons for your food products, or are just looking for a place to share the pictures they took with your camera. You might never know until you ask!

Address all customer complaints, questions, and comments. Most know that when you don’t answer a complaint, you’re basically telling your fan base, “I don’t care”. When you don’t thank customers for complimentary comments, you’re saying the same thing. Acknowledge all interactions with your company so customers know their contributions are valued.

Attach platform-specific discount codes to your promotions. The easiest way to measure ROI on sales from social media efforts is to attach platform-specific promotion codes, enabling you to track sales to your Facebook as separate from your Twitter, website, or other network.

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Social Media…for Small Businesses too!

Editor’s Note: This post was written by Cyma Saeed, a certified Internet Marketing professional and search marketing specialist for Harp Interactive and Harp Social. It originally appeared on the Harp Social blog, and is reprinted here with permission.

You may be familiar with Dell, Starbucks and Jet Blue…a few well-known brands that have been trumpeted for their brilliant use of social media. But what about lesser known and smaller businesses? Does social media marketing “work” for them too?

A general misconception out there today is that social media, especially Facebook and Twitter, is for large consumer brands. While a lot of these well-known brand giants have embraced social media and are seeing its numerous viral benefits, small businesses should not shy away from social media. In reality, a small business (either consumer or B2B) with smart strategy, branded implementation and a touch of social savvy, can improve their customer loyalty and increase awareness with today’s word of mouth marketing platforms…just like the big guys.

Social media is not only a useful tool for consumer businesses, but for professional services too. Any type of business, through social media, can build their brand or business, forge new relationships, increase referrals, provide customer care, increase customer loyalty, drive traffic to their business and/or website and most importantly, provide a personable touch to their customers or potential ones.

So what exactly, should small businesses be doing? Almost every small business out there can benefit from a strategic combination of a WordPress blog with the right plug in applications, a Facebook Professional Fan page and my personal favorite, a branded Twitter account. Cross connect these powerful tools, and point them to your website for added traffic and increased inbound links which will benefit your results on search pages.

There are also many management tools, widgets and aggregators available today to make these platforms more efficient and useful.

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The Cure for the Common Virus

Given the powerful effects of some viral-marketing efforts, even those previously immune are seeing possibilities of epidemic proportions.

CRM Magazine I Jessica Tsai I October 2009

You know you’ve got it made when you sit down to a meeting with executives from the largest consumer electronics retailer in the United States and before you can get through your corporate spiel, they say, “Oh, we know who you are.”

Credit the prospect’s due diligence but Michael Phelan, executive director of marketing for technology support provider PlumChoice, would like to think it had something to do with his company’s marketing transformation. Maybe it was the purple “Plumtinis”; or the “purple brick road” that leads to the best part of any conference, the cocktail event; or the models—both male and female—engaging passersby at the booth; or the purple stuffed monkeys to take home to the kids.

Whatever it was, PlumChoice was resolute on breaking out of the typical tradeshow monotony. “You can spend nearly as much money doing a bad job as you can [doing] a great one,” Phelan says. You can sink tens of thousands of dollars into an event, but if you don’t activate it, he says, you’re wasting your money.

Phelan doesn’t know exactly which portion of PlumChoice’s sales can be attributed to attendees who stopped by PlumChoice’s booth. What he does know is that when people do come by, they’re having a blast—and happiness is a good emotion to align with. “When two people are sitting at their booth using their BlackBerry, no one’s going to go near them,” he says. Your brand is being talked about, and getting good buzz has helped PlumChoice in everything it does—conversations are coming easier, the requests for proposals are getting bigger. Beyond that, he says, “You see it in a lot of different, subtle ways.”

Subtle—that’s certainly one way to describe viral marketing. “Word-of-mouth is interesting,” says Pete Blackshaw, executive vice president of Nielsen Digital Strategic Services. “Intuitively everyone gets it, but when it comes to weaving it into marketing mix models and [return on investment] forecasts, everyone struggles a little bit, even within Nielsen.”

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