What’s so Viral about Marketing?

September 27, 2006 | Blogging, Marketing, PR, Viral Marketing

Just recently, I wrote a blogger outreach strategy for a client. My piece was part of a larger "viral marketing" effort. Which got me thinking…..

What’s so Viral about Marketing anyway?

As my readers know, I hate buzzwords. We throw them around as though they mean something Important, mis-use them horribly and in the end they often mean nothing at all.  State-of-the-art. Yeah right. Web 2.0. Uh uh. Even our beloved Cluetrain is woefully abused.

Viral Marketing. Hmmm. Seems everybody wants to do Viral Marketing these days. It’s the new black. Or whatever.

But the more I think about this, the more I realize we are once again creating a monstrous buzzword and removing the meaning. Viral Marketing (note, with a cap M) is being equated with the tools we are using, not the messages we are sending. When in fact, it is the message that is viral, not the marketing tools themselves. A good (or bad) story about a good (or bad) product will spread no matter what. It’s just faster, more efficient and sexier when we use social media than the old way. You know, just talking to people in the (real life) community

MySpace. Second Life. YouTube. Blogs. They are communities, and if we want to market within them, we must learn and play by the rules. Just like in the real world. Or the members kick us out. As they should.

But you are not doing viral marketing simply by having a MySpace page, posting a video on YouTube, starting a blog or creating something in Second Life. It reminds me of the old Mickey Rooney/Andy Hardy movies, where the solution always seems to be  "Let’s put on a show." Nowadays, the "cool" solution is to do something "viral."

But guess what, campers?  You still need to cover the basics. Is this a good story? Who would be most interested in this story? How and where do we reach them? What do they want to know? How can we help them? Are we willing to give up control of the message?

That’s the deal breaker, isn’t it? Control. If you put the story to the community, you cannot control what it does with it. You can try, but  that is just as likely to halt the spread of the message as anything else. People don’t want to be used as corporate mouthpieces. They want add their own value as they pass it on, to feel like spreading the word is helping other members of their community.

So, remember: viral marketing (note the lower case) is all about a compelling story told to the right community. Get that right, and then get out of the way.

That’s viral.

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Other recent posts on this/related topic(s) you might enjoy:

The Dynamics of Viral Marketing (Eric Kintz, HP)

PR Meetup in Second Life (Kami Huyse)

Second Life (Todd Defren)

Text 100 Misses the Second Life Boat (Jeneane Sessum)

Tags: viral marketing

Confession

September 25, 2006 | Mathom Room

I admit it… freely.

Proof: My action figures ARE cherry!

Left to right: John Crichton, Farscape (Ben Browder), Spike, BtVS and AtS (James Marsters) and the Doctor (9,Christopher Eccleston and 10, David Tennant). Missing from photo: Aragorn, LOTR (Viggo Mortensen). He wouldn’t stand up

Tags: white and nerdy, science fiction, action figures

Pets, links and updates, September 22, 2006

September 22, 2006 | Blogging, Customers, Humour

My friend Yvonne DiVita has started a new blog devoted to pets called Scratchings and Sniffings. The blog is sponsored by Purina. Early days yet, but it seems to have struck a chord with pet lovers if the comments are any indication. Check it out!

Speaking of pets, don’t forget to check out the Gourmet Station Get out of the doghouse contest. 

Happy Belated Birthday to Mike Driehorst of Mike’s Points.  Mike asked for links for his birthday, which was Monday. Enjoy!

Updates on ongoing sagas

• Farscape still rocks.
• Good Technology still hasn’t bothered to reply to me or do something to alleviate the problem. And yes, we had our weekly Verizon user call for support. Do I wish these folks could make the connection that GetGood Strategic Marketing is NOT related to Good Technology? Absolutely. Do I understand how they get from a problem with a download link http://get.good.com to http://www.getgood.com? Absolutely. We are conditioned to add the www. So, to repeat: if you have a mobile phone and are having problems with the "get.good  file," calling GetGood Strategic Marketing will not help. You need to contact Good Technology at www.good.com. Please.
• Web site and blog redesign progresses. More in October.

And to start your weekend off right, do not miss this (first seen on Media Orchard and Just Shelley).

