2010 February | DUKKY - Our target is 100% redemption.

Archive for February, 2010

5 Amazing Social Media Marketing Videos and Infographics

Sometimes, a picture (or a video) really is worth a thousand words-especially when it comes to understanding how the rise of social media is changing the marketing landscape. Whether you need to convince someone else of the importance of investing in social media marketing or you need a little convincing yourself, these pictures and videos make the case better than a top-notch lawyer could.

Sholz and Friends: A Dramatic Shift in Marketing Reality

Scholz & Friends: “Dramatic shift in marketing reality” – aka “A short history of marketing” … from Michael Reissinger on Vimeo.

This short video illustrates how marketing has changed over the years, becoming more challenging and complex as marketers strive to make themselves heard above the noise and the Internet makes it easy for customers to share their opinion of a brand with many people at the same time in a just a few clicks.

Social Media Revolution (from the Socialnomics blog)

This video is definitely one of the best presentations out there today that discusses the incredible impact of social media. Eric Qualman of Socialnomics uses a series of striking statistics to make the case that social media is not a fad-instead, it is the most significant cultural shift since the Industrial Revolution.

Word of Mouth Visualized (via the Melodies in Marketing blog)

How much impact can one customer’s experience have on your brand? The infographic above gives you an idea, and remember, with social media, this can all happen in the blink of an eye.

Of course, while customer anger and frustration can spread like a wildfire over the Internet, so can promotions, offers and positive experiences. Marketing campaigns that include social media are a powerful way to sow the seeds of brand awareness and attract exponential numbers of new customers.

Chain Reaction and Social Network Ripple Effect (via laurelpapworth.com)

A nice illustration of the “ripple effect” produced as your message spreads throughout different social networks via social media.

A Day In The Life Of the Internet (via OnlineEducation.net)

Created by Online Education

This infographic does a marvelous job of showing just how much information is distributed on the web each and every day.

Do you have a favorite infographic or video that deals with social media or viral marketing? Share it in the comments!

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Companies Spending More On Social Media, But ROI Still Hard to Pin Down

A new survey released by Econsultancy shows that marketers are planning to spend more on social media this year, even though they are still unsure how to measure the success of their efforts.

According to a press release describing the results of the study, 81% of respondents expected to increase spending on social media in 2010, while only 18% expected to see no change in social media budgets or spending.

However, at the moment, most organizations don’t seem to know what tangible benefits, if any, they are actually getting from this increased spending. According to the Econsultancy press release, 61% described their organizations as “poor” or “very poor” at measuring the return on investment for their social media efforts.

The results of the survey should surprise no one-in fact, they closely mirror the results of a survey released last month by Alterian. Marketers know that they need to be involved in social media. However, without an effective way to measure ROI, throwing money at social media is kind of like throwing coins into a wishing well and hoping you get your wish.

According to social media guru Brian Solis, 2010 is the year that this will change, the year that “we enter into a new era of social media marketing, one based on information, rationalization, and resolve.”

He notes that CMO’s want, more than anything, to get measurable results from social media, not warm fuzzy talk about “engagement” and “connection.” Engagement and connection are great, but the not-so-warm-and-fuzzy truth is that they are really just means to a concrete, measurable end, such as obtaining new customers or retaining old customers.

To better manage social media ROI, Solis suggests first “defining the “R” in ROI.” That is, first determine what results you are trying to achieve, whether it be increased revenue or something else, and then set goals and measure accordingly. If you have time, read the whole article (and the lively debate in the comments) for more insight.

One of the great things about Dukky is that our platform allows marketers to integrate social media with direct marketing campaigns in a way that makes it incredibly easy to measure and analyze the impact of social media on the results. Our real-time analytics can show you who’s sharing your offer, which social networks they are using, the social influence of each customer and more.

Other aspects of your company’s social media strategy may be more difficult to measure, but when it comes to integrating direct marketing, mobile and social, we’ve got you covered.

C’mon, check out our demo. You know you want to.

