~ Steve

I’ve done it and I’m sure you have too - getting sucked into a TV infomercial. A lot of times those infomercials are pushing products we don’t need or would ever consider purchasing under normal circumstances. Even so, they have a funny way of pulling us into their world and placing us in a trance-like state of attention. More than once I’ve convinced myself that I absolutely NEED that product they’re selling. Yet after actually purchasing the item, I realize that I was wrong and the thing I thought I couldn’t live without is collecting dust in the corner of the garage.

That being said about TV infomercials, how can we get people to stop and take notice of our other direct marketing efforts with the same level of fascination? What tactics are used in TV infomercial marketing that we can borrow and use in direct mail or eMarketing?

First, let’s take a look at what those infomercials are really selling. Sure they’re selling products, but more importantly, they’re selling core beliefs and values. Infomercials tap into the emotional and psychological needs of people and present products as a way to fulfill those needs. Take skin care products for an example. In a majority of infomercials promoting skin care products, like acne solutions or wrinkle creams, we hear people describing their embarrassment or feelings of being self conscious around peers, etc. That’s the problem that the infomercial is trying to solve, not the actual condition of their skin. The products presented strengthen values and feelings like good self esteem, inclusion amongst a group, happiness, and so on.

Another tactic used by infomercials is getting testimonials from ‘real people’ just like you and me. They know that people connect with other people-we like to sympathize and we trust what our peers say. This tactic is similar to using a word-of-mouth marketing approach. In many infomercials we hear variations of, “I couldn’t believe how great that product worked for me. It can work for you too.” We latch on to benefits experienced by real-life people. We want those benefits too.

Going a step further, infomercials support real-life testimonials with endorsements from professionals or experts. If a doctor is attesting to the validity of the product then it MUST be true, right? Between you and me, I don’t really know where they get these experts or if they’re even qualified. Yet, we want to believe it’s true and we take their endorsements as another encouraging reason to buy.

Next, infomercials often compare their product to another similar product on the market. The focus is on the defects of the competitor’s product versus the wonderful benefits of the one featured in the infomercial. This is called differentiation. They try to answer the question, “Why is this particular product better than the one I already have?”

After drawing you in by solving an emotional or psychological need, describing all the great benefits of the product and featuring glowing reviews from trusted sources, the next step is to sweeten the pot with value-added, limited-time promotions. For example, that wrinkle cream will come with a tube of mud mask made from only the purest Egyptian soil so exclusive that not even celebrities can get their hands on it. However, this fifty-dollar gift is yours for free when you buy the wrinkle cream within the next ten minutes. It’s a little bit of a pressured sale, but it gets people to make a snap decision now. The probablility of a sale is greater when the viewer sees the product right in front of them. Then the infomercial is gone from the screen, so is the potential for a sale.

Once the infomercials get viewers this far down the sales funnel, the only thing left to do is make it easy for them to take action. They provide viewers with clear instructions on what needs to happen next-call now, act now, pick up the phone, etc. Big, bold phone numbers and web addresses are pictured on the screen.

There are probably more parts of infomercials that I can mention, but these are the most common. Let’s review these tactics that are easily transferable to direct mail and eMarketing:

1. Tap in to the emotional and/or psychological needs of your audience. Make the product or services you’re promoting on your direct mail piece speak to these core values: safety, acceptance, self esteem, financial freedom, ultimate happiness, etc.

2. Provide testimonials and endorsements from your customers or colleagues. Let your customers tell potential prospects how easy it is to work with you or how your product/service changed their life for the better.

3. Highlight your product’s or service’s factors of differentiation. Let your prospects know what makes you or your service different from all the others that are available.

4. Create a sense of urgency. You can create urgency by offering a gift while supplies last, a limited-time promotion, or by referencing a timeline. For example, real estate agents can let their prospects know that the best housing prices are available now and that situation will change when the market rebounds.

I urge you to take time to examine infomercials and study the types of tactics they use to get people to act. You may be able to use some of those tactics in your direct marketing campaigns.

