New Trends in Cybermarketing
Blogs, Podcasts and PURLs
If you think of “blogs,” you probably have an image of some teenager behind a locked bedroom door, posting private thoughts, fantasies and outrageous escapades (maybe real, maybe not) for potentially millions of Internet voyeurs.
Well, how about the blogs you can read from the Director of the Advanced Concept Group at General Motors? He’s not blogging about body piercing.
The Blog as Customer Relationship Tool
As you’re probably aware, “blog” is a contraction of “Web Log,” an Internet format made popular by those very same teenagers. The technology is cheap or free and easy to use. Motivated initially perhaps by some combination of narcissism and exhibitionism, the teens soon found themselves part of a large virtual community, where they could write about themselves and respond to posts from others.
Talk to one of them today, and chances are “being part of a community” will be one of the main reasons they post and respond to blogs.
The software community wasn’t far behind, posting blogs – often technical in nature – about bugs, software patches and the like. Macromedia is a good example of a company using blogs to improve relationships by opening up the software development process to customers and strengthening the customer community. (Currently under ‘Developer Center’ at www.macromedia.com…but note that corporate blogs change addresses from time to time.)
Which brings us back to General Motors. Jack Keebler, the Director of ACG, recently presided over a lively product development discussion at http://fastlane.gmblogs.com. (Note that many blog sites do not have “www” in their addresses.) The topic was front-wheel vs. rear-wheel vs. all-wheel drive, and his post got 294 responses in three days. Again, the blog helped strengthen the customer community and position GM as a caring member of it.
One of the posts said, “GM has been far too arrogant for far too long…. I believe you finally may have arrived at a moment of clarity!!” On the Internet, customer loyalty begins with communication and openness to criticism.
The Blog as Damage Control
Contrast this with the risk a company can run when it ignores the blogosphere. Cymfony, a firm specializing in PR Measurement and Consumer-Generated Media, has a case study about Nikon (www.cymfony.blogs.com). Bloggers began complaining on the Adobe website about incompatibilities between a new Nikon digital camera and Adobe Photoshop software. A Nikon representative shot back a response dismissing Photoshop as irrelevant and suggesting that Nikon software was all anybody really needed.
But the blogosphere has become huge, and hugely interconnected, with 20 million sites and dozens of free aggregation tools reviewing thousands of posts and responses a minute, and Nikon was overwhelmed with negative publicity because of the Photoshop comment. Between March 1 and March 25, 2005, more than 350,000 people logged on to the controversy, many of them blogging against Nikon.
The moral: the blogosphere can destroy you. Says Julie Woods, VP of Product Strategy at Cymfony, in a recent press release, “whether you decide to create a blog or not, all marketers should be analyzing blogs daily.”
McDonald’s figured this out after last year’s Super Bowl, when ads directed viewers to a blog which had fake responses posted on it. In the ensuing uproar, the company pulled the site and now has a new, real “Corporate Responsibility” site (http://csr.blogs.mcdonalds.com) which recently featured a “cow whisperer” who helps the company improve animal welfare at meat-processing plants.
Among the free sites you can use to track blogs are pubsub.com, technorati.com, ysearchblog.com (Yahoo!), and http://blogsearch.google.com.
Proactive Blogs
Creating a blog for your company can be an excellent way to get your name and brand out to a wide audience…cement the loyalty of existing customers…and position yourself as a thought leader in your field. The cost of entry is low, with free or low-cost solutions such as blogger.com, WordPress and Typepad.
The real cost is personal bandwidth – yours, or that of whoever in your organization will be blogging (sidebar). For a blog to work, it needs to be regularly attended to, posting new blogs, preferably at predictable intervals, and answering responses from readers.
The other consideration (harder to address) is, Do you have a lot of interesting things to say? Successful blog writers draw on a range of knowledge, experience and interests. People are drawn to blogs that are informative and thought-provoking, even provocative. Of course, more than one person in your organization can work on the blog. However, just one personality – the blog’s ‘persona’ – should front for the blog. Blogs, even corporate ones, are personal.
Even if your initial blogging list is small, it can grow very quickly if your site is optimized for blog search engines – and especially if you post a really interesting blog that gets a lot of hits. As Paul Holmes, editor of the Holmes Report, points out, “there are a handful of blogs in every space – politics, sports, technology, marketing, PR – that have already established themselves as trusted sources of information, that have established communities of like-minded individuals, that already enjoy influence as real as any mainstream magazine.”
You could be running one of them.
Podcasting: Audio Cybermarketing
Podcasting – the term derives from Apple’s wildly popular music downloading device, the iPod – has recently entered the world of cybermarketing. A quick visit to http://podcasts.yahoo.com reveals 1116 series and 17,808 episodes of podcasts referring to “business” – everything from Science Friday from NPR and bulletins from IBM Business Consulting Services, to Winning on Wall Street and Learning Mandarin Chinese.
Podcasts are easily downloadable to your iPod or computer and playable on free software such as Apple’s iTunes, which also runs on Windows.
