Depending on your age, you might (or might not) remember something called "Fan Clubs." Basically you paid a yearly membership fee and in return got special messages from the club, discounts and even free gifts from time to time. There were fan clubs for everything: sports teams, pop stars, swimsuit models, bands, TV shows, hobbies, popular toys... this list could go on and on. Personally I've been a member of fan clubs for Pearl Jam, Queensryche, Model Car of the Month, Beer of the Month, Ovaltine, Sweet Pickles and to be completely honest here, I was even a member of the Samantha Fox fan club for a couple years.

My favorite Samantha Fox song, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now".

 

Bragging Rights

We joined fan clubs because they made us feel special, especially at a young age. They brought us closer to brands, activities and people that we were passionate about. That postcard from Donald Duck, Yoda, Samantha Fox or Michael Knight had our name on it and gave us bragging rights at school. And good fan clubs, like Pearl Jam's Ten Club, gave fans exclusives like access to premium concert seating and free records. I remember getting a Pearl Jam fan club record called "Let Me Sleep" and bringing it to school. People were cutting class just to see it and none of us even owned a record player.

You've Got Mail... In a Few Months

But because fan clubs relied heavily on the US Postal Service and the printing process, communications between fans and the fan club administrators were spotty at best. Fan club newsletters were usually monthly, delivered via snail mail and didn't provide much opportunity for fans to respond or contribute to the club. Sure you could mail a letter to the fan club but would anyone read it? Respond? Would Yoda ever read my letter telling him that Santa brought me green and brown Yoda Underoos for Christmas? If he did, he never responded.

Yes they actually made green and brown Yoda Underoos.

 

Digital Technology Gives Fans a Bigger Community Voice

But as clubs started to adopt digital communication tools like email and web sites, fans finally got to have a voice in their own community. Content could be delivered to fans more frequently, the fan experience could include interactive web pages and fans could even directly communicate with other fans if the site had a forum or chat room.  The introduction of Blogs in the early 2000's made things even easier. Fan club administrators didn't have to rely on website designers to update pages and format email newsletters anymore. Blogs were easy to write and could include images, audio and videos unlike forums and chat rooms. Blogs basically allowed anyone to be content creators. Some brands even started allowing fans to write blog posts. And the best part? Fans could react to this new frequent stream of content by simply writing blog comments.

 

Social Media and Real Time Conversations Between Fans and Brands

Fast forward a few years to today and social media has changed everything. Mass communication with a niche community, or even the entire planet, is now direct, easy and instant. Where a monthly printed newsletter might take weeks for a fan club administrators to produce and distribute, a single tweet composed by Lady Gaga from her phone after her sold-out performance at Madison Square Garden has the power to instantly reach millions, especially now that she's the first person to garner 10,000,000 followers. There are articles written about her social media success frequently, including an article posted hours after this blog was written!

And social media is a two-way street. Of course messages can be broadcast to a large audience. But the ability for fans to engage with celebrities and brands has never been easier thanks to social media. Instead of writing and mailing a letter to an anonymous fan club PO Box, fans can now use services like Twitter to Tweet directly and publicly with personalities.

Fans can also engage in conversations with other fans all over the world and give fan-created content a virtual thumbs up by "Liking" it or re-sharing it. The voice of the fan has never been louder or more influential. And some major brands like Coca-Cola are embracing this power.  Coca-Cola (disclosure alert: Coca-Cola is a Definition 6 client) is leveraging the power of social media to let their Facebook fans manage, moderate and produce content for their own community. Coca-Cola still participates in fan conversations and community content creation, but their Facebook page allows any fan to post something on their wall. The community even moderates fan content. Inappropriate messages are flagged by the community. Not only does Social Media enable brands to instantly communicate with their communities, but it also allows brands to give an equal voice to that community.


The Layers Are Gone

Social Media has changed fandom forever. It has brought fans both closer to celebrities and brands, as well as each other. The multiple layers of communication are gone. The "fan club managers" who were hired by a PR company, which was hired by a record company, who only communicated with the band through their manager, can all be eliminated with Social Media. Many personalities, like Lady Gaga, have assumed the role of Community Manager and use social media to communicate and have conversations directly with their fans, and in their own voice. Seems like we've come a long way since decoder rings and Ovaltine.

Last night at the SUXORZ awards, we celebrated schadenfreude at its best, taking a look back at poorly executed social media initiatives.  From non-responsive companies on Twitter to those companies that sought out revenge for bad tweets, we’ve seen it all.

Some of the nominations included Groupon’s Super bowl ad, Duncan Hines “Hip Hop” Cupcakes video, and a five minute video talking about the benefits of email newsletters, but well, it was so boring we couldn’t even finish watching it!

The event took place at the Gershwin hotel, with host Henry Copeland, featuring panelists Brian Morrissey, Jessica Amason, BL Ochman and Brian Clark, and social DJ Jon Accarrino.

There were five rounds in this contest, where panelists would nominate their campaigns, we’d watch a video or see their twitter page, and then vote as a group on the worst.  This proved to be an evening of laughs, missteps and ultimate hilarity.

There is a great write-up of all the categories, winners and losers posted on SmartBlog today, including links to most of the campaigns.

But some of my personal favorites are the PriceChopper tweet in the “Mean People Suck” category, where the company sought out revenge on the person who posted a bad tweet, the Duncan Hines Hip Hop Cupcakes video (you just have to watch it to find out how many things are wrong with this) and the CVS Cares twitter account that is locked.

