Social Media Success Stories

I get a few blank stares at times when I talk about social media technologies with friends and colleagues but I’m starting to win people over day by day. How am I doing this? With real stories! Today, I want to share these stories with you to help you better understand the power of social media and to hopefully inspire you to continue on your social media efforts or to jump in for the first time.

LinkedIn: Starting an Alumni Group

When Linkedin started a groups feature (like Facebook groups) I thought about how I could network with former colleagues. Some of the smartest people that I knew were from a technology post-grad college that I attended called the “Information Technology Institute (ITI) in Toronto. I decided to create an ITI alumni group to pool together these brilliant people and the results have been terrific thus far.

In a few short months, the group has 32 members without having done any advertising. There is also an active discussion going on about how ITI grads are succeeding and how ITI has contributed to this. I now have 32 new people (and growing) that I can network with who share my similar background and interests. Did you go to ITI? Join the ITI Alumni group (now I can say that I have done some advertising).

LinkedIn tip: Look for ways that you can create niche groups that pull together people with similar interests.

Twitter: Maximize Your Travel

In the past, I had blogged about why I use Twitter so it’s exciting for me to provide a success story for Twitter. In today’s economy, many companies are limiting travel in order to save a few bucks. In my new position, I not only manage my own clients but manage clients across an entire segment. I of course lead an amazing team, but this new position requires me to be active with as many customers in my segment as possible to support my team. Twitter helps me keep in touch with various clients and colleagues as well as better understand what people in my network "have on the brain". Besides the virtual interaction of Twitter, it has far greater benefits.

In my recent travels to Atlanta, I posted the following after I just arrived in the city and was doing some prep work from a Starbucks:

Visiting clients in Atlanta. Beautiful day! Beautiful city! Now to get down to work.

I then received a direct message (DM in Twitter lingo) via Twitter from a client in my segment in the Atlanta area asking me what my role at my company was and if I service clients in the area. I sent the client an email later that night after I verified who they were explaining to them who I was and suggested meeting for breakfast as I had time before another scheduled meeting. We ended up meeting and I was able to help this client out as much as I could in the short meeting time that we had. Here is the response from the client on Twitter after I tweeted about a successful tweet up:

Ohhh...knew I didn't have the lingo down @chadhorenfeldt ! Great success indeed - Eloqua crew welcome in Atlanta anytime!!

Twitter tip: Keep your network updated as to where you are. Twitter is a fantastic networking tool and it can help you maximize your travel time.

Twitter tip #2: Make sure you add your Twitter URL to your LinkedIn profile. I just connected to someone as I was writing this post.

Tripit: Maximize Your Travel #2

Tripit is a great application that allows you to post your travel plans so other people in your network can see them. A recent improvement has made this feature even more valuable – integrating with LinkedIn. Now, when I update my travel plans to Tripit, it will display my travel plans to all of my LinkedIn followers. This is helpful as I can keep track of people I work with and clients and partners have a greater insight into my travel schedule. For example, our sales team can see my travel plans and perhaps pull me into a prospect meeting if I'm in that area.

For my recent trip to Atlanta, one of our partners saw that I was visiting Atlanta and asked if I would be visiting them. I followed up and let them know why I was travelling and that I didn’t think we needed to meet this trip. I think it’s great that our partners are following our travels and offering up to meet. This definitely shows that power of Tripit.

Tripit tip: Use it and ensure that you have tied it into your LinkedIn profile. If you’re a manager or higher up, get others in your company to use it as well.

PS: The Tripit people have also made it very easy to post your trips – just email your travel itinerary to plans@tripit.com and it will update your network automatically. That is very cool.

Blogger: Blogging is the Differentiator

Some people may have written off blogging and I admit that I have a love/hate relationship with it but in 2009 I’m definitely seeing it as even more important social media tool. While anyone can sign up for the networking tools I listed above, blogging acts as a differentiator as it forces you to come up with good content that people will want to read (if that is your goal). While Twitter does this as well, Twitter is limited by its 140 characters (this is a debate for a future post). I see blogging as a way of connecting many of the dots in social media - let me focus on a recent story to show you what I mean.

Back on December 21, 2008, I wrote the post “10 Tips for Using Twitter And Email Marketing for B2B”. Perhaps because it was the holidays it didn’t receive that many page views at the time I published it. About a month or so later, it was picked up by another blogger, Kathy Pay, and then quickly by the Twitter community. Here is an example of what this looked like on Twitter search:

The result was a surge of traffic to my blog, additional Twitter followers, and blog RSS subscribers. The post was then picked up by other social media hubs such as StumbleUpon and Digg which pushed additional traffic along with search engine traffic.

Blogger tip: While I use Blogger, you can use any blogging platform that works for you. The real point is that good content drives traffic and your blog can be the driver for all of your other social media efforts.

Blogger tip #2: Make sure your blog is featured in your Twitter profile, on LinkedIn, Facebook and any other social media app that you use.

Best Story for Last

Almost three years ago I married my wife. That in itself is an accomplishment but it’s how I met my wife which is the interesting part. I found my future wife on Jdate.com which was a social media site before the term social media was widespread. We are happily married and are expecting our first child in August.

Takeaways: Before I sign off, I did want to point out that my stories demonstrate a few things to keep in mind:

• The power of social media tools. My stories are at a very small scale and something I do in my spare time. Imagine how you can use social media tools for your business

• Social media tools are interrelated. Think about how you can blend in various social media tools to increase your own voice in this digital world as well as your company’s.

I hope you enjoyed these stories and I encourage you to relate your own stories in the comments area. Did this post help you better understand the power of social media?

Chad H.
@chadhorenfeldt

Tweet this!

Technorati Tags: social media,Twitter,Linkedin,Tripit,success stories,Atlanta. StubleUpon,Digg,Facebook,Blogger,web 2.0 tools,online marketing

Read more >>

Email Autoresponders 2.0 in B2B Marketing

Reflecting back on a long week I had the pleasure of meeting a number of new clients and seeing what they have accomplished as part of their online marketing initiatives. I am extremely lucky to see some of the most cutting edge marketing tactics being used and wanted to highlight some of them here.

I was inspired this morning after my 11 cups of coffee by a former customer and now colleague, Heather Foeh and her blog post "Friday Quick Tip: Re-Visit Your Autoresponders". By autoresponder email, I mean the confirmation email that a registrant immediately receives when they fill out a form on a website. Heather has some good tips to ensure that your information and call to action(s) is up to date. At times, marketers set these up and then forget about them. In this post, I want to highlight some of the interesting trends I'm seeing in marketing automation - specifically the autoresponder email and how you can take advantage of this often neglected marketing gem.

