Umm, wouldn’t more people be able to hear it if it were released online? The real issue seems to be Prince’s disdain for all things digital. In an interview with a reporter from the Mirror, he issued a proclamation that’s been burning up interwebs ever since:

“The internet’s completely over. I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else. They won’t pay me an advance for it and then they get angry when they can’t get it. The internet’s like MTV. At one time MTV was hip and suddenly it became outdated. Anyway, all these computers and digital gadgets are no good. They just fill your head with numbers and that can’t be good for you.”

Prince, I’d like to introduce you to Erik Qualman. Here is a nifty video Mr. Qualman created, called Social Media Revolution. I know, I know, it’s full of those awful numbers, but bear with me here:

Doesn’t look like the Internet’s going anywhere to me. But I guess if you don’t take those darn numbers into account, I could see how you might think so. As Fast Company points out, Prince’s refusal to allow his videos on YouTube contrasts sharply with the approach of Lady Gaga, who has become quite successful by using YouTube and Facebook to market herself. And of course, there’s Justin Bieber’s Twitter army of breathless teenybopper followers. And Trent Reznor, who has distributed both Nine Inch Nails albums and the first EP from his new band, How to Destroy Angels, as free downloads.

So, as much of a musical genius as Prince is, it seems like he just doesn’t get the potential of the Internet and viral marketing the way many of his colleagues seem to. Or does he? After all, we ARE talking about him, aren’t we?  Although Fast Company notes that “you are more likely to find a rainbow-farting unicorn in your cutlery drawer than a Prince music video on YouTube,” he did become a trending topic on Twitter yesterday.

Still, I don’t see how making it harder for your fans to get to your music (unless you’re in Europe and can buy one of the newspapers that has it) is going to help his career. And I don’t see how the temporary buzz his crazy-talk has created can possibly compare with the direct, long-term and in many cases permanent connections that Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber have built with their fans via social networking.

And how many people actually carry around portable CD players any more? So, if you get the CD and you want to take it with you to listen to on the go, you have to go through the extra step of converting it to MP3s? I’m glad I’m not really a huge Prince fan, although he was an important part of my childhood.  I would be more than a little irked if a musician I actually cared about were trying to make it harder for me to play their music even after I paid for it.

So, what do you think of Prince’s marketing and distribution strategy? Genius or fail? Let us know in the comments!

Compared to other brands, Dunkin’ Donuts realized the potential of Twitter fairly early-the company began tweeting in October of 2008.  The Twitter account is primarily handled by “Dunkin’ Dave,” with other employees  like “Java Josh” and “Bagel Ben” filling in when Dave is unavailable.

Dunkin’ Donut’s Twitter account has a good mix of conversational tweets and tweets related to various Dunkin’ Donuts promotions. They also do a lot of small contests. For example, to celebrate the return of the Waffle Breakfast Sandwich,  they are giving away a free $60 gift card on Twitter. To enter the contest, they are asking customers to tweet about “what they are waffling about” using the hashtag #WaffleWeDDs.

This mix of deals and personal interaction has gained  a lot of traction on Twitter.  @DunkinDonuts has 47,938 followers, many of whom are extremely loyal and engaged with the brand.

As Dunkin’ Donuts fanatic Jess Greco explains on her blog, PRBreakfastClub.com:

They know how to keep consumers engaged and interested on a daily basis and they have a way of making you feel like you’re special, even as just one of their millions of consumers.

But what about ROI? According to Portfolio.com, the company has actually worked out a way to measure the impact of all of those tweets, by measuring the number of people who click on their “Win Free Coffee for a Year Offer” on Twitter and who enroll in the “DD Perks” program.

Dunkin’ Donuts isn’t sharing any numbers-not the click-through rate and not the quantitative value it assigns to the new DD Perks members added to the company’s database. Still, it’s great to see that they’ve established a method for measuring the ROI of their Twitter efforts that works for them.

At Dukky, we’re all about helping you harness the power of social media to promote your business and measure the results. Our platform lets you meld your direct marketing efforts (both email and direct mail) with social media, allowing you to create campaigns with unparalleled reach.

You not only see which of the customers on your original list have responded to your offer, you can also watch your promotion go viral as those customers share it with their friends on Twitter and Facebook.

With Dukky, it’s easy to see how social media is affecting and enhancing the ROI of your direct marketing campaigns.

Interested? Why not request a demo?

As brands scramble to define themselves on social networks and connect with their customers, a new survey indicates that what consumers want from brands in this new engagement model is some old fashioned marketing: Good deals and customer service.

The results of Razorfish’s annual survey of 1,000 “connected consumers” was recently released, and it contains some interesting data. The sample group was about 50/50 male/female and the respondents all live in ten major U.S. cities and cover four major age groups:

Based on previous Razorfish consumer research, we have found that these “connected consumers” roughly mirror the U.S. population with broadband access. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, about 63% of all Americans today have a high-speed Internet connection, up from only 55% in 2008. This translates to roughly 200 million people, based on a July 2009 population estimate from the CIA World Factbook (total population 307,212,123, July 2009 estimate).