Thanks for listening,

Eric

Here are some surprising famous ‘failures’ that eventually found success.

Albert Einstein, considered as one of the most important scientists of the 20^th century and recipient of the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics, was kicked out of school due to poor grades. “Einstein, you will never amount to anything!” proclaimed one of his educators.

Thomas Edison was told by teachers that he was ‘too stupid to learn anything.’ He produced 1,000 unsuccessful attempts before creating the first working light bulb. When asked how it felt to fail so many times, Edison answered, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Michael Jordon, arguably one of the best basketball players in NBA history, was dropped from his high school basketball team due to ‘lack of skill.’

College drop out, Steve Jobs, was fired from his own company (Apple) at the age of thirty. He was eventually hired back and is considered to be responsible for the revival of Apple, the comeback of Mac computers and development of the ridiculously popular iPhone.

Keep in mind that without hardship and failure, we could not fully appreciate the joy of success.

Do you have a story of failure that led to a great success?

Looking forward to hearing your stories of greatness!

Steve

Using email as a marketing tool is becoming more and more popular. According to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA), marketers spent approximately $500 million on commercial email marketing in 2007. That figure is projected to rise to $1.2 billion in 2012-a statistic that hints to the importance and effectiveness of email marketing.

So, for some of you marketers that are just starting to integrate emails into marketing campaigns, I thought I would go over the basics of good and effective email design. For those already using email as a marketing tool, call this a refresher course.

WHY EMAIL DESIGN MATTERS
Any communication from a business, including emails, is an extension of brand. The tone set by email design represents part of the brand’s story. Furthermore, design conveys a great deal about you, the email’s sender, and the email’s purpose before the recipient reads any content.

Another reason to consider-effective email design is not necessarily a subjective element. Design affects how email platforms filter, categorize and display messages. Understanding design in these terms will help you improve deliverability and ROI.

We’ll get into the subject of email content filters later. For now, let’s talk about the five parts of an email that could use some focus.

ANATOMY OF AN EMAIL
Email design is not solely confined within the main body of a message. Good design starts before a recipient even opens and views the content contained within an email message. Following are the five parts on an email as viewed by the recipient:

THE ‘FROM’ NAME
The ‘From’ of an email tells the recipient about the sender. Typically, it’s also the first field recipients see when viewing all the emails collected in their inbox. Having a clear and recognizable name will prevent an email from being immediately deleted by the recipient.

SUBJECT LINE
The subject line of an email is the second chance for marketers to make an impression on email recipients. It’s also the second chance recipients have to decide whether they want to open or report an email as spam. So, use this space to brief the readers about the content that they can expect to find within the email body. Be clear and to the point.

PREVIEW PANE
Many email platforms, like Microsoft’s Outlook^® and Google’s Gmail^TM, display messages for recipients in preview panes. A preview pane allows recipients to take a sneak peek look at the email’s contents. Often, only a portion of an email is visible via the preview pane-a few inches of the email’s top portion when viewed in a horizontal preview pane or a few inches of the left side of an email when viewed via a vertical preview pane. Therefore, critical information such as a company logo, offer or call-to-action button should be placed as close to the top left of an email as possible to accommodate preview panes.

AN OPENED EMAIL
Once a recipient opens a message, they are presented with the content that makes up the body of the email. However, many recipients do not immediately see the entire contents of the email message. Initially, recipients see content that resides above the fold. The term ‘above the fold’ refers to the content seen before viewers need to scroll. This area’s dimensions depend upon the viewer’s screen resolution, which varies. According to ClickZ, 60% of people viewing emails only see or read 50% of the message. Some of this is due to much of an email’s content residing below the fold.

THE FULL EMAIL
Marketer’s that have guided viewers beyond the four steps as listed above are ahead of the curve. The real test is in how viewers engage with the full email. First and foremost, marketers should make the full body of the email easy to navigate and include relevant content. Remember that there is usually a limited amount of time that a reader will spend with an email, so be to the point and relevant.