The Evolution of the Autoresponder Email

Let's start with the evolution of the autoresponder. Although this post is mostly from a B2B perspective, the items described here can also be applied in the B2C world. In the past, email recipients were used to receiving a text based email that had a simple message that thanked the subscriber for submitting their information. This in itself was a big step forward as many marketers either didn't have the capability to implement this due to their technology provider or the insight to add this tactic. Now, there are many different types of autoresponder emails from product/service confirmations to event detail information. In this post, I want to concentrate on the use case in which a user either signs up for a newsletter or to access resources from your website. Here is a quick timeline to trace how far marketers have come by displaying how past autoresponders appeared:

1. The Traditional Email Autoresponder

Thanks for registering.

2. Email Autoresponder 1.0

[Insert company logo here]

Thanks for registering.

Click here to unsubscribe.
CompanyX address

3. Email Autoresponder 1.5

[Insert company logo here]

Dear FirstName,
Thanks for registering to receive [insert name of resource] from CompanyX. Please be sure to return to www.companyx.com.

Regards,
CompanyX

Manage your profile or click here to unsubscribe.
CompanyX address

Autoresponder Email The Next Generation

Looking at the examples above, there really isn't anything wrong with the autoresponder 1.5. It provides relevant information, it's simple and to the point. I would also include a few other items as part of autoresponder 1.5: relevant static links to key areas of your website as well as asking recipients to whitelist your email address. This is all great but, if you're looking at ways to get more out of your autoresponders then keep reading.

I've found that autorepsonders can have open rates that can achieve greater that 80% open rates and clickthrough rates in the 20-30% range which blow industry averages out of the ball park. Registrants who fill out forms almost expect to get these emails as they have already taken the time to provide you with some type of information. The least you can do is provide them something useful in return. Other goals to keep in mind is to encourage the new subscriber to open and read future emails but encourage as well as interacting with you in other channels that they may not have known about.

1. Personalization: Adding "Dear FirstName" in your email is good but you're wasting an opportunity to build a relationship between the new registrant and a real person at your company. You know the saying "people buy from people" - well it's true. A recent Aberdeen report has demonstrated that email personalization drives higher email open and conversion rates. Knowing that registrants will most likely open the autoresponder reduces the risk of having a real person in the "from line". What this does is begin or continue the relationship between the prospect and sales rep. As an added tip, make sure you add the name of your company in the first few characters of the subject line so the email recipients realizes that the the name of the person in the "from line" is from your company.
   
   Once the person opens the email, have a signature that includes a real person's name and contact information. The autoresponder should encourage the email recipient to contact the sales rep if they have any questions. The best in class marketers have their CRM synced up to their marketing automation platform which means that known contacts from their CRM should already have an associated sales rep. Your marketing automation platform should also allow you to dynamically include the sales reps information as part of the autoresponder. As an added tip, include a picture of the sales rep. If the registrant is new to your system, have a generic signature that perhaps is from your CMO or a known figure within your organization. Your marketing automation platform can also help you build signature rules based on other contact information such as geography which allows for a personalized approach even if a web visitor has yet to be assigned to a sales rep.
   
   This type of personalization leads to a much stronger and smoother hand-0ff process between the marketing and sales teams which I described in my last post "Lead Management and Football". Using this technique demonstrates that marketing is at the top of their game.
   
   
2. Dynamic Content: This is one of the key areas that makes me smile when I'm reviewing how our customers are getting the most out of our product. Dynamic content in an email allows you to:
   
   • Simplify the autoresponder email creation. Instead of having 20 different versions of the same email, have one email that you can easily maintain. Using dynamic content you can change key areas such as what was exactly downloaded as well as customizing a call to action either based on what they downloaded and/or the interests that were specified in the registration process.
     
     In one example, I have a client that promoted different case studies based on the industry that was specified in the sign up process. In another example, a client specified exactly what was downloaded by capturing this in the registration process and then dynamically displaying this on the email. These techniques are simple, effective and led to increased response.
     
   
   
• Pull in content from RSS feeds: I've outlined this concept in an earlier post Latest Trends in Email Marketing: RSS and Calendar Reminders. You can promote corporate blog posts, upcoming events, press releases and the newest white papers/case studies in an RSS feed(s) that you can add to your email either underneath the main "Thanks for registering text" or as a side column. This means that not only are you saying "Read our latest blog posts" but you're actually including the title of your latest posts as well as a link to read the entire article. In this way you have new content that is dynamically added to your autoresponder without the marketer having to make any manual updates. This is a great way to get more out of your content and drive new registrants back to your website.
  
  
• Personalize who the email is coming from. I described this above but want to point out that this is a form of dynamic content
  


3. Promote Other Channels: More and more marketers are using social media to keep prospects engaged while they are in the sales and marketing funnel. In addition, more and more of prospects are using social media to learn about your products and services as well as comparing you to your competitors. As I outlined in 10 Tips for Using Twitter And Email Marketing for B2B you can add your company's Twitter address, Linkedin groups and links to RSS feeds such as your corporate blog to your autoresponder emails.
   
   You should consider other channels as well. For example, Breaking Point Systems offers a free poster which has proven to be a very successful campaign. I also find this approach brilliant as the autoresponder email drives recipients back to the website to fill out additional information to receive the poster. Another idea is to include a link to a video that may be a customer testimonial that is relevant to the recipients challenge or job role.
   
   
4. Sales Should not Follow up the Email With a Call: So you're reading this post and hopefully enjoying it and then you read this and you're like "What? Chad - you should have stopped after the second cup of coffee". Just because a web visitor signed up for a white paper or a newsletter on your website and you have pasted a nice picture of the rep on your autoresponder doesn't give anyone the right to call them up. If you have a properly defined lead management process, leads should only be passed on to sales for follow up if the prospect has attained a high enough lead score. In this way, you're focusing your sales team on the prospects that are more inclined to buy and sparing a potential buyer from being called too early in the purchase process.
   
   
5. Don't Stop After The Autoresponder: You may be saying: "Wait a minute - so, sales shouldn't follow up but I shouldn't stop after the autoresponder?". That's correct. As I mentioned above, you want to ensure that new subscribers are "sales worthy" according to the agreed upon definitions that you should have between sales and marketing. A great way to keep a new subscriber informed about your company is to move them into a nurturing program typically called a "welcome program" for new subscribers. This may involve a few different channels including having someone follow up with them by phone to further qualify the "inquiry" but the first few touches should be via email to demonstrate the value of having provided you with their email in the first place and to build a profile which translates into a lead score for marketers that have implemented a lead scoring system.
   
