Now this has some really exciting possibilities. And, a low, low price tag. Check out Flogos, floating ads and messages generated by re-purposed artificial snow machines. The machines can pop one Flogo out every 15 seconds, flooding the air with foamy peace signs or whatever shape a client desires. Renting the machine for a day starts out at a cost of about $2,500.

Even better, it’s environmentally friendly as the material is derived from plants.

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In case you haven’t already figured it out, we played a little April Fools joke today. Google is not partnering with Second Life (unless we had some sort of unknown psychic premonition, or maybe we just gave them a great idea).  We hope you enjoyed us having a little fun.  We are always up for trying something new to drive more blog traffic.

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In a bold move designed to fortify itself as THE King of All Advertising in both the real world and the virtual world, rumor has it Google will be announcing an exclusive agreement with Linden Research, Inc. (aka Linden Lab), the creators of the wildly popular online world Second Life, to become the premiere advertising medium within the virtual world. Code-named “Narnia”, the agreement details a two-pronged advertising strategy that will enable Google’s PPC-based AdWords technology to be ascribed to any assets within Second Life, including the Avatars themselves. The second and most interesting component of the agreement provides for the ability to “bridge” PPC advertisements and landing page interactivity between the “real world” and Second Life. Imagine an Adwords-enabled billboard in Second Life promoting a new sports car that, when clicked on, draws the user back onto the advertiser’s web site on the Internet, and vice versa.

What’s next? Is salesforce.com going to start tracking virtual leads? Are marketing automation vendors like Eloqua, Marketo, Vtrenz, and LoopFuse going to start allowing you to track virtual marketing campaigns to Second Life Avatars? If so, how will all of this integrate with our tracking and social media tools?

This is perfect timing for ReachForce, as we just announced our Convert software-as-a-service enabling businesses to turn web visitors into active leads, whether traditional or virtual.

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Are you a Stumbler? I must admit, I find myself neglecting family and friends for my nightly StumbleUpon fix.

For those of you scratching your head, StumbleUpon is–according to Wikipedia – a web browser plugin that allows its users to discover and rate webpages, photos, videos, and news articles. These webpages are typically presented when the user—known within the community as a Stumbler—clicks the “Stumble!” button on the browser’s toolbar. StumbleUpon chooses which new webpage to display based on the user’s ratings of previous pages, ratings by his/her friends