Today’s event marketing landscape has shifted and now interactive product launches for video games, technology platforms, and hand-held devices demand consumer touch and feel. They require the creation of a brand aura around the launch and unfettered hands-on trial. You supply the experience, and your users supply the PR. User-generated PR is far more powerful than anything your agency can create.
If you’re on the fence, think about this: Infinity Ward and their partners have mastered this multi-layered approach and landed over $300 million in sales during Modern Warfare 2’s first 24 hours on the market.
Today’s consumers expect to battle test your product, and read the reviews of others during the product launch. Confidence in your product is generated as consumers step behind the marketing veil to experience your product and tell others of their experience through the social media pipeline: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and the blogosphere. You must influence this process.
We’ve learned that experience sells. Product experience, brand experience and execution experience are now required to sell. Product launches certainly must be accompanied by the air war of brand positioning and mass market ads. However, the actual creation of scalable (meaning repeatable across the social network) brand experiences now acts as the ground troops of product launches within the technical product domain. And I don’t think this approach just applies to technology products, they simply represent the tip of the spear. Technology focused products and their respective consumers rely on word of mouth and user-generated reviews rather than a high profile spokesperson or shotgun ad hitting a sedate market. Technology products merit – in fact require – transferable proof your product meets expected levels of experience, quality and satisfaction. And if you don’t provide such proof, expect to be ridiculed in the user-generated press.
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Technology product launches differ from traditional first-time product trials as consumers tend to be more sensitive and invested in their technology. Unlike traditional sampling trial events (such as food or drink products) where the goal is to have consumers try a less-known product for the first time and convert them into buyers, the experience with technology is usually for an (often highly) anticipated product which consumers have built an expectation for. If expectations are not met both from a performance and an emotional standpoint it can result in lost sales. When I showcase a technology product for the first time, the environment and user experience is vital to make sure it meets or exceeds consumer expectations. Below are my five keys to achieve this:
1. Venue and event selection – the venue is an important part of the experience and event attendees must closely align with your target market.
2. Setting and atmosphere – does the environment fit the audience and product branding? Music, lighting, furniture, layout, food and beverage, staff, uniforms etc. all play a part in creating the right ambiance.
3. Demonstration and user interaction – the product must be used in the right context so consumers can better relate to the experience. Try and demonstrate the product in a way that not only boasts its attributes and benefits but also in a way which makes sense to your core consumer.
4. Supporting elements – green screen, premiums and giveaways, and special guests or performances can greatly enhance the user experience from an emotional standpoint.
5. Extending the experience – promotion through social media both before and after the launch with tools such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and more traditional PR to share user experience for those who could not attend the event, but want to share the excitement of a product launch.
Craig Goldstein is the Chief Operations Officer and Founder of UCG Marketing, which is an award-winning full service experiential marketing and promotions agency based in Boston. Email him at cgoldstein@ucgmarketing.com
If you find this video topic interesting, you may want to check out Gregory Ng discussing Effective Ways to Use Video in the Marketing Plan. Gregory also approaches his topic from a college athletics perspective.
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In the video above Graham Nelson, Executive Director at Beam Interactive, discusses how to create social media content for college athletic teams and other organizations that are strapped for resources. This video was shot at SXSW Interactive 2010 by Green Buzz Agency.
You’ve heard about social media, you know you want to use social media, you have a budget for social media, but you need to know how to use social media marketing to help achieve your corporate marketing goals.
It’s an intimidating field because it’s so new and you know if a strategy is not clearly mapped out social media marketing initiatives can fail. But you can’t ignore it because you want to stay ahead of competitors, retain clients, manage your brand and monitor your space.
So where do you start? Follow these steps and you’ll be on your way to building a successful social media marketing strategy…
Step 1: Define goals and objectives
Clearly map out your corporation’s goals and objectives.
Is your goal to:
- Generate more brand awareness?
- Interact with prospects?
- Monitor competition?
- Monitor and manage your brand reputation?
- Generate awareness of your company’s services or offerings?
- Attract new employees, investors, partners/vendors?
Step 2: Pinpoint where your audience and potential evangelists are sharing information
Listen to what’s going on in your space and identify the thought leaders and ambassadors. Look at who you are currently communicating with and how, as well as with whom you want to interact. This will help you form a basis for everything else you do with social media tools. Identifying your audience before simply choosing convenient tools will lead to a much more successful social media campaign.
To help identify where/how your customers are sharing and consuming information online. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Is my target audience on social networking sites?
- Do they belong to specialized groups?
- Who are they interacting with?
- Which social media channels would be best to use for the type of content you have?