   What is important is to provide content that is relevant. Relevancy depends on the recipient's interests that they provided, what they have downloaded and/or which pages, offers or emails they responded to. Frequency is also very important. Try to prevent recipients from receiving email content that they have already received. You also want to ensure that recipients are not receiving too many emails in too short a period of time. However, I believe that relevancy trumps frequency and if the content is relevant, recipients will want to receive it and if they don't feel like looking at it right away, they'll still want to get information from you in the future.
   

Measure the Results

Measuring the results is very key in this process. If you've read the above you may either be excited or overwhelmed. I would recommend benchmarking your current key email and conversion metrics and then slowly adding some of the techniques above and seeing the results. For example, by adding in personalization, are your sales reps receiving inbound calls as a result of this email? Of course, you will need a process in place to measure this (perhaps a dedicated line) but I would recommend starting simple and building on your successes. While these recommendations will require an investment of time up front, it will pay off in the long run.

Have you tried any of these techniques? How has it worked for you?

Chad H.
@chadhorenfeldt

Tweet this!

Related Posts:

• Latest Trends in Email Marketing: RSS and Calendar Reminders
• Lead Management and Football
• 10 Tips for Using Twitter And Email Marketing for B2B
• Dynamic Email Content: The Next Generation of Personalization

Technorati tags: autoresponder email, e-mails, email frequency, relevancy, social media and confirmation emails, personalization, Twitter B2B marketing

Read more >>

10 Tips for Using Twitter And Email Marketing for B2B

I was told that every blog needs a "top 10 post" and I thought today would be a good day to write one on a topic that is growing in popularity. That topic is Twitter and how best to use this tool for your B2B marketing efforts. I thought I would take a stab at providing tips on blending a tried and true tool like email with Twitter. Let me know what you think and if you have additional tips (let's see if Darren Rowse from Twitip is listening)

10 Tips for Using Twitter And Email Marketing for B2B

1. Add a link to your company's Twitter account to all mass email communications. Consider adding a link in the email footer to items such as your event invitations or email newsletters. This tip is especially important for any resource or newsletter autoresponder subscription emails. I've found that the autoresponder email from BreakingPoint does this quite well (and has an excellent newsletter!).

Quick note here: I already assumed that your company created a Twitter account. You can find many other blog posts out there on that subject. Here is a great one that should scare you into getting one: Don’t get BrandJacked: Confirming Your Corporate Twitter Account

2. Link to a form landing page from your company Twitter account. For example if you have a Twitter post such as "New white paper on how to increase ROI". Upon clicking on the link to the white paper, direct "Tweeple" (twitter people) to a landing page where you request their email address to get access to the white paper if you don't already have it. In this way you're converting your twitter followers into opted-in email subscribers.

3. Use Twitter content in your email newsletters. For example, create a feature called "Twitter Q/A". In this section, address questions/comments that came up on Twitter and what the response was. This goes back to being an Eco-Marketer and reusing content that you have. I would also recommend recognizing and thanking Tweeple that have contributed to your community. That's the stuff that builds social media loyalty and grows and nurtures your community. If you don't have enough content it means that your company is not leveraging this channel enough and it's time to get on that because it many cases, the conversation has already started.

4. Post links from your email newsletter articles on Twitter. Instead of including one twit that says: "Check out the latest newsletter" and links back to your main newsletter page, consider seeding individual articles on Twitter over a period of time (say a week). You can use a tool like Brightkit to pre-schedule your twits in advance. Companies should make each twit count and make the content as interesting as possible.

5. Ensure that all email newsletter article authors have their Twitter account listed on the email. This allows recipients to continue the conversation after they read the article. You may want to have a Twitter account for anyone mentioned in your marketing emails. This will require the individual to listen and contribute on Twitter which is a good thing (even if they object) :). A definite email best practice is personalization and I believe that Twitter is just an extension of this.

6. Provide instructions in your emails about how subscribers can follow conversations about your company on Twitter. For example, if you are promoting an event in your email, let subscribers know that they they can twit about the event using the hashtag character #. For example #myevent. You would replace "myevent" with the name of the event. You can instruct event registrants to use Twemes to follow the Twitter conversation about the event. Have a look at Karl Roche's excellent post on Twitter for events for more information.

7. Ask email subscribers for their Twitter ID when they sign up. Experiment with an optional field on a few key web registration forms and see how this affects your conversion rate. I recommend mentioning that you will follow the person if they provide their Twitter ID. This may an incentive enough as Tweeple are looking to get as many followers as possible.

8. On your email preference page, indicate to those who may want to unsubscribe that they can still follow you on Twitter. While you may have lost the person from your email list, you keep them in your community. This is the strength of Twitter and how it can be leveraged to enhance your existing marketing efforts.

9. Add a link in your emails and/or on your website that allows email subscribers and web visitors to easily tweet about an article, event or promotion. I learned this from Mr. Tweet. All you need to do is link to Twitter with the following URL: http://twitter.com/home?status= and add in a message under 140 characters after the "=" sign. Here is an example: http://twitter.com/home?status=Great post on Anything Goes Marketing: "10 Tips for Using Twitter And Email Marketing for B2B" http://twurl.nl/sd7i43. This makes the process of spreading the word about your email article extremely easy. Does it take more time? Yes. Will it drive more traffic and help you get further bang for your email buck? Most likely. All you have to do is test it out.

10. Conduct Twitter interviews and use this as content for your email marketing. This type of "Twitterview" could be with a customer, partner, company exec (or any other employee), or industry thought leader. What makes Twitter great is that these types of interviews are easy to do and you can use email to promote these as "live events" as well. Here is an interview that Ann Handley from MarketingProfs did which is a great example of how easy this is.

I hope you have found this useful and please contribute additional tips by adding your own comments below.

Chad H
www.twitter.com/chadhorenfeldt

PS: If you found this useful, please tweet about it.

Technorati tags: Twitter, Darren Rowse, MarketingProfs, Email Marketing, Twitterview, E-mail marketing, web 2.0., Twitter and email marketing

Read more >>

The Recession is Here - Time to Become an Eco-Marketer

When I say that you should become an eco-marketer, I don't mean that you should add some corny green recycle image to your website (who would do that?) or support a "Save the Whales" campaign. Although I'm a big supporter of environmental issues and started my career running an environmental organization, I would like to focus on eco-marketing in terms of demand creation.