Tags: Scratchings and sniffings, Purina, Gourmet Station, Yvonne DiVita, Mike Driehorst, Good Technology, Susan Getgood, customer service

Farscape

September 19, 2006 | Mathom Room

I know I’m late… very late… to the party, but just gotta say it:

Farscape rocks!!

Tags: Farscape, science fiction

Flying Monday 9/17/01

September 18, 2006 | Mathom Room

Monday September 17, 2001.

I flew out of Logan Airport on my way to San Jose for a week-long business trip.

It must have been the first full day of "normal" flying out of Logan after September 11th.

It was one of the eeriest things I have ever experienced. Everything was "almost normal" even as it wasn’t the same at all.

The airport was virtually empty. The plane was nowhere near full, which almost never happens on a Monday morning. The few of us that were traveling talked to each other much more than usual, as though sound could dispel the unreality of flying on this day, from this airport.

I was on American Airlines, and you could feel the sadness of the clerks and flight attendants. And at the same time, they did their jobs as they always did, clearly using normalcy and routine as a coping tactic.

As I suppose all of us who were not personally affected by the 9/11 tragedy were doing at the time.

We all know where we were when we heard about the first plane hitting the first tower, just as previous generations remember where they were when Kennedy was shot.

This is my other most clear memory of that time in our collective lives — the departure lounge at Logan Airport on Monday September 17, 2001.

Video contests aimed at the younger set — Chevy and Gourmet Station

September 16, 2006 | Advertising, Marketing, PR

Last Friday (8th — I am VERY behind in my blogging), I learned about two video contests aimed at the "younger set," one from Chevy and the other from Gourmet Station.

Disclosure: my sources in both instances were women bloggers who were involved in the development of the respective projects, Nellie Lide for Chevy and Toby Bloomberg for Gourmet Station, and god bless them, they were asking for my opinion. Lucky for them, I’ve gotten my cranky post out of the way for today (see earlier "Forget Things Remembered"), so they don’t have to be too worried about getting what they wished for.

So, here’s the thing I find absolutely the most interesting thing about the two contests. Aimed at similiarly aged audiences — Chevy directly at college student, Gourmet Station at 20- and early 30-somethings, the approaches are very different. Now, of course, some of this can be laid squarely at budget. Chevy has lotsa bucks, Gourmet Station, not so much. In fact, the need to stay to a tight budget was acknowledged by the folks who developed the Get out of the doghouse campaign for Gourmet Station. 

Chevy’s contest asks college students to develop a TV commercial to "to reignite the love affair between Americans and Chevrolet."  It is supported by a standard format blog and a Web site. Chevy will produce the winning commercial and air it during the Super Bowl. Pretty cool idea. The PR effort used both the standard format press release, and a "social media press release,"  and you can read Nellie’s thoughts about that on the New Persuasion blog. Net: this contest is a good execution of a creative idea using a combination of new and old techniques, but it’s not revolutionary.

Still cool though and I’m very much looking forward to seeing the winning commercial since that’s the only reason I watch the Super Bowl anyway. Yeah yeah, I know, un-American. Your point?

Gourmet Station’s Get out of the doghouse campaign, on the other hand, is a grassroots marketing campaign. Folks are asked to create and submit YouTube videos talking about a time they were in the doghouse, and how they got out of it. The connection to Gourmet Station is the idea that a gift of a gourmet meal is one way to get yourself out. The contest site  is on MySpace and they’ve worked with comedians active on MySpace to attract a younger audience. Props to the company: they are also contributing to Borzoi Rescue as part of the program. So we’ve got a real revolutionary "smash-up" — YouTube, MySpace and Gourmet Station’s Web site.

I give Toby and Marianne Richmond, her partner in the project, credit for trying something truly new and definitely understand the desire to reach out to the MySpace audience. I  hope the MySpacers enter the contest. However, I find the site distracting and am not sure it does justice to the creative idea. The format is just too confining. Which is amusing, given how so many are using MySpace to express their individuality

I wish Gourmet Station had the budget to do a Web site for the contest that communicated the idea more clearly and effectively. They could still have used MySpace to engage the community, but not to tell the whole story. The MySpace site just feels too jumbled.