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5 Ways to Use Data to Create Compelling Direct Mail

Editor’s Note: Today’s post was written by Jean M. Gianfagna, the President of Gianfagna Strategic Marketing, and originally appeared on her blog, Smart Marketing Strategy. It is reprinted here with permission.

Savvy direct marketers are using data and digital printing technology to develop engaging creative approaches and compelling direct mail campaigns that are almost fully customized to the individual recipient. The result is more relevant direct mail and stronger customer relationships.

Chances are, you’re already capturing transaction data and contact information every time your customer makes a purchase. You may even have demographic and lifestyle data on your files.

Using that customer data can help you create high-impact mailings that generate better results.

When it’s time to produce your next direct mail campaign, ask yourself this key question: “What do I know about the people I’m mailing to and how can I use that knowledge to develop a more effective creative approach?”

Here are five ways to use data to develop great direct mail creative:

Idea #1: Use Data to Allocate Creative Resources

Conduct pre-campaign data analysis to determine each customer’s value or potential. This measurement should drive format selection for your direct mail pieces and the allocation of creative resources. Higher value customers – and high-potential prospects — should get a more elaborate and personalized mailing; less valuable customers and prospects should get a simpler, less expensive piece.

Idea #2: Use Data for Better Targeting & Personalization

Append demographic or lifestyle data to your customer files, then use this data to segment customers into smaller, more targeted groups of individuals with similar characteristics. Develop creative approaches and marketing messages that more accurately target the specific interests of these smaller groups.

Idea #3: Use Data to Get Attention and Engage

Grab attention on the direct mail carrier envelope and engage readers throughout the mailing with data-driven messages. Even simple geographic and demographic references in copy can have a big impact. Printing technology now enables you to customize almost every element of your mailing.

Idea #4: Use Data to Strengthen Relationships

Customers know their value to your organization and they expect YOU to know it. Use data from your customer database or CRM system (such as the length of time they’ve done business with you, the types of products they purchase, or information on their last transaction) to speak to customers more personally in your mailing about their relationship with you and its value.

Idea #5: Use Data to Facilitate a Response

To make it easier for prospects to say yes, pre-populate customer data on response forms and create personalized URLs (PURLS) with the customer’s name that link to pre-populated forms on your website.

Dukky makes it easy for you to use these strategies to create compelling, personalized direct mail campaigns, as well making it easy to track and collect additional data to make future campaigns even more compelling.

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Social and Email: When Worlds Collide

Over the past couple of weeks, 2 important stories have rocked the Internet: the launch of Google Buzz, and the news that Facebook intends to launch an email service of its own, called Project Titan.

Of course, Google’s product launch hasn’t gone off without a hitch-the company was a little bit too confident in its ability to automatically calculate which email contacts its customers would actually want to connect with socially, and privacy concerns and lawsuits have ensued.

Still, Google is fixing those issues, and it’s way too early to pronounce Buzz dead in the water. In fact, as MediaPost notes, Buzz is “the beginning of a hub that could eventually connect to forums, third-party PC and mobile applications, as well as other social sites.”

Facebook’s Project Titan is still being developed, but it is already hotly anticipated and expected to compete with Gmail.

On the Bronto blog, Kristen Gregory, Email Marketing Strategist for Bronto Software, called Project Titan “a move that takes us more toward a truly integrated channel – where search, email, social, etc. reside together and where the idea of a master preference center could ultimately live.”

Taken together, these two stories seem to signal a broader trend- the impending merger of email and social networking. Some people love the idea, some people hate the idea, but the same was once true of Twitter and Facebook. As the lines between the two begin to blur, how should brands and marketers react?

Email that’s integrated with social networking demands direct response campaigns that are integrated as well. Even today, our experience has shown that integrating social media and sharing capabilities into an email campaign improves response and conversion dramatically. As the email inbox turns into a social networking command center, users will be encouraged to engage in social sharing even more than they do now.

Dukky makes it easy to integrate social media and email campaigns. With our platform, recipients can share offers by email or on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Even better, with our analytics, you can see who is responding, who is sharing your offers and how they are sharing them, and more, all in real time.