Step 3: Audit Resources
Once you have figured out what you would like to do with social media to achieve your corporate marketing goals, you have three options to execute your campaign: use current staff; hire employee(s); or outsource parts or all of your campaign to an outside vendor. You must consider the following when making your decision:
- Do I have existing content that I can re-purpose?
- Do my internal resources have existing knowledge on the platforms, and technologies needed to execute my campaign. How much is their “ramp up” going to cost my department in staff hours?
- What technology (portals, videos, platforms that enable user generated content, landing pages) do I need to develop? Which of these do I need to outsource?
- What monitoring tools do I have available?
- Who is going to fulfill the different social media marketing roles and responsibilities?
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Step 4: Establish a social media protocol
A corporate social media protocol should be developed and employed to help companies feel comfortable about social media participation. A well-constructed protocol can help companies organize and prioritize goals, designate the individuals that should assume ownership of the brand’s online communications, while simultaneously ensuring that these communications broadcast messages that are consistent across all social media engagements.
To begin establishing a protocol, ask yourself the following questions:
- What information do we want to keep private?
- What kinds of information would we benefit from making public?
- What personal social media use is appropriate? Inappropriate?
- How will we measure which rules are helpful and which are not?
- Who are our quality followers? How can we continually engage them?
- Should we have a set of rules for proactive social media use? Reactive social media use?
- How do we respond to positive engagement versus negative engagement?
Step 5: Start using social media
Now that you determined who you want to communicate with, who is going to accomplish your social media marketing initiatives, and where you want to go with the relationships, you can execute your plan.
Step 6: Measure results
You need to measure and monitor all activity. Be sure that you create mechanisms for feedback and input throughout your process to provide opportunities for your community, staff, etc. to share ideas and LISTEN!
Ask yourself these questions as you evaluate your social media efforts:
- Have your networks grown or changed? How?
- Are there new social media roles to explore?
- What worked?
- What can we do differently?
- What should we eliminate?
- How much time is spent on each social media initiative?
- How is social media changing right now?
- Are we ahead of our competitors?
If you want to use social media marketing in your overall marketing plan, you need a sound strategy. If you don’t have a sound strategy, you risk losing control of your brand, reputation, client base and prospects. If you do have one, you will have a huge advantage over competitors, have the ability to enforce or build a loyal client base, position your thought leaders as experts, develop interactive relationships with prospects, avoid potential pitfalls and have an overall stronger marketing plan.
-AJ Gerritson is Founding Partner and Social Media Strategist at 451 Marketing, a Boston-based communications agency that specializes in social media marketing, public relations, and creative development. For more information, please visit AJ’s LinkedIn Page.
Foursquare is For … NOW!
There’s a new location-based trend in the here-to-stay world of online socializing sites. Sites like Gowalla and Foursquare lead the way about a year ago. Now Yelp (the foodie website) has added a “geo” element too. In the case of Foursquare, they’ve announced two affiliations in the last month that might be game-changers. They are now partnering with the Bravo network and with Zagat!
Stop.
What are you talking about?
Ok. Let’s start all over. In layman’s terms: Foursquare is a combination social network-gps locator-game that encourages one to “check-in” and leave “tips” when one is out and about. So let’s say, you’re going to the movies, or a bar, or a restaurant, or a museum – or anywhere, really – you open up the application and Foursquare will do a search for where you are. (Because it can locate you.) If your location doesn’t come up, you can type it in. Where it gets a bit fun and competitive is that one can become the mayor of a place or get points for checking in more times than anyone else in a given week or in a specific location. And yes, each check-in gets uploaded to your respective status update on Facebook or Twitter or both. If you’re on Facebook or Twitter, you’ve probably seen some updates.
Businesses get a free plug for doing, uh, nothing. But smart businesses – like Tasti D-Lite on the Upper East Side of NYC – have been offering discounts or free product to mayors or to others for just for checking in. This promotes guest visits and loyalty – and what restaurant doesn’t want that?
It’s a great site for cities because you can also see where your Foursquare friends have checked-in – and they may be around the corner. And now you can go join them.
The Green Buzz Agency Blog provides insight for Marketing Decision Makers and other fun people
Here’s an informative video that breaks it down better than I do: How Foursquare helps consumers and businesses: http://slidesha.re/6e1NB0
If I owned a restaurant or a bar, I’d make sure I let all Foursquare types know that any check-in will be honored with a complimentary glass of wine or a draft beer or a dessert. As long as they showed their check-in.
For the record, since Christmas, I’ve been “out” 18 times, checked into 34 places and have been crowned the “Mayor” of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church and WordHampton Public Relations. (Um, these two mayoralties are pretty much a joke; I was experimenting with the site. Nonetheless, I AM the mayor of my church and my business. LOL!)