I focused my research this week on how I can help my customers build out a demand waterfall as defined by the smart people over at SiriusDecisions. During my research, I stumbled upon a great article by the Canadian Marketing Blog called "2009 B-to-B Demand Creation Trends" eh (Canadian joke). It's here where I came across the term eco-marketer and I wanted to build on the excellent analysis that they have already provided. However, after I drank 10 cups of coffee, I've created my own version of the eco-marketer. Here are my three Rs that I recommend to become the best eco-marketer you can be in a down economy:

The Three Rs of Marketing and a Bonus R

1. Reuse: In a down economy you need to reuse all of your marketing resources that you have out there and maximize your marketing investments. Here are my recommendations:
   
   • Reuse your webinars. If you have run a live webinar, post the archived version on your website behind a form. It's been proven that archived webinars can generate more leads then the actual live event.
   • Reuse your email newsletters by ensuring they are posted on your website. This is a simple one but it's surprising how many e-newsletters remain only in email format. I would recommend to post in on your website and even create an RSS feed. With an RSS feed, you can promote in your email footers and it can be re-used by other bloggers and companies. You should even consider creating a blog and reposting your newsletter articles on it.
   • Reuse your live presentations. If anyone from your company or your customers are speaking on behalf of your company ensure that you film them and add them to the resource area of your website. You can even just post the slides or the speech text. Don't miss these great opportunities to build marketing content.
     
   • Use social media techniques such as Twitter and YouTube to maximize the effect of your webinars, videos and white papers. For example, you can mention on your twitter profile that you've just released a new blog post or newsletter. Think of social media as a big marketing ecosystem (see, I am focusing on the environment) and make sure you take advantage of all the tools out there. In this way, you can reuse your marketing materials as much as possible.
     
   • Reuse all of your marketing materials in your lead nurturing efforts. Having the right content for automated lead nurturing programs can be the most difficult part of a lead nurturing campaign. However, many companies have all of the materials they need already created. Even though some may be dated, if the materials are good they should be reused. You don't need to just focus on pushing out new content, you probably have some gold nuggets that may be hidden on your site.
     
     For your nuturing campaigns, create a document that outlines all of the marketing content that you have and map this to the buying process of your target audiences that you have identified (assuming you have created defined marketing segments).
     
     You would be amazed at how you can reuse the content you already have (blog posts, newsletter articles, industry white papers, demos) and create a specific and defined automated program that is designed to target a specific segment and has a specific marketing goal.
     
   • Create marketing campaigns that can be reused. For example, if you have a large marketing team, create processes so that you standardize your email and landing page templates. Tweak them as necessary based on your successes (or failures). Another example is to create automated program templates such as an event management or lead nurturing template. These templates can be copied and reused.
     
   • Reuse (and abuse) your whole company. If you have Jimmy from the development team who did a lunch and learn on how he coded a solution that will benefit your clients, get him to write it down and post it on a blog. If Sarah from your Support team came up with a great solution to solve a customer problem, video tape her and post it on your site or include it in your next newsletter. MAXIMIZE YOUR ENTIRE COMPANY IN YOUR MARKETING EFFORTS. Did I just write in caps?
     
     
2. Reduce: Not only should B2B companies reduce the amount of lead leakage where leads are being lost is the sales/marketing funnel by tightening up processes, the following also needs the be considered:
   
   • Reduce the amount of communication that you're sending to leads. Are you saying to yourself "Are you on drugs Chad? Why would I want to send less communications when I need to keep up the number of leads to my sales team?". In a down economy you need to work on further segmenting your campaigns and matching your communications to the right person at the right time. Any emails, direct mail etc... send should be based on a person's interest and the stage of the demand waterfall that they are in. This type of eco-marketing will achieve the best results and ensure that you conserve (another eco-friendly term!) you're ever shrinking opt-in database in the tough times ahead.
   • Reduce the amount of time it takes for qualified leads to be followed up with. An automated lead nurturing process will help deal with leads that are qualified but not yet ready to buy and thus reducing leads falling through the cracks but a process needs to be put in place to put the best leads on the desks of your sales team so they'll follow up right away. The best solution for this is a lead scoring process that scores leads based on their explicit information (industry, job role etc...) and their implicit activity (offers they've downloaded, emails they've responded to). With this type of process in place, you can ensure that your sales team is "cutting through the crap" and following up with the best leads before your competitors.
   • Reduce the complexity to getting access to information on your website. Optimize your landing pages by removing any unnecessary fields. Ask for more information only if it makes sense to the potential lead. Consider building up a profile of the lead over time. This requires more effort as you need to think through the stages on getting this information but it is worth it.
     
   
   
3. Recycle: By recycling leads that are in your sales and marketing funnel you will get the most out of your marketing investments. Just because a potential lead attends a webinar and doesn't respond to a sales call doesn't mean they're not interested in buying from your company. An eco-marketer may want to further investigate SiriusDecisions methodologies around calling webinar attendees "inquiries" rather then leads and not passing these on to sales until they've been further qualified through an automated marketing program. In fact, SiriusDecisions has demonstrated that webinars are typically viewed at the beginning stages of the buying process. This is just one example of how marketers need to go beyond lead generation to concentrate on the lead funnel and developing strategies to move leads through this funnel.
   
   Recycle your "inactive leads". Recycling doesn't just include those leads that are not "sales ready" or not yet ready to buy. You need to have automated processes that will detect those leads that you've been sending emails to (or other forms of communication like direct mail) and haven't responded. This means that they haven't visited your website, filled out a form or responded to your marketing communications. You can recycle these leads by placing them in a separate automated program with messages that are specific to this segment. This may include an email with a survey asking these "inactives" what they would like to receive from your company or a request to opt back in with a targeted offer. You may decide that it's time to take some of these leads to the curb but at least you have tried your hardest to maximize those leads that came through your front door.
   
