Marketing Virgin

I will be in Pittsburgh and NYC for work this week but I will be back in time to celebrate Halloween with my closest friends.

In other words, my posts may suffer for the next few days.

Have a great week!

This election has been the most interesting to date for those in marketing. Both campaigns have done a great job of utilizing every medium possible to get their message out. From Facebook to Twitter, it is easier than ever to follow your favorite candidate.

Check out this cool beta site that allows you to support your candidate in a whole new way: http://www.kronomy.com/index.php?a=27.

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On October 30th, MarketingSherpa is offering a free teleconference to discuss how the economy will affect email marketing.

 Topics to be covered include:
- How to get aggressive
- Offering real benefits
- Segmentation for everyone
- Designs for reality
- Looking overseas

Sign up for it here.

On Saturday, my niece (who happens to be my favorite person in the world), turned 2. Happy Birthday Peanut!
Love,
Aunt An-di-da

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I thought the keynote presentation at the Texas eMarketing Summit was interesting. Here is a brief synopsis of the case study:

Background: HP was preparing to launch a $5,500 personal computer. In an age where PC’s typically sell for $500-$1,000, they knew they were facing an up-hill battle. Scott Ballantyne, HP’s VP General Manager, teamed up with Buzz Corps, a company that specializes in word-of-mouth marketing.

HP and Buzz Corps launched a new program titled “the 31 Days of the Dragon” where they picked the top 31 blogs that follow HP. They contacted each blogger and invited them to give away one of the new $5,500 computers to their readers. The bloggers weren’t told how to give it away - it was entirely up to them. The only stipulation was that they had to give the PC away on a particular day of the month that HP assigned to them.

Results: For 31 days, 31 bloggers promoted their contest. Traffic to these blogs increased by triple-digit percentage points. HP saw website traffic increase exponentially while sales for the $5,500 computer soared well above previous expectations.

For a minimal investment, HP was able to have phenominal results.

I recently heard about a really cool new beta site. Glassdoor.com allows employees to rank their current and former companies. In addition, you can provide feedback on the CEO and Senior Management.

This can be very helpful, or dangerous, to a company. Another great example of how difficult it is to manage social media.

It’s no secret that videos rank high in searches, especially YouTube, which is owned by Google. Search the word “Doritos” and you will find two videos that rank #4.

Make sure to use this to your advantage by optimizing your viral videos.

Tips:
-Make sure to include HTML content that describes the video
-Embed a video on your website - make sure the resolution is 640×480 pixels
-Include the <title> and <meta name = “description”> tags so that search engines can accurately find and categorize your video
-Customize your YouTube page - make sure your company brand shines through

Alternatives to YouTube: Vimeo (for HD video), Google, Yahoo

I attended InnoTech annual eMarketing Summit yesterday at the Austin Convention Center. This was my third year to attend and I believe it was the best to date. Naturally, the hottest topic centered around social media.

I thought this was funny…what does “blog” stand for?
Answer: “Better Listings On Google”

Over the next few days, I’ll share a few tips I’ve learned. Now, let’s start with website design… Read the rest of this entry »

We just completed our first annual customer Symposium in Germany last Friday. The event was a huge success and we’ll repeat our efforts next year. I learned a few tricks in the process…
1. When presenting to an international audience, speak at a 5th grade level and at about 70% of your usual speed.
2. If you distribute a survey that has a rating scale, keep the following in mind:
-United States: 1 is the worst, 10 is the best.
-Europe: 1 is the best, 10 is the worst.
3. Package your event as “educational”. Companies in Europe tend to put heavy emphasis on continuous improvement.
4. Travel budgets are tight - make sure you go to the highest concentration of customers, or choose a city that is easily accessible by air and rail.
5. Dinner often doesn’t begin until after 8PM. Read the rest of this entry »