Eco Optimism

Nielson Report on Internet and Social Media a Must Read

Nielson just released a new report on the Internet landscape.  I've only just started poking through it, but thought to pass it along to my readers. I'll get back to you with anything of particular note. Highlights include:

Highlights of the report regarding the two fastest growing subcategories -- online video and social 

networks – include: 

• The number of American users frequenting online video destinations has climbed 339 percent since 2003.   

• Time spent on video sites has shot up almost 2,000 percent over the same period. 

• In the last year alone, unique viewers of online video grew 10 percent, the number of streams grew 41 percent, the streams per user grew 27 percent and the total minutes engaged with online video grew 71 percent. 

• There are 87 percent more online social media users now than in 2003, with 883 percent more time devoted to those sites.    

• In the last year alone, time spent on social networking sites has surged 73 percent.  

• In February, social network usage exceeded Web-based e-mail usage for the first time. 

Crackle.com: Missing the Media Point Online

This morning, I made an amazing discovery: Crackle.com, Sony's online TV network. It's a database of shortened TV shows and films, perfectly served and edited into snack-time feasts.  Truth be told, I found it while searching for Three Stooges clips.

For this sort of content, it's much better than YouTube.  The quality is higher, it's legal and you don't have to wade through terabytes of lousy home videos to find what interests you.  AND, when you strike a vein you like, the videos just role into one another ... perfect for my three-year old son's Spiderman obsession.

Now... what's wrong? That I found the site in a round about way, where ideally it would come up in my search for THREE STOOGES, right?

Part of the reason is that Crackle seems to have missed a MUST HAVE online marketing technique for their sort of business: the emerging communications practice of offsite search optimization. It's also know as SEO PR, Ambient Content, and other home-made names.  In short, it's using RSS press releases and content to capture attention at the critical moment of search, while also boosting search rankings by securing incoming links from authoritative sites.

The crux of the technique is issuing frequent RSS press releases containing good content and optimized for search engine rankings. By often, I'm talking at least weekly, and likely every few days. And before you get all "don't bug the media" on me, understand that THESE ARE PRESS RELEASES IN NAME ONLY. It's about the content and the links, baby.  That's all.  For this, we don't care if the media ever even sees them.  We get to them in other ways (hear evil laugh track here).

It starts with choosing keywords: things people are searching for related to your business or site.  You can get ideas on Google Adwords.  There they will tell you how many searches are conducted for each term, and alternate terms to consider.  

Then, as I said, crank out the content so the next time I search for THREE STOOGES or SI SWIMSUIT or even JOHNNY CASH, Crackle comes up as one of the top links on Google and Yahoo! (collectively, these two capture about 75% of all searches on the Internet.)

Of course, there's lots of things to know about optimizing the site itself with "link-based pages" and techniques to meta-tag information (the text used to identify your site to the search engine, and to describe the content in search rankings).  But that can wait today.  For now, suffice to say that anyone like Crackle who wants site traffic but is not using SEO PR is in my humble opinion ... cracked.  (Sorry, I can't help myself.)

Making Sense of Word of Mouth, Part 3: "Grassroots"

Unlike its look-at-me cousin The Stunt, grassroots marketing is, like the name implies, under the surface.  It is an effort that is seeded, nurtured and grown. And if cared for, it spreads roots throughout your target community that will endure for years.

A good example of a successful grassroots program is Boston’s Harpoon Brewery.  Every Wednesday night during the summer, Harpoon sponsors a mountain bike ride.  Very simply, the brewer reaches out to mountain bikers through bike shops and local clubs.  They post the schedule in the local dirt rags, burrito shops and coffee joints.  And every Wednesday, without fail, they greet riders at the end of the dusty trail with cold, frothing mugs of Harpoon Ale.  And there’s nothing like creating brand loyalty like the well-timed ale.

The result?  In their most important market, Harpoon enjoys a fierce loyalty of 20-something, adventurous outdoor types…and perhaps more importantly, those that want others the think if them as adventurous, outdoor types.  In short, premium beer drinkers.

As simple as Harpoon’s grassroots program is, it is effective because they follow the Three Laws of Successful Grassroots Marketing:

1. Keep It Simple:  Grassroots programs need longevity.  The best are ones that can be gently nudged from the nest, and then take flight on their own.  If it’s too complicated, chances are it won’t catch on.

2. Appeal to What Is Important to Your Customer, Not You:  Grassroots isn’t about a sales pitch.  Don’t push yourself too hard.  Trust me, people will make the connection to your wares.  Instead, provide something of true value, even entertainment, to your customers.  If it isn’t real, it will never work. 

3. Muster the Courage to Believe in What You Do:  You need to really believe in your grassroots efforts for a couple of reasons.  First, authenticity.  If you don’t believe in it, people will sniff you out like a dog smells fear.  Your program will reek of half-baked intentions, and you’ll do more harm than good. And just as important: you need to believe in the program, because metrics are hard to come by.  For Harpoon, it’s difficult to tell how many beers they sold because of their Wednesday rides.  Sure, they could ask for folks to complete a survey, but talk about breaking the mood.  Instead, they believed in their beer and their beer drinkers.  And the rest seemed to take care of itself.

Be patient.  Like a fine crafted beer, you can’t rush it.  Grassroots programs need time to ferment, to come together.  And just like that cold one at the end of a long, hard ride, all the work is well worth the results.