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Pizza Hut Uses Twitter for Valentine’s Day Promotion

Earlier this month, we took a look at Macy’s “Sweetest Tweets” promotion, which offered Twitter users a chance to win diamond jewelry if they tweeted short love notes with the #sweetesttweets hashtag attached.

Last week, Pizza Hut decided to jump on the “sweetest tweets” bandwagon with its “Sweetest Tweets with the Sweetest Treats to Celebrate Valentine’s Day” contest, offering free dessert sticks to the Twitter users who tweeted the best pick-up lines in 140-characters or less, using the hashtag #iluvPH.

The promotion runs through Valentine’s Day, with winners to be announced Monday, February 15. If your cheesy pickup line happens to win the contest and snag you a date with the girl of your dreams, you can go into diabetic shock together with a free order of Pizza Hut’s Hershey’s chocolate dunkers.

So, what inspired Pizza Hut to seek out and reward the cheesiest, gooiest pick-up lines? The St. Louis Food blog spoke to Sarah Rosanova, a PR representative for Pizza Hut, who explained that “It’s just a fun way that we can engage our followers on Twitter, and everyone loves sharing cheesy pick-up lines.”

But did the contest actually engage Pizza Hut’s Twitter followers? Despite some media attention, a press release, and coverage on Mashable, according to What the Hashtag, by 10:18pm Eastern on the last day of the contest, there were only 243 tweets containing the hashtag. Many people entered the contest more than once.

Even considering that it ran longer, Macy’s promotion seems to have beemuch more successful, with 1,614 tweets at last count.

The good news is that if you entered, there’s a pretty good chance that you won those chocolate-covered dessert sticks. I can’t help but wonder whether their response would have been better if they’d given away a more popular menu item, like a pizza or even cheesesticks.

The contest did yield some interesting responses-although if the contestants actually use these pick-up lines in real-life, I’m afraid they may be eating chocolate-covered pizza dough alone. Here are a few of the worst offenders:

“Are you free tonight, or is it going to cost me?”

“I can see my force is strong with you.” Okay, this one might work at a sci-fi/fantasy convention.

“Baby, let’s eat a whole Meat Lover’s pizza together and then you take care of me all night with Alka-Seltzer and TUMS.”

Of course, this promotion does illustrate how important social media has become as a marketing tool, even if it’s hard to be sure what will end up going viral ahead of time. Dukky’s software can help you integrate social media into your direct marketing campaigns-increasing their reach and making it easy for them to go viral. With our platform, customers can share your offer via email and via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

We offer an easy and effective method to integrate social media into your existing marketing campaigns. The success of your promotion won’t depend on whether you attract the attention of the “right people” on Twitter or whether your hashtag makes Twitter’s trending topics. Instead, you’ll watch your response rates soar as your recipients share your offer with friends and family via whatever social network is most comfortable for them.

What do you think of Pizza Hut’s Valentine’s Day promotion? If you were designing it, would you have done anything differently?

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Girl Scouts Training The Next Generation of Social Media Marketers

The Girl Scouts’ marketing approach used to revolve around cute little girls in uniforms peddling cookies door-to-door, mixed with a healthy dose of peer pressure from your co-workers with children.

However, this year, the Girl Scouts’ marketing tactics have gone high-tech, incorporating email, text messaging and social networking sites like Facebook. According to the Contra Costa Times, Northern California Girl Scouts are being encouraged to send out text messages to potential customers, saying things like “Ur a txt away from gr8 cookies!”

The article quotes Monique Lazzarini, the leader of Troop 30313, a troop of 4th and 5th graders, who said that “With the technology era and the different ways to communicate, we decided as a troop to capitalize on those technologies.”

It’s not just individual troops embracing social media, either. The organization released a video on Youtube called “What can a cookie do?” to help spread awareness of the programs that the cookie sales fund. In the three weeks since it was posted, the video has attracted 32,790 views.