So, when thinking of what you will say or how you will design your email message, give each of these five parts equal consideration. Think of how you open and view emails. You can learn from other marketer’s mistakes and good choices.

That’s it for now. I’ll be back soon with more eMarketng tips and tricks. Have a wonderful day!

Best,

Steve

Our guest blogger today is Dude Spellings, eMarketing Program Manager of our information technology team. Dude explains the difference between direct mail lists, email lists, and the ramifications of not following best practices for generating lists associated with email campaigns.

Enjoy,

Steve

The most effective contact lists for email marketing are permission-based, home grown lists. They take longer to develop but can be more reliable and may offer higher ROI. Although there are email lists available in the industry, it is not wise to acquire a list of random email addresses and start sending marketing materials like you can with direct mail. Even with direct mail, an effective marketer would never use a list of random recipients. With direct mail, effective marketers are qualifying recipients by geographic location, home value, family demographics, income, previous purchases, by having an existing business relationship, etc. A random list of email addresses (which is what lists of unknown origin really are since you have no way of knowing how the list was compiled) usually doesn’t have any of those qualifiers and will thus perform very poorly.

Using lists from unreliable sources and choosing to email to unknown recipients can actually have multiple negative impacts such as:

Damage to your brand/goodwill as recipients associate your company with unsavory marketing practices. Recipients who get unwanted email from your company will label you in their mind as a spammer and they will get angry with your company. Think about how you feel when you get an email from someone you don’t know trying to sell you something that you don’t want. Most people feel as though this is an invasion of privacy. Do you want your company associated with that? If you have worked hard to build a brand that your customers recognize and trust, you probably don’t want to jeopardize that brand equity you have worked so hard to earn.

Degradation of deliverability as internet service providers and email providers mark your emails as spam and filter them from being delivered to recipients’ inboxes. This will even affect the deliverability of completely legitimate emails, such as transactional emails, to existing customers, partners, and/or employees. Once you are labeled as a source of unwanted emails, you will not be able to deliver ANY emails very effectively. Note that I use the term unwanted emails and not spam. The reason for this distinction is because a company may be thinking, ‘we are not spammers because we don’t send email about Viagra, or losing weight, or the Nigerian lottery, etc.’ But, the reality is that spam is simply an email that people do not want, regardless of content. The systems in place today, allow users to mark any email as spam, and then the ISP’s and email providers monitor what kinds of emails users are marking as spam. If enough users (and it’s usually a low threshold) mark your emails as spam, the ISP’s and email providers will start blocking all of your emails. So in reality, all it takes is one bad list to get all your emails blocked.

Damage to your readership, open and conversion rates. Even if your list contains recipients with whom you have an existing relationship, sending unwanted or unsolicited emails dilutes the potency of your marketing efforts. It becomes exactly like the boy who cried wolf - people start to associate you as a sender of unimportant and uninteresting emails. So, they’ll start to just delete or ignore your emails. Think about how you manage your inbox - almost everyone knows someone who is constantly forwarding chain emails and gimmicks. If you are like me, you learn that certain senders’ emails are not worth reading because they never contain any information that you want, so you delete them without even opening them. You may even create a rule that deletes them automatically. Because email marketing is so inexpensive, we tend to think, ‘Wow! You mean it costs nothing to send a million emails? The more the better!’ But, this misses the point of email marketing. The point of email marketing is not to blanket your message to everyone with an email address. The point of email marketing is to establish a trusted relationship with customers who are interested in your product or service and tailor messages specifically for that recipient so that they feel your emails add value to the relationship. In other words, there has to be something of benefit for the recipient. The better job you do of keeping your lists full of people who want your emails, the better results you will see.