All in all – SUXORZ was a very enjoyable evening.  Or maybe that is just the hater in me that likes to laugh at others' failures.  Either way, this was an event that was in fact, social, and actually encouraged us to “join the conversation” with the winners selected from the audience's votes.  Well done, SUXORZ. 

Social Media Week is here, and well, we’ve been keeping busy being social.  I recently got the chance to conduct a “6 with D6” Interview with Henry Copeland, founder of BlogAds.com and of the SUXORZ awards, an event that showcases the worst social media campaigns from the previous year.  

When Henry is not selling BlogAds, he says he’s “generally running or playing ping-pong with his kids, cooking with his wife, playing with his dogs, or reading.”   Some of the blogs that he frequently reads within the BlogAds network include ObscureStore.com, Wonkette.com, PerezHilton.com, ReadWriteWeb.com, DailyKos.com, and Drudge.com, although he claims this is more for “taking the cultural temperature than really consuming news.”  

We encourage you to sign up for SUXORZ, which takes place on Thursday, February 10^th in NYC (where Definition 6’er Jon Accarrino will play “Social DJ”), or read more about how Henry got involved in social media.

6 with D6: Henry Copeland

1 - What changes do you anticipate taking place within the blogosphere in the next 3-5 years?

Since we got started in 2002, there's obviously been a giant proliferation of the number of blogs.  And there's also been a lot of professionalization.  But, as folks like Huffington Post disappear into the belly of the corporate beast, I think you'll see a resurgence of small and medium-size blogging, folks who are doing it because they love it, not because they want to cash out for $315 million. There are still lots of folks out there just finding their voice and lots of “unserved” publics.  In some cases, these will be people just doing it to scratch their own itch.  In some cases, these will be 'house blogs' by companies that are passionate about one topic or another.  And in some cases, these will be self-supporting bloggers.

2 -     Both BlogAds.com and you personally have been huge pioneers in the social media landscape.  With all the proliferation of devices like iPad and connected TVs, how much is social media device-driven?  Or is the behavior of sharing and consuming media evolving the device market?

I'm tempted to say I'm not young enough to answer that question.  But I'll take a shot: I think blogs were perfect for PCs...everyone who works in an office or goes to school has one AND has 30 spare minutes a day to create or read content that is 50-500 words long. Now, mobile devices seem to inspire the production and consumption of more micro-content, tweets, check-ins, pokes, etc. 

3 -     If you could go back in time and edit your 2002 Pressflex essay that floated the idea of BlogAds, what would you change?


Ha, I would have been a little less cocky. :) I thought BlogAds was going to change the world OVERNIGHT. I didn't realize it would be two years before we'd sell more than $200 in ads in a single month.  But overall, I'm happy with the way those predictions about how “people-power-media” would explode and completely upend the media and advertising markets.  When you think of all the stuff that's come since then -- whether it's YouTube or Twitter or Reddit or Quora or Facebook -- we're still just beginning to guess all the fun things people can do for, or with, each other when you let them connect in real-time online.

4 - How can marketing agencies like Definition 6 use BlogAds to help our clients?

Two things.  First, we can let you really deliver your client's story across a wide spectrum of blogs.  Second, there's a lot of emphasis at agencies on using the commoditized ad units -- the IAB units you can buy on every site on earth. We think it is very important to use the right unit to tell the client's story. Flashy 300x250s and 728x90s have their time and place, but there are times you want to channel what the community is saying about your brand in Twitter or let the community re-tweet your ad.  So when it comes to ad units, the medium can be the message -- a conventional ad unit that was born in broadcast, often an IAB unit, most likely tells a conventional story that's rooted in the "we talk, you listen" mode of advertising. 

5 - What do you see as a game changer?

Yikes. I think we're still scratching the surface of organizing all the data and relationships that social media is encouraging us to generate. In a sense, we're in an arms race with ourselves, steadily producing more information, then scrambling to create containers/structures to help us keep track of that information, and then having to create structures that contain THOSE new structures.  We've got so many signals, we're creating news.  So at some point, I think we're going to hit a point where the majority of people say, "OK, I'm done, this is good enough for me. I don't need any more filing cabinets for my filing cabinets."  That could be two “Facebooks” from now, or it could be we're just about there right now. 

6 - Tell us more about the SUXORZ awards which are coming up this week. What has changed over the last few years?  What has improved? 

This will be the fourth year of the SUXORZ.  How time flies when you've got terrible social media advertising to laugh at, right?  Since the first couple of years, it appears companies have gotten better about not trying to pay consumers to shill for them.  Or companies have just figured out how to do it more covertly and not get caught.  Last year, the sins were more of omission rather than commission.  Companies implemented half a social media campaign -- Tweets on a billboard! -- but forgot to watch what people were tweeting and ended up with a lot of profanity beside their logos.  We're still sifting through nominations to figure out what the trends will be this year.  You can make nominations on our Facebook page.

In order to maintain a successful Facebook fan page, it’s important to understand what your fans are looking for. According to a recent ExactTarget study, the number one reason for “liking” a brand on Facebook is receiving discounts and promotions. Showing support for the company to others came in a close second, at 39%. 

