(by 17 people)
The marketing and advertising industry is changing rapidly. Businesses are expecting more from their agencies, and consumers are expecting more than just products from the brands that they choose. It's not enough to sit back and deliver a message anymore. Consumers are telling us what they want, and those who listen are those who will succeed. Entice your customers to come to you and interact with your marketing message by creating content that people choose to experience.
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Brand Immersion
Brand immersion is the act of integrating your brand into your customer's lifestyle.
It's becoming evident that consumers show preference for brands that engage them on an emotional level. The overarching construct of brand immersion is creating content that people choose to experience. Provide your customers with the kinds of content that they find useful, stimulating or entertaining. By providing this sort of content, you are encouraging your audience to interact with your brand on their own terms. This process allows a connection to form on a real level unparalleled by traditional advertising. One of the best ways to immerse your customer in your brand is to create two-way communication. Encourage participation in the form of feedback, game play, viral marketing and word of mouth marketing.
Immersive campaigns are designed around your customers life patterns. This means that you encourage user participation on an ongoing basis, through multiple platforms in many scenarios. This might mean incorporating mobile, web, print and in-store interactions that all function as integral parts of the same campaign. Create a continuous flow of information from your brand to your audience and back again. Todays audiences are hungry for great content, and they have a deep need to feel that they belong. An intelligently designed immersive campaign offers them both of these things. And what the brands who provide it get in return is of enormous value. They get a consumer who believes in their brand. This generates word of mouth ambassadors, viral marketing effects, positive buzz surrounding the brand, and repeated and prolonged brand exposure.
It's becoming evident that consumers show preference for brands that engage them on an emotional level. The overarching construct of brand immersion is creating content that people choose to experience. Provide your customers with the kinds of content that they find useful, stimulating or entertaining. By providing this sort of content, you are encouraging your audience to interact with your brand on their own terms. This process allows a connection to form on a real level unparalleled by traditional advertising. One of the best ways to immerse your customer in your brand is to create two-way communication. Encourage participation in the form of feedback, game play, viral marketing and word of mouth marketing.
Immersive campaigns are designed around your customers life patterns. This means that you encourage user participation on an ongoing basis, through multiple platforms in many scenarios. This might mean incorporating mobile, web, print and in-store interactions that all function as integral parts of the same campaign. Create a continuous flow of information from your brand to your audience and back again. Todays audiences are hungry for great content, and they have a deep need to feel that they belong. An intelligently designed immersive campaign offers them both of these things. And what the brands who provide it get in return is of enormous value. They get a consumer who believes in their brand. This generates word of mouth ambassadors, viral marketing effects, positive buzz surrounding the brand, and repeated and prolonged brand exposure.
Mobile Video Contest
This is a contest that I am currently running on my blog.
Please go to blog.heavybagmedia.com for complete information and submission instructions.
This contest will be open to anyone who wishes to submit between April 20th and 5PM ET on May 5th.
The guidelines are as follows:
1. All video must be submitted in QuickTime format (.mov). I will handle the final compression to 3gp for the cell phone.
2. Videos must be under two minutes.
3. Videos must be under 8MB.
4. Videos must be designed for small-screen playback (eg. no small text, etc.) legibility on a smalll screen will be a factor.
(Note: Videos may be, but do not need to be created on a cell phone, just designed for the cell phone.)
All videos submitted that meet the guidelines will be offered for judging.
First prize will be a $50 Amazon gift certificate. Second prize will be a $25 Amazon gift certificate. Prizes will be awarded based on the results of the website poll.
This contest will be open to anyone who wishes to submit between April 20th and 5PM ET on May 5th.
The guidelines are as follows:
1. All video must be submitted in QuickTime format (.mov). I will handle the final compression to 3gp for the cell phone.
2. Videos must be under two minutes.
3. Videos must be under 8MB.
4. Videos must be designed for small-screen playback (eg. no small text, etc.) legibility on a smalll screen will be a factor.
(Note: Videos may be, but do not need to be created on a cell phone, just designed for the cell phone.)
All videos submitted that meet the guidelines will be offered for judging.
First prize will be a $50 Amazon gift certificate. Second prize will be a $25 Amazon gift certificate. Prizes will be awarded based on the results of the website poll.
iPod as a Marketing Channel
I've been blogging a lot lately about mobile as an emerging marketing channel. Lately I've been thinking about the iPod, and how underutilized it is. Here we have a somewhat standardized platform, with content delivery pretty well worked out. Content is still filtered through apple, but it's not a "walled garden" like the mobile carriers. It's relatively easy to make your content available. The iPods ship with a few games and simple applications on them. I've found a couple of people out there who are developing new ones. A company called ZappTek makes some business apps, one adds PDA functionality to your iPod, another makes it capable of displaying PowerPoint presentations.