   
4. A bonus R is "Remove". Remove any of the following:
   
   • Remove barriers between the sales and marketing team. Everyone needs to work together. Think peace and joy on earth (just like a real environmentalist).
   • Remove campaigns or tactics that are not working. To do this, you need a mechanism in place to measure every aspect of your marketing efforts. This goes back to my original premise of researching the demand waterfall. Having a defined process in place where you can measure the success of your marketing efforts at each stage of the sales marketing funnel is crucial. For example, if the conversion rate of a Google AdWords campaign is failing as the effort to turn these "inquiries" into MQLs (marketing qualified leads) is too expensive and takes too long, remove it. Focus on sources that are bringing in more qualified leads.
   • Remove crappy data and automate the process if possible. You will probably have fewer leads coming in the top of your pipeline so you can concentrate on creating processes that will remove contacts that should never hit your database. This may include contacts with bad email addresses, your competitors etc... You can also look at your database for data that is inconsistent and clean it up. Where possible, you can fix this data using automated data tools. For example, it may be possible to standardize contacts that have various job titles or contacts that have different versions of a country (USA, U.S.A., United States etc...). Bad data prevents you from further segmenting your database. Clean out the crap and ensure it stays as clean as possible.
     
   • Remove or punish people that have not bought in. Relating this back to the environment, in Toronto we've implemented a new program for home owners that taxes you based on the garbage that you put at the curb. If you follow the three R's and reduce your trash, you save money. If you don't want to get with the program, you'll pay for it with your wallet. It's fairly straightforward.
     
     As an eco-marketer, you need to get the senior people bought in on your new eco-marketing mantra. If you have sales people that don't want to participate, have them penalized. If you have marketing folks that can't see the forest through the trees, remove them. It's obviously easier said then done but that's why you need executive buy-in.
     

I'm sure you can add here to my points above and I implore you to do that by leaving some comments. Good luck to you during some tough times ahead and be the best eco-marketer you can be.

Chad H.

PS - Here are some additional resources I used in my research (let me know if you have other useful resources)

• Lead recycling means nothing wasted
• Funnelnomics: Accelerate your marketing and sales funnel to drive growth and profitability
• B2B Lead: 10 tips for marketing and sales alignment

PPS - Here are some tips to reduce the amount of water you use in your home.

Technorati tags: eco-marketer, sirusdecisions, lead nuturing, scoring, water conservation, reduce, Reuse, Recyle, demand gerenation, marketing automation, Toronto garbage laws, waterfall, sales and funnel, twitter

Read more >>

Is your Company Being Blogged About?

Last week I mentioned how you can track your company's brand on twitter. Incidentally I did predict Obama winning the election and also the Dolphins beating the Seahawks today so I'm on a roll!

This week I found a new site that you can use to compare how you're company is doing on the blogosphere versus your competition. The tools is called www.trendpedia.com. I liked this site because it graphically represented the trends on a timeline and allows you to drill into them to see the actual blog posts. The home page also contains data on the most popular comparisons.

Here are a few comparisons I had fun with:

• Oracle vs. SAP
• Visa vs. Mastercard vs. American Express
• BMW vs. Mercedes
  
• Peyton Manning vs. Eli Manning
• Brad Pitt vs. Angelina Jolie

Try comparing your company versus your competitors and drill into the peaks to get a better understanding of why their was a high amount of chatter on a certain day. What are the trends? How is your company being represented when compared to your competitors.

This week and last week's posts should give you the kick in the but you need to ensure that your company has a voice in the social media world and if you've already delved into this that you listen very closely and refine your approach.

Chad H.

PS - a new source to look out for when tracking your brand is Linkedin.

Read more >>

Obama beats McCain... on Twitter

Are you having a tough time convincing your boss your company needs to get on Twitter? I checked out a site called Tweetvolume that tracks the number of times a term(s) is mentioned on Twitter and presents it in a bar chart. You can compare multiple items which allows you to compare the mentions of your company vs. another company.

Here's a few I tried:

• Coke vs. Pepsi
  
• PC vs. Mac
• Wii vs. Xbox vs. Playstation
• Palin vs. Bidden
  
• McCain vs. Obama

Try it out and you can even send a link to your boss showing how your company compares to your competitor. That should be all you need to get your company's "Twitter on".

Good luck!

Chad H.

PS: You can follow me on Twitter
PPS: Smart companies use Twitter search to see what people are saying about them. While you may not actively on Twitter, the social community is twittering about you.

Read more >>

Latest Trends in Email Marketing: RSS and Calendar Reminders

As we move into a new week there are some interesting trends and technology enhancements that will start to change the way that B2B companies use email. For those that are thinking "email is email - how can it change?", keep reading.

Trend#1: The Blogletter is Coming - Actually, it's Already Here.

You may recall I blogged about a concept called the Blogletter (combo of email newsletter and blog posts). I don't hold anything against the blog readers out there who unsubscribed from my feed en mass after that post (OK, well a few of you I do). Here's the truth - the blogletter will be arriving very soon and will revolutionize the way some companies can create and execute an email newsletter or any email campaign.

The concept behind a blogletter is to be able to publish blog posts (or any RSS feeds for that matter) directly to an email and send it to subscribers. One of my readers back then asked me how this concept would work. At the time I didn't have any answers except for Feedblitz's tool which allows web visitors to get updated via email every time you submit a blog post (they have some new paid tools as well). This approach works for the average blogger but companies need better tools. The tools are now here and here are two approaches that you can use to take advantage of this technology:

• Integrating RSS feeds and emails. Imagine if you could integrate an RSS feed (if you don't know what RSS is and you are in marketing, you may want to read the following) with an email. For those of you who have feeds already (which include blogs) this would mean that you don't have to update content in multiple areas. You can update an RSS feed and have it publish to your website and email.

• Automating email using RSS feeds. Let's take this a step further with automation. If you regularly post content to your RSS feeds, you could potentially create an automated program that would send an email newsletter (Blogletter or RSSletter) automatically on the date that you defined. The newsletter would consist of the latest articles/posts from your RSS feeds as well as any other elements of your newsletter. What's key here is that the whole process to create a newsletter becomes much easier as you have an automated program that sends the email for you and the content is content that you've created for a blog or other RSS feed. This process works very well for new subscribers to your site as they can get a newsletter with the latest articles from the RSS feeds that you have defined.

Other advantages? As I mentioned in my previous article on the subject, your readers can comment on articles which adds a new dimension to email as it's no longer a one way push marketing channel.

I hope you find this interesting as the technology now exists to do this. The above examples are the tip of the iceberg.

Trend #2: Helping Your Customers/Prospects Organize Themselves

This tip/technology isn't new but it's now easier and thus has many more implications. A while back I wrote about how you can improve webinar/webcast attendee rates by creating a file that when clicked on, can book off the time specified in your email recipient's Outlook (and other programs too) calendar.