Similarly, you should try to identify exactly what your customers want and try to accommodate them in your email marketing efforts. Most people view their inbox as a highly personal part of their lives. Because of this, email marketing inherently needs to have a one-to-one feel. Large, impersonal and unfocused email blasts that just hope to snag a couple new customers out of the many emails that were sent obviously will lack this one-to-one feel, and are thus ineffective. But what is worse is that habitually sending these kinds of emails will damage your effectiveness for more targeted and effective email campaigns and will ultimately damage your brand. Effective email campaigns start with a list of recipients who want to receive emails from you and/or are known to be interested in your products and services. In addition to that, your emails need to stand out without using gimmicky language that people have already identified in their mind as spam (i.e.: using phrases like SAVE Thousands! or FREE Offer! in the subject line). In other words, your email cannot look like a form letter because people are already trained to spot such tactics and ignore them. Your offer needs to be something that people look forward to opening in order to establish a habit of readership among your recipients. If you never offer anything that people want they will eventually stop opening your emails and/or unsubscribe from your lists.

One might say that these tips do not apply to lead-generation emails. I would disagree and suggest that these facts reinforce the notion that email marketing is very different than direct mail and must be executed differently. It doesn’t mean that you cannot use email for lead generation, but it does mean that you must know something about your target audience in order for lead generation to be effective. Email marketing is all about relevancy. You can not be relevant to recipients in a lead-generation campaign with a list of email addresses that you know nothing about and, therefore, will be unable to make the messages relevant to each recipient. The more you know about your recipients, the more effective you will be. If you know nothing about your recipients, your results could be worse than ineffective. You could alienate potential customers and do damage to your brand.

Email marketing can be very effective, but just like anything else you have to work at it. It’s not a panacea for dwindling sales and will not replace direct mail. It should be used in conjunction with direct mail and/or as a supplement to it, not in place of it. As I have described above, email marketing inherently has a different kind of audience and requires a different approach. Using email marketing just like you use direct mail will not produce the results most people are looking for.

I hope this clarifies the difference between direct mail lists and email lists for you.

Take care,

Dude

eMarketing Program Manager

By looking at the latest data recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau, the average head of household is only six months away from 50. And, within the next five years as the number of households grow, 80% of those new households will be headed by people that are 55 and older. “That’s great,” you say, “but why does that matter?” Well, a large portion of that age group tends to spend more on services rather than on goods. They also become more sensitive to potential risk factors and will evaluate based upon price. So, marketing messages reaching these groups may be more effective when value, guarantees, and experience associated with a product or service are stressed.

Other age groups to take a closer look at are that of 35 to 44 and 45 to 54 year olds. Combined, these groups account for 49% of total U.S. consumer spending. Why? Well, of the other age groups, these two groups have the largest number of married couples with dual incomes - money to spend and families to spend that money on. According to projections, these groups will not grow at the same rate as the 55 and older age group. In fact, house holds headed by 35 to 44 year olds will decrease by 4% in the coming years. House holds headed by 45 to 54 year olds will also decrease, but by 1%. So, as these groups that account for almost half of total U.S. consumer spending shrink, where will U.S. spending come from?

Future spending growth will need to come from the older age groups as described above or from younger households. This younger group has different purchase-drivers and motivators than head of households that are 55 and older. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics surveys, the 26 million households headed by age groups that are 35 or younger will direct their spending to a variety of consumer goods rather than services.

There’s much more demographic data available through governmental and private sources that examine age groups, income, spend, and regional trends. Here at QuantumDigital, we offer extensive demographic selection lists as part of the direct mail order process. We know that as marketers understand these trends and demographic clusters, they can refine their marketing message to better connect with their target audience and increase the possibility of response. So, my advice to entrepreneurs and businesses is to utilize demographic data when developing your marketing messages and plans whenever possible.

Best,

Steve

Two different packages consolidate direct marketing efforts for real estate agents in the form of all-inclusive online ordering solutions for cross-channel campaigns

AUSTIN, Texas - July 15, 2008 - QuantumDigital, the complete online service provider for direct mail, on-demand digital printing and eMarketing solutions, today announced the launch of two real estate industry-specific service packages for its growing customer base of major real estate companies and individual agents. These new packages are being introduced in conjunction with six new direct marketing service packages to complete QuantumDigital’s streamlined companion marketing platform. For real estate agents, this new offering compiles everything needed to market services and listings, consolidated in a single online location.