In an article on DailyFinance.com, Girl Scouts of the USA CMO Laurel Richie explained why the Girl Scouts decided to create a viral video:

“We’re anxious to see how it works because it lets us get our message out in a cost-effective way,” Laurel Richie, chief marketing officer of the Girl Scouts of the USA, says. She also hopes the video will help engender trust among those viewing the ad. “There’s a greater engagement when a video is passed onto you, because it has the implicit endorsement of the person who passes it on,” Richie says.

The end of the video features a call-to-action that directs viewers to a website where they can find a place to buy Girl Scout cookies.

So, what’s next? Will there be a social media marketing badge? Considering how many non-profits and humanitarian organizations have been using social media to good effect, it wouldn’t be surprising.

The Girl Scouts of America are using social media and text messaging to get the word about their cookies-shouldn’t you be using them as well? Dukky makes it a breeze to integrate social media and mobile marketing into your next campaign. With a unique print, email, social media and mobile marketing platform that encourages social sharing, we can help you create a viral campaign that increases customer response by 8 times.

With that, I’ll leave you to consider what an 8-fold increase in customer response rate would mean to you. I’ve got to go get my Thin Mint fix!

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Email Marketing Redemption is Reaching New Heights: How to Reach your Customer’s Address Book

From Static to Viral- Marketing Mediums will never be the same

The rising popularity of Social Networks have opened up to marketers an entirely new arena to pursue. In a recent study by Nielson Group they found , two-thirds of the world’s internet population visits a social network or blogging site and the sector now accounts for almost 10% of all internet usage time, according to a study by Nielson group.¹ As new dynamics in this industry are emerging, the basic questions as to how to effectively merge traditional marketing mediums with social networks has not been answered……until now.

Consider this:

You are sending a traditional marketing email to your database (2,500 records). This means the absolute maximum reach potential of your campaign will be those 2,500 customers.

With the integration of social sharing into your email marketing campaign you are not just gaining access to your current customer database, but you are now gaining access to your Customer’s Friend List. Whether their friends on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networking site, integrating this simple step into your marketing mediums will expand your reach exponentially.

With the simple theory of multiplication, your reach has the potential to double, triple, and beyond by accessing your customer’s friends, who also have the potential to share with their friends.

New Maximum Reach: Exponential

Cost increase: $0

Being able to integrate sharing on Social Networks into an email marketing campaign allows the retailer to reach customers at an unprecedented rate. Traditional Email Marketing doesn’t create communication between the retailer and customer, however, with Dukky’s Software integrated into a Traditional Email Campaign, the customer is engaged, leading to higher redemptions.

Three powerful things occur from Sharing on Social Networks:

1. Company Awareness Increases
2. Customer Base is expanded
3. Friend-to-Friend Sharing is more powerful than Company to Customer sharing.

Local Companies

Bra Genie, a specialty bra-fitting salon, was looking for a way to promote their Holiday Specials and Offers to their customers and surrounding area. With no online shopping options on their website, all marketing goals are to increase in-store traffic. Their traditional medium, email marketing, was not generating the response they wanted or needed.

Campaign Objective: Increase store traffic for Holiday Sales

After the simple addition of Dukky’s Software to their email marketing, they saw a 19.27% response to their email marketing campaign with Dukky. Better than any other response before.

Dukky Analytics reported:

Email Database: 5,274 Records

Emails Opened: 2,056

Response Clicks: 709

Social Sharing: 44

Response from Social: 253 (from 44 of Response Clicks that shared)

Total Response: 1,104 (19.27%)

The Dukky Platform used Bra Genies compelling offer for “10% off the Next Purchase” to drive customers to a custom micro site. From there, customers were taken through a survey and card activation process. This process was vital, not just to gather information about Bra Genie’s customers, but because the time invested created a psychological commitment between Bra Genie and the customer further reinforcing the end goal: Redemption.

Bra Genie was able to gather valuable data from their customers to help with future marketing campaigns. They were able to gather Purchase Intent for that offer, gain information on if they should add an online store to their website, and hear from their customers about adding more products to their store and which ones were most desired.

