Archive for the 'Interaction Marketing' Category

ASAP

Published
by
Matt
on Jul 5, 2007
in Blogging, Communication, Interaction Marketing and Marketers
. 1 Comment

I know this page is beautiful, but if you're into feeds, you can subscribe and get all this ANM goodness right in your feed reader. And hey, do you love comments? I know I do. Feel free to let me know what you think!

At this writing, over 25,000 people subscribe to Darren Rowse at Problogger.net. According to Technorati, Seth Godin’s blog is the 12th most popular on the internet. They are web-celebrities. The rock stars of our age. Yet when you write them an email, not only do they write back, but usually within half a day. They must get hundreds or thousands of emails a day, yet I get responses quicker than when I email most of my friends.

If someone cares about you/your company/your blog enough to write you an email, then you should care enough to write them back as quickly as possible.

To end this with a question to all of you: How accessible/responsive are you? How long does it take you to respond to the average email? Do you treat business letters different than fan mail/comments?

What could you do with 8.4 billion dollars?

Published
by
Matt
on May 6, 2007
in Advertising, Interaction Marketing and Marketers
. 0 Comments

You could buy:
-34 Boeing 747-400 Jumbo Jets
-8000 Ferrari Enzos (20 times more than were even produced)
-228 Islands in the Bahamas like this
-More than the GDP of 64 countries according to the International Monetary Fund

And that is only half of the total advertising spending in 2006

My guess is that you could do a lot with 8.4 billion dollars.

You might be wasting a lot of money right now. Or at least not getting as much for it as you’d like. It has a lot to do with the Law of Diminishing Returns. At a certain point, no matter how much money gets thrown into advertising, the returns are going to start dropping off. At what point is the return on investment going to get too low for you? At what point does each dollar not make enough difference?

You’re probably already there. But it’s okay, all hope is not lost. Just make the change: stop shouting and start interacting with people. Host a picnic so your clients can meet each other and share success stories. Go out and have face-to-face meetings with your major customers to see what you could improve in your ordering process. Send everyone who orders a computer from you a holiday card. Do something special.

Sure that’ll cost some money. But a lot less than a 747.

Don’t be a Guitar Marketing Hero

Published
by
Matt
on May 2, 2007
in Advertising, Interaction Marketing and Marketers
. 2 Comments

If you haven’t played Guitar Hero 2, my suggestion is that you change that immediately. For those of you who don’t know. Guitar Hero is a video game where you emulate a rock star by pushing buttons that correspond to notes at the right times in a song. Hammering out pre-defined notes in a pre-defined sequence is great if you’re in a cover band. But not so good if you’re in marketing.

Don’t be a Marketing Hero.

Sure the jingle works for NBC and humor works for Bud Light, but you’re not them anymore than I’m Eddie Van Halen. Marketing is great because it fuses logic and creativity in a way that can change the face of an organization. Look at the transformation Apple has undergone. From digging itself out of a hole in the personal computing marketing, to being one of the hippest, trendiest companies out there.

Doing what others did won’t necessarily have the same results in your case. I think that if you do your homework and really put some creative thought into it, you can come up with something brilliant that’s uniquely your own.

Don’t play the same notes. Be your own hero.

Editor’s Note:
For another great post about semantic blog markup that mentions guitar hero check out this one from Chris Pearson

Break your megaphone

Published
by
Matt
on Apr 30, 2007
in Advertising, Interaction Marketing and Marketers
. 1 Comment

…or at least turn it down.

Even if you’re a marketer, you’re still a consumer. You must realize how frustrating it gets to be shouted at all the time yourself. So why are you still doing it to other people?

Advertising works, but only up to a certain point. The common knowledge is more shouting = more attention. But that’s not true.

Why shouting louder doesn't work

At point A you keep trying to shout louder and people don’t seem to care. By point B it’s starting to have negative effects.

Getting the name out there is great. Building awareness is vital. But at what point are you just making people aware that you’re annoying them?

Something to think about…

8 Rules for the Rookie Blogger

Published
by
Matt
on Apr 26, 2007
in Blogging and Interaction Marketing
. 1 Comment

Starting a blog is a great way to interact with your customers, but it can be a bit daunting. Here’s my rules for the rookie blogger.

1)Do your homework - Unless you are inventing a topic, someone else already blogs about it. Find them (technorati), read them, RSS them (Google Reader).

2)Be Involved - Make smart, insightful comments on the blogs that you read. If you add something to the discussion and include your link on the byline you can attract some readers.

3)Don’t be shady! - Blogging is about communicating and writing NOT link-whoring. Write good stuff and you will attract people. Try to cheat the system with shady link swapping and you won’t.

4)Link out - Bloggers have a lot of great stuff to say. If someone says something you like, don’t be afraid to give them some love. They might just return the favor.

5)Be meticulous - Write, re-write, re-write the re-write, until it’s just right. And then spell check. Twice.

6)Tag on - Make sure to tag each post, it’ll help with organization and SEO.

7)Spread the word - Post your link in forums, submit your link to big open directories (DMOZ), E-mail your friends, Make a Squidoo Lens, Link to it on your MySpace Page. Send out press releases.

8 )Evolve - Never get complacent, always be creative and look for new ways to improve. Don’t be afraid to change.

Further Reading:
ProBlogger - Ultimate guide to getting lots of link love
CopyBlogger - How to attract links and increase web traffic
Seth Godin - How to get traffic for your blog
Guy Kawasaki - 120 day wonder - How to evangelize your blog
CopyBlogger - Zen and the art of remarkable blogging