How Customer-Focused is Your Website? Stalking the Narcissistic Web.

One day a dinner party, I met this beautiful girl, the first time I saw her I thought she was very interesting and quite intelligent. So with a bit of courage I approached to her and we start talking. At the beginning she seemed to be very intelligent with a good sense of humor, I thought that she was wonderful. But five minutes later the awful truth was revealed, even though she was pretty, her conversation was only about one thing, about her. The conversation was so egocentric, only focused in what she liked and she did not, that disappointed, I said to her that I needed to go, and basically I left. This could be happening to your website. Maybe you are wondering, Why to my website? Well good websites need to solve needs, and basically show some of the customer services features that the company is offering to their potential and current clients. A website dedicated to talk only about the company, about their products and how good they are in what they do without taking into consideration what customers are looking for, and what they need, is not a good website. Want to know if your website is a bit egocentric? Take 5 minutes, visit your webpage (if you have one, if not, go to another one and judge it yourself) Pretend that you are a regular customer, write down in a piece of paper 4 or 5 concerns related to a certain product. Navigate the site for a few minutes. Did the website solve your concerns? Or it was only focused in what they do without bearing in mind the concerns of the client? Is your website being a bit narcissistic?

Painting: "Narcissus" by Caravaggio, circa 1597-1599. Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Antica, Rome, Italy.

Continue reading “How Customer-Focused is Your Website?
Stalking the Narcissistic Web”

Source: http://www.marketingtoday.com/emarketing/0305/narcissistic_web.htm

SocialVibe and How to Build Your User Base with Social Network Applications

Looking for interesting news or Articles to post on my blog, I found one, an interview on Marketing Sherpa named “How to Build Your User Base with Social Network Applications”. It is quite interesting because it contains tips of how to achieve growth in a short time and also some about how to hone your strategy, and some examples that can help you to succeed with your social network site. But one thing that really caught my attention that was mentioned in the article was SocialVibe. Created by Jon Marchese, SocialVibe is a website where basically you can get sponsored by your favorite brand on your social profile while earning points for the reward of your choice. These sponsors pay for the impressions served, while the charity association gets a portion of the revenues. The rewards or “Perks” are obtained by earning points for every impression that a SocialVibe Badge have. It is worth mentioning that the SocialVibe Badge is quite important, having a nice one means that you can get sponsored. Sweet deal, Don’t you think? Winning prizes doing almost nothing. Reader, give it a try, sign in and join SocialVibe, it's free. If you gather some points and it is your lucky day, you can get a brand new iPod Touch or a flat screen television.  

To go to Social Vibe.com: http://www.socialvibe.com/

To read Marketing Sherpa’s Article “How to Build Your User Base with Social Network Applications” (Remember that Marketing Sherpa’s Articles have open access only for seven days, if you cannot read it, send me an email and I’ll email you a copy).

Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31115

McDonald's Opens Virtual Store to Promote Value Meals in China

Let's be honest, when we are in a hurry and we are hungry, most of the times we have two options, either wait or buy later and eat some fast food, that most of the times it'sa McDonald's meal, which is not the healthiest option. McDonald's is in every country, sometime in the most convenient places, this kind of food is one the best options specially when you are traveling. Situation: Lets say you are hungry and this is the only place that you know what the hell are you going to eat, especially in countries like China. Talking about China, McDonalds (MD) is worried because people are returning or current clients to traditional Chinese-style fast-food options like rice and noodles and decreasing its consumption of Hamburgers and fries. Since this and the introduction of the Super Value Meals (More food for less money), McDonald's is launching a campaign in association with Taobao (the Chinese version ebay.com).

Dynamics is simple, auction high-priced electronic products. But the thing, this is not like a normal bid, the objetive is that the auctioners have to take down the price of the article and the one who makes the last bidder reaching the price of a Super Value Meal ($16.5 RMB) gets the article. In other words this is a reverse-format auction. Some of the articles are Cell phones, Digital Cameras, Laptops, among others. With this technique Taobao is demonstrating that e-business is showing its strengths: high efficiency and low cost. Give it a try, the only requirement is to know Mandarin.  

To go to McDonald’s Taobao auction site: http://mcd.taobao.com

Continue reading: McDonald's Opens Virtual Store to Promote Value Meals in China

Source: http://adage.com/globalnews/article?article_id=135274

New Colors In The Rainbow

I have to tell you guys, I actually don’t like Skittles, I don’t really like how they taste, I think it’s a very American candy (considering that I’m Mexican and there, the market offers hundreds and hundreds of choices with awesome flavors), but one thing I really like is the campaign they recently launched. If you visit Skittles.com you will see that they don’t have a “regular” website, where, you enter and it shows the clients what they offer, the products, the classic product experience offered by several candy companies, and the classic blog, where they can post whatever they want to say. Skittles decided to create something completely new and creative, stealing some ideas of ideas from the ad agency Modernista! When you access to Skittles.com, it appears a widget that basically guides the visitors to some outside media social sites, if you click on Chatter, you’re taken to twitter, if you click on Friends, you’re taken to Facebook, or if you click on products, it will take you to wikipedia, which is good if you want to learn more about the product. With this mix, they are basically creating a giant conversation with their clients. Give it a look; Do you think that is a good idea? Do consumers have too much control, or perhaps still, not enough? Don’t be shy and post your comments!

