In the ever evolving cat and mouse game of marketing, the spring loaded marketing message, popping out at you from the noise of everyday life has been one of the great constants.  Interruption marketing.

Now, with the evolution of search, and our constant old friend, need satisfaction, relevancy becomes the key.

With Google facing a ‘relevancy’ war with Bing in the results trenches, look forward to fallout on your own website. Both sides will be evolving their algorithms, and your rankings may be likewise evolving.  Some of the more well known tricks that raise ranking, but hurt relevancy may come under threat, including link farms, domain nurturing sites, hijacked keyword strategies, etc.  Would that be such a bad thing?

This takes me back to one of my previous posts, “SEO Tips and Tricks – Practical Advice“.

Digital Ministry – Are you relevant?

Tags: Marketing, SEO by admin
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I love great examples.  Even better when they demonstrate a good concept, that could have been so much greater.

The Good

Honda have taken a stance in the Social Interactive Media forum by creating an identity on Facebook, and opening some groups to promote their gear, lifestyle, financial services, etc.  Do a quick search for Honda on Facebook, and its one of the 500 or so groups dedicated to the Brand.  Fanboys and girls, dealerships, and people named Honda all orbit in that same universe.  In a nutshell, its not like they have total domination of their keyword, nevertheless …Kudos for joining the game.  Obviously, there’s a lot of love for Honda out there.

The case in point is the launch of their Accord Crosstour, a new crossover (CUV) car, as in, NOT SUV gas guzzling behemoth, but large family sedan with commanding driving position and luxury feel…  We can talk about rebranding later.  Launch is set for Fall 09 in the US.  About now.

The Bad

The unexpected result of this effort is that the car is getting ravaged on the facebook page. Comments are overwhelmingly negative about the look of the beast.  Shock Horror!  The vehicle and the brand are being ravaged on their own turf!  This is the nightmare of practically every marketing suit when it comes to this kind of effort.  But, this is also the great value of the effort – customer feedback!

The Butt Ugly

Yes, the car, er, rather ‘CUV’ is as ugly as a pan of fried butt.  Don’t take my word for it, have a look yourself.  When people accuse Honda of being as bad as GM when it comes to design, that’s some tough love. Apparently some rather timely tough love…perhaps a wake-up call.

OOPS!  Back to the Good!

What makes this so good is that this is what its all about on Social Interactive Media.  Feedback.  How valuable is this kind of feedback to the Honda Motor Corp US?  How will this impact production?  How will it impact advertising?  Next model year’s cosmetic update?  Not to mention Honda being in the news, on this blog, and in you brain as we speak.  This negative feedback will save them money.  What they do with the opportunity is something to follow, I reckon.

Oh no, back to the Bad…

One can only help but wonder how much more effective this effort would have been, if the facebook strategy had been applied in the design stage, if Honda had asked for input as opposed to approval of a finished product.

The lesson:  Social interactive media feedback is good, but better when you integrate it in the process so you can act upon it before everything is a done deal.  There is no such thing as bad feedback if you understand how to work with it.

Facebook | Honda Accord Crosstour

Tags: Marketing, Strategy by admin
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Still on the social media topic, the title says it all!

Has google page rank and Alexa ratings next to them…

Social Bookmarking Sites – All Of Them

Tags: Marketing, Trends by admin
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Social Networking is the buzz, and twitter is flavour of the (month, year, ???).  Regardless of your opinion, it certainly is a happening place, and considering the success and evolution of instant messaging one to one, this instant messaging, one to many certainly should catch your attention.

Here’s a great post on corporate tools to twitter.

Corporate Twitter Toolbox: Twitter Tools for the Enterprise

Tags: Marketing, Trends by admin
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Following my current theme of social networking, here’s a great list, with links, to 26 social networking sites, most of which are special interest, for all you niche marketers out there.

Social networking from A to Z

Tags: Marketing by admin
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100 voices blogging, tweeting and facebooking about the marvels of their free (for 6 months) Ford Fiesta.

A great test of Social Interactive Marketing.  My bet is that it will work.

