By Chris Longo, Natural Search Supervisor, Content Solutions
When Facebook was first started, it became a social networking tool to connect individuals who shared similar networks (School, City, Workplace). It started off exclusively for students of Harvard University and slowly grew throughout other colleges in the Boston area. It then expanded to any secondary school student, then to high school students, and now the site has 175 million active users.
The common misconception when one thinks of Facebook is that it’s for people of college age and younger. In fact, more than half of Facebook users are outside of college and the fastest growing demographic is those 30 years old and older. The current graph below is data from late 2008:
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This trend opens up a wealth of online marketing opportunities that is unique to Facebook only. When Facebook first started serving ads, it was geared towards the college demographic (Credit Cards, Employment Websites), now essentially any product/service can be marketed to a specific target market.
A company can target ads specifically towards a certain age group, geographic location, or declared interest. For example, if I wanted to market my “widget” to a certain demographic on Facebook I can choose a variety of variables to narrow the impression and reach to the market I wanted to target specifically (Males and Females aged 25-30 who live in New York/Chicago/Los Angeles who like to golf). Below is an example of how one can narrow the targeted audience and measure success.
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On normal PPC platforms, you bid on keywords that are relevant to the site being marketed. You can control what keywords you want queried, but you lack control of your targeted audience. For an SEO campaign, you would rely on keyword research and proving relevancy to be found for specific terms. With Facebook, you can readily identify the target demographic you want to market to.
Facebook is more than just a social network to connect with friends and colleagues. It has become a viable marketing option within the online space for businesses. As usage and membership continue to climb, the effectiveness of these ads will grow along with it.
Facebook isn’t for College Kids Anymore…
10 ways to improve the client/agency RFP process
By Aaron Goldman
Appeared in iMedia Connection's Best Practices
Having spent more than 10 years responding to client and agency RFPs, I've come to the conclusion that the RFP should be renamed "CYA." While the intention behind the RFP is good -- creating a structured process whereby solutions can be evaluated objectively -- the execution is not. And it is often a complicated, time-consuming process in which firms wildly overpromise and are judged largely on price.
For the client, it's truly CYA, with rigid scorecards that allow all constituents to rate agencies and determine a winner. For the agency, it's another form of CYA altogether -- as in "See ya! Sold you the dream, now here's the team."
Typically, the formal RFP process plays out as follows:
The client scans lists of AdAge rankings, RECMA billings, or the Gunn Report to determine 15-20 shops they want to consider. The client issues an RFI for agencies to fill out some basic info, and agency new biz teams respond.
The client whittles the list down to five to seven shops to receive an RFP. The client sends questionnaires for the agencies to complete, along with requests for case studies, reels, references, etc. Each agency new biz team pulls client service, strategy, and creative personnel off billable accounts to compile the deliverables.
The client, or more appropriately, the client's scorecard, determines three finalists. The agencies trot out executives, senior strategy personnel, and anyone with a Ph.D. for the final presentation. The agency shows spec creative, media plans, and fancy dashboards. The client and agency haggle over scope and price. The client awards the business. Both sides feel slighted. The agency scrambles to staff the account.
The client rinses and repeats every three years, and to quote the "Mad Men" character Roger Sterling: "The day you sign a client is the day you start losing them."
Needless to say, it's time for the current RFP process to RIP. The following are 10 ways I think we can improve the system.
1. Set industry standards.
We've got all the acronyms -- ANA, AAAA, DMA, IAB, even the BBB -- banding together to self-regulate behavioral targeting, but it's every man for himself when it comes to the client/agency RFP process.
Sure, the AAAA has put out some position papers on the topic, and there are agency search consultants whose sole job it is to help marketers navigate the treacherous RFP waters, but all they do is stick more fingers in the dike.
Just as the IAB stepped in to create standards for online ad specs, someone needs to put some parameters around the RFP process.