To visit the Skittles website: http://www.skittles.com

Wanna read more about Skittles campaign?

MediaPost Article: Skittles Settles on Wikipedia For Brand's Home Page

Source: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=101628

Adage Article: What's Next After Skittles.com?

Source: http://adage.com/digitalnext/article?article_id=134995

Are luxury brands making a run for online experiences?

One day I was on my way to watch a movie in my best friend’s car. She likes to read magazines like Harper Baazar and Cosmopolitan, that day she had Vogue. I began to leaf through the magazine, and I found some ads of a lot of brands, especially luxury brands, some of them, seemed to be telling a story and some others only captivating a moment without telling a story or expressing a very deep message. 

For many years luxury brands had advertise their products on a paper format, in places such as magazines, catalogues or newspapers, with this, fashion makers are trying to send a message or tell a story only using a printed sheet of paper. Nowadays this is changing, brands are trying to offer more content and interaction with the brand by using online resources, and with these, offer experiences that a magazine would never be able to.

Brands like YSL and Tod’s are using this kind of resources in order to interact with their customers.

Gwyneth Paltrow and Tod’s "Pashmy Dreams": http://www.tods.com/todstv.html?region=eu&lang=en&detail=43

YSL 24 hours campaign for the 24 hours collection.

With this kind of resources, brands can go further in terms of telling a story, the only thing thing is that they need to be creative in order to offer that real brand experience that they are trying to sell.

Marketer, Do you think this is a good idea? Do you believe this is the right way to reach your customers and interact with them? Do you think that their reputation (luxury brands) is at risk for using this type of tools

Contnue reading: Are luxury brands making a run for online experiences?

Source: http://www.culture-buzz.com/blog/Luxury-Brands-and-Communication-2071.html

For soccer lovers: Sporting Portugal.

For many people, soccer is one of the most exiting sports in the entire world, events like Eurocup and World Cup demosntrate this. Viral marketing is a marketing technique that use pre-existing social newtorks in order to increase awareness and with these, raise sales, or whatever the company is trying to do. But, What this has to do with soccer? How do they relate? And the most important question, How can you mix Viral Marketing and Soccer? Well, is not simple, but not impossible. Sporting Portugal, a Portuguese soccer team, launched a viral campaign in 2007, the main objetive was to increase awareness among the fans and potential fans of the team. The task was easy, create a campaign in order to attract more people and encourage game attendance and drive season ticket sales. Want to know more? Go ahead and give a look to the video, you might come up with something like this and be the next Paulo Bento.

If you want to read more about "Sporting Portugal" 

http://www.culture-buzz.com/blog/Viral-Marketing-for-Sporting-Portugal-1437.html

TrialPay: Works for People With More Time Than Money

Recession is chasing us and the last thing we want to do is spend money.  People love free stuff, especially when they don’t have a lot of cash.  Nowadays this is a reality, websites give away free stuff without people pay a penny for this. TrialPay, offer these kind of services. This is how it works, lets say that you want to go to the movies, you enter to the website and it gives you the option to get the tickets for free, or in other words, paid for them in an indirect way; the only condition is to either answer a questionnaire or try or accept a trial offer of another company. Good deal, don’t you think?  In exchange for answering a survey you can get a free movie ticket or a large pizza from Papa John’s. This won’t change your buying habits, but can help you save some money and acquire products you try not to buy because of the economical situation in which we find ourselves today. Marketer, give it a try, invest in gifts or “free trials” for potential customers using other company’s online networks, maybe they would discover your company and you would be able position yourself in their minds as the company that gives free stuff.

Continue Reading  “TrialPay: Works for People With More Time Than Money”

Source: http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/66341.html

Axe flirts with Twitter for St Patrick’s Day.

St. Patrick’s day is coming and Unilever launched a campaign for Axe, one of its male grooming products. Remember my last post was about Twitter, I mentioned a bit about how it works. Well, Unilever, using and mixing Twitter and St. Patrick’s Day theme, developed a new campaign called “TweetMeImIrish.com”, in which people go to the website and create its own variation of the phrase “Kiss me I’m Irish”, upload it and send it as a Tweet to a friend. Pretty good idea, don’t you think? "Squeeze Me I'm The Charmin", "Untie Me I'm Scared", are some of the phrases that some people have posted.  Because of their type of customer is “young, and well-connected”, this tool is a really nice communication channel for reaching the kind of target Axe is trying to focus to. Give it a try, do something like this, maybe you can tell them something like, “buy me I’m cool”.