What does this mean for brands? First, discounts and promotions are strong incentives for encouraging users to ‘like’ your page– after all, who doesn’t love free stuff?  A giveaway can be an effective tactic for increasing your Facebook fans, especially when you’re in the early stages of building your community.  Offer exclusive promotions that are only available to your Facebook fans.  As an example, Ford unveiled their 2011 Explorer exclusively on their fan page, giving away a free Explorer to one lucky fan.  Their fan page reached 30,000 fans prior to the unveiling, and currently has more than 62,500 fans.

Additionally, consider creating a message calendar and planning your promotions in advance to maximize buzz for upcoming giveaways, contests, etc.  Make sure to advertise your upcoming Facebook promotions on your blog, website, email list, tv and print assets, in addition to your other social networks. This will ultimately increase participation as well as grow your Facebook fan base. 

While discounts and promotions are tempting incentives, 39% of users ‘like’ brands’ on Facebook simply to publicly show support for the company.  Essentially, your Facebook fans are your number one advocates - they promote your brand for you - at absolutely no cost! With word-of-mouth recommendations being the most trusted form of advertising, Facebook fans can have a huge impact for your brand.  

I was at an event a few weeks ago hosted by Blue Hornet and the speaker was talking about growing your e-mail list through multi-channel  techniques.

More specifically, how to use SMS to add to your e-mail list, and how consumers who subscribe via SMS tend to have higher value than consumers who register through other channels.

Some of the folks in the audience were unfamiliar with the concept and none had implemented it for themselves. It's easy to take this stuff for granted when you're managing SMS campaigns for major brands.

When I was out over the weekend, I saw a great example of SMS opt-in and figured I'd share (this isn't one of our campaigns). I think this example does a great job at illustrating how to tie POS materials (offline) with SMS (mobile) to build your e-mail list.

We have found this to be useful for our customers and I find it useful as a consumer.

Now if only my birthday hadn't just passed. I could go for a free scoop.

I just returned from SXSW Interactive (SXSWi) and was blown away by the scale of the festival. There were more than 15,000 people in attendance, looking to expand their knowledge around the Web, social and mobile (for the most part).

It would be impossible for me to summarize the entire festival for you, so here's the "what was trending" version with what you might have missed in the stream:

#1 Location-Based Services Stole the Show

For the first time in many months, something made more noise than Twitter among the Web crowd, namely Foursquare and Gowalla. While there are a bunch of location-based services (LBS) out there, SXSW Interactive was a showdown between Foursquare and Gowalla.

SXSWi was the perfect venue for LBS to take off, due to its geographic focus, large number of events and high concentration of early-adopters. I saw more people checking in on Foursquare than tweeting. Foursquare hit a new usage record at the show, with more than 347,000 check-ins in a day.

Every inch of Austin was checked-in to on one or both of these services during SXSWi, with attendees trying to take over mayorships on any piece of fictional real estate they could find. There's still some question over business models and monetization, but with usage levels like this, there remains a lot of potential.

Gowalla (a similar service) made a fair impact at the festival, but was overshadowed a bit by Foursquare's daily four square games, custom SXSWi badges, heaps of swag, and its star-studded party with the likes of Ashton Kutcher.

While there was a lot of buzz for Foursquare, you really need massive user adoption to make this stuff work. At a show with 15,000+ people, you're bound to have a friend nearby. To really make LBS stick, locations will have to start offering up incentives to people who check in (the most logical extension to all this stuff).

To quote Gary Vaynerchuk's keynote (see #3): "Why the heck would I check in somewhere? If someone gives you a f**king beer for checking in, you're going to check in."

It's true, once businesses start rewarding customers for their check-ins, services like Foursquare are going to explode in popularity (which is what happended when Twitter followers started to get hookups). I wouldn't be surprised to see Foursquare owned by somebody else by the time SXSW rolls around next year.

#2 Private Parts

The more people share online - such as where they're having lunch or who they're hanging out with at SXSWi - the more privacy becomes an issue.

Danah Boyd, Social Media Researcher at Microsoft Research New England, delivered the opening remarks at SXSWi, quickly launching into a mild attack on Google Buzz and Facebook for their recent, well-reported missteps regarding privacy. "Just because something is publicly accessible, it doesn't mean people want it publicized," said Boyd.

As more and more people take to lifestreaming, there's mounting concerns over the sharing of sensitive information. Boyd says she's never met anyone that really knew what their privacy settings were on any social site they use.

While on one hand brands want to open up the lines of communication with customers, they also need to consider any potential privacy implications.

There's a great write-up on Danah's keynote on Techcrunch here.

#3 Gary Vaynerchuk's Keynote

There had to be more than 1,000 people there to hear Gary Vaynerchuk have a conversation with the crowd. Gary is all about connecting with people on a personal level. He stood at the door and personally thanked everyone for attending the keynote (did I mention there were about 1,000 people in there?).

Gary has a no-BS approach to his presentations that reallly make you just want to watch him again. Bottom line? Most companies don't care and consumers know it. When companies even show they care a little, they get rewarded (Zappos is a perfect example).

For a great summary of the keynote, check out Andrew Mager's post on ZDNet. And in case you're wondering, he's got a mean four square serve too.

For a more coloful view into the keynote, you can watch it here. The quality's a bit shaky, but you can still get the content. Keep in mind, Gary's a brilliant speaker, but he does have a potty mouth (in case you get offended by profanity).

#4 Twitter Launches @anywhere

While Foursquare and Gowalla drove the buzz, Twitter still managed to get its share of the lime light. Unfortunately, a good part of the chatter revolved around how boring the keynote was, causing about half the room to leave before it was over.