As it stands today, each client and/or agency search consultant runs pitches in a different format -- RFIs, RFQs, RFPs -- oh my! And there's nothing worse from an agency standpoint then advancing through three rounds of scrutiny only to be pitted against competing firms in a real-time online auction to see who can offer the lowest rates.
2. Create third-party audited lists of agency size and client rosters
The first order of business for the acronym du jour that decides to tackle this hairy meatball should be compiling a list of all the agencies in this industry with the number of employees at each firm and their full client roster. Then each shop should be required to submit to an audit by the likes of PricewaterhouseCoopers to ensure that the information is accurate. Sorry agencies, no more hiding conflicts or using freelancers to inflate your numbers.
3. Create third-party audited lists of client satisfaction
If the first step is compiling a master list of how big each agency is and who they serve, the second is getting a read on how good a job they do for their clients. Currently, clients choose which shops to RFP based on metrics like billings-size or awards received. In my mind, the most important metric of all is how satisfied an agency's clients are.
There is no better way to gauge satisfaction than by asking all clients to rate their agency quarterly on "The Ultimate Question." How likely is it that you would recommend this company to a friend or colleague? In his book on precisely this topic, Fred Reichheld argues convincingly that the answers to this No. 1 question alone are as telling as any elaborate customer survey.
4. Get rid of the RFP questionnaire
Hmmm, replacing elaborate surveys with the No. 1 key question? Sounds like a great idea. How else can we apply that? As an agency new business executive, there's nothing more dreaded than the five-page questionnaire outlining 50 different items the client would like you to address.
As a member of the client's RFP committee, I can imagine there's nothing more dreaded than reading 50-page responses from five different shops. So here's what I propose: RFPs should include only one question to the agencies being considered… "Do you want to pursue this business?" A simple yes or no will do, thanks.
5. Have other clients respond to inquiries instead of the agency
Clearly a one-question RFP is not sufficient as clients need more information to determine which shops are a good fit. So we can dust off the old agency questionnaire. Here's the twist though -- those questions should be answered by a select group of each agency's clients, not by the agencies themselves.
The only way to cut through the smoke and mirrors that agencies offer up in the pitch process is to not give them the chance to concoct it. Besides, the folks that are best qualified to answer questions like, "Are you able to help your clients achieve sustainable growth?" or "How do you keep your clients on the cutting edge of emerging platforms?" are other clients of that firm. So let's have the client issuing the RFP choose a couple clients, and even a former client, from each agency (using the third-party audited list) with whom they'd like to conduct a formal interview. Then they can get the straight poop on each firm and save a bunch of trees in the process.
6. Have clients co-present with their agencies
Let's take the whole client-to-client thing a bit further. Imagine a final RFP round featuring a case study presented by both the agency and the client that the case is built on. What better measure of true agency/client chemistry? And what better way to ensure that agencies don't have to pull their best people off their current accounts to handle pitches? Instead, they get the opportunity to dig even deeper into their clients' businesses to identify key insights and merchandise their success.
Why would a client agree to participate? Simply put, what comes around goes around. Would you rather help your agency win new business (which adds to their marketplace clout and allows for further investments in research, technology, etc.), or have them pull your senior strategy folks off your account while they pursue another client?
7. Do away with the speculative work required in the pitch process
Another benefit of the client/agency case study tag-team is that it grounds the agency's pitch in actual results, not speculative work. Under the current system, agencies are required to deliver customized strategy, creative, and media plans for the prospective client as part of the RFP process. This is unfair to agencies on two levels. First, they rarely have enough time or background to prudently develop these materials, and second, they are rarely compensated for this valuable intellectual property.
8. Limit the amount of data required by clients to disclose
The tit for the aforementioned tat is that clients should have the right to protect their confidential info and not divulge it to anyone except the winning agency. Sure, all shops included in the RFP sign NDAs, but rarely are breaches of such contracts revealed much less prosecuted. I've even heard of situations where agencies take the spec work they created for a pitch and sell it to a client's competitors. When that happens, can that agency really be relied upon to "forget" everything it learned about the original client?
