Transcript Marketing communications

E-mail and viral marketing
MARK 430
Today’s class will cover:
 Marketing communications




Email marketing
How to get your email delivered and opened
Understanding SPAM legislation
Viral marketing
 Putting it all together
 Case study of Lord of the Rings (website and viral
marketing)
E-mail (direct marketing)
 Marketing-related e-mail is 22% of a typical Internet
user’s in-box (conservative estimate)
 More than half of this is spam (marketers have
abused and misused email?)
 Advantages
 Cheap
 Direct (include hyperlink to website for click-through)
 Disadvantages
 Bad reputation because of spam
 Emails keep changing
 No direct correspondence between person and email
address as there is with physical mail
Metrics for Electronic and Postal Mail
E-mail
Postal Mail
$30
$500
$1,000
$17,000
Click through rate
10%
N/A
Customer conversion rate
5%
3%
Execution time
3 weeks
3 months
Response time
48 hours
3 weeks
Delivery cost per thousand
Creative costs to develop
Source: Jupiter Communications as cited in “E-mail and the different...”
Why does SPAM continue?
 Cost to sender is minimal
 Very low response rate (0.025%) required to
make SPAM profitable
 Nature of the worldwide global network
enables SPAM
 Legal penalties difficult to enforce
Permission marketing (opt-in versus
opt-out direct marketing)
 Seth Godwin coined the term “permission
marketing” to describe “opt-in”
 Ask people what they are interested in
 Ask permission to send them information
 Then do it in an entertaining, educational, or
interesting manner
 Opt-in techniques will grow considerably because
it is seen as an effective way to reach people who
have been made skeptical of traditional marketing
techniques
eMail marketing challenges
 Even with opt-in, there are considerable
challenges in
 Getting your email to the recipient (spam filters
etc)
 Getting them to open it when they get it
Some tactics to help get your email
delivered and opened
 Double opt-in subscription process
 No pre-checked boxes
 Visible “update email or preferences”
link
 A recognized, expected, consistent
sender name
 “Branded” subject lines and subject line
content

Based on How Nongeeks Can Increase eMail Delivery
Some tactics to help get your email
delivered and opened (cont’d)
 Be aware of how content (spam) filtering
works
 Message proofing and pre-testing
 Personalization and segmentation
 Think about images instead of text
(downside!)
 Manage user expectations
 Select appropriate send time

Based on How Nongeeks Can Increase eMail Delivery
Stay legal
 Canadian legal position
 no legislation in place yet
 Being considered by the Spam Task Force
 US law – the “Can Spam” Act – came into
force on Jan 1, 2004
 Requirements for commercial emailers
Viral marketing (word-of-mouth
direct marketing)
 Any strategy that encourages people to pass
on your message to others
 Let the users of the Internet do your
marketing for you
 It works, and it’s free
 Hotmail used this technique to raise product
awareness
 Be careful of customer perception that they
are being “used” – people are increasingly
sophisticated and cynical
Elements of a viral marketing
strategy
 Free products or services
 Easy to pass on to someone else
(Recommend it; email to a friend etc)
 Build in scalability (get ready for the rush)
 Build on common motivations and behaviours
 Understand and exploit existing
communications networks
 Some examples of virals from Lycos Cheeky
Emails
Marketing communication: Putting it
all together
 Case Study: Marketing Lord of the Rings
 Based on information taken from Internet
Marketing: Building Advantage in a Networked
Economy. 2nd Ed. Rafi A Mohammed et al.
Irwin/McGraw Hill. 2004.
The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings
 Framing the marketing opportunity - the
LOTR brand was already well known before
the films, so the strategy had to build on that
 Marketing opportunity analysis:
understanding customer needs
 film has elements that appeal to several
audiences (action, romance etc)
 existing fan base was already very active online good opportunity for viral marketing
 website could serve various interests
 hard core fans could get behind-the-scenes info
 others could find out about actors
 others may be interested in the cultural aspects of Middle
Earth
 Risk was that fans may not like the movie, in
which case the Internet could be a liability - bad
reviews travel fast
The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings
 Marketing strategy
 Segmentation: the potential audience varied in
demographics and psychographics. Hard-core
fans were targeted separately from general movie
goers, women targeted separately from men
 Targeting and timing:
 the strategy was to target core LOTR fans first - these
would eventually become evangelists for the product.
Need to instill trust early on, and encourage viral
marketing. Community building with established Tolkien
websites was also done
 Secondary groups and mass audiences were targeted
using website, and conventional mass media
The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings
 Marketing strategy
 Positioning:
 once the audience segments were defined, the
positioning of the movie was decided, with online and
offline positioning working together to provide
consistency
 best positioning determined to be “a stunning
action/adventure with a classic good-versus-evil story
that focuses on a ring with great powers”
 a lot of focus on ‘the ring’ in communications
 lot of focus on the setting, the landscape, the costumes
and the creatures
 online and offline advertising campaigns were separately
tailored for male and female audiences
The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings
 Implementation: The Marketing Program
 viral marketing formed the core of its
communication strategy - powerful tool for
generating awareness. Used pre-existing
fan base
 LOTR newsletter (click-through rate of >50%
and forwarding rate of 25%)
 Partnering and shared content - content
provided to other websites - “advertorial”
material - increased market reach
 heavy use of downloadable viral content on
website (eg. preview footage)
The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings
 Implementation: The Marketing Program
 Official website: raising awareness - first preview
footage April 2000 - objectives
 show early adopters that the film would be of high quality generate early buzz among key fan group
 “give something to the fans” - keep them excited
 drive awareness of website and the movie
 Execution - “co-ordinating the power of the
community” - used other Tolkien sites, daily email
alerts, and “countdown” image releases. Intention
was to create high expectations for the exclusive
launch
 1.7 million downloads within first 24 hours
 10 million downloads within 21 days
The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings
 Use of official website
 Many people who use the site are already
committed to the brand
 The customer experience at the site had to satisfy
the committed fan, yet encourage exploration by
novices
 had to make newcomers feel welcome - not as though it
was an exclusive club
 The other marketing challenge was to integrate
online and offline materials
The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings
 The customer interface of the website - the 7
Cs
Context:
highly visual
style, inviting
look and feel,
topic-based
interactive
interface
Content:
focus on
filmmaking,
wealth of
material:
photos, audio,
clips etc
Customization: Low, no
registration
Stages of Desired Customer Experience on
the official website
Experiencing
Functionality
 Trailer and video materials for viewing readily available
 Navigation is simple and clear for downloads, community, cast and
crew information
 Easy sign up for e-mail and promotions on homepage
 Direct links for actions including ticketing, online ship sales and
merchandising
Experiencing
Intimacy
 Website visitors articulated the value they derive from the site
experience
 Consumers “trust” the information they find on the site
 Strong community has developed within site areas
 E-mail interaction allowed for open, clicking and forwarding to others
Experiencing
Evangelism
 Strong evangelical support from the user base
 Trailer and new content postings are seeded throughout community
areas as well as on other sites and posting boards
 Creates a strong sense of consumer ‘ownership’ of the brand
 The website becomes a trusted friend