This process was a bit of a pain as you need to create the .ics file and then upload it to your server. It's much easier now as some systems will allow you to create this on the fly and integrate directly into your email or website. What does this mean? Here are some ideas:

• Set real milestones: There are many "How to" white papers out there that pose a problem that that you may be experiencing and provide a solution with next steps. For example, a white paper that outlines a ten step plan to turn around their business using your product or service. Imagine if you could create a solution with key milestones including REAL dates that the your prospect/customer can save on their own Outlook/Lotus calender. In addition, this information (email clicks) can be tracked. By tracking this information, you can have your inside sales/demand gen team follow up with these prospects on the actual date of the milestone that was outlined and ensure that they are on the path that was outlined which may include a meeting with someone from your company.
  
  
• Read later reminder: Do you hate an inbox full of email? I know I do. I can't hit the delete button faster in many cases (still waiting for that voice activated delete email function). What if you created a standard feature for all of your emails that was a simple link that said "I want to read this at a later date". By clicking on the link, the user would be presented with a calender item that had an online link to the newsletter and a recommended calender reminder to read the email at a later date as well as a suggested time/day. This approach may book off 10 minutes of a person's actual day to read your email. The email recipient can adjust the date to suite her/his schedule. The mobile folk may also like this feature as they can set a reminder to read the email when they are back in the office. Will this work? maybe. Is it worth trying? Definitely as it's very easy to do with some of the new enhancements out there.

Email is going well beyond the traditional approach where it was used to just push out information. The interactivity described above is part of a trend in B2B marketing which is focusing more on the ongoing conversation with prospects and customers rather then a one-off batch and blast approach. The ideas described above may seem a bit off the wall but should be considered along with other ideas on how to make email more interactive and to integrate it with overall marketing processes rather then as a tool in itself. I hope I have at least made you start to think about new approaches.

Chad H.

PS - Thanks for the image Just Say Hi

Technorati Tags: blogletter, blog newsletter, calendar reminders for events, deleting email

Read more >>

Give web visitors the resources they need - Customized Google

Raise your hand if you answer yes to all of the following questions:

• My company has a website
• We have great resources on our website
• Some of these resources help our customers and prospects learn more about what we do and affect the buying process
• It's difficult to find these resources on our site
  

Your hand raised? I've got a fairly simple solution. If you're on my blog (that's directed to my RSS reader friends), you'll notice a shiny new Google search box at the top of the site. This is an example of AJAX (new technology that doesn't require the browser to reload). Try it out! Search for anything you want (here's a good one: "Google Rocks"). Notice how the search results appear as a layer over the current page - isn't that cool? What I like about this is that you don't need to worry about the design of the search results pages and you get the power and authority of Google on your site. In addition, with this Web 2.0 technology, you never leave the page you are on so it's a better web experience.

The best news is that it's easy to implement Google Custom Search Engine and it's FREE. Here's what you do:

• Go to: http://www.google.com/coop/cse/
• Click on "Create a custom search engine"
• Fill out the form fields on the next page (add in any number of sites you may want to index)
• Within the search results hosting option section, select the new "overlay" option. The drawback for bloggers is that you can't get Adsense but hey, if I was blogging for the money I would have quit long ago.
• Copy the code and paste it on your site
• You can customize this but I really didn't do any customization and it looks fine.
  

There is also a business upgrade for $100 a year. I've set this search engine up for a non-profit site (because I make tons off this blog - heavy sarcasm) which means that no ads will appear in the search results. Businesses will probably want to purchase the business edition as you'll not want ads on your internal search engine (could be competitors). I think it may be the best $100 your company has spent. If you don't have a site search, you're missing out on an opportunity to help web visitors to find information on your web site and better leverage your web and overall marketing investments. The easier it is to find the right information, the better chance at conversions and eventually closed deals. I haven't tested this out but you can probably use Google Analytics to track what people are searching on and additional data. If you have an enterprise site, you may want to look at some of the more feature heavy tools out there like Inquira.

Let me know if you have questions or tried it out.

Chad H

Technorati tags: Google Custom Search Engine, AJAX

Read more >>

Americans Hate Canadians

I'm pretty steamed at the moment. I don't know how else to explain this but to say that Americans hate their brothers and sisters to the North. Are you guys jealous of our health care system or something? What is it??

If you try and access TV show episodes like The Office, you get messages like this: "We're sorry, but the clip you requested is not available from your location". I'm sorry, what?! I have a job that depends on this (refer to my last post). I thought, "OK, maybe this is coincidence" but then I just read in national Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail, that Comedy Central did the same thing with the Daily Show. Websites can detect which country you're coming from based on your IP address and block you. I guess I shouldn't complain that much as it's not like it is in China, but come on!

It turns out that Americans don't hate Canadians (well, some may). The reason that Canadians are blocked is because Global TV and other Canadian TV networks have paid a pretty penny to re-broadcast these shows in Canada and don't want Canadians to access these shows for free on the net. Therefore, Global is really to blame here but here's the reality:

• Canadians don't care who is blocking the videos, they are being blocked. We live in a free country up here and we don't look highly on being restricted in our web browsing (especially on US web sites!!)


• The brand of these TV shows and US networks suffer - not the Canadian networks. I think that this is grossly underestimated. Negativity is very powerful these days as bloggers can write up how dissatisfied they are very easily via blogs. :)
  


• Why not add a comment that tells me the reason I can't watch the video? I guess that would get Global in trouble. It looks like that the problem was rectified by the Daily Show as it now redirects you to a Canadian network called the Comedy Network. They learned their lesson - why hasn't The Office (notice how I blamed the show and not NBC - I actually am holding Steve Carrel responsible as he runs the office).

Don't set the expectation of placing videos on the net and then make them impossible to reach because of the country you live in. This is a web 2.0 no no - especially when video is so easily accessible via YouTube and other channels. While the web can be used to virally promote your product/service or TV show, it can just as easily destroy it.

Chad H.

PS - Question for the Global TV people - why do you have other videos on your site and not The Office? Please let me know.
PPS - Hey Global TV: ET Canada really sucks.

Tags: Global TV sucks, The Office, Steve Carrel

Read more >>

I have a new job... in viral marketing

No, I haven't left my current job. I've added a second job working for the Dundler Mifflin Infinity team, Sudbury Ontario Branch. I'm not joking!

I submitted my application on the new Dundler Mifflin Infinity website which was accepted and I plan to help them sell paper. My first task was adding that nice banner ad over there. Go ahead and give it a click. You use paper, don't you?