Now, I will be honest. I do not get MySpace. At all. Am I old and cranky? Perhaps. But it just doesn’t seem like an efficient way to convey information. It just reminds me of Web sites in the early days (94-ish) with or without <blink>.

My .02. YMMV. Possibly especially if you are younger :-) 

Registration for the Chevy contest is closed, but the Gourmet Station contest is still open until early October. Check it out.

PS: Good Technology still hasn’t contacted us about the phone number problem.

Tags: Chevy, Gourmet Station, grassroots marketing, viral marketing, social media, Toby Bloomberg, Nellie Lide, Good Technology

Forget Things Remembered

Customers

The store, that is.

You know, the ubiquitous customized gifts store found in just about every US mall. Why? Because it seems if they don’t sell it, they won’t help you find someone who does. Apparently, they just want you to buy the engraved gifts they sell….

Customer service at its very worst.

I went to the local store today to get some engraved plates for a trophy we are donating to our local Scottie club. I even lugged the trophy with me so we could pick the best alternative. The trophy base is an odd shape, so we needed a larger size than the store carries.

Well, they don’t do custom or larger plates AT ALL. When I asked where I could perhaps get something that would work, the clueless clerk said, maybe a trophy store. I asked if he knew of any local ones. "Oh no, we don’t know what the competition sells. Couldn’t tell you."

I certainly hope this was just a case of a stupid teenager on a Saturday afternoon. If instead, it is the company’s corporate policy to NOT help out potential customers when they don’t have the goods — ie it isn’t a competitive situation — then all I can say is, clueless. How hard would it be to have a list of local trophy stores that can handle the occasional oddball request? Not hard at all, I’d say.

They might even get an additional sale out of it. I was actually considering getting some small token to go along with the trophy that the yearly winner could keep. The trophy itself is a challenge trophy that must be won by the same person three times for permanent possession. I thought a small engraved ornament or something that the person could keep would be a nice keepsake.

I may or may not do that, but one thing I know for sure, if I do, I will not be purchasing it at Things Remembered. In fact, I doubt I’ll ever shop there again.

It may take me a bit longer and may not be as convenient, but if I need something engraved, I’m sure I can find somewhere else. 

Count on it.

Tags: customer service, Things Remembered

Growing up female

September 14, 2006 | Gender

Stone Soup by Jan Eliot 14 September 2006

God Bless

September 11, 2006 | Mathom Room

Web sites and newsletters and blogs, here’s why…

September 10, 2006 | Blogging, Marketing

In my post last week about redoing my Web site, newsletter and blog, I promised to write about why companies should consider all three tools in the marketing mix. Each performs a different role for the company; together, they tell the whole story.

Web site: Your Web site is your selling vehicle. It’s where you lay out your offering and value proposition, clearly, succintly, and yes, promotionally, for your target audience. Your goal is to take interested prospects and move them along the sales continuum to become leads and eventually closed business. For some products and services, and particularly business-to-consumer, the Web site does it all — interest to close. We buy online, and the Web site should make that as easy as possible. For most business-to-business offerings, the sale is more complex; the Web site’s job is to inform, entertain and yes, sell, the prospect so she wants to engage further with the company.

Your blog: If the Web site is where you sell, your blog is where you tell. But not about product features. The blog is about thought leadership, not full-on sales. It’s where you show your expertise in the subject, or talk to customers about their experiences, or explore ideas in your chosen field. It can help your community — customers and colleagues — understand you and your company, and certainly that can have a positive effect on your business. You might even get leads from it. But if it is overtly promotional, it won’t work. See above. That’s what the Web site does.

Done right, your blog is one way to bring people to your Web site.

But, blogs aren’t the right tool for everyone. If the company isn’t ready to engage with its community with honesty, it is better off NOT blogging. There are other ways to engage with your customers, and it is far worse to do something wrong or half-baked than to not do it at all.

By honesty, I do not mean lifting your skirts and showing all the goodies. No company can or should be totally transparent. Nor can or should people but that’s a story for another time.