9. Create trial periods before fees/scope are determined
One of the biggest travesties of the current RFP system is that it requires clients and agencies to negotiate price and Statements of Work prior to doing business together. Yes, I realize that's the way the world works, but it doesn't have to be that way. What if clients set a non-negotiable fee and scope for the first 90-days of engagement prior to releasing the RFP? This would outline the exact deliverables expected of the agency -- for example the initial strategy, creative, and media plan that now falls under the realm of the RFP. As per No. 4 previously, agencies can either opt in or out of the RFP after reviewing the 90-day requirements and fees.
Then, once the RFP plays out and a winner is chosen, the 90-day term commences and both sides are given a chance to really get to know each other. The client can evaluate if the agency is as good as advertised, and the agency can peel back the onion on the client's organization and determine what level of service they really need. It's at this point, with both sides armed to the teeth, that true negotiations can take place.
10. Set industry standards for client/agency termination
This article has now come full-circle. What started with a call for regulation around how client/agency relationships begin, has worked its way toward a plea for intervention around how they end. Pursuant to my last point about creating 90-day initial engagements, we need some standards around how the two sides part ways, whether as a result of fruitless negotiations after the trial period, dissatisfaction down the line, or that three-year agency itch.
My recommendation is an industry-accepted severance that gets paid to the outgoing agency if termination occurs immediately following the trial period. This will prevent clients from becoming agency-hoppers and bouncing from one to the next scooping up fresh creative and media plans along the way.
And, regardless of the termination date, we need some standards around what intellectual property becomes the property of the client and what is retained by the agency. This is tricky in the digital world where non-standard media placements such as corporate Facebook pages and Twitter accounts proliferate. And just who owns those keyword lists and search engine accounts anyway? The answer to all of these should, of course, be the client, but these assets are sometimes withheld during agency transitions. We need to achieve industry-wide consensus here and provide recourse for both sides.
Conclusion
Can we create a more productive RFP process? There's no doubt that some of my suggestions raise more questions than they answer. I recently posted a 4,000-word manifesto on fixing the client/agency RFP process to my digital marketing blog. I go into much more detail on how this could all play out for the greater good.
If nothing else, I hope to get people thinking and talking about the RFP process, and maybe even get some of those acronyms to revisit this critical element of the digital marketing ecosystem.
After all, the behavioral targeting folks have had enough attention lately. Besides, clients and agencies would have more time (and money) to spend on other things if they weren't so busy processing RFPs.
Old-fashioned Research
By Kris McDermott, Account Strategist, Client Services
It’s no secret- doing research is a cornerstone of any serious marketing strategy. We want to know what people are thinking, how they are feeling and what they want to buy now . We are a data driven industry.
But I think that search marketers can get a little closed minded about research sources.
We all have the standard places we go- comScore, Keyword Discovery, Google Insights & Trends, Yahoo Buzz, etc. These are tools created specifically for the digital marketer- and some specifically for search. They are incredibly useful. But very often, we search marketers don’t take other peoples’ insights into account enough. It’s what I call the “data snob” phenomena- tracking people’s behavior in digital marketing is much more robust, accurate and easier than in offline media, so we assume we know best.
Speaking of we know best… remember books? There’s a lot of information that hasn’t been put online yet – psychological studies, social science research, you name it. Can’t find anything online about moms’ shopping habits? Go to Google Books and search – it’s essentially a card catalogue but you can preview the content. Use free academic resources. You may just get some valuable insights and be a leg up on your competition.
