The launch of the “extra strong” Marmite XO shows an excellent dialog between product and its most loyal and passionate consumers. Here’s the overview slideshow. Here is how to create a set of passionate evangelists for your product:
Secret #1 Extend an invitation. Give your loyalists the opportunity to reveal themselves. If you’re not sure who your most passionate consumers are, invite them to tell you, via social media. Surveys are all well and good, but a chance to upload a quirky video or photo of your pet with the product in question is priceless.
Secret #2 Consistency, consistency, consistency. The whole campaign is richly Victorian, from creative to the “Marmarati” event, even while it’s very 21st century. They surely could have thrown a simpler and less expensive event for the “first circle,” but they knew the more special these folks felt at the start, the more loyal they would be.
Secret #3 Exclusivity. The reward for being a product evangelist should be truly special. They should be given privileged access, such as the private Facebook group. More privilege makes them even greater experts in comparison to the general public and therefore better advocates for your product. If you let them have a hand in determining it (like letting the Marmarati discuss different formulations of the product or the design of the container) you can forge a stronger-than-steel bond.
Secret #4 Make it easy. Have your content easily postable on whatever social media your audience uses—and encourage them to do so.
Secret #5 Engage. Talk, respond, ask questions, offer kudos. Reward and acknowledge what your evangelists are doing for you. For every tweet you respond to, countless customers are watching. And isn’t that what social media is all about?
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
The Strategy of the King
I just read a great wrapup of the recent SxSX Interactive conference from Adam Schwabe. Since I was unable to attend, I really appreciated his overview, which hopefully will tide us all over until next year.
At any rate, one trend he mentioned is an increasing emphasis on content, and the rise of the content strategist:
We’ve always made pretty bold proclamations in this industry that Content is King, but it really hasn’t been. Content is all too often considered as an afterthought after wireframes and design comps have been presented to and approved by the client. Relegated to boxes as placeholders and Lorem Ipsum, too many of us take a “do it later” approach with what is most important to the user. People aren’t visiting your site to look at colours and boxes, they’re there for a purpose, and the content should be at the core of any design.
It's true: in the past I was often called in to apply content after a design was already locked in place, or (slightly better) asked to create content at the same time as the design so as to keep timelines short.
The "insert content here" approach may occasionally be expedient, but I'm excited to hear that content strategy is being recognized as important. And I confess the content strategist role is also fun. When "Content is King," a site can more easily achieve its goal of brand engagement, sales leads, etc. Long live the King.
At any rate, one trend he mentioned is an increasing emphasis on content, and the rise of the content strategist:
We’ve always made pretty bold proclamations in this industry that Content is King, but it really hasn’t been. Content is all too often considered as an afterthought after wireframes and design comps have been presented to and approved by the client. Relegated to boxes as placeholders and Lorem Ipsum, too many of us take a “do it later” approach with what is most important to the user. People aren’t visiting your site to look at colours and boxes, they’re there for a purpose, and the content should be at the core of any design.
It's true: in the past I was often called in to apply content after a design was already locked in place, or (slightly better) asked to create content at the same time as the design so as to keep timelines short.
The "insert content here" approach may occasionally be expedient, but I'm excited to hear that content strategy is being recognized as important. And I confess the content strategist role is also fun. When "Content is King," a site can more easily achieve its goal of brand engagement, sales leads, etc. Long live the King.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
MarketMix and Another Reason To Skip the Ugly
Just got home from an interesting MarketMix conference. Overall, it was great: good conversations, lots of idea sharing, a sense of camaraderie. Compared with a certain current client of mine, it was a breath of fresh air to hear things said like "Reward failure." This quote was from Tom Vogl of REI, suggesting that experimentation and innovation need to be encouraged. Yes, we all need to pay attention to ROI, but new technologies and even optimization have learning curves.
There were some low-lights: the first breakout session was taken over by folks who didn't seem to even have a Twitter account (the session was about PR and Social Media). While that's fine, my humble request is to keep your lips shut and just listen, if you're that new to this. However, I still felt the panelists kept things moving and I did get something out of it, namely, that what your instinct is about doing PR via SM is correct (message to the right audience, stay relevant, etc. etc.)
I met some great people--and I'm fairly shy, so that's really saying something. The surprise hit of the day was Tom Douglas (yes, THAT Tom Douglas, our local food celeb). He's a terrific speaker, and while his talk was all over the place, was not in "marketing-ese" it was wonderful hands-on, full of his examples and humor. I had very low expectations, and he instilled me with civic/regional pride (as did Vogl of REI). His political leanings showed occasionally (re: healthcare, buy local, etc.) and these meshed with my own, so of course I'm a little biased.