The real estate marketing packages make navigating QuantumDigital’s direct marketing portal easier and ultimately allow real estate agents to spend more time on selling - instead of marketing logistics - by using features like AutoMail and the scheduled mailing feature (”set it and forget it marketing”), enhanced demographics to target local markets and new email marketing with real estate-specific templates. These features, along with guaranteed next business day mailing and delivery service, put agents using QuantumDigital’s system one step ahead of competitors that can often take days to order, print and mail pieces like “Just Listed or Sold” cards.

“With over 20 years of experience serving the real estate market, we recognized that our customers often felt overwhelmed with finding lists, running to the post office, getting house flyers printed and finding an email service that was designed for the real estate professional in mind. Our customers are looking for a more comprehensive, yet simplified, marketing solution,” said Eric Cosway, CMO of QuantumDigital. “By offering these new packages and the most comprehensive set of tools available, QuantumDigital customers can target their audiences more closely than ever before and do it all from a single online account.”

Company Specific Real Estate Programs - This type of package is ideal for agents affiliated with major real estate franchises such as Century21^®, Long & Foster^®, Keller Williams^® Realty, RE/MAX^®, Coldwell Banker^® and many others. These packages offer access to company-branded portals and company-approved marketing materials where agents can produce all elements of their direct marketing campaigns, including multiple demographic selections, personal list upload features, complimentary access to residential lists and creative card templates specific to their local markets. These programs help agents use the strength of their real estate franchise’s brand equity to build new business and retain leadership in their local marketplace.

Real Estate Power User - This is a customized marketing program for real estate professionals who may not be part of a corporate-branded program. Users of this package have individual logins and a marketing portal featuring direct mail services with access to real estate specific creative designs, the ability to upload their own creative designs, multiple demographic selections, personal list upload features and complimentary access to residential lists. Other features include a scheduled mailing feature, full access to on-demand printing services and new real estate specific eMarketing templates.

About QuantumDigital

QuantumDigital, Inc. is the complete online service provider for direct mail, on-demand digital printing and eMarketing solutions. Founded in 1986 in Austin, Texas, QuantumDigital has pioneered several advances in the industry including on-demand printing and next business day delivery. Businesses of all sizes and direct marketing needs can trust the high quality, competitive pricing and fast turnaround that QuantumDigital’s proven technology offers. For additional information on QuantumDigital, please visit www.QuantumDigital.com.

Media Contacts:

QuantumDigital

Jamie Klemcke

Marketing Director

Phone: 512-617-2320

Email: Jamie_Klemcke@QuantumDigital.com

Jamie Larson

Blanc & Otus PR

Phone: 512-372-6654

Email: jlarson@blancandotus.com

QuantumDigital’s tiered marketing packages help make cross-channel companion marketing campaigns easy to implement, convenient and successful

AUSTIN, Texas - July 15, 2008 - QuantumDigital, the complete online service provider for direct mail, on-demand digital printing and eMarketing solutions, today announced the launch of six new online direct marketing service packages: three single-user packages designed for marketing individuals and three multiple-user packages designed specifically for businesses with distributed sales networks and field associates. The new packages make navigating QuantumDigital’s direct marketing portal easier and ultimately allow users to spend more time on marketing strategy, instead of marketing logistics.

A recent report from Forrester (Forecast: Global Enterprise Marketing Platforms: 2007 To 2013) written by senior analyst Suresh Vittal supports the fact that marketers are demanding powerful tools that are also easy to use. Vittal states, “Marketers want a more comprehensive application to make marketing more efficient, simplify measurement of results, and, most importantly, improve the customer experience,” all of which QuantumDigital’s new packages help address.

“Previously, our marketing portal was very powerful, offering marketers the most comprehensive set of tools available, but users were often overwhelmed ,” said Eric Cosway, Executive Vice President and CMO of QuantumDigital. “These new packages streamline the process, do most of the work for the user and ultimately make the experience easy, fast and highly effective.”