Twitter and the Collective Consciousness
By David Gould, President
Twitter recently announced an additional $35mm in capital funding (on top of an existing $20mm) and its intention to walk away from an enticing Facebook offer of $500mm in stock and cash. This is no doubt an indication of their confidence to monetize the Tweets that are Twitter. Among the ideas they’ve floated is leveraging search in some way. Already the Twitter search page looks eerily familiar …
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Users can search Twitter for relevant tweets to satisfy their queries, but what’s really intriguing is the potential to leverage the Twitter-verse in real time as Michael Learmonth points out. Current search engines scour volumes of existing content to provide a response to a query. Conversely, Twitter has the potential to draw on content that hasn’t even been created yet, i.e. the collective, real-time, consciousness of the so called Twitter-verse … post a question on Twitter and wait for the responses to flood in … the collective knowledge of all those individual Twitterers (or is that Tweeters) at your fingers in a moment’s notice.
At the risk of being labeled a geek, it sounds like The Borg, the evil Star Trek alien race that is an amalgamation of countless species, along with their knowledge, absorbed into a “Collective” where individuals lose their identity to become part of one collective consciousness … and no, I’ve never been to a Star Trek convention. Now Twitter is not The Borg, although some might equate the difficulty in figuring out how to make money on Twitter to that of defeating The Borg.
So how does one monetize the collective consciousness of the Twitter-verse? Good question, nobody’s nailed down the revenue model as of yet, but as a search marketer who connects his clients to their customers through queries, I’m saying to myself, “How do my clients respond dynamically, in real time and with yet-to-be-created content to capture the opportunity at the moment of inquiry?” If you’ve got the answer, I’d love to hear it. But in the meantime, it sounds like we’d better join the collective ... “resistance is futile.”
Snuggie Trends: Tracking a Viral Outbreak
By Mike Kowieski, Paid Search Specialist, Advertising Solutions
Last fall, Google.org (the philanthropic arm of the search giant) announced Google Flu Trends, a tool that uses aggregated search data across the country in order to estimate flu activity up to two weeks ahead of time. The tool is a clever use of the staggering amount of search data Google collects daily, and serves as an impressive early warning system against a potentially deadly virus. Google’s use of search data to track viral outbreaks left me wondering: Can we use similar methods to track another viral outbreak?
For those of you living under a rock for the past few months, the Snuggie has taken the nation by storm. Finally – a blanket with sleeves that allows you stay warm while maintaining full arm and hand mobility. Over 4 million Snuggies have been sold since last October – no doubt helped by some interesting broadcast spots. It has achieved a cult-like status among its many rabid followers, and has led fellow team members at Resolution Media – Dave Barnes and Dan Kuthy – to start snuggiepubcrawl.com, which has exploded beyond its Chicago roots and now has 14 other cities on the docket. Clearly, we’re dealing with a powerful viral outbreak here. But when did this all start, and is the end in sight? Is Snuggie-mania stronger in some areas of our country than others? We can find the answers to these questions using Google Insights for Search.
We can see search volume around the term “Snuggie” was dormant until T.V. advertising began airing in October 2008 – and then it took off like wildfire, with an accelerated outbreak somewhere around mid-November, a peak leading up to the holidays, and since then a plateau. Are we through the worst of the Snuggie outbreak? Search trends would seem to suggest so. Note to all marketers out there: be sure you’re allocating enough budget to paid search during broadcast flighting in order to capitalize on the boost in search volume.
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Regional searches for “snuggie” show high volume in major metropolitan areas with harsh winters: Chicago, New York City, Philadelphia and Boston all top the list. But some surprising cities also appear, as Austin, Atlanta, and Dallas all show up in the top 10, even though winters there are relatively mild. Two factors may be at play here that explain such strong demand in southern cities. One, the need for full upper-limb mobility while staying warm may transcend geographic regions. Two, these cities may have a high concentration of mavens that are searching out and forwarding along Snuggie’s YouTube spots to their friends. Note to search marketers: make sure you’re taking advantage of engine geo-targeting settings in order to capture high-demand markets more effectively.
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The Snuggie outbreak is national – but with the right search data you can prepare yourself.