The survey found that the primary reason for “friending” a brand on Facebook or MySpace is for access to exclusive deals and discounts:

More than 25% said they followed a brand on Twitter:

And 43% of those who follow brands on Twitter do so because of exclusive discounts or offers. That trumps being a current customer (24%), interesting/entertaining content (23%), and customer service/support (4%):

Following a brand on Twitter usually keeps it top of mind when making a future purchase decision:

The report references Starbucks, the most popular brand on Facebook (by virtue of a promo that offered coupons for free ice cream and pastry). Whole Foods is the leading brand on Twitter, with more than 1.5 million followers. It gained its huge following by offering shopping tips and weekly specials.

Comcast has a great reputation for leveraging Twitter as a CRM tool thanks to the fabled efforts of Frank Eliason, Senior Director of Comcast National Customer Service. Virgin America and Zappos have also received high marks for using Twitter for customer realtions.
The takeaway:

Consumers are obviously very willing to engage with brands via social media. As social networks grow and attract more users, this will continue to be the case and undoubtedly gain more traction.

Brand marketers themselves need to become more engaged and give their friends and followers special offers — pushing out content and hoping consumers hop on the bandwagon isn’t nearly as effective. As social networks become more advanced and brands figure out how to leverage them, there will be many interesting new opportunities for marketing interaction.

Incentive  I  Donna M. Airoldi  I  October 29, 2009

Dukky is a new direct response company with a new platform to help loyalty and rewards program marketers. Its product creates gift card offers as part of a direct mail campaign that integrates viral marketing and an online component for monitoring individual performance and gaining feedback on users. The result? Significantly higher response rates, and feedback that can be used to better target future offers.

The New Orleans–based company, founded in June 2008, unveiled its new program earlier this year and is beginning to get national attention, with BMW and other top clients signing on.

“The product can be used across a number of platforms, from internal employee programs to B-to-B, however its most common use is B-to-C programs because of the nature of its outreach,” says Dukky CMO Scott Couvillon, who said the loyalty/reward product was created to assist large incentive houses, after talking with firm like Carlson Marketing and Maritz at tradeshows and trying to figure out how Dukky’s products could be applied to their programs.

How does Dukky work?

The company puts together a mailer with up to 40 personalized gift cards with reduced-points redemption offers for products in a client’s loyalty/rewards program. If the recipient is interested, they visit an activation site through a personalized URL (PURL), where they must activate the cards in order to use the offers and verify their contact information. They can then forward the offers to friends, family and colleagues through e-mail or social networks. Visitors to the redemption center can then earn bonus points for completing a feedback survey. The client can monitor the usage in real time through an online dashboard that’s part of the Dukky product, to see who is responding to the program and what products are popular, or not.

“Points are a liability for companies,” says Couvillon. “They’re credit toward something the company has to one day fulfill. But the only contact they’re having with employees or customers is through statements saying, ‘Here’s your reward balance and here’s some stuff you can get with the rewards points.’ The reaction was poor, so they tried to migrate to digital, since it’s cheaper to maintain. Problem is, it’s also easier to ignore, so companies were getting even fewer responses.”

Couvillon says Dukky can help in two ways, further explaining how the new product can help with direct mail responses.

“We can take inventory of the top ten redeemed items from previous programs and create a personalized gift card for each of those products,” says Couvillon. “Customers will receive a mailer of gift cards for those items, which are available for redemption with a reduced number of points. Maybe they’ll be able to get a plasma TV for five hundred fewer points than initially listed. They can then choose to activate only those cards for items in which they’re interested. On the activation site, they’ll get asked whatever questions the brand or incentive house is interested in getting feedback on: What type of products would you like to receive? What do you like about working at Company X? What would you prefer to see in a promotion campaign? Whatever the company wants.

“Companies can then use that feedback to improve their loyalty programs. It’s a much more engaging format than ‘Here’s a link to a site with a clearing house of products,’ or a catalog and your points statement. The interesting part is the backend stuff, where you can watch the activation site responses and see what is happening before the first card is even redeemed. You can see what users are looking at as well as the life span of the e-mail program. For some companies, direct mail might be better, say, if an e-mail campaign received a huge number of responses the first twelve hours, but then nothing.”

What are the costs and expected results?

Couvillon says Dukky guarantees an 8 percent response overall, combining primary and secondary responses. The typical direct mail campaign has a 1 percent response rate. Customers also are given the option of performance-based pay rather than paying a per unit cost, as with direct mail campaigns.

“If we’re confident we’ll beat performance benchmarks by a lot, then we’ll set what the costs are and pro rate against benchmark performance,” says Couvillon. “If we do worse than the existing program, you pay less than your cost. If far better, then we or the reseller deserves more than your existing program. You pay for your response, not what your costs are.”

Dukky research has found that programs with a social/viral component had the greatest redemption levels, with the greatest depth coming from secondary recipients. “We just did a program where we gave away a free breakfast,” says Couvillon. “Recipients did not have a previous relationship that we knew of with the restaurant. We got an overall 10 percent response to people going online, activating their offers and answering questions.”

About 41 percent of primary recipients activated online, with 66 percent of secondary recipients doing so.

“People were sharing on average with three other people,” Couvillon adds. “The most people will forward to is about nine, but on average three. That’s because it’s coming from a friend or relative. It’s still direct marketing, but it feels personal. Apply that to loyalty programs. Consumers know what they want. Put content into the hands of your advocates and let them do the marketing. It’s a very different way of thinking about direct marketing.”