Single User Packages - ideal for entrepreneurs, home office professionals, marketing professionals or any individual conducting a direct marketing campaign.

• Quick Start Package - this solution offers no monthly fee and features direct mail and on-demand printing capabilities. With mailed campaigns, customers have complimentary access to residential lists, standard and jumbo (8.5″ x 5.5″) postcard formats, can upload their own designs or have access to a library of customizable pre-designed templates. Customers can print materials for next business day turnaround.

• Professional Package - the professional package adds access to QuantumDigital’s eMarketing platform, which includes 1,000 emails per month and offers reporting and tracking capabilities.

• Power User Package - this package has the added benefit of a customized marketing dashboard with access to more mail formats, advanced demographic choices and automated (or scheduled) mail.

Multiple User Packages - suited for franchises, small to medium sized businesses, enterprises, real estate franchises and distributed sales networks.

• Small Business Package - this solution is ideal for small businesses that may have offices in multiple locations with the need for multiple logins as well as basic direct mail needs such as standard and jumbo postcard formats, up to six custom template designs and automated mailings.

• Premier Business Package - the premier package is for companies with multiple locations that have more employees with direct mail needs than that of the small business package. The customizable template design is increased to twelve in this package, as well as the addition of panoramic postcard formats (5.5″ x 11″), scheduled mailings, many different demographic list selections and personalized training and guided tours of the program.

• Enterprise Business Package - this fully customized solution combines direct mail, on-demand printing and eMarketing capabilities to help maximize direct marketing campaigns and work with existing ad builder portals, CRM and accounting back-end systems for hundreds or thousands of users.

About QuantumDigital

QuantumDigital, Inc. is the complete online service provider for direct mail, on-demand digital printing and eMarketing solutions. Founded in 1986 in Austin, Texas, QuantumDigital has pioneered several advances in the industry including on-demand printing and next business day delivery. Businesses of all sizes and direct marketing needs can trust the high quality, competitive pricing and fast turnaround that QuantumDigital’s proven technology offers. For additional information on QuantumDigital, please visit www.QuantumDigital.com.

Media Contacts:

QuantumDigital

Jamie Klemcke

Marketing Director

Phone: 512-617-2320

Email: Jamie_Klemcke@QuantumDigital.com

Jamie Larson

Blanc & Otus PR

Phone: 512-372-6654

Email: jlarson@blancandotus.com

I recently read an article that describes many marketers’ recent shift in focus from customer acquisition programs to customer retention programs to help strengthen business and maintain profit in these ‘tough’ economic times. As noted in the article, marketers historically follow this pattern when the market slows because the ‘core audience tends to stay loyal and sustain the business especially through those downturns.’

The article made perfectly good sense from a numbers standpoint. However, it got me thinking about the big picture regarding how companies treat consistent customers. Shouldn’t loyalty programs be a standard throughout the life of a business, not only when they’re experiencing slumps in revenue growth?

As one person in the article states, “It’s about creating experiences and recognition with programs versus just making (loyalty programs) a plastic card inside a wallet.” Ultimately, loyalty programs are about honoring customers that keep on coming back and showing them value in the services and offers that your business provides. It’s about making each customer feel like a valued individual important to the success of that business. That could include superior customer support, a simple and unsolicited ‘thank you for your patronage,’ an unexpected reward or unique promotional offer.

I remember a time when business didn’t need to come up with ‘special programs’ to thank and celebrate their customers. It was just a part of practicing good, honest business all year long. Isn’t that how it should be?

Referenced article: Bush, Michael. “Marketers Put Emphasis on Loyalty.” Advertising Age^®, July 09, 2008

Identifying what your brand is and ensuring that it drives everything that your business does is imperative to building your business and retaining long-term, loyal customers. Consistent, quality experiences will help your business maintain customers even during tough times or a misstep.