According to a February 2005 survey from The Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players, 29% have downloaded podcasts.
I believe the iPod has huge potential as a marketing channel. It's being utilized to some extent, through podcasts, but what else can we do with it? Brand entertainment comes immediately to mind. What sort of people use iPods. Can we target content to them somehow based on the music that they listen too? Apple has added this sort of functionality to iTunes. What about branded iPod games? Interactive video? Multimedia iPod add-ons. Technically speaking, all of this stuff is possible. Point is, it seems like there's so much potential, and so little focus.
According to a February 2005 survey from The Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than 22 million American adults own iPods or MP3 players, 29% have downloaded podcasts.
I believe the iPod has huge potential as a marketing channel. It's being utilized to some extent, through podcasts, but what else can we do with it? Brand entertainment comes immediately to mind. What sort of people use iPods. Can we target content to them somehow based on the music that they listen too? Apple has added this sort of functionality to iTunes. What about branded iPod games? Interactive video? Multimedia iPod add-ons. Technically speaking, all of this stuff is possible. Point is, it seems like there's so much potential, and so little focus.
Viral Marketing in Practical Terms
A brief summary.
Viral marketing can be an extremely effective form of word of mouth marketing. The process involves crafting a message that is designed to be propagated by its recipients.
One key to success in viral marketing, like other forms of WOM marketing, is to gain access to key influencers within your target audience. Influencers are individuals or groups of individuals who are opinion leaders and trend setters who have the ear of a significant audience.
Once you have identified the influencers in your market, you can craft a message that these influencers will find valuable enough to pass along to the people that they have influence over. A great way to make your message easy to pass along is to design it in an electronic format, such as an email or a web page that can be easily forwarded. Text messaging is quickly becoming the preferred method of communication, surpassing email in some demographics. The next wave of viral marketing will be largely focused in the mobile market.
Whatever the medium, the message itself is the cornerstone of a successful viral marketing campaign. The message can be entertaining, educational, attention grabbing, but most importantly, your message must engage your audience on an emotional level. It is vital that you capture the interest, imagination and excitement of your audience. Study your audience; what can you present that will reach them on a deep level? Is it a goofy video that will make them laugh, an informative email concerning a topic that is important to them?
Natural evolution is an important part of the propagation of a viral marketing campaign. Viral marketing is so effective because the message is being endorsed by piers and influencers, rather than simply being broadcasted by the marketer. As consumers become more savvy, we must seek new ways in which to reach them. We need to start thinking "consumer in" rather than "company out." Viral marketing answers the need to present consumers with content they choose to experience.
One key to success in viral marketing, like other forms of WOM marketing, is to gain access to key influencers within your target audience. Influencers are individuals or groups of individuals who are opinion leaders and trend setters who have the ear of a significant audience.
Once you have identified the influencers in your market, you can craft a message that these influencers will find valuable enough to pass along to the people that they have influence over. A great way to make your message easy to pass along is to design it in an electronic format, such as an email or a web page that can be easily forwarded. Text messaging is quickly becoming the preferred method of communication, surpassing email in some demographics. The next wave of viral marketing will be largely focused in the mobile market.
Whatever the medium, the message itself is the cornerstone of a successful viral marketing campaign. The message can be entertaining, educational, attention grabbing, but most importantly, your message must engage your audience on an emotional level. It is vital that you capture the interest, imagination and excitement of your audience. Study your audience; what can you present that will reach them on a deep level? Is it a goofy video that will make them laugh, an informative email concerning a topic that is important to them?
Natural evolution is an important part of the propagation of a viral marketing campaign. Viral marketing is so effective because the message is being endorsed by piers and influencers, rather than simply being broadcasted by the marketer. As consumers become more savvy, we must seek new ways in which to reach them. We need to start thinking "consumer in" rather than "company out." Viral marketing answers the need to present consumers with content they choose to experience.
Some links to some cool places online
- heavyBlog
- Heavybag Media's blog. This is a forum for our staff, clients and associates to generate concepts, express opinions and just gib-jab in general.
- Heavybag Media
- This is the company that calls me "boss" My husband and business partner, Dennis and I started Heavybag Media four years ago. Dennis has a film and video background while I focus on interactive and screen design. We both have backgrounds in marketing and advertising. When we met it was like the fireworks went off, both personally and professionally. We've been happily living and working together ever since. Heavybag now has eight full-time employees along with a rotating staff of freelancers and hangers-on. Everyone who walks through the door wants to work for us!