If you watch the show The Office on NBC like I do with my wife most weeks, you'll understand what Dundler Mifflin is all about. This season, they've launched a new website that allows their customers to buy their product online (if you're asking what took them so long, you need to watch the show). NBC has created an entire online campaign to build on the theme of the actual episodes. This includes all of the web 2.0 mix such as social networks, videos etc... What I liked about this site is that they really make you feel part of the team and it really isn't all that difficult to participate. By including features such as adding web banners as part of the tasks that your "manager" has set out for you, your adding to the viral effect - it's brilliant! In addition, "applying for a job" was a snap. Online "branches" from across the globe compete against each other. For this week's task, the branch with the most clicks, wins. Go Sudbury branch!

What is more important is the passion you see on this website. These people really are Office fanatics. Depending what type of business you're in, you may have your own fanatics - these are people that love your product and/or services. Think about ways that you can harness this passion so it's not just your company evangelists who are spreading the word about the great things that you do but it's your customers doing this for you.

Any other Office fans out there?

Chad H.

PS - I added The Office theme music myself (wasn't part of the task). Just click play above.
PPS - I'm serious about clicking on the banner ad. Do you want me to get fired on my first day?
PPPS - Notice how NBC uses query strings on the banner ad links. This is similar to my recent post on closed loop marketing. You need to see the post and click on the banner above to better understand what I mean

Tags: Dwight Schrute for President, The Office, Dundler Mifflin Infinity

Read more >>

Who will be the Next President? Mr. or Mrs. Widget

Widgets are becoming more and more popular these days as additional tools for marketers. Widgets have been around for a while but they are being used more frequently (especially on social media sites) which is why they are gaining additional attention. There are different types of widgets but I will be focusing on web widgets as I found a great one for all of my American friends.

According to Wikipedia, a web widget is a small piece of code that you add to a web page. You also have desktop widgets (for example, the ones that come with Windows Vista, Apple and Yahoo widgets).

Why should I care about widgets?

• They are helpful as they provide useful information. For example, I have a weather application right on my desktop so I easily know the weather for the week.

• Market to your prospects. Are you trying to demonstrate leadership in your industry? Building your brand? Trying to drive people to your website? Consider creating a widget that will include your logo, a link to your website and provides useful information (see point #1) that will demonstrate your knowledge on a particular subject. It can even be something fun like a game - anything that reflect well on your company and/or brand.
  
  
• Communicate to customers more efficiently. Imagine if you were able to alert your customers instantly with a widget (for example, new tickets go on sale or a software alert) or provide them with a widget to receive mission critical information to their mobile device (this is a mobile widget)? The possibilities are endless. With widgets you get around email. If your widget is deemed useful, people will download it and use it.
  

What do Widgets and the Next US President have to do With Each Other?

This is an easy one - check out this widget from the Washington Post that I easily added to this post. This says it all. It provides an easy synopsis of the major presidential candidates and their positions. It demonstrates that the Washington Post knows its stuff and helps readers cut through the political rhetoric. It also provides a plug for Daylife - the company that built this widget.



The new craze is using widgets with social media sites such as Facebook and MySpace. For example, I downloaded a widget for the show The Office for Facebook that displays quotes from the show. Widgets demonstrate how companies are working together more to build on existing platforms and provide more useful applications.

Let me know if you have found other interesting widgets and if you find these useful.

Chad H.

PS - widgets can be a huge time drainer as well so watch out!
PPS - Larry Chase pointed me to Widgipedia: http://www.widgipedia.com. It's a widget search engine and directory . Get your widget on!

Tags: web widgets, The Office, Facebook, social media, Washington Post, Hilary for President

Read more >>

Driving More Web Traffic: The Community Effect

I was at a wedding this past weekend and I was talking to a 10 and 12 year old who were avid "gamers" (video game players). As a side note I equate gaming with gambling as they both can be costly and are ridiculously addictive. I myself am not a gamer but was recently handed a free Xbox (the old one) and couldn't help playing a "few" games. I was feeling confident that I could speak to these tweens on how I'm down with gaming - boy was I wrong.

During my conversation I got the low down on "what's in" these days which includes RPG games (don't know what that is? Come on, what's wrong with you? :) ) and playing with your friends online. This is where gaming is like gambling. Like a slot machine, Xbox (Microsoft) makes you not only shell out for the system and the games but if you want to play online, you need an Xbox Live subscription. If you're a parent you probably know all about this. How does this relate to driving web traffic?

Gaming - The Online Community of Youth

Besides Facebook, MySpace and other web 2.0 online communities, my wedding table guests explained that they spend a tremendous amount of time playing online Xbox games. Why? Because it's a chance to play with your friends online which is far away from reality, parents, school etc... Did your parents ground you? No problem, you can still hang with your friends in a make belief world. It's no wonder that one of the more popular games is called "Fable" as this is a fairy tale world. These games are addictive as it's no longer the challenge of just you against the computer - it's also you "against" your friends. You now have a type of peer pressure to keep you coming back and spending more money and time online (with Microsoft).

How do You Capture the Online "Gaming" Effect?

This is the big question. Today, there are many articles out there on "marketing conversations" like this one called "Conversational Marketing" by Diane Hessen. What is the "social glue" that will keep people coming back to your site, opening your emails and buying your products and services? A great example of this is MarketingProfs Know-How Exchange. This is almost like gaming for marketing professionals (almost - there is no sniper fire or three pointers).

The Know-How Exchange allows small to mid-size businesses to post marketing questions on a wide variety of topics and the community provides responses. These questions are sent to the community daily via email. Points are awarded to the people with the best answers by the people who asked the questions. These points are called expert points. You now have a rating that you can compare with others. I have responded to 13 questions and had 8 of my answers accepted. I've accumulated 501 points and I have a batting average of 615 - not bad! Watch out A-Rod! The key item here is that very little engagement is required by MarketingProfs as the community drives itself.

The Know-How Exchange really works. It's a free service that allows its members to have their say (the ongoing conversation effect), it provides real answers by real professionals (usually) which gives it authenticity, it gives companies the chance to win new business by finding opportunities and it demonstrates that MarkingProfs is the place to go for marketing resources and thus promotes its premium memberships. This is really win win at its best.

Does it have the peer pressure effect? Yes as it lists the "experts" that have accumulated the most points overall which is like a video games high scores that everyone is trying to beat. It may not be the same as playing a collaborative video game but it's close as many of the regular experts tend to way in on the questions.

How can you Start Your Community?