Customers were then given the opportunity to receive an additional offer by sharing the offer with friends on any social network. Bra Genie reported 44 customers shared the coupons on social networks resulting in 253 additional responses from social sharing.

The 253 responses as a result of Social Sharing, increased the total response by 25%.

The proof is in the numbers. As a result of the one-week campaign, Bra Genie was provided with real time data stats on their campaign through Dukky’s Analytics Platform. As customers responded and shared the offers, Bra Genie was able to learn about their customers, monitor the new customers from Social Sharing and respond to capitalize on those responses.

Thanks to Dukky, Bra Genie, a locally owned company, will never advertise the same again. But Dukky isn’t just for local companies.

WEB BASED RETAILERS

CanadaFlowers.com is a family-run flower shop located in Southern Ontario. They have developed a strong web presence over the past 5 years with Online Marketing, but were ready to take their company to the next level. Equipped with Dukky’s technology, an email promotion was sent out to customers in their database promoting a 3-week special offer campaign.

Campaign Objective: Increase Online Presence

The Process: An email offer for $5 off your next flower order equipped with a PURL (Personalized Url) was sent to 3,202 customers in an email promotion. The email promotion personally addressed the customer and provided a link for them to click on to activate their offer. PURL Example: www.canadaflowersoffer.com/johnsmith

Results: Canada Flowers had a 26.10% total response rate from their email campaign with a total of 1096 responses coming from Emails and Sharing. Of the total responses, 367 were the results of adding Sharing to their campaign resulting in 385 of their total hits.

Conversion: The campaign results in 230 conversions, a 7.14 % conversion rate.

The results from this campaign compared to previous periods, grew 450%.

Increase Traffic, Increase Rankings

As a result of an increase in traffic to their website, the email campaign had a dramatic effect on the organic rankings of the website’s standing with search engines. Canadaflowers.com increased from a ranking of 131 to 8 for searches for flowers. Dukky’s software drove traffic to the site, which had a powerful domino effect on the continual marketing of the company reaching beyond the campaign dates.

It’s all about Conversion

The goal of every marketing campaign is ultimately to turn your advertising dollars into revenue. Until now, no other marketing mediums provided the means to track and engage customers in order to maximize a retailers customer base through sharing on social networks. Dukky’s cutting edge software is leading the way in the industry to establish a new normal for conversion.

Using Dukky’s Spider PURLS, retailers can 1) Engage customers, 2) Encourage social interaction, 3) Promote Business Offers and Specials, 4) Gather highly valuable information, and 4) Track each step of the process. From the moment the email is sent, received, shared, and until redemption occurs, the Dukky Analytics platform allows you to watch your reach increase. Reach maximization leads to increased conversion, which ultimately generates higher profits.

Dukky’s Software was designed with two things in mind: Conversion and Results

Social Networks integrated into current Email Marketing Campaigns result in exponential potential.

SOURCES: 1) “Global Faces and Networked Places.” Nielson Study Group. March 2009

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Direct Mail Case Study Shows Unbelievable Response Rates

From Static to Viral- Direct Mail Marketing will never be the same.

The rising popularity of Social Networks has opened to marketers an entirely new arena to pursue. In a recent study by Nielson Group they found, Two-thirds of the world’s internet population visits a social network or blogging site and the sector now accounts for almost 10% of all internet usage time.1 As new dynamics in this industry are emerging, the basic questions as to how to effectively merge traditional marketing mediums with social networks has not been answered……until now that is.

Let’s look at the numbers:

You are sending a traditional direct mail advertisement to a database (10,000 records). This means the absolute maximum reach potential of your campaign will be those 10,000 customers who may or may not be interested in your campaign.
Maximum Reach: 10,000

Normal Response rates for Direct Mail Marketing are between 1-3%

Consider this… with the integration of social sharing into your direct mail marketing campaign you are not just gaining access to your current customer database, but you are now gaining access through your existing marketing strategy to an entire new segment of the market- your Customer’s Friend List. Whether their friends on Facebook, Twitter, or any other social networking site, integrating this simple step into your marketing mediums will expand your reach exponentially.