Dissappointing keynote asside, the launch of @anywhere was significant. @anywhere is a new framework that enables developers to integrate the Twitter experience into their sites. Early @Anywhere partners include eBay, Amazon, Salesforce.com, Bing, Yahoo! and MSNBC.

For the full scoop on @anywhere, check out the official Twitter blog.

#5 Can You Digg It?

Almost launched in the midst of SXSWi was the announcement that Digg is getting a major overhaul. Digg CEO Jay Adelson made the announcement at the "Bigg Digg Shindigg" (love the name). The overhaul will include personalized feeds and the return of the Digg leaderboard. You can learn more about the new version (and sign up for the beta) at http://new.digg.com.

#6 QR Codes

There were QR codes (Quick Response code technology) on everything at SXSWi, from everyone's name badges to the fleet of Chevys on display. QR codes, a special type of bar code, are becoming more prevalent in advertising and product packaging. They provide an added way for consumers to interact with content, typically through a mobile device.

For example, if you used one of the QR readers (like I-Nigma for the iPhone) to scan an attendees badge at SXSWi, you were able to save the person's information. It was a cool way to exchange information, despite the experience being a bit slow. Look for QR codes to show up more and more (more on the SXSWi QR stuff here).

Checking Out

In conclusion, when all the hype dies down, everyone will remember this year's SXSWi as the kickoff of LBS for the masses. If last year was the year of "What are you doing?", this year will certainly be the year of the "Check-in".

Were you there? What was your favorite part of SXSWi? Let us know.

(Image Credits: Danah Boyd Art by amanichannel)

In a recent Sales Caffeine email newsletter from Jeffrey Gitomer, there is an article by Michelle Joyce on Making Transactions Memorable.  She had a pleasant experience at the McDonald’s drive thru in Huntersville, North Carolina, and summarized what made the transaction memorable.
 
These three simple steps can be considered website redesign tips to improve user experience at your eCommerce websites and in all your interactive marketing efforts.

1.  Start with a smile and engage your prospect in a friendly manner.  Would you do business with someone you didn’t like?  Well, neither would your prospect.  This guy made me like him – immediately.  When he made that connection, the transaction became enjoyable and personal.  It was all about me, not just my order. 

2.  Offer alternative solutions.  People want choices.   Don't assume that your customer is aware of them.  Uncover their needs and help them make a choice.  McDonald's already mastered the upsell technique with their famous line, “Do you want fries with that?”  What kind of additional features and services can you upsell?  What kind of additional revenue are you leaving on the table at every sale?

3.  End the transaction with something memorable.  When is the last time that a fast food worker told you to “drive safely”?  Usually, it is the perfunctory "thank you” and “have a nice day”; but this guy made me feel like he was genuinely concerned about my personal safety.  What are you saying to your customers that make them remember you personally?

Michelle ends by saying:  The reality is that people are still buying products and services in this economy.  The only question is "Will they buy them from you?"

Definition 6 is an interactive marketing agency that can help you make a connection to your users, whether customers or prospective ones.  We are experts in website development and custom application development.  Even though we are an Atlanta Ad Agency, we have clients across the US that we help differentiate themselves from their competition.

As social media channels become more and more powerful they also seem to become more and more varied, it feels like every day we learn about a new cool tool, as an interactive marketer, it can be challenging to figure out which one is the best fit for which marketing strategy. I read an article in Marketing Sherpa on how to use social media in a more effective way. The article gives specific examples from IBM on how they have combined social media strategy with traditional tactics for application development, event promotion and demand generation. I have highlighted here one of them, where social media was used to promote SOA’s events and tools. 

Social Media Marketing for Event Promotion and Lead Generation

IBM wanted to bring together the SOA community and generate leads for its SOA tools and solutions. So the Marketing team organized a road show that included 100 cities. To complement the traditional marketing methods of promotion for the event which included direct mail and one-to-one invitations, IBM used an animated 3D person on the SOA website, a Twitter campaign, blogs and a widget.

- 3D Animated Character

The animated 3D character was added to the SOA website, it walked with an invitation in its’ hand, when users clicked on the character or on the invitation they were taken to a registration page. Visits to the registration page increased by 600%.

- Twitter

Messages were sent on Twitter with a promo code, users that signed up with that promo code were allowed to talk directly with one of IBM’s CTO for 30minutes. Within 3 days, over 40 people registered in Amsterdam alone.

- Blogs

The marketing team blogged about the conference on multiple development oriented blogs. The buzz created around the event caused many developers to mention the conference in their own blogs, feeds, profiles… Customers even created Facebook and LinkedIn groups supporting the event. The buzz caused by the social media ‘add-ons’ increased their event registration by 10% at no cost to the company.

- Online Community

For connecting customers after the event the team used a third-party company to build an online community website called SOAsocial. They let the third-party host the community as the goal was to make it less company/IBM focused and let it grow on its own.

- Consumer generated content

They encouraged customers to take pictures at the events and post them on Flickr afterwards. This not only increased engagement through user-generated content, but it also helped the company save thousands of dollars on hiring a photographer.

- Widget

Since the attendees of the events were potential customers for the SOA tools. The marketing team built a widget that supplied the events’ presentations. The widget could be added to a blog, website or downloaded to a computer. The widget was driven by RSS feeds, so the company could push news and products demos to potential and existing customers. 67% of the conferences’ attendees downloaded the widget.

