Doing so helps get your offer in front of people who may have problems viewing your original message.

Inspiration via the Marketing Monster

EMail Marketing Tip is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Does anyone know if they offer this in physical book format? I know it sounds silly, but I’d love to have a ‘real’ copy. Maybe Lulu.com can help me.

Razorfish Releases 2009 Digital Outlook Report is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Advertisers are mashing online and offline events.  This week Facebook partnered with AT&T to stream a live Lil’ Wayne concert and Sunday Pepsi is hosting and online Super Bowl Party.  {NOTE: I wonder how you could take your event or product and engage people who aren’t physically there?}

Razorfish came out with a report that ties consumer social media activity to purchase behavior. They determined that the more deeply engaged someone is with social media, the more likely they are to make a purchase.  Glad to have the data to back up our assumptions.

Rumors of the GDrive surfaced

Web Site and Social Media metrics you should monitor

Jiffy Lube is using mobile marketing to bring in 50% new households

Online Marketing and Social Media Week in Review – January 31st is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Everyone is making their 2009 online predictions these days, so I’d thought I’d throw my hat in the ring. Here are my online marketing and social media predictions for the new year. Tell me what you think will happen in the comments below. PS – I’ve made it super easy to comment. You can now login using your Facebook profile. No fuss, no mess.

1. Twitter finds a way to make money. I don’t think this will be through advertising. I envision a subscription model based exclusive content and features. This could be in the form of storage for music and photos or the ability to record and host videos.
2. Google will make a large acquisition of a TV network which will allow them to (1) further blur the lines between the different types of media we consume and (2) sell a larger market of TV ads on an auction basis.
3. Social networks become a thing of the past…..kinda. The web itself becomes a social network as sites take the first step with integrating Google Friend Connect and Facebook Connect. Content will no longer live behind the walled gardens of Facebook and MySpace. I think Google will be the first to make significant strides in this direction.
4. Media companies will continue to pump out free content, but will look beyond advertising as a business model. They will tie-in more exclusive deals with content distributors, makers and services.
5. The death of the banner ad. As online budgets shrink, more and more companies will move away from the typical banner ad and move to better integrate advertisements as content. Companies will work to expand customer ‘experiences’ over simply advertising.
6. More advertisers will begin to negotiate on a cost-per-action basis (where the advertiser pays for each specified action linked to the advertisement such as a purchase or form submission) rather than the traditional CPM or CPC model.
7. Grainy, low-quality web video will finally see its demise. 2009 will be the year of HD web video.
8. YouTube becomes the new Google. Users (beginning with the younger crowd) will start their queries at YouTube instead of a traditional search engine. Advertisers will shift funds to this channel.
9. Hot job trend will be for companies to hire community managers more often as voices for their brand. People like Matt Cutts , Jerimiah Owyang or Dave Delaney will be the passionate individuals employed to help evangelize brands and serve as the main community figurehead. Smart organizations will realize that social media efforts come from all areas of the organization.
10. As more smart phones such as the iPhone, G1 and Blackberry enter the market, Google will work to control the platforms and mechanisms we use to surf the mobile web. This will lead to Google leading and controlling the mobile advertising market. Expect a big announcement in terms of mobile advertising before June.
11. As more advertisers shift budgets online, the PPC market becomes very crowded. Increased competition over the same keywords mean that companies will need to work on capitalizing (and customizing) every click and customer interaction. Marketers that fail to do this will see click cost and cost-per-acquisition (CPA) begin to erode and eat away their once stable profits.
12. Google project that fails in 2009: Knol
13. Second Life use plummets

Online Marketing and Social Media Predictions for 2009 is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Legendary (and fictional) record producer Tommy Silk helps you rock out your R.O.I and synthesize your sales by making a free commercial song with jingle lyrics written for your own type of business. Jingle lyrics are customized based on the business name and information you provide.  Commercials are based on Your Love, originally performed by The Outfield.  Jingle Maker is provided by Intuit, the makers of tax software QuickBooks.  I like how they’ve created a very creative and innovative campaign for a product that isn’t traditionally sexy.  In addition to the Jingle Maker microsite, they also have footprints on YouTube and Facebook

Mikes Hard Lemonade Victim Video

Need a day off, but you have to have an alibi?  Let Mike’s Hard Lemonade put together a personalized news clip that you can use to cover your tracks.  Upload a picture, give them some basic information and you’ve got yourself a custom video detailing your hard luck.  You can get sucked up in a street sweeper, stuck on a carnival ride or have your cat perform CPR on you.  To top it all off, they put the video in a customized web page that resembles a news website.  The videos are hard from believable, but worth many laughs.

Little Gordon Ramsay

Caterer.com has created 2 amazingly funny ads featuring a young Gordon Ramsay to promote their hospitality site. For my money (and attention), there’s nothing better than a kid with an English accent dropping f-bombs.  You have to see the videos to believe it. Video 1, Video 2.

Office Max – Power to the Penny

To promote their 1¢ back-to-school specials, Office Max put a hidden camera on an actor who went around to various establishments such as a deli, a used car lot and a jewelry store trying to pay with pennies.  As you can imagine, he wasn’t greeted with welcome arms after presenting a bag full (or truck load) of pennies on the counter. Office Max ends the spots with ‘We’ll take your pennies’.

The only down fall I found with this promotion is that the videos aren’t able to be viewed without going directly to the Office Max microsite, which is a major bummer to the viral aspect of this campaign.