With the simple theory of multiplication, your reach has the potential to double, triple, and beyond by accessing your customer’s friends, who are engaged to respond.

New Maximum Reach: Exponential
Cost increase: $0

Social Networks add powerful benefits to traditional direct mail campaigns
1. Company Awareness Increases
2. Customer base is identified & expanded
3. Friend-to-Friend Sharing on social networks is more powerful than Company to Customer sharing.

With the release of Dukky’s Software, Direct Mail Marketing has been revolutionized and taken to the next level.

CAFE’ EXPRESS

Café Express is a Texas owned local restaurant chain with 17 locations spreading from Houston to Dallas. With a Direct Mail Marketing strategy, they were focused on growing awareness in the Dallas area, and promoting their breakfast menu. Having already gained success during lunchtime, there were looking to expand their breakfast customers. After some research, they discovered most people were not aware they served breakfast, which led them to their need for a successful direct mail campaign.

Campaign Goal: Grow Awareness & Promote Breakfast Traffic

With standard response rates of 1-2% being insufficient to the response they wanted, Café’ Express brought in Dukky to manage their entire campaign with desired results of 10-15%. Dukky developed all creative, target list, web infrastructure and managed printing and mail fulfillment.

Process: A special offer was mailed on a postcard size piece of direct mail with a detachable card displaying the Cafe Express offer. Each card was labeled with the homeowner’s name and with a PURL (Personalized URL) was mailed to 20,000 recipients in the surrounding area offering a free Breakfast upon activation of the card online through the owner’s PURL.

PURL Example: www.freeAMexpress.com/johnsmith

Poll: Customer’s were brought through a fast survey process in order to activate their offer, gathering Café Express’ highly valuable information for future marketing. Recipients were asked:

• How often do you eat out for breakfast?
• What items do you prefer to eat for breakfast?
• What do you look for when you eat out for breakfast?
• How often do you eat Café Express?

Overall Campaign Results: The campaign reached a total response rate of 23.64%, with almost 40% generated through Social Sharing. Most customers shared their offer on Facebook and Twitter, with the greatest amount of incoming customers coming from Shares on Twitter.

Results

Total Response: 4,728 23.64%

From Mail: 2,941 62.20%

From Social: 1,787 37.80%

Activations: 3,677 18.39%

From Mail: 2,282 62.06%

From Social: 1,395 37.94%

Networks Shared On: 650 %

Facebook: 510 78.46%

Twitter: 126 19.38%

Other: 14 2.96%

Redemptions: 1,500 7.50%

It’s all about Conversion

Dukky’s cutting edge software is leading the way in the industry to establish a new normal for conversion. The goal of every marketing campaign is ultimately to turn your advertising dollars into revenue. Until now, no other marketing mediums provided the means to track and engage customers in order to maximize a retailers customer base through sharing on social networks.

By simply adding Dukky’s PURLS to a traditional direct mail advertisements retailers can 1) Engage customers, 2) Encourage social interaction, 3) Promote Business Offers and Specials, 4) Gather highly valuable information, and 5) Track each step of the process.

How does it work?

A compelling offer equipped with a PURL will be sent to your customer driving them to a custom microsite for card activation. Through a quick, survey process, they will be guided to activate their card and receive the offer. They are then given the opportunity through Dukky’s “one click” broadcast to share the offer with friends on up to 233 social networks! Dukky’s platform captures valuable information during the process: a growing customized database of interested customers with accurate demographic information and intelligent feedback from your customers.

Reach maximization leads to increased conversion, which ultimately generates higher profits. Dukky’s software was designed with two things in mind: Conversion and Results.

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Macy’s Uses Twitter To Sweeten Valentine’s Day Promotion

Love it or hate it, Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. However, this year, saving money is a big concern for consumers, and coming right after Christmas, they may be less willing to make major purchases for Valentine’s Day than in previous years.

To combat this new frugal streak, marketers are becoming more creative and relying on technology to keep customers engaged and encourage them to make purchases. For example, this year Macy’s is hosting its first promotional contest through Twitter.