At any rate, let me wrap up with the new reason to say no to ugly marketing (see my previous post). Tom Vogl used Nordstrom and Costco as local examples of online/offline integration (national presence with brick-and-mortar retail stores, so similar to REI). Costco was an example of what not to do: hideous website, not usable, all the most useful tools were buried. He compared that to Walmart--while not local, I'd argue a similar value prop and target consumers. The Walmart site was clean, easily navigable, and still on-brand. See folks? It can be done.
There were some low-lights: the first breakout session was taken over by folks who didn't seem to even have a Twitter account (the session was about PR and Social Media). While that's fine, my humble request is to keep your lips shut and just listen, if you're that new to this. However, I still felt the panelists kept things moving and I did get something out of it, namely, that what your instinct is about doing PR via SM is correct (message to the right audience, stay relevant, etc. etc.)
I met some great people--and I'm fairly shy, so that's really saying something. The surprise hit of the day was Tom Douglas (yes, THAT Tom Douglas, our local food celeb). He's a terrific speaker, and while his talk was all over the place, was not in "marketing-ese" it was wonderful hands-on, full of his examples and humor. I had very low expectations, and he instilled me with civic/regional pride (as did Vogl of REI). His political leanings showed occasionally (re: healthcare, buy local, etc.) and these meshed with my own, so of course I'm a little biased.
At any rate, let me wrap up with the new reason to say no to ugly marketing (see my previous post). Tom Vogl used Nordstrom and Costco as local examples of online/offline integration (national presence with brick-and-mortar retail stores, so similar to REI). Costco was an example of what not to do: hideous website, not usable, all the most useful tools were buried. He compared that to Walmart--while not local, I'd argue a similar value prop and target consumers. The Walmart site was clean, easily navigable, and still on-brand. See folks? It can be done.
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
3 + 1 Reasons to Just Say No to Ugly Ads
Hot topic of late: ugly marketing. Every direct marketing knows how ugly pieces get response. Heck, even the local news knows it: if it bleeds, it leads. We’re all as fascinated by the “ugly” side of human lives, especially when “beautiful” celebrities do something “ugly.” But we don’t do that sort of thing, do we? We are better marketers than that, right?
But then one random Tuesday, you see the responses from that ugly DM piece that slipped past the brand police and suddenly there it is: temptation. What a great response! What will happen if we do it again? More leads. More revenue. More profits. Brand? Who needs brand when we can get our fingers wrapped around that bubbling bucketful of oodles and oodles of LEADS?!
Ahem. Sorry. Got a bit carried away for a moment. And lest you get carried away yourself, I’ll give you a few good reasons to just say no:
1. Three words: Un. Sub. Scribe.
In a recent example of ugly-love, an ugly lead-gen email was sent out (a resend of an old email), and the sales floor became giddy over all the leads they received. However, the unsubscribe rate was better than TWICE what it normally is.
2. Getting to home base.
Or lack thereof. You need to build a relationship with your would-be customers as well as your current customers. I liken virtually all marketing to dating: you meet a smart intellectual on the first two dates, then smarmy gold-chain-chest-hair guy on the third? Yuh, there won’t be a fourth.
3. I feel pretty.
We’re marketers. We’re collectively responsible for that barrage of messages that we ourselves experience every day. We know that these messages work, but whenever we use them, we lower the standard just a little bit. And our world becomes even more cluttered by ugly old yuck.
4. Would you do it if the queen were watching?
In other words, are you a little ashamed of the piece? Would you be proud to share it in your portfolio? Not every piece is a masterwork of design and copy, but we must strive.
But then one random Tuesday, you see the responses from that ugly DM piece that slipped past the brand police and suddenly there it is: temptation. What a great response! What will happen if we do it again? More leads. More revenue. More profits. Brand? Who needs brand when we can get our fingers wrapped around that bubbling bucketful of oodles and oodles of LEADS?!
Ahem. Sorry. Got a bit carried away for a moment. And lest you get carried away yourself, I’ll give you a few good reasons to just say no:
1. Three words: Un. Sub. Scribe.
In a recent example of ugly-love, an ugly lead-gen email was sent out (a resend of an old email), and the sales floor became giddy over all the leads they received. However, the unsubscribe rate was better than TWICE what it normally is.
2. Getting to home base.
Or lack thereof. You need to build a relationship with your would-be customers as well as your current customers. I liken virtually all marketing to dating: you meet a smart intellectual on the first two dates, then smarmy gold-chain-chest-hair guy on the third? Yuh, there won’t be a fourth.
3. I feel pretty.
We’re marketers. We’re collectively responsible for that barrage of messages that we ourselves experience every day. We know that these messages work, but whenever we use them, we lower the standard just a little bit. And our world becomes even more cluttered by ugly old yuck.
4. Would you do it if the queen were watching?
In other words, are you a little ashamed of the piece? Would you be proud to share it in your portfolio? Not every piece is a masterwork of design and copy, but we must strive.
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