Häagen-Dazs Help the Honey Bees

Maker of all things delicious, Häagen-Dazs, has created a public service announcement around the disappearance of the honey bee.  The ice cream gods go on to ask customers to plant a seed and support bee-keepers so the bees can continue to pollinate the delicious fruits that go into their ice cream.  Häagen-Dazs has also used more traditional forms of media to bring their cause to the forefront, including promoting their Bee-Boy dance crew that has been lighting up YouTube and the blogosphere.

I love the social aspect that Häagen-Dazs has employed with this campaign; its nice to see a company spend some of their own money to support and bring attention to causes they believe in.  I feel this only builds a stronger brand and increases the stickiness of their customer.  Check out the Bee-Boy dance crew video on this page in the feature video section.

Your Thoughts?

So, what have you learned from these?  What insight or tips have you taken away from these brilliant campaigns?  I’ve detailed my thoughts and tips below for making a creative and viral online marketing campaign below, but I want to hear what you think.  Leave your feedback in the comments or drop me a link to a campaign you find creative and witty.

Tips for making a creative and viral online marketing campaign.

• Make sure there is something in it for the user
• Make it easy and rewarding
• Think instant gratification
• Be sure the campaign doesn’t overshadow the product
• Insure users will connect the campaign to the product
• Make it desirable to pass on

Creative Online Marketing Campaigns is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Businesses Tips for Using Twitter is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

In all, there are about 400 online marketers in attendance so lots of great networking opportunities. During the Q&A session for an advanced paid-search presentation (advanced was a very loose term at this particular presentation) I was speaking to the lady who happened to sit next to me. She pointed out something very interesting trends in the questions coming from the audience. Everyone wanted the magic pill. They wanted actionable and measurable things that they could do right now in order to be successful. The waters are so murky in the online marketing world that these people are in over there heads and don’t know who to trust. They read one thing, but the data tells them another thing. They’re on short budgets and need results fast. The sad thing I realized is that things are better than they used to be, but I don’t see them clearing up anytime soon.

Hopefully next week, I’ll be able to share with you my findings and give you some great insight that you can actually use right now in your day-to-day business. Stay tuned.

Online Marketing Summit – Day 1 is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

Who is Consumer 2.0?

• Addicted to Leisure – They work hard, but they also expect a certain amount of work/life balance. They expect products and brands to conform to both aspects of their day. They want their phone to sync with Outlook while also keeping tabs of their Facebook profile.
• Create and share content – In their own eyes, they’re a rockstar. They twitter, pownce, blog and YouTube everything in their life. If they like it, they share it.
• Always connected and love information – They subscribe to hundreds of RSS feeds, have thousands of friends online, never leave home without their iPod or their web-enabled phone. These consumers can find what they’re looking for in a drop of hat (and expect it as well).
• Hypertaskers – Forget David Allen, these consumers chat online, play games, stream music and send text messages all while watching TV. In a survey produced by Yahoo!, 60% of 18-34 year olds said they surfed the web while watching TV.
• Love to be part of communities – They have multiple social network accounts and use them all on a regular basis.

As I’ve blogged about before, there are many things you can do to conform and mold your brand to meet Consumer 2.0′s expectations. It’s important to treat them with respect and dignity as they can make or break a good portion of your business.

• Listen to them. – They are more than willing to tell you what they think of your product, if you simply ask. Use them as your guinea pigs for new ideas and improvements on old ones.
• Collaborate with them. Just as Stromhoek, a small vineyard who collaborated with bloggers to create a grass roots initiative, so should you. Respond to their online posts and comments, answer their emails one at a time and take the initiative to create ‘wow’ experiences in your store. If you scratch their back, they’ll scratch yours as well.
• Give them the tools to share. Create an online toolbox in which users can remix your brand to meet their style. Include RSS feeds, pictures, videos, music, Facebook applications, custom t-shirts and everything else they could use to evangelize your product.

So how does Search Engine Marketing tie back to Consumer 2.0? Well, because Consumer 2.0 is so intrenched and dialed in on a regular basis, they’ve developed a small case of ADD. Nearly 72% of people answered that they cannot recall URL’s that appeared on TV spots. Therefore, not only should you do the things I’ve mentioned above to gain attention online, but you should also work to control those things you do have power over.

Your search engine marketing must include using appropriate keywords so Consumer 2.0 can find your brand, creating lots of relevant content, making sure your pages are user-friendly and have appropriate titles and descriptions just to name a few. Consumers expect brand leaders to consistently be in the top results of search and I can guarantee that many will look at a site because it was one of the first results regardless if it was what they were looking for or not. Great search engine marketing increases your brand familiarity, pumps up your brand consideration, improves customer satisfaction and results in a better brand experience.

Integrating Consumer 2.0 into your marketing plans and tweaking your search engine marketing will allow you to close the loop on your customers and engage advocates. I guarantee that if you implement the above to a tee, you will see much success online and off.

Additional Resources:
CASH courtesy of *mgwinc

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Consumer 2.0 and How You Can Improve Your Seach Engine Marketing to Capture them is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

How will you address your flubs? How will you promote your successes?

What technology will come around in the next 5 years that you can take advantage of? How will you anticipate and prepare for it now?

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The Internet Changes Everything is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!

How do you improve customer retention and loyalty? Do you customers have a voice? If that’s hard for you to answer, go to Google and search for terms such as “I love”, “I hate”, “I like”, “I didn’t like” including your brand in the query (i.e. ” I love One Half Amazing”). If they’re not venting on your site, then it’s probably coming out in public.

Additional Resources:
eMarketer – Customer Reviews Increase Web Sales
Church of the Customer Blog

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Adding Customer Reviews to Your Site Increases Sales, Conversion Rates and Site Traffic is a post from Bob Hazlett, a digital marketer who writes at One Half Amazing!