Here’s a brief description of Foursquare’s deal with Bravo taken from Gavin O’Malley at Media Post: “Foursquare offers entertainment brands an opportunity to interact with their customers on both a personal and local level,” said [Foursquare co-founder Dennis] Crowley. “By extending on-air, this partnership also allows us to reach beyond the tech-early-adopter crowd and introduce an entirely new audience to Foursquare.”
Bravo will create on-air spots that drive users to “check in” to Foursquare from various locations across the country that have been featured on Bravo series, as well as venues recommended by Bravo talent.
The network will offer a series of branded “badges” specifically designed around series that include “The Real Housewives,” “The Millionaire Matchmaker,” “Top Chef,” “Top Chef Masters” and “Shear Genius.”
But Foursquare didn’t stop at Bravo. Writing for Mashable.com, Jennifer Van Grove says,
“The New York Times is reporting that Foursquare has signed a deal with trusted restaurant review service Zagat. Zagat’s official Foursquare page is already live and includes official Zagat-rated tips and recommendations that users can add as to-dos to their Foursquare experience.
Zagat is calling the partnership “Foodie Love,” and there’s even a new accompanying foodie badge. Zagat.com is extending the partnership beyond Foursquare and starting a “Meet the Mayor” online interview series that will feature discussions with prominent Foursquare mayors.
Foursquare’s relationship with Zagat is clearly an answer to Yelp’s introduction of check-ins, especially given the trusted and prestigious nature of Zagat content.”
Oh. Foursquare is apparently this close to announcing partnerships with the History Channel, Warner Bros., HBO and Explore Chicago.
Guess it’s time we all started exploring Foursquare, eh?
Steve Haweeli is President at WordHampton Public Relations Inc. Contact Steve directly at steve@wordhampton.com or follow him on twitter @SteveHaweeli
As a life long reader of fashion magazines, I use to devour their glossy ads of luxury designers. Like many, I coveted the down time to read my stack of magazines on long plane trips, or on vacation. Recently, while preparing for one of those trips, I noticed my stack seemed lighter than usual and my desire to lug those magazines less. What was going on?
I realized my fashion fix was already being satisfied on a daily basis from a variety of Facebook fan pages and Twitter followings. Many who don’t use social media assume that it is a waste of time. For me and many others, it is an efficient way to follow the things I am passionate about.
On Twitter, I follow magazines and the fashion designers themselves. Of course, I read InStyle Magazine’s Twitter feed, but beyond that I follow a few fashion blogs. One of my favorite blogs, The Glamazon Diaries has great articles on fashion trends, and tweets them to twitter followers. As an added bonus she knows what I like and often will tweet me a link about an article I might personally enjoy on her blog. InStyle or Vogue Magazine can’t engage a reader that way.
I have a handful of designers I shop at on a regular basis, and the fact that they are on Facebook and Twitter builds on my devotion to their brand. One of my favorite designers, Diane von Furstenberg, will on occasion personally tweet. I know she had never been to a basketball game until she went to a Lakers game over the holidays. In real time she posted a twitpic of herself at the game. This tweet had nothing to do with her latest design, or sale in one of her stores. But, I love her and the brand more after that tweet - it is genuine and personal.
Unfortunately, late players to the social media game are luxury brands, which is really no surprise given their sluggish and reluctant entry into offering e-commerce on their branded sites. However, Burberry has taken a different path, and is the clear leader in luxury brands that are manipulating social media. Last year they launched the site TheArtoftheTrench. The site is beautifully executed showing urban settings with all types of people wearing their signature trench coat. The site links users to their Facebook fan page. There the users can comment on the photos and even upload photos of themselves wearing a trench coat. It is their attempt to bring a younger audience to their brand by reaffirming that the trench coat is still a classic item, something a younger demographic is willing to pay more for.
The Green Buzz Agency Blog provides insight for Marketing Decision Makers and other fun people
Other ways fashion brands and retailers can use social marketing tools is to communicate during a crisis. A few weeks ago the New York Times wrote a story about how an H&M store was destroying and throwing out clothes that were returned. As in many breaking news scandals, Twitter lit up with the disgust of this behavior. H&M’s U.S. twitter feed was able to respond quickly, and direct those concerned to a link that this was not their policy. This certainly calmed the crisis down with an immediate response, shortened the news cycle on this story, and potentially reduced the risk of long term damage to their brand.
As a disciple of marketing and a devotee to fashion, I get giddy thinking about all the access to engage fans through social media that fashion and retail brands now have, which helps get the ‘golden goose’ all marketers strive for – brand loyalty.
Kelly Collis Fredrick is the publisher and founder of CityShopGirl, delivering daily discounts and promotions to D.C. area retailers, restaurants, spas, specialty stores as well as ecommerce sites.