One of the “key lesson learned” for Interactive Ad Agencies is that social media is a channel and not a strategy in itself, it is most effective when used to complement other marketing initiatives, including offline and traditional marketing.

In recent years it seems as if E-Mail marketing has fallen by the wayside in light of emerging technologies and trends. Time and time again statistics have supported the profitability and legitimacy of E-Mail marketing, so it’s important to take a step back and see how E-Mail marketing is or more importantly isn’t, affecting your company.
Here are three questions to ask yourself or your marketing team in order to answer the bottom line; do we need to invest or reinvest in E-Mail marketing?

1) Have you forgotten about the basics?

In this new Web 2.0 world marketers are constantly scrambling to keep up with the latest trends, throwing money at anything deemed “cool,” “trendy,” or “popular.” At first glance new social outlets and advertising mediums may seem appealing, but sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace have short track records in terms of performance and viewership capabilities. These mediums aren’t poor investments by any means, but more often than not companies are blinded by the popularity of new social sites and forget about the basics of interactive marketing; E-Mail marketing. 
In one Forrester survey E-Mail more than 80% of businesses surveys achieved a significant return on investment - double that of most other marketing initiatives. I highly doubt any current social media site can boast 80% ROI satisfaction for use of their advertising and marketing platforms.

There’s a reason social media and Web 2.0 technology is called the “frontier” of internet exploration; IT’S UNKNOWN TERRITORY. If you’re hoping to catch the wave early and become one of the first settlers on the new frontier, be prepared to sacrifice quite a bit of blood, sweat, and treasure. A word of warning though for those looking to brave these mysterious, ever-changing virtual landscapes;  by the time you and other businesses jump on the bandwagon, the consumer has most likely started getting off to ride the new model bandwagon – the one that has three axels instead of two.

BOTTOM LINE: Like my great grand pappy use to say, sometimes the best things in life are the simplest things; E-Mail marketing may not be as flashy as a MySpace page, but 9/10 it will dole out a much larger reward upon investment.

2) Are you putting your data to good use?

For those already utilizing E-Mail marketing it’s important to take a step back and review your E-Mail marketing process. Do you simply click “send” every two weeks to blast your newsletter or promotion? One of the foremost reasons E-Mail campaigns fail or plateau revolve around the marketers lack of interaction, understanding, diligence, or experience analyzing and applying the data generated by their E-Mail campaign.  E-Mail is light years ahead of almost every other advertising medium in terms of accountability and tracking, the question is whether you’re leveraging this unique capability or not. With the ability to instantly review the results of your efforts, it’s important to analyze the outcome through multiple lenses rather than just a couple such as “E-Mails opened,” “conversions,” or “bounced rates.”

As a rule of thumb every time you receive the results of an E-Mail blast you should be changing at least ONE aspect of your next E-Mail strategy or design. It’s entirely possible to deploy E-Mail blasts without acknowledging the data and still receive a good response and return. As a marketer you need to apply the data you receive in order to run a GREAT campaign. Just because you’re running a “good” campaign with minimal effort doesn’t change the fact that in reality you’re really running a poor to mediocre campaign.
The most effective E-Mail marketing is an evolutionary process consisting of hours, and hours, and hours (and hours) of data compilation, review, and reform. If you or your marketing team takes performs no action other than clicking “send,” odds are you’re missing out on the true strength of E-Mail marketing; quick, intuitive, statistically supported campaign adaptation.  

BOTTOM LINE: We don’t live in a static world; neither should your E-Mail marketing.  

 3) Are you maximizing your dollar during the recession?

Marketing departments across the world have been laying off employees in droves. Even higher level management today is looking for any way possible to show their superiors that they add value to the company. What would your superiors say if they saw you could not only boost revenue but cut costs at the same time?
Marketing budgets have shrank, but thankfully E-Mail marketing prices have stayed relatively the same – cost efficient. Of all the advertising mediums both virtual and physical, E-Mail marketing is among the most cost effective with the privilege of being able to boast one of the highest ROI’s. A single print ad can cost thousands upon thousands after the cost of graphic design and ad-space. Instead of paying $10,000-$25,000+ for one month of magazine advertising, you can run a four month e-mail campaign which normally entails better audiences, conversion rates, and accountability. If you find the costs of traditional advertising to be exorbitant, it may be time to dust off the E-Mail marketing proposal and take another look.

BOTTOM LINE: As the great Benjamin Franklin once said, “A penny saved is a penny earned.”

So ask yourself:

1) Would it be beneficial to scale back on costly new-age technology investments in order to temporarily invest in more dependable marketing initiatives?

2) Would it be beneficial to engage in an E-Mail marketing discovery phase to see if you’ve truly been interacting with your campaigns and applying the data you find?

3) Would it be beneficial to divert your limited budget to more cost effective (and often times profitable) marketing venture such as E-Marketing?

 

As an interactive marketing agency, we deal in both the email marketing and the application development arena. Most of the time these two items go hand-in-hand. A company builds or enhances their website while marketing that website through emails, offering special deals, newsletters, subscription services and a variety of other services and products to its users. The combination of these can show impactfull and bottom-line results. But what often gets lost is auto-generated emails from the website or application. Marketing departments tend to create silos of activities, there's email marketing, and then there's website creation and management. Time and money is spent on creating an effective email marketing program that supports online activities. Auto-generated email should fall into this category as well.