The format – linear audio – is clearly not as efficient as high-speed, print-based, random-access blogs. And not too many people in a normal business setting have 20 minutes to listen to somebody talk over the computer. However, the technology does let you select topics of interest, download them and then play them when you’ve got some free time.
The medium will support just about any kind of file, and video podcasts are beginning to come along; again, their success will depend on compelling content, both audio and video.
In terms of cybermarketing, the primary role of the podcast so far seems to give you the opportunity to establish yourself as a thought leader. However, you need to have pretty high credibility to get somebody to take the time to download and commit to listening to you, and so far the main players seem to be the big newspapers – such as the New York Times and the Washington Post – NPR and big companies like IBM.
PURLs: the Personal Touch
PURLs – Personal URLs – have been around for a couple of years. They are a highly targeted and efficient fulfillment mechanism for direct marketing campaigns.
For a flat template fee and a few cents apiece, a PURL service provider will host a personalized URL for every name on your list. If I want to respond to your offer, I type in the URL with my name on it (“www.pamsullivan.target.com”), answer a few questions, and click Submit. I get the offer, and you get my information and buy-in for further contact.
Sullivan Creative recently completed a very effective campaign, integrating direct mail, variable data printing and PURLs, for CMP Media. The campaign was designed to boost first-quarter ad sales for TechWeb, the company’s online business technology network of publications.
This was a dimensional mailing of a sleek, aluminum vacuum takeout mug, sent to 365 highly qualified prospects. The teaser label on the box was addressed directly to the recipient, using variable data printing, and an insert in the mug was also personalized with the recipient’s name and PURL.
In addition to the mug, there were two offers for those who logged onto their PURL and completed a brief questionnaire: a free extra 25% of their ad buy for the quarter, and a Starbucks Card loaded with $15. The questionnaire asked recipients to confirm their contact information, list an email address, and answer only two additional questions. (To increase the response, Sullivan Creative kept the questions minimal.)
The response rate was a startling 23%, with 15% of these considered “qualified” leads (those who answered the questions). For comparison, 3% is considered a good direct marketing response rate in the industry. The PURL company includes complete reporting as part of the package.
Much simpler than dropping a business reply card in the mail, the PURL mechanism is another good example of how cyberspace technology can simplify communication and personalize relationships with existing and potential clients.
Blog Factors
When considering whether or not to set up a marketing blog, and how to do it, there are several factors you should look at.
Audience
Let’s say your initial audience is the universe of people you normally market to – your existing and potential customers. Presumably you know them pretty well. Ask: will they be interested in a blog? Will they respond to it? Will they benefit from it? If the answer to any of these is ‘No,’ a blog may not be worth the time and effort.
Frequency
How often can you commit to posting a new blog? Some very active sites post them twice a week. Once a week, or once every two weeks, are more common intervals. An interval of once a month is getting a little long, given how short everybody’s attention span is these days. Longer than once a month? You might reconsider…
Subject Matter
Can you reasonably expect to have a wide and varied range of subjects to post blogs about? Clearly, this depends on what business you’re in, since the blog has to be rooted in that business and showcase your competence and leadership. A fast-moving, high-tech business is going to have more blog topics than, say, the soybean harvesting business. This question goes hand-in-hand with Frequency, above. Ask your colleagues, since a range of perspectives within your organization can help supply variety to your postings.
Writing Skills
Your blog should be well-written. You’d be amazed how many of them aren’t. We’re not saying that you have to put in the level of effort you would for a marketing brochure – the blog has to be a task you can do easily and regularly – but if writing doesn’t come naturally to you, maybe somebody should ghost-write the blog. Every misspelling, grammatical error or use of ‘it’s’ when you mean ‘its’ is going to reflect on you and your organization.
Length and Tone
Keep it short. For any given post, get the essence across in 2 or 3 paragraphs if you can. If possible, answer any responses you get in 2 or 3 sentences. If a post is too long, your readers’ eyes will glaze over and they’ll start skipping paragraphs. A good blog exchange goes back and forth like an energetic conversation.
Don’t market. A blog is an exchange of news, information and opinion, hopefully lively, maybe even provocative. You want your readers to come away thinking, ‘Boy, she really knows her stuff!’ – not, ‘Boy, he really had a lot to say about their latest release…’ It’s fine to put in a good word about your product or service, but make it a subset of the news, information and opinion.
Any Responses?
The essence of blogs is the give-and-take between bloggers and readers. That’s what makes them stimulating, and keeps bringing people back and maybe forwarding the blog to others – not just what you say, but how others are responding to you. If you go for four or five blogs with no responses, you’re probably doing something wrong. Have you promoted your blog on your website, letterhead and marketing materials? Do people even know it’s there?
Maybe your blogs are too long. Maybe your topics aren’t interesting enough. Maybe you’re blogging to the wrong audience. Or maybe blogging just isn’t the right avenue for you to pursue at this time.
Sullivan Creative has plenty of expertise to share with you about the strategy, techniques and technology of marketing in the blogosphere. Contact us for a free consult about how you can put this powerful new marketing vehicle to work for you.
team@sullivancreative.com www.sullivancreative.com
For information on how we can help you with your next marketing program, contact us at Sullivan Creative or call 617.597.0072.
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