Ford Bets the Fiesta on Social Networking | Autopia from Wired.com

Tags: Marketing by admin
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Back in the day, the issue was to humanise the cold world of cyberspace.

The social question of cocooning with your computer as opposed to socialising with “real” people and the basking in the warmth of human interaction.

Well, as the saying goes, sex sells.  Maybe images and allusions, maybe the real thing.  One particular segment of the Web2.0 world, interactive social networking and its cousin, Online Dating, seems to be selling well enough.  People are reaching out – profiling, polling their peers and publishing themselves.

The bills are paid by an advertising financed model, supplemented by subscription and/or fees for services where possible.

According to this article, interactive social networking and online dating is going to outperform Porno, a long time internet cash cow.  Make of that what you will – having visited some of the online dating sites, the boundary is certainly blurred.

So, what’s in if for me?

Every web strategy session these days begins with, “How can we make the site more Web2.0?”

In keeping with my theme, ‘show don’t tell’ here is an article listing 50 examples that might provide some inspiration. Keep in mind my three pillars of web2.0 – Community, Celebrity and Creativity.

Top 50 Innovations in Social Networking and Online Dating

Tags: Marketing by admin
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As interactive marketing professionals, we constantly hear about CRM, “Customer Relationship Management.”   The core of which is the database of prospects and customers.

Find out who they are, find out what they do and what they like, develop a brand relationship and increase the customer value through loyalty or other direct marketing activity.  Cradle to grave, if you’re good.

Our brief is to collect names and demographic detail, and often the measure of success is the number – more is better.

The process is to avoid is coming afowl of the privacy legislation when you reap, and avoiding becoming unsolicited bulk email when you sow.  So many old databases of customers and clients are now incomplete.  No email addresses, no ‘opt in’ validation.

Rebuild, Renovate, Reestablish.

Ok, no problem, this is bread and butter. But is it?  I received a number of emails from what might be considered the “3″rd biggest teleco in Australia with no unsubscribe option.  I gave them a call when I got the second one.  Small oversight, but it could cost big bucks per instance, so multiply by your list number and you get the idea.

But that’s small potatoes when it comes to ‘oversights.’  As you plow through your regulations, cross off your checklist of good eDM citizenship, don’t forget,  children are different.

If your product and your message is aimed at children, you have a whole different list of requirements.  Get to know them and make sure you don’t just take the “Standard” solution or you could end up in on the floor before the emperor and the dude with the big knife.

Sony Dinged $1 Million for Child-Privacy Breach | Threat Level from Wired.com

References:

Australian Association of  National Advertisers Code for Advertising  & Marketing communications to Children: http://www.aana.com.au/childrens_code.html

Spam Act of 2003 – Australian Government, Department of Finance and Deregulation – Information Management Office: http://www.noie.gov.au/ie

Tags: Marketing by admin
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Web2.0 seems to be finally de-buzzing.  Now we talk about social interactivity, online community and user generated content, which makes me a lot more comfortable. But, people are still missing the point.

Calling it Web2.0 is like talking about something that’s going to be, but already was.

From the beginning, the web was about community.   Sharing, collaborating, coalescing.  Sure its evolved a bit from the days when it was exclusively populated by American military command and control geeks, and Ivy League physics professors passing research coast to coast. We might say its gotten a bit more common, fair enough.  The ‘community’ has grown, and the tools for interaction have gotten a bit more advanced than the original bare bones hypertext markup language, BBS systems and FidoNet.

So, what makes such a buzz about web2.0? 

With so many interactive developments, critical mass played a part.  We common folk (professionally known as ‘users’) caught onto the idea that they could push into the sphere, as opposed to simply passively

[Read more →]

Tags: Marketing, Strategy by admin
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With all the force and energy behind web2.o and other customer engagement strategies, the key is getting the user to sign up.  Overcoming the ‘hunter vs the hunted’ reluctance. The conversion.

This is an interesting article on what makes a good sign up page.

Turtle Interactive · The Art of the Sign Up Page · Innovative web sites, blogs and web applications

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