There are various reasons this important form of communication get overlooked, but why are they important in the first place:

Branding - Any email generated from your domain represents your brand. Guess what, users aren't always left with an impression of your brand based on their website visit, they're often left with a confirmation, newsletter or subscription email based on their website activities. Why let that confirmation email negatively impact how you're perceived? It's just as important as that promotion email you're gearing up to send them next week.

Call-to-action - Auto-generated emails are often utilized to seek verification or ask users to continue the process started at the website.

Communication - If a user feels strongly enough about your website or your company in general, they're going to seek more information and allow you to keep in touch with them through automated emails. Keep them enganged and thinking about your products or services.

So where do most companies fall short? The biggest thing that we see is that auto-generated emails simply are not given much thought during the website enhancement or build process. As an afterthought, it will never be an adequate means of communication or engagment with your customers. Spend some time with the design. You spent time reviewing comps and making adjustments for various ESP's for standard email marketing initiatives, do the same for your auto-generated emails. ExactTarget provides a great reference for do's and don'ts conerning email marketing. Spend some time and follow as many best practices as possible. Make your calls-to-action precise and easy to comprehend (even 2 months later). Represent your brand, make sure your emails maintain company branding standards.

People tend to hold onto emails. Why not? Storage capacity is longer an issue at most ESP or client programs. If they're going to hold onto something that represents your business, make it worthwhile for them when they open it again 2 months later. It is still a representation or your company and they can still act on something you wanted them to previously. Don't be afraid to give auto-generated emails some love.

 

At our Interactive Ad Agency we continually help our clients make good decisions regarding their online media usage. Social Media, eMail Marketing, PPC/Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Display, Mobile and Video are just the headers of the variety of options available to us. But recently Twitter has been owning the headlines.

 

David Martin, vice president, primary research, Nielsen Online, wrote in a blog post: "People are signing up in droves, and Twitter's unique audience is up over 100% in March."

 

But today I was sent a great article from MediaPost about an online / microblogging / SMS option to reach the masses that might not be the techno elite, but make up the mainstay of consumer America. More spending power and more of the participants in creating UGC for all our social media sites. The company is called Predicto and it is very focused on the celebrity world, think People, US, The View, TMZ, etc. http://www.predicto.com/

 

Between October and December 2008, Twitter had approximately 812,000 unique SMS users, but Predicto Mobile interacted with more than 2.3 million unique users. "We have a mainstream audience, which can help us grow faster," Kathein said. "Our members aren't necessarily the early adopters. Our customer base isn't made up of heavy iPhone users."  The full article can be found at http://bit.ly/M1QQy

 

I think this a great example of how Interactive Marketing is very niche and how you shouldn't fall in love with one channel, because your users might be better served with another channel.

Social Media Strategy is one of the most interesting things we do here at Definition 6, Atlanta Interactive Agency.  The rise of Web 2.0 Applications as commonplace within our daily lives has made Socail Media mainstream.  Sometimes we are asked how can we use social medai to improve search engine optimization and other times we are asked how can make social media fit into an integrated online marketing plan.  But it is a daily topic of conversation and I've found a really good report from destinationCRM.com that talks about a 5 year forecast for social media. The key points from the author, Jessica Tsai citing Jeremiah Owyang, are:

The report breaks down the past, present, and future state of the social Web into five overlapping eras:

1. The era of social relationships: Beginning in the mid-1990s, people signed up for online profiles and connected with their friends to share information.
2. The era of social functionality: As it exists today, social networking is more than just a platform for "friending," but one that can support a broader array of what Owyang calls "social interactive applications." However, identities are essentially disconnected silos within individual sites.
3. The era of social colonization: By late 2009, technologies such as OpenID and Facebook Connect will begin to break down the barriers of social networks and allow individuals to integrate their social connections as part of their online experience, blurring the lines between networks and traditional sites.
4. The era of social context: In 2010, sites will begin to recognize personal identities and social relationships to deliver customized online experiences. Social networks will become the "base of operation for everyone's online experiences."
5. The era of social commerce: In approximately two years, social networks will be more powerful than corporate Web sites and CRM systems, as individual identities and relationships are built on this platform. Brands will serve community interests and grow based on community advocacy as users continue to drive innovation in this direction.

So if we are doing a good job of being Interactive Marketing Strategists to help prepare our clients for the "era of social context" and upgrading our customer's sites to incorporate OpenID and Facebook Connect today. This will help them meet their customers where they are and with what they are doing online today.  I'll talk more about being ready for your customer in some future posts.

I had an extremely interesting experience last week that forced me to undergo a thought exercise that I think can be extremely valuable for everyone to consider using on a regular basis. We all get so hung up in our particular expertise and the advanced nuances of our individual focus areas that we often fail to think about the basics and even more frequently we end up failing in our communication to others. My recent experience went something like this-

 

My wife came over to the Definition 6 offices along with my two year old daughter Mika to bring me some lunch. After lunch Mika began running around the office exploring a bit. I followed her as she ran into our main floor executive conference room. Now, I’m a bit biased, but for a child that just turned two she’s pretty impressively conversant with a great vocabulary. Here’s the conversation that followed:

 

Mika: What is this room?

Me: It’s a conference room.

Mika: What’s a conference room?

Me: It’s a room where people meet to discuss things.

Mika: Can I sit in one of the thinking chairs? (The “thinking chairs” reference is from her favorite show Blues Clues)

Me: Sure

Mika: What are we thinking about?

Me: Well, in this room we are usually thinking about interactive marketing?