10 Reasons Why Clients Don't Pick the Right SEM Agencies
By Aaron Goldman
Appeared in Media Post's Search Insider
In my last column, I continued the thread around fixing the client/agency RFP process by listing 10 reasons why SEM agencies don't win new biz. However, the responsibility for ill-fated client/agency matchmaking does not reside solely with agencies. Now, I won't go as far as fellow Search Insider Janel Landis to say that clients are complacent, jaded, or near-sighted. Instead, I'll point out 10 symptoms that, if left untreated, could lead to those diagnoses.
- They don't know what they need. Many clients fail to do the requisite preliminary research before issuing an RFP. This includes taking inventory of the skills/avails of in-house resources as well as what's available in the marketplace. Most of all, it requires taking a hard look in the mirror and being honest about your assets and liabilities and what type of outside firm is likely to complement these. For PPC, do you need a campaign management tool or full-service agency? For SEO, do you need a firm to just make recommendations or implement them, too? If you're not sure what you need, you can always send out an exploratory RFI to get a feel for what's out there and/or hire an experienced consultant to help you navigate the waters.
- They give unreasonable RFP lead times. The Sistine Chapel wasn't painted in a day. OK, comparing agency biz dev execs to Michelangelo may be a stretch. But as the late great Bernie Mac said in the movie "Friday," you've got to give to receive, my brother. It you want a customized RFP response with deep insights that shows how the agency will drive your business forward, you have to give them more than a week or two to work on it. Besides, if you hire the SEM firm that dropped everything to put all their greatest minds on creating your RFP response, imagine what they'll do once you're a client and the next RFP hits their inbox?
- They treat agencies like vendors. From an agency standpoint, the only thing worse than getting an RFP that requires a 5-day turnaround is one that's a "find and replace" version of the RFP the client's procurement group uses to source office supplies. If you're looking for a true partner to help grow your business in a transparent and sustainable fashion, don't treat them like the company you buy light bulbs from. Which reminds me of a joke -- How many ad agency execs does it take to change a light bulb?
- They simply pick the lowest cost provider. On second thought, there is one thing worse than getting the cut and paste RFP -- getting the one that requires agencies to bid against each other in real time to see who will offer the lowest price. Do I hear 4.9% media commission? Going once, going twice... sold to the unlucky agency that now has to go into the red to service the account. As Steve Baldwin pointed out, when it comes to SEM firms, you get what you pay for. After all, you'd be skeptical of the lawyer offering to represent you for the low, low price of $50 per hour, right?
- They don't provide access to historical data. In discussing the REAL problem with the Client/Agency RFP process, I pointed to a recent survey of 184 client marketing execs that surfaced such complaints as, "you're told so many things that you're not sure what to believe." This is a legitimate issue and one that's likely to materialize in situations like SEM RFPs where there's an unequal distribution of subject matter expertise between buyer and seller. As a client, the best way to invite the agency "smoke and mirrors" pitch is to not give them access to your current engine accounts and/or historical data. Without that information, the best the agency can do is create recommendations from guesswork and base projections on assumptions.
- They don't meet the right folks at the agency. For the client, the only thing worse than getting a dog and pony show full of vaporware is getting it from people you're never going to see after the pitch. While it's important to hear from an agency's execs to understand their vision, clients must insist on meeting the folks that will be working on their business before making a decision. I'd go so far as to say that clients should include an out in their contract that they can exercise should their lead account manager be removed from their business within the first 90 days without an adequate replacement.
- They get wowed by demos. Clients love flashy blinky things. And when the flashing and blinking comes with data, they light up as if they just hit the slot machine jackpot. The problem with technology demos is that they focus on inputs, not outputs and features, not benefits. Do you really care what buttons your agency presses to adjust bids? Or do you care about the ROI that results from it? The next time an SEM firm offers you a demo, make sure it's accompanied by a case study.