The Sweetest Tweets contest, which officially kicked off on February 1st, encourages consumers to interact with the brand on Twitter by tweeting short love notes (less than 140 characters) and attaching the #sweetesttweets hashtag. The winning Romeo or Juliet gets a three-stone diamond ring.

As Martine Reardon, Macy’s executive vice president of Marketing, explained to the New York Times, “Twitter happens to be where people are today, so we thought it would be fun to feature it in the campaign.” The hope is that the promotion will go viral, keeping customers thinking of Macy’s as they head out to do their Valentine’s Day shopping.

Despite the Valentine’s Day theme, Reardon also claimed in a press release that the contest is not limited to couples, saying “Valentine’s Day is all about expressing love and devotion to friends and family. There isn’t a better way to express those emotions than connecting with the people in your life in fun, unique and modern ways. The Sweetest Tweets can be about a declaration of love or about thanking your loved ones for always being there. The possibilities are endless.”

So, how are people responding to the contest? Tracking the hashtag at WhattheHashtag.com, we see that today, 5 days after the contest started, 1,014 people have tweeted the hashtag. The contest appears to be picking up steam, too, with more and more people tweeting it every day.

Unfortunately, not all of those Tweets are legit. The contest seems to have fallen victim to hashtag abuse, and the most active Twitter user to tweet the hashtag today is merely attaching it to random tweets and tweets about other contests. Still, it’s a good start, and the momentum is building.

But will the contest attract shoppers to Macy’s stores? That’s the million-dollar question, and we won’t know until after the holiday.

Dukky can help you harness the power of social media for your Valentine’s Day promotion by enabling you to quickly and easily create viral promotions that can be shared via email, SMS and social media.

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Einstein Bros Bagels Makes Waves Distributing Coupons Via Facebook

Einstein Bros Bagels made waves last week by distributing coupons for a free bagel and schmear to people who became fans of the brand’s Facebook page. According to this article on Fast Company, the pr0motion gained the company over 331,000 fans in 3 days. Currently, that number stands at 374,0898.

This is the first time an advertiser has distributed digital coupons for free products via Facebook. Was it, as Convince and Convert’s Jay Baer asked his Twitter followers, a “good promotion or pointless?”

The coupon promotion was definitely successful in terms of gaining attention and gaining fans on Facebook, but as Fast Company reminds us,”Numbers don’t mean everything, though–how many times have you followed and retweeted a company on Twitter during a contest just to turn around and unfollow them when it ends?”

The end goal of any social media promotion is not gaining fans and followers, it’s gaining customers. The promotion is now over, and while it’s a little bit early to say for sure how successful it has been at increasing customer loyalty, the indications so far are, to say the least, encouraging.

In addition to adding fans, the promotion encouraged food bloggers to review Einstein’s Bros bagels, with generally positive reviews. For example, Grub Grade reviewed the restaurant’s Double Chocolate Chip Bagel, spurred on by “a free coupon — courtesy of the restaurant’s new and dare-I-say swanky Facebook page.”

Despite some hiccups with the coupon campaign noted on the Facebook page’s discussion board, people seem happy with both the promotion and the bagels (at least, based on a totally unscientific survey of the Facebook page, Google and a couple of pages of tweets). Einstein Bros fans also seem engaged, starting discussions with the brand and responding to questions.

I think this promotion is a great use of social media to build awareness, and Facebook is an amazing vehicle for creating viral promotions like this. But, at the end of the day, it’s all about the bagels. Before you give your product away for free, you have to make sure it’s worth paying for!

As long as Einstein Bros continues to impress its customers with the quality of its bagels, the Facebook promotion will be a success, as first-time customers lured in by the free coupons are converted to regulars. If people don’t like the bagels enough to come back, they just wasted at least $840,000 worth of free bagels. Fortunately, most people seem to dig the bagels.

If you have a product that’s worth giving away, Dukky can help you create your own viral campaign quickly and easily. With Dukky, you can allow your customers to consumers to share your offer through their email, mobile and social networks, including Facebook.

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