- Robotube Games
- Makers and purveyors of the finest mobile games in town. Also one of our subsidiaries, and our partner in crime in the mobile marketing arena.
- NFW Watches
- One of our clients and the coolest watch around. We did all of the branding and design work for their product launch.
- Style Boost
- A great place to check out some awesome websites.
- The Mobile Marketing Association
- As we delve deeper into the world of mobile marketing, we look to the MMA website for information and guidance. They have a wonderfully organized site with lots of great information.
- WOMMA
- The word of mouth marketing association.
Mobile Marketing or:
How you can always be by your customer's side
Mobile marketing is just starting to catch on in the US, while our European friends have had a bit of a head start. New marketing channels don't emerge often, and this one is a biggie.
Though still in it's infancy, mobile marketing is gaining momentum. There's not another channel that keeps you hooked into your customer as constantly as mobile. Mobile marketing utilizes a complex mix of multiple technologies, marketing techniques and design principals.
According to a 2006 study by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) over 38% of US subscribers play mobile games on their phones. About the same number use text messaging. Nearly 12,000,000 subscribers participated in a TV or radio poll via SMS. These numbers are staggering considering that mobile phones currently outnumber land-lines in the global marketplace.
Technologies such as WAP push, TXT triggers, short codes, SMS, MMS and WAP sites will all play a key role in mobile marketing initiatives. Designing for a tiny screen is also a challenge. For instance, on a traditional web site, links are commonly placed along the top or left side of the screen. In a content-rich WAP site, links need to be placed at the bottom of the page so that once an end-user has scrolled through the content they can navigate to the next page. Graphics need to be super-small to be loaded efficiently.
Mobile content delivery, both free (promotional and branding) and paid (content as product) are seeing a rise. This is due to the formation of relationships between carriers and content delivery aggregators. This process has been unfolding a bit quicker in Europe than here in the US, but we're catching up quickly.
Overall I think 2006 will be a landmark year for mobile marketing. Check back for updates and new information.
Though still in it's infancy, mobile marketing is gaining momentum. There's not another channel that keeps you hooked into your customer as constantly as mobile. Mobile marketing utilizes a complex mix of multiple technologies, marketing techniques and design principals.
According to a 2006 study by the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) over 38% of US subscribers play mobile games on their phones. About the same number use text messaging. Nearly 12,000,000 subscribers participated in a TV or radio poll via SMS. These numbers are staggering considering that mobile phones currently outnumber land-lines in the global marketplace.
Technologies such as WAP push, TXT triggers, short codes, SMS, MMS and WAP sites will all play a key role in mobile marketing initiatives. Designing for a tiny screen is also a challenge. For instance, on a traditional web site, links are commonly placed along the top or left side of the screen. In a content-rich WAP site, links need to be placed at the bottom of the page so that once an end-user has scrolled through the content they can navigate to the next page. Graphics need to be super-small to be loaded efficiently.
Mobile content delivery, both free (promotional and branding) and paid (content as product) are seeing a rise. This is due to the formation of relationships between carriers and content delivery aggregators. This process has been unfolding a bit quicker in Europe than here in the US, but we're catching up quickly.
Overall I think 2006 will be a landmark year for mobile marketing. Check back for updates and new information.
Marketing Books on Amazon
Primalbranding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future
Amazon Price: $17.16 (as of 10/08/2008)
Blog Marketing
Amazon Price: $20.40 (as of 10/08/2008)
Branding Unbound: The Future of Advertising, Sales, and the Brand Experience in the Wireless Age
Amazon Price: $16.47 (as of 10/08/2008)
The Anatomy of Buzz: How to Create Word of Mouth Marketing
Amazon Price: $10.85 (as of 10/08/2008)
The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
Amazon Price: $10.19 (as of 10/08/2008)
Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
Amazon Price: $17.13 (as of 10/08/2008)
The importance of listening to your audience
or: How to win customers and gain brand loyalty
I love the internet. Why? Well, I love that, more than any other channel it allows us to provide something for everyone on our list. I love that it allows us to easily receive feedback from our customers (both actual and potential) directly and through monitoring things like traffic flow and other site metrics. I love the openness and freedom of information flow.
So, now that we have these capabilities, what do we do with them? Listen to our customers for one. Provide them with what they want, that's number two.
Listening to your customers can be done in a variety of ways. In more general terms, you can take a look at your target audience and discern with reasonable accuracy what they might be interested in. Once you have created content, you can monitor it to find out what actually receives the most traffic, and where your customers go from there. Blogs are a great way to get direct and specific feedback.