- They don't get the right buy-in from the right folks. Some clients delegate the RFP process solely to an in-house SEM manager. As Gord proclaimed, no search is an island. And no SEM agency decision should be made on one. Furthermore, as a few readers pointed out in response to my last column, the ability to apply insights generated from search to other sales and marketing channels is one of the biggest differentiators among SEM firms. To generate the most value from your SEM investment, you need your agency to integrate with your other departments and partners. Accordingly, you'll want to involve them in the selection process.
- They stick to the scorecard. The other extreme of getting the right buy-in is making the buy-in process too rigid. Many clients use scorecards to evaluate SEM agencies and RFPs but there's no way to score intangibles like chemistry, vision, and how in-tune they are with your business. Choosing an SEM firm this way is like marrying a person just because eHarmony's 29 dimensions of compatibility say you're a good match.
- They don't check references. It always amazes me how few clients actually check references. To continue the dating analogy, it's like getting married without meeting any of your significant other's friends or family. There's no better way to determine how good an agency really is than by talking to their other clients. It's the only way to cut through the BS of the pitch process and make sure you don't marry an axe murderer.
What is SEO Analytics?
By Nathan Janitz, Natual Search Supervisor, Content Solutions
Business is about making money, right? Then why do a lot of SEOs brag about position 1 and not about driving more revenue? Sure, first position drives more traffic and thus more revenue potential, but how do businesses actually know that the theory is true? What if the second position actually drove more profitable results? Even more importantly, how do you as an SEO show and even, dare I say, forecast value? Welcome to SEO Analytics, A perfect blend of multiple data points that allows great optimizers to report, optimize, and forecast natural search beyond the traditional rankings.
Often natural search departments have to blend concepts that stretch across mediums which can include universal search, social media, video, mobile, and of course website architecture and design. Throw in an unknown algorithm, the competitiveness of natural search, and some integration with advertising and…..well you get the point - trying to show value of our efforts can be just plain confusing.
But it doesn’t have to be if you come up with a plan. Yes, ranking should be at the heart of every SEO strategy because if you don’t have traffic you can’t create revenue. But let’s go through some data points that straight ranking reports leave out.
Web Analytics:
The amount of data one can gain from web analytics is astounding. If you setup your platform correctly you can tie keywords, per engine, back to conversion. A simple V-Lookup in an excel file and all of a sudden that ranking report turns into a gap analysis. Segment data into buckets of information like high traffic and high revenue driving and you can start to build strategies around improving performance (be it rankings, site performance, or ideally both). And that is just the start. Begin building multivariate testing and corresponding revenue outputs into the report and you have just turned SEO reporting into something that actually will get upper management’s attention.
Social Media and Video:
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But why stop at just integrating Web Analytics? Facebook, YouTube, and Yelp all offer web analytics platforms for their products (basic as they are, they do exist). As you can see from the Intellect Interactive Facebook profile, you can gain a series of reports as well as some demographic information. Most Web Analytics platforms will allow you to track onsite behavior coming from certain sites, which means you can cross reference Facebook traffic with your site traffic to see conversion rates. Congratulations, you just started the process in tying ROI to your social networking strategy. (Advanced SEO Analytics Reco: tag your Facebook links with campaign tracking for even more reporting integration.)
Omniture actually launched products that allow you to track videos and Twitter chats. One of the many things I love about Omniture is its ability to integrate data (as long as you know how to tell Omniture how to integrate the data). While not perfect, you can now start to monitor spikes in Twitter and cross-reference them with spikes in sales. Closing the loop in an un-tractable world…amazing those people over at Omniture.
Business is about making money, and SEO is about everything including rankings. As the Search World grows and starts to include more avenues, more integration of data, expanded reporting and deeper analysis, the industry’s conversation about success needs to be focused on how SEO can generate and forecast revenue growth. If we don’t, we become an expansive hobby for our clients; not a necessary marketing channel.
I encourage you to review how you look at your SEO program and review how you report on it. Rankings are important, but they are not the end-all-be-all of SEO. You can check out some very basic reporting tips at Intellect Interactive as well as more in-depth conversation about all of the above topics.