Honesty does mean being clear about your intentions, the role of the blog, what you will and won’t share, and then sticking to it. And never lie. Mistakes can be forgiven, but lies are never forgotten. I also believe you have to walk the talk. If you come out in favor of something on your blog, your company’s, and your, actions had better be consistent. It’s okay to change your mind. It is not okay to say one thing and do another.

Enewsletter: Newsletters are the key to a good lead nurturing campaign. Not every prospect is ready to buy right away. You need to stay in front of them. Customers may buy something, or do a project, and then go silent for a while. You need to stay in front of them. But you don’t need to do costly direct mail packages to nurture prospects and customers. Save the big bucks programs for when you are trying to cut through the clutter at a trade show or build a list of new prospects from a purchased list. The people that already know you want information, not glitz.

Your newsletter is a regular drip feed of information that reminds them of your company. Most of the articles should be in the general area of interest represented by your products, but not explicitly about your products or services. It is perfectly okay to have articles about your products, announcements of new features, reports from events and so forth. But that should not be the bulk of the content. If it is, your prospects and customers will see right through you, and the effort will not have the intended effect.

For an example, check out Driving Sales Success, a newsletter I write for my client GuideMark. GuideMark implements CRM systems. The newsletter is about sales and marketing tips, the area of shared interest. We do mention the products and services, and from time to time, we have a product article. But the bulk of the newsletter is tips that any sales and marketing professional could benefit from, whether they use our product or not. 

I’m sure many readers will say that the blog can do all of this just as well, if not better. And that is true, if everyone you want to reach is a regular blog reader. Of your blog. The truth is, there are very few segments for, and very few blogs about, which this is true. Use of RSS is still less than 10% of Internet users last I checked. For most of us, the best way to be sure our prospects and customers are regularly reminded of us is with the enewsletter.

Here’s how I use the three tools.

My Web site is very compact — less than 10 pages. The goal is to get the prospect to take the offer of a free hour of consulting. I am planning some major changes to the content, which has been up for about two years, but the general goal will be the same. Tell them what we can do for them and let them try it out for free. Hopefully, what I do with the free hour will make them want to pay for quite a few more.

On this blog, I write about marketing, public relations and sales. In that this is also my business, the blog  is loosely associated with GetGood Strategic Marketing, however, I don’t market the business too strongly on the blog. I do regularly mention client projects, which of course has a dual effect - it spreads the word about the client, and illustrates what I do. When I redesign the blog, I expect to have a few more explicit links to getgood.com than I do now, but not too many more.

I firmly believe that this blog needs to remain a personal intellectual outlet and conversation among people of like (and sometimes not-like) minds, not an explicit marketing site. If my thoughts lead someone to consider hiring me, great, but I won’t change what or how I write in some attempt to turn the blog into a lead generation vehicle. All that said,  I believe that the blog has had a positive effect on the business and my reputation. It has certainly been a great conversation, and for that I thank all my wonderful readers.

On the other hand, my newsletter, Marketing Roadsigns, is explicitly linked to GetGood Strategic Marketing. All clients and prospects are added to the list automatically, and getgood.com hosts the archive of past issues. While I write about the same topics in the newsletter as I do on the blog, the newsletter tends to be more practical, covering evergreen sales & marketing issues like lead generation and customer loyalty. The blog, not surprisingly, is more reactive, timely and philosophical, although I do make an effort to give practical advice as well. For example,  this post. The newsletter also has a specific call to action; it reminds the reader of my free hour offer. Softly, but it is there. I’m also planning to promote my workshops more heavily in the newsletter this fall. Not in your face, but much more explicit than I would ever be on the blog.

About half my newsletter subscribers read the blog. For this reason, I try to put a significant amount of new or exclusive content in the newsletter. And half of my newsletter readers do not read my blog (or any blogs) with any regularity. Over time they will, but now, the way to reach them is through their in-box.

So, Web sites and newsletters and blogs… that’s why.
And coming this fall, a podcast. Oh my.

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Good Technology update: Still no word from anyone at Good Technology. Maybe we should keep track of the calls and emails, and send them a support bill?

Tags: Web site, Web sites, blog, blogging, newsletter, PR, public relations, sales, marketing, blog marketing, lead nurturing