This post was more to get your mind thinking of the possible and how communities can work. A few easy ideas on starting conversations in your industry is to have an "ask the expert" knowledge exchange. You can start this off by asking your customers for questions that they may have about their industry. For example, I work in the online marketing world so clients may ask what is the average open rate for software companies that have revenues over $500 million. Get the conversation started and use your team to answer these questions (perhaps the service component of your business). As this concept grows, you will start to develop a repository of resources that you can use to post on your site or your blog which is great for new content (think SEO). You will also start to grow a core group of members. As this idea grows, you may want to move to a format where you bring in advocates of your products and services. These may be clients and partners that may already have blogs and websites that support your cause. You can then move to more of an online community effect where the content is no longer solely dependent on your company.

I hope that you have found this informative and I wish you luck on building your online community. Remember to ask yourself what is the social glue that will keep your community together. If you can't answer that then you're not ready to start an online community.

Chad H.

Tags: Xbox, MarketingProfs, online communities, RPG

Image is from www.xbox.com (Microsoft - please don't sue me)

Read more >>

How to Improve Your Email Newsletter

Do you have an email newsletter? Many B2B and B2C companies produce a newsletter or newsletters that are geared to a specific audience or audiences. There is no question that newsletters are a great way of keeping your company top of mind to your customers and prospects and increasing brand awareness as well the perception that your organization is the industry expert. Here's the issue: How can you distinguish your newsletter from your competitors and take it to the next level? How can you improve your email opens and click-throughs?

Email Newsletter 2.0

Taking your newsletter to the next level really isn't that difficult. In the "new world" of web 2.0, your target audience no longer just wants to receive information from you but they want the ability to respond and have their say. How do you do this? You allow people to comment on your newsletter articles. A while back I wrote about the concept of a "blogletter" that combines a newsletter and a blog. We see this concept more and more. In fact, many newsletters will display the number of comments that an article has right in the email (you can see the example I provided from the Globe & Mail)!

Why Should I Allow Comments on my Email Newsletter

Here are the benefits:

• New metrics to measure success: With many email software providers you can see who has opened and clicked through from your email newsletter. Allowing comments takes this further as you can better gauge the uptake of your newsletter. A new email newsletter metric could be number of comments per newsletter or average amount of comments per article
  
  
• Receive valuable feedback: Email communication is typically one way. Your organization writes articles and you blast them to your list. Comments allow your readers to have their say. They can tell you what they like and what they don't like about your newsletter.
  
  
• Lead qualification: There are two benefits here. In order to leave comments, you could add some additional lead qualification questions to the registration process. Typically you would probably only request the basic information for someone to receive your newsletter (name, email, company for B2B). When someone wants to leave a comment, it provides an opportunity to request additional information to help your marketing and sales team have a better understanding of the customer/prospect.
  
  In addition, if your organization gets its share of leads, you can use newsletter comments to help in the lead qualification process. For example, how about metrics such as the number of comments that contact has written and the recency of the last comment? These stats could be used as part of an automated lead qualification process and be displayed on the contact record of the CRM (Customer Relationship Management like Salesforce.com) that you use.
  
  
• Better insight into your customers and prospects: Positive, negative or indifferent most comments are important. If you were able to include these comments in the contact record of your CRM, your sales and customer support team can get a better sense of the contact, their business and any issues/opportunities that exist. When you leave a comment on my blog, I get an email that tells me what you wrote about. What if you were able to have comments go right to the customer/lead owner as defined by your CRM (If you are doing this right now then I am thoroughly impressed - this can be done)? If the comment is negative, have that person contacted right away! If the person has a question about your industry, product or service have that person contacted right away!
  

• Newsletter readers become newsletter contributors: Your email recipients are no longer just contacts that make up a list. They become real people who have opinions. Your newsletter may even create a community of loyal readers and contributors (like an online "Cheers" where everybody knows your name and they may or may not be glad you came). You'll get your regular "commenters" who will express their opinions. You may even want to let one of them write an article. The great part of this is that they will give you ideas about what you can write about in the future. When no comments are provided, this speaks volumes as well as your newsletter article may not appeal to your target audience or it may be over their heads.
  
  
• Your newsletter gets better results: The more you allow people to participate in the conversation, the more you engage them and the better results you will get. If you don't believe me, I urge you to test out this concept for a month and see how it goes. If your results improve, I will expect a cheque.
  

Here are drawbacks:

• You need to monitor the comments: Typically, you will want to approve comments before they are added. In addition, you will want to have someone that can quickly respond to negative comments. This can take time and cost money. There are systems that automate this process though.
  
  
• The comments can be negative or just plain stupid: You may have some disgruntled people out there that don't like you or what you have to say. That's OK actually. Having some negative comments shows that you're company is human - hey everyone makes mistakes. The important point is how you respond to those mistakes and turn negatives into positives. As mentioned in my first point, you need to respond to these fairly quickly. You also get the idiots out there who have nothing to contribute except for wanting to advertise their product or service. These just waste your time and there are ways to automatically filter them out.
  

What do I do to get this moving?

This really isn't too difficult. Most email newsletter articles are posted on web pages. There are a number of software packages out there that will allow you to add comments to your newsletter web pages or to merge a blogging software (like Wordpress) into your website template. Your IT team can assist here or there many consultants out there. I know MarketingSherpa does this and I'm sure they would let you know how they did this. Some of the ideas around lead qualification and capturing metrics in your CRM still need to be flushed out. This was me thinking out loud. To add the number of comments to your email newsletter, why not either publish your newsletter to your site a day before you send out the email so you get some initial comments and then add in the code on your email newsletter. Some software packages out there may allow for this to be dynamically generated - I don't know enough about this (that's not the case for the Globe & Mail example above).

Good luck with this and I hope that it improves your results. If you have tried this already, please let me know.


Chad H.

Tags: email newsletters, enewsletter, Cheers, Norm, CRM, Salesforce.com, blogletter, Globe & Mail

Read more >>

Elect Susie! Here is Some Creative Viral Marketing

10 year old Susie Flynn has just announced her intention to run for the US presidency and if I was American, I just might consider her. She is trying to raise awareness for children in America without health insurance. There is in fact 9 million children in America without health insurance! Check out her site at www.electsusie.com. I want to applaud her for her great campaign so far and her use of all of the web 2.0 tools such as Youtube, facebook, and myspace.

Ok, so Susie is not her real name and this poor little girl is being used by the Children's Defense Fund but you must applaud their efforts - let's hope that they let "Susie" eat and sleep!



In any case, the campaign is smart, funny and should raise some buzz for the cause of children in America. Good luck Susie!!

Chad H.

Tags: susie flynn, US politics, word of mouth marketing, social networks

Read more >>