Once you know what your customers want, give it to them. Consumers today are content fiends, they eat it up. So give it to them! Provide them with the information, resources, education and entertainment that they want. And keep it coming.
Over the coming weeks and months I will explore various methods in more detail surrounding the creation of content that people choose to experience.
So, now that we have these capabilities, what do we do with them? Listen to our customers for one. Provide them with what they want, that's number two.
Listening to your customers can be done in a variety of ways. In more general terms, you can take a look at your target audience and discern with reasonable accuracy what they might be interested in. Once you have created content, you can monitor it to find out what actually receives the most traffic, and where your customers go from there. Blogs are a great way to get direct and specific feedback.
Once you know what your customers want, give it to them. Consumers today are content fiends, they eat it up. So give it to them! Provide them with the information, resources, education and entertainment that they want. And keep it coming.
Over the coming weeks and months I will explore various methods in more detail surrounding the creation of content that people choose to experience.
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New Word of the Day
- implacable: Dictionary.com Word of the Day
- implacable: incapable of being pacified.
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- linkdup - the most creative of the web collected and cross-referenced, for creatives, developers, marketers and enthusiasts. You're going to need frame and stlye sheet support, and we recommend a 1024x768 reolution.
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Entrepreneur Magazine eBiz Interview - Part I
I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed on the Entrepreneur Magazine eBiz Show. We talked about interactive marketing and brand immersion. Here is a transcript from the first segment.
Rob: Jackie, welcome to the show.
Jackie: Hi Rob, thanks.
Rob: So let's start right out with what is interactive marketing?
Jackie: Interactive marketing is a marketing strategy and it's designed to encourage your target audience to interact with your marketing message. So this means we're basically creating a two-way conversation between your brand and your target audience.
Rob: So can you give me just a couple of small examples to illustrate that?
Jackie: Sure. For instance, rather than simply pushing your message on somebody you're going to pull them in by providing content that they might be interested in or that they might find engaging our stimulating in some way. And you're really sort of making your brand a part of their lives.
Rob: Oh, okay. So most online businesses are somewhat familiar with marketing strategies like pay per click. Maybe you could illustrate for us what's different from pay per click and interactive?
Jackie: %u2026Pay per click can be really effective for driving people to your website, but the question is once they get there what is their experience going to be like? So what we're talking about that makes interactive marketing different is pulling people in where pay per click is more of a push method.
Rob: Okay.
Jackie: So most marketing falls into one of those two categories, push versus pull. In push you're pushing your message on to someone, you're telling them what you're all about. With pull you're pulling them in by enticing them and encouraging them to experience your message. You're providing them with content that they choose to experience and by making that content something that's relevant to your audience's lifestyle, now you're integrating yourself into their lives.
Rob: Okay, excellent. So what are some types of interactive marketing campaigns?
Jackie: Well with interactive marketing you can employ a wide array of tactics. For example if your audience is comprised largely of college students you might run a campaign and involves a web portal that features things like online games, short videos, message boards, and all of this would be branded. You might also include an email campaign and for college students you might include SMS and mobile content also.
Rob: Jackie, welcome to the show.
Jackie: Hi Rob, thanks.
Rob: So let's start right out with what is interactive marketing?
Jackie: Interactive marketing is a marketing strategy and it's designed to encourage your target audience to interact with your marketing message. So this means we're basically creating a two-way conversation between your brand and your target audience.
Rob: So can you give me just a couple of small examples to illustrate that?
Jackie: Sure. For instance, rather than simply pushing your message on somebody you're going to pull them in by providing content that they might be interested in or that they might find engaging our stimulating in some way. And you're really sort of making your brand a part of their lives.
Rob: Oh, okay. So most online businesses are somewhat familiar with marketing strategies like pay per click. Maybe you could illustrate for us what's different from pay per click and interactive?
Jackie: %u2026Pay per click can be really effective for driving people to your website, but the question is once they get there what is their experience going to be like? So what we're talking about that makes interactive marketing different is pulling people in where pay per click is more of a push method.
Rob: Okay.
Jackie: So most marketing falls into one of those two categories, push versus pull. In push you're pushing your message on to someone, you're telling them what you're all about. With pull you're pulling them in by enticing them and encouraging them to experience your message. You're providing them with content that they choose to experience and by making that content something that's relevant to your audience's lifestyle, now you're integrating yourself into their lives.
Rob: Okay, excellent. So what are some types of interactive marketing campaigns?
Jackie: Well with interactive marketing you can employ a wide array of tactics. For example if your audience is comprised largely of college students you might run a campaign and involves a web portal that features things like online games, short videos, message boards, and all of this would be branded. You might also include an email campaign and for college students you might include SMS and mobile content also.