Mika: What’s marketing, daddy?

Me: Hmmm… well, marketing is doing things that get other people to think a certain way, do certain things, or to buy things you want them to buy.

Mika: (thinks for a moment) I don’t understand marketing, daddy.

 

And there you have it. The question, my particular answer, and her response are in many ways less important than the thought exercise itself in my opinion. Try it yourself. Without thinking for more than a second or two, blurt out your definition of marketing as you’d answer it to a two year old. Try it again with “technology”, “managed services”, “open source”, “.NET”, etc. etc.

 

I’ve noticed in countless meetings how often people make assumptions about the level of understanding the audience has regarding certain terms or shared meanings. And also how often people throw around terms and concepts that they don’t seem to understand. I can’t count the number of people I have interviewed who list certain expertise and terms on their resumes only to be incapable of defining it in an interview. Go ahead- next time you interview someone lists the term “web services” on their resume ask them to define a web service, it’s components, and what exactly a web service does. You will be amazed and bewildered at the answers you receive.

 

Quite a few years ago when I worked at a different company and .NET first came out I recall the CEO asking via the discussion group email lists for people to explain to him the value of .NET. After dozens of convoluted and complex answers were offered he finally replied to all with the single line “Someone explain it me like I were two years old.” It’s not that he wasn’t an extremely bright and technical individual, he’s one of the brightest people I know. But it wasn’t until he asked the question in this way that people finally gave answers that culled things down to the key points and basic value.

 

Take this all for what it’s worth. I plan to run a lot more of my ideas and future presentations past my newly appointed diminutive advisor. There’s nothing like a two year old to keep you honest, accurate and off your high horse.

I was recently reading an article on Marketing Sherpa which was discussing their latest email marketing summit.  The article had a number of great insights on steps companies can take to improve their email programs.

The article served as reminder of how easy it is to become engulfed in the day to day or routine of your email program and how important it is to take a step back and examine the program as a whole.  Taking the time, even if it is quarterly or annually, to ensure that the email communications you are sending are both relevant and timely to your customer is imperative. 
Let’s take a look at a company within the retail industry; company A.  For years they have sent weekly emails to their customer list.  The weekly email is always composed of three offers.  Open rates are varied within a certain range, but are not showing any improvement as the program matures.  One cause of this lack of progress may be that the company has never taken a step back to evaluate who they are communicating to, why their consumer wants to hear from the company and how often this consumer would like to hear from them.   By answering these 3 fairly simple questions the company can begin to make program improvements.
1. Who are you communicating to?

This question is key to any successful email program.  It allows you to begin the process of segmentation at a base level.  Many times this data is a part of the enrollment process or may come from your CRM; some examples: is the customer a man or a woman, what is their age range, what are their interests (related to your products), do they purchase for themselves or for others, are purchases based on events (birthdays, anniversaries, etc), there are multitudes of questions you can ask which will help you to learn more about your customer. 

2. Why does the consumer want to hear from you?

Different customers are looking for different experiences with your brand.  Some may only want promotional communications – they only want to transact with your brand.  Other customers may be less interested in promotions and more interested in related lifestyle information.   Creating these differing communications and allowing recipients to choose which message they receive empowers the user and should improve both the short and long term stats of your program.

 

3. How often does the consumer want to hear from you?

How many lists is your customer signed up for?  How many emails are they receiving daily?  One way to ensure that you are not the list they unsubscribe from due to irrelevant and untimely communications is to give them the option.  Ask the consumer how often they would like to receive communications from you. This puts them in control.  When they receive a message from you, whether it is weekly, daily or monthly they have asked for that email and expect it.

By tackling the three issues above you can make great strides in your email program.  The main takeaways here are to know as much as you can about your customer – tailor your communications based on this information and to put the in control – allow them to “opt-in” not only to being on your list, but also to the frequency and types of communications they will receive.

 

Definition 6 Client Manager, Ira Gross, discovered an enlightening article in the Wall Street Journal around the impact of implementing overnight sends for email marketing newsletters.  The article mentions that companies who execute marketing programs in concert with their customers pay cycle are yielding better returns than performing promotions without paying attention to that cycle.  A few items worth mentioning from the article:

1. People buy bigger ticket items closer to payday
2. People spend less at the end of the month
3. Aligning promotions and offerings to pay cycles yeilds stronger sales

Given the current economic situation, firms need to understand their customers cash on hand and run appropriate promotions.  If you are running tartgeted email marketing campaigns, this article is definitely worth checking out.

An interactive advertising agency is in business to help its customers make more money at a lower cost than they did yesterday!  This meshes nicely with a Peter Drucker thought: "Because it is the purpose to create a customer, any business enterprise has two-and only two-basic functions: marketing and innovation." So if those of us in Interactive Marketing buy into this mindset, we are are at the epicenter of business. We are innovative marketers.

Let me give an example of what I mean. Let's say you come to your agency with the problem of losing sales leads when your customers come into contact with your retail partners floor sales staff. You have tried training programs, spiff, even eMail marketing Newsletters to stay top of mind with your partners. Unfortunately, they still often dislodge your customer from buying your brand and direct them to another brand. (you should confirm that you don't have a pricing or quality problem) How should you expect your Interactive advertising agency to solve this problem?