What Happens When Social Networking and Viral Marketing Are Not Constrained By DR Metrics
By Viji Davis, VP Client Services
I have had many conversations with marketers regarding how to focus on ensuring that adequate and appropriate content is ready for consumption. The following is what could happen if we take a chance and really focus on delivering content to consumers. I do have to put a disclaimer that the following case study is not about a current Resolution Media (RM) client, nor did RM set out to put the program together for the Snuggie brand. It came about as a result of my friend and co-worker, Mr. David Barnes, wanting to do good for a worthy cause.
So, the way this story starts is with two friends wanting to help a charitable organization after one friend returned from a trip to Tanzania. David’s friend wanted to do something to help the AC Orphanage in Tanzania after spending some time there. David immediately got on board and the two friends started to brainstorm how they could raise some money to make a donation. At the same time, some of their buddies were watching a Snuggie commercial, when the idea was brought to life. Pair up Snuggies with a pub crawl in Chicago, with friends donating money to help raise funds for AC orphanage. Now, when you first read this, you might not be on board. This is also why David and his friend wanted to get a litmus test on how many people would be interested. To understand if their initial group of friends would want to participate, David set up a website to collect email information from his friends that were interested. The goal was to try to get between 50-100 people on board and willing to participate in the event. What happened next is something that shows the reach of viral marketing when no boundaries are put around it.
Once the email was sent out, their friends forwarded the email and website to their friends, and their friends forwarded it to their friends and so on…2 hours after the initial email, there were 200-300 registrations and by the 2nd day, there were 500 registrations. Also, at the end of the 2nd day, the extended network of friends created a Facebook group, Twitter page and various blogs. As a result, link exchanges naturally started linking the 'Snuggie Pub Crawl' to online articles. David started recognizing the magnitude of what was happening and tweaked the website immediately to account for the buzz that had been generated. He set up an affiliate program that would allow interested participants to buy a Snuggie and register with their email for the pub crawl.
What happened next is even more phenomenal. The chain of events goes something like this: the viral marketing created buzz in the area, which created social networking, which created awareness of the content, which then led to newspaper, radio, and TV spots. The ‘Snuggie Pub Crawl’ was covered in the Chicago Tribune, WGN News, NBC, MS NBC and the NY Daily News, just to name a few.
Following is a trend over time that shows the increase in traffic as it ties to publicity received via the various channels and ongoing tweaks made:
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What started as a small local campaign was now garnering national attention and interest. Soon other markets also wanted to launch their own ‘Snuggie Pub Crawl.’ Subsequently, the website was tweaked again to get some general feedback; interested parties could recommend the next city for the pub crawl. As a result, the pub crawl is launching in 15 markets, not to mention, raising more money than originally imagined for AC Orphanage.
So, (if you have a Brand you are marketing) what does this tell you?
- The value of your campaign cannot be fully realized if you bind DR metrics to content outreach initiatives. The impact viral marketing had on the Snuggie Pub Crawl allowed David to collect well beyond the initial 50-100 participant goal. If David’s content outreach program had been limited by DR metrics, and not been allowed to push awareness, the current reach and benefit to the event would not have been realized.
- There is urgency in viral marketing, the buzz is NOW! You need to be fully committed with your tech resources to create new content and implement changes to your websites when there is buzz. David would not have been able to capitalize on the buzz if he had not been able to tweak his content and website immediately to fulfill the needs of the market.
- Conventionally, we think that TV and other traditional media need to generate the volume that will ultimately go online to search. This case study clearly shows that viral marketing and social networking also have the same effect. The interesting thing about the ‘Snuggie Pub Crawl’ was that it started small, with digital media support, and grew large and garnered traditional media attention.
Per my prior blog post, all marketers need to be thinking about their content outreach strategy in this recessionary environment. We also need to be willing to take that ‘leap of faith’ (especially in the case of DR) and have the patience to set up what could be a very successful content program.
