To catch up, read the article Why Pampers Diaper Fail is a Lesson in Marketing Transparency to get the back story and the updates in the article Pampers Steps up Digital, Social Media Efforts. Here are my thoughts...
Apparently public service workers in the Netherlands get beat up all the time... and everyone just watches and does nothing to stop it. How do you change this behavior? Create an alternate reality where it happens right in front of you, and then tell people how they should react.
This is a guest post by Chris Englund who writes "Chris is an MBA navigating Social-Mediaville. Follow him on Twitter: @cgenglund".
I've known folks in and around Long's Jewelers for a while. They are a HubSpot customer, and I know a couple of people in marketing & management there. I have also purchased a bunch of things there, including our wedding bands and engagement ring. I was happy with the price and quality, and my wife loves the friendly service. She still stops by often to have her ring cleaned.
I recently got an email from a friend there asking if I might have any additional ideas for how to promote their once a year sale. I thought that maybe I could ask the community to offer up some ideas.
Here's the situation... Their industry is clearly more difficult today than in past years. With the economy in decline, fewer people are buying jewelry. There is not much we can do about that. So far this year, they have promoted the sale like in prior years:
- They have done some mass promotion through traditional outbound marketing (print, mostly).
- They have reached out to their community through inbound marketing - communicating with their base of loyal fans and customers through email, mail and phone (per the customer's preference).
Finally, not specific to the sale:
- They have been doing some SEO and have first page rankings for terms like "engagement rings Boston", "diamond expert", and "Antonini jewelry" as well as a long list of other medium tail terms.
- They have created a blog as well, so they are publishing come ongoing new content.
- They recently launched a Facebook page with some fans and a good amount of content.
Your Help - More Ideas to Promote a Jewelry Sale?
The real challenge here is that it has to be done on short notice... pretty much within the next 24 hours. But, bigger ideas will influence their planning for next year's sale, so you can share those too.
I thought about it for a while and I think my best idea is to reach out to people using social media with a special offer. So, while it might not be the most creative thing in the world, Long's is running a new experiment this year - if you become a fan of their Facebook page and mention "Facebook" at the sale you'll receive an EXTRA 10% off the once-a-year sale prices. This gives you an even more special deal, and it allows Long's to track how effective social media can be to promote their only sale.
Do you have any other creative ideas for this year or future years? Or what about ideas on getting more people to become a fan on Facebook and spread the special discount this year?
The Wall Street Journal predicts an uncertain future for the display ad market (basically banner ads). Why?
- More inventory/content - People (both big media companies and people like you) are creating more and more content online, so there are lots more places to put ads
- Low performance - most banner ads get a click throgh rate of 0.2%, meaning that most people don't look at the ads much, they are there for the content
- Inbound marketing transformation - It is now cheaper to publish your own content (blog) and promote it (social media) than it is to buy ads (that people ignore) next to someone else's content
Because of these trends, ad prices fell 54% last quarter (according to the WSJ article).
I found this on the Duct Tape Marketing Blog. This politician lets his supporters write on the sign why they are going to vote for him.
What would your customers or supportes say if you asked them to tell other people why they liked you? Would it be the same as you company pitch? Probably not. Why not?