To go to Axe’s “Tweet me I’m Irish”

http://tweetmeimirish.com/

Continue Reading “Axe flirts with Twitter for St. Patrick's Day”

Source: http://www.marketingmag.ca/english/news/marketer/article.jsp?content=20090313_144326_5788

Biggest bands getting bigger as they Twitter

Yesterday, Friday 13, I was on my way to the Canucks game, when a newspaperman, outside Burrard Station, gave me a Metro Newspaper. Since I was waiting the SkyTrain to arrive, I opened it and went to the last section of the paper. I saw something very interesting: “Biggest bands getting bigger as they Twitter”. Twitter is one of the most important communication phenomenon of 2009, it allows people to communicate something in real time. Some of the advantages are that it’s free and the message is sent only to the specific target you are trying to reach, in this case, the people that that are subscribed to your blog or website. This is a very useful tool for bloggers since with this tool, bloggers can keep people up on what is going on on this communication channels. Big bands like Coldplay, Muse, and Pearl Jam are using this tool, that allow their fans to be closer to the band they follow, and at the same time the band can know what the followers think and feel about them. Marketer, give a try, do some research, because maybe this is the tool you need to disseminate the ideas your are trying to sell. 

Continue reading “Biggest bands getting bigger as they Twitter”

Source: http://www.metronews.ca/Vancouver/comment/article/195888

For Brand Ads Online, Bigger Is Better

We see ads everywhere, especially online. Nowadays, companies are trying to reach new possible clients by attracting them with more specific ads, in this case, the use of online ads. But the question is, how can advertisers and businesses attract more customers using this tool? People say that bigger is better, but is that true? Members of the Online Publisher Association have decided that bigger is better. Marketer, we know that these days it’s all about online advertisement; this means that if you don’t use this tool, you are a little lost. Publishers have decided that they were trying to use a new kind of online ads, this means, create a new class of ad that satisfies either the company’s or clients’ objectives. The use of a bigger ad can create more awareness, this, can be directed to the specific segment you want to reach, don’t forget to do it in a “cleaner” way, this means not create only a cluster of nonsense ads that the client is not going to understand. Using any of the three ad formats proposed in the article, you could reach whoever you want without wasting money.

Continue reading “For Brand Ads Online, Bigger Is Better”

Source:http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=135131

Google Adwords Challenge: Cupcakes Vancouver, We did it!

Last week (on March 5 to be more specific) we, (me and my team of my eMarketing class) finished the Google Adwords Competition, it was a great opportunity to understand how this actually works. People might think that this doesn’t work (this happened to me at the beginning) but after you experienced and learn how it works and how using the correct and specific keywords can reach the customers, and the same time promote the products of the company you are working with, it is an awesome experience, with this, possible customers might know what other products the company sells besides the ones they are familiar with. This competition it is useful to avoid the so-called “Marketing Myopia”.  This competition is only for teaching purposes, but if you are interested in how it works and how you can expand you horizons and reach possible customers using an online tool, go ahead, give a look to the links of the bottom and maybe with the optimal combination of keywords and a relative low budget you can raise your income as well as your potential customers! Give it a try!

To know more about the competition:

http://www.google.com/onlinechallenge/

To learn more about adwords:

https://www.google.com/accounts/ServiceLogin?service=adwords&hl=en-US&ltmpl=adwords&passive=false&ifr=false&alwf=true&continue=https%3A%2F%2Fadwords.google.com%2Fselect%2Fgaiaauth%3Fapt%3DNone%26ugl%3Dtrue

 

7 Useful Email Strategies for Consumer Marketers

Recession is a word that we listen everyday. Nowadays. companies have to do something almost impossible, try to do more with less, this means: with less money create more advertising in order to create more awareness. Email can be a magic tool, that if we use it in a wise way can help our company and can either attract more clients or remind our clients that we actually exist or are still there. Remember marketers, sometimes Email is one of the best ways to reach your consumers, and it is easier and cheaper than sending regular mail. Using these 7 useful Email strategies you can create a difference in what kind of material you send to your clients. This is your opportunity to create awareness, offer them what they want to hear, tell them the story in a simple way and then, bam!, get then coax them that your product or service is there waiting for them offering what they are looking for. 

Continue reading: 7 Useful Email Strategies for Consumer Marketers.

(Reader, remember that the Marketing Sherpa articles are only available for 7 days, if you want to read the article and the website doesn’t let you, send me and email and I will send you a copy of the article)

Source: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=31068

Clicks and Mortar Magic

Books and Cosmetics, or in other words, “Amazon.com” and “@cosme”, what do they have to with each other? Very simple, “@cosme” is the “Amazon.com” version, but instead of selling books they sell cosmetics. With more than 6 million users, @cosme has an incredible WoM among its numerous clients. The interesting part of this is that this priceless tool creates a unique promotion in a community driven branding. Awesome don’t you think? Marketer, WoM is a terrific weapon, which, if you know how to use it, you can create a splendid website of marketing campaign influenced in whatever your clients want to find. Go ahead and give it a try!

From martinlindrom.com 

"Clicks and Mortar Magic"

To watch the video “Clicks and Mortar Magic” http://www.martinlindstrom.com/site_files/main_content/blog_player.php/id__115