Apple does an amazing job at building a brand that has gained a sort of cult following. Whether you’re a fan of Apple or not, it’s difficult to deny the power of their brand-building efforts. In fact, a 2008 brandchannel.com survey revealed Apple to be the most influential brand, the brand most likely to revolutionize the branding industry and a brand that survey participants say they can’t live without.

So, the question is, what are some things we can all learn from Apple?

Well for one, they’re great at tapping into the psychological and emotional reasons as to why we buy. Rather than the product being the hero in the story, they position the person using the product as the hero. Take their early iPod^® commercials. There were no mentions of the product’s technical specifications, dimensions, capabilities, etc. The commercials just featured silhouettes of people dancing with such energy against a vibrant, single color background. That energy and youth is what became associated with the product. Again, it wasn’t directly about the product, but the people. During that time in the industry, there were plenty of other manufacturers that were making similar products. Upon looking at the specs, some people would argue that those other mp3 players and portable digital music players were even better than the iPod because they were smaller, had more features, and worked on multiple platforms rather than just on Mac computers. But the iPods still won people over and continue to do so because Apple focused on something that the others did not - the emotional value.

Next, Apple is consistent about making experiences, especially with technical things, easy. They strive to make technology accessible to everybody. That’s part of their brand. A consumer using their products, walking into one of their retail stores or browsing their website can expect a similar experience. Fire up a Mac computer for the first time and you’ll see a short series of simple questions. Before you know it, set up is done. Walk into an Apple retail location and visit their Genius Bar, a place where experts are standing by to answer any product questions you may have. Online, there’s plenty of simple and easy-to-understand tutorials. They’ve embraced this goal, to make technology easy and accessible, and made it a driving force in everything they touch. When building a brand for yourself or your business, this point is essential. Make sure your employees, your partners and customers are clear on the guiding principles of your company. Make sure those principles permeate everything you do.

I hope this entry shed some light on the power of branding for you. Be sure to read over the comments provided to brandchannel.com from their brand survey. For the survey results and analysis, click here.

Until next time,

Steve

We’ve all participated in it one way or another. Although it now has a professional-sounding name and has been generating buzz in marketing circles the last few years, it’s actually a very old form of marketing that’s been around for centuries. It’s called viral marketing.

Viral marketing is an advertising technique that uses pre-existing social networks and common behaviors to spread an idea or marketing message. One form is word-of-mouth marketing. Someone has an experience with a product or service, then tells a couple of friends about the experience. Those friends tell four more and so on. That example captures the essence of viral marketing. The goal for marketers, though, is to increase brand awareness, promote a product or service, disseminate an idea, or boost sales.

In this digital age, viral marketing is becoming much more exciting, sophisticated and entertaining. Marketers can use the internet, emails, podcasts, blogs, videos and more to generate buzz and get people talking. Take, for example, the recent buzz around a video, originally posted on YouTube^TM, of a ball girl at a minor league baseball game that jumps an incredible six to 10 feet up in the air to catch a ball. She’s standing far back in left field watching it as it approaches. As it flies over her area, she runs and jumps high into the sky to catch it. Afterward, she casually tosses the ball to a nearby player.

For days people flocked to YouTube, and still do, to see this amazing video. Even here in my office, coworkers forwarded each other links to this video clip. Finally, after some research, it was discovered that the video was not ‘real’ but a viral marketing campaign for Gatorade^®. The word about this campaign spread through local social networks, then local sports news coverage, to the national news and even on shows like “Good Morning America.”

So, was this campaign successful? Sure. It got people talking about Gatorade, even those that are not big sports fans or sport’s beverage drinkers. The video received over 2 million views on YouTube and has been the ‘most shared’ video on other video-sharing sites like Break.com. Outside of website statistics, I’m sure links to the video have been forwarded via email a countless number of times.

The great thing about viral marketing is that companies have the potential to reach a large number of people without having to spend a great deal of money on a campaign. It takes just a bit of creativity and a little spark to turn it into something really big.

“Ball Girl” produced by Element 79 Partners, a Chicago area ad agency.

For other viral marketing examples, click here.

Until next time,

Steve