Speaking of a cold one, it’s just about 5:30 …

What Recession?: American Girl Packs 'Em In

I recently made my first visit to an American Girl store.  My five-year-old daughter got her first doll just the other day, and I was bringing her back for a hair brush.

Aside from the fact that I stood in line for 35 minutes to pay $6 for what looked like a 5-cent item, I was completely impressed with the operation.  In the face of the worse recession in a lifetime, the store was packed beyond comprehension.  Nothing was on sale, mind you, everything was full price: $100 dolls and $25 outfits... and of course, the doll hair salon, bistro, party area, etc.

I've been writing about "real value" for a while, preaching that quality over margin is sometimes a better route in a consumer landscape that is cutting back.  It's getting harder and harder to separate Americans from their money, and to do so, you need to make a compelling offer.

These days, you need to be either completely discount, or offer a strong brand that stands out. Granted, these dolls are not worth 100 bucks in the real sense, but the entire experience has been conceived to capture the imagination of little girls.  In fact, that's the key...the dolls are presented, treated and outfitted like little girls themselves, a billion miles away from the their Wal-Mart and Toys R Us sisters stacked in boxes and peering through plastic.

The whole experience harkens back to a time when a doll was special, and shopping for one was a right of passage. But unlike the Montgomery Ward days, American Girl has created a full in-store experience that assures multiple visits over time.

Look, I'm the offspring of Italian immigrants.  The concept of spending $100 on a doll (deep down inside) is lunacy.  But like most suburban dads, I'm willing to do lots of crazy things for my little girl. And in the end, the whole package is worth more than the money we spend. The real value is higher than the sum of its parts. That's the whole reason that even in down times, these guys are lining folks around the corner to come in and spend.

And what's more American than that?

Making Sense of Word of Mouth, Part 2: "The Stunt"

In the last entry, I talked about the first word of mouth tool, guerilla marketing.  Today, it's the publicity stunt.  Granted, one could argue that they are very similar, but in my book there is one basic, but important difference: the stunt is about media coverage, including consumer generated media.

A stunt is an unabashed and often brazen play for publicity.  Again, Red Bull has a great example: the Flutag. Otherwise normal, semi-emotionally balanced folk leaping from great heights in a hilarious, self-effacing attempt to fly on contraptions of their own design.  You can’t help but look, and it makes great TV. 

Stunts are easy to spot: skydivers, streakers, even the ol’DJ-on-the-billboard are stunt stereotypes.  But to be successful, stunts have to do more than just grab attention. They must create compelling images, a can’t miss photo op. TV and print photo editors think of what looks good on the screen or a page, and it doesn’t always need to be outrageous.  

Before baseball player Johnny Damon defected from the Red Sox to the Yankees, Gillette had extensive coverage for the launch of its new razor thank to him.  Johnny agreed to shave his Grizzly Adams beard in public for a local charity. Complete with attractive female barbers (it’s a man’s razor, after all), they captured the city’s attention.  Johnny’s clean-shaven face looked great on the evening news, leading all to believe that the M3Power must be one helluva razor. 

But the best part of stunts these days? You don’t need the traditional media to be successful.  We have YouTube.  Still, it’s a crowded viral world out there.  To be successful, you should the same press-savvy thinking to your viral videos as (good) PR pros have for years with the Stunt.  

And in a shameless plug, check out a video of a stunt my firm, CBC, did for Nantucket Nectars back in 2004 when the Red Sox won the World Series. The World's Largest Thank You Card brought thousands together from around New England, and made it all the way to the network news.  Enjoy!

Next Up: Grassroots marketing.

Making Sense of Word of Mouth, Part 1: Guerilla Marketing

We spend so much time talking about bloggers, online media, social media and the like, as marketers we forget that we live in the real world, too.  And often, what we do in the real world is the very fire that fuels success online.

To this end, I overheard a conversation at lunch where two marketing execs were talking about what they could do to drive Word of Mouth.  Aside from the fact that they shouldn’t talk about plans in an Au Bon Pain, it was clear that these guys were confused on some of the basic tools, such as guerilla marketing, publicity stunts and grassroots programs.  The terms were jumbled together in a mashup of craziness and swag, seemingly with very little direction.  Never mind they seemed to be clueless how to translate their ideas online.

For what it’s worth, I thought I’d take a shot at providing some context to the conversation.   Hey, I may be completely full of s**t; talk to 50 marketers and you may get 50 different definitions for these same words. But defining these tactical kissing cousins is the key to having a good reference point to begin a plan.

Overall is the concept of word of mouth.  It’s about all people talk about these days.  Influence the influencers.  Social networking.  It’s as if the mere act of people talking to one another is a new concept.  Hate to burst your Web 2.0 bubble, but this is anything but new. It’s just that as marketers, we’re coming to terms with the fact that people don’t have to listen to our work anymore.  With DVR, Tivo and exploding content on the Internet, campaigns are forced to be engaging enough that our targets not only listen, they may actually be moved to tell a friend.

When it’s working, word-of-mouth is a thing of beauty. Hard to define, and almost harder to plan, the word-of-mouth phenomenon spreads like a wild fire in the Santa Anita Mountains in July.  And it can burn itself out almost as quickly as it spread.

There are a least three major tools in your word of mouth mix. If done right, these should live both on and off line.  To keep this from getting too long, we’ll do one each day this week: Guerilla Marketing, Publicity Stunt, Grassroots Marketing:

First up is one of my personal favorites, guerilla marketing.