Some agencies will give you a better PPC plan, others will try on-line coupons, some might even talk about lifestyle content around your product via eNewsletters, but this is more of the same. An innovative partner will start with the simple question: "Why isn't your customer loyalty to your brand when the get to the store?" so they will solve the problem; "How to make our customers loyal before reaching the sales person". This is where innovation comes from, asking the root cause questions and not simply slapping tactic against the wall and hoping for results.

Getting prospects to "opt in" to receive more information at a website is a significant goal of interactive marketers.  They create content with strong calls to action, offer compelling reasons to offer up your email address and other information and vigilantly track and monitor opt in rates.  The goal often seems to be getting the opt in, not doing much for the prospect after wards.

As part of research I performed for a client, I opted in to several of their competitors websites.  Of the 5 sites I opted in at, 1 sent me a welcome message within a few hours, and emails fairly regularly thereafter.  Two others sent me an email within the first week, with sporadic communications since.  Two others, or 40% of my sample, have yet to send me anything - 2 months and counting.  Did my opt in take?  Do they have nothing to say to me?  So I ask this simple question, what should a firm do once someone has opted in?

It seems to me that a welcome email or some form of acknowledgment within 48 hours should be the bare minimum.  That email should welcome me to their communication channel, and perhaps even inform me what I should expect now that I have opted in.  Should I expect weekly communications or a monthly newsletter?  Special promotions or general information?

The firms I am receptive to send a welcome email almost immediately.  That is followed up with some form of "standard" email marketing piece within the next few weeks.  If that first real email marketing message shows the firm understands where my interests lay (i.e. what I was doing on their site when I opted in), I quickly start to look forward to their communications as they are viewed as relavent. 

When no welcome email arrives, and weeks or months go by without hearing anything, I feel duped and question what I was thinking when I opted in.  Those sites are not likely to get more traffic from me, and they are likely to be fodder at the next interactive marketing meeting on how to not engage your customers and prospects.  List building has a definite place, but going dark on an eager prospect is no way to grow a business, especially in these tough times.

So, if you have nothing to say, I would question having an opt in area on your website.  If you are doing simple list building, I would at least mandate a welcome email, and in that email I would set an expectation of sporadic communications.  Users will understand what you tell them.  But in the absence of telling them anything, the best you can hope for is that they will simply move on, and you will have missed a good opportunity with an interested prospect.  At worst, you might get called out in an interactive marketing blog as the poster child of how not to run an opt-in interactive marketing campaign.

I came across a great article yesterday on MarketingSherpa.com which summarized some very practical and useful tips on improving email opt-ins.  Below are 10 low-cost tactics collected from past MarketingSherpa case studies including how to’s on boosting referrals, establishing co-registration barters, optimizing registration pages and using offline channels for email address collection.

Low-cost Tactics for Opt-in Growth

 

1.     Increase incentive for referrals - offer a discount coupon to encourage your customers to recruit new opt-ins to their email newsletter and promotional messages

2.     Highlight relevance in co-registration placement - find relevant partners and present your offer in a compelling way

3.     Create co-branded sweepstakes – recruit partners to share the promotion with their own customers and in exchange, trade opt-in checkboxes on one another’s sites.

4.     Combat email address typos – conduct tests to capture email typos before they reach your database

5.     Test a delayed intercept for opt-ins i.e. test a version of on overlay that appears only after your visitor spends 1+ minute on the site.

6.     Test additional locations for opt-in checkboxes i.e. add them on higher traffic web pages

7.     Test small tweaks of registration form such as offer type, images, required fields, amount of information and submit button copy

8.     Use telesales and customer service reps to collect opt-ins – have your inbound call center representatives ask for email opt-ins during calls

9.     Print an opt-in URL on receipts for POS registrations – let customers enter their own information through a custom URL on a sales receipt

10.   Add change-of-email address form to site - place reminders throughout your site that ask customers to report a change of address.

 

Definition 6 leverages expertise in website integration, managed computer services, design, marketing and consulting to create solutions that help our clients increase revenues and reduce costs to build competetive advantage,

Mobile web is exploding into the marketplace which translates into new revenue opportunities, new communication mediums and innovative, new marketing opportunities.  Mobile Web is about discovering the right content whenever you need it, wherever you need it.

What We Deliver:
• A basic mobile site that leverages key content and applicable functions from your existing website
• Up to 20 content pages and basic functional features from your existing website such as store locator, newsletter sign-up, product look-up or other transactional functions

Contact us today to learn how we can design and develop a basic a mobile site that leverages key content and application functions from your existing website.  Estimated timeframe for delivery is 6-7 weeks.

According to the Mobile Marketing Association, 89% of companies use text and multimedia messaging to reach their audiences.  Nearly one third of those companies plan to spend more than 10% percent of their marketing budgets on advertising in the text SMS marketing medium.

Short Message Service (SMS) is a low cost way to reach a large number of your customers through a device that they are sure to always have with them.  You can reach your customers during those key times when they are out holiday shopping to promote special deals and offers – or you can insert coupon codes directly into your message so that your customers can redeem them in-store.

So how does Definition 6 help customers implement SMS as a low-cost solution to direct marketing?  We offer 1-way and 2-way SMS text message campaigns, leveraging your existing web applications using SMS as a front-end.  In just a brief 2-3 week engagement, we can deliver a landing page with an opt-in and sign up form, an interface to be used to send out SMS messages to registered users and all the necessary underlying infrastructure and services as part of a SaaS model.  For more information and to talk to someone on our Business Development team for pricing, please visit the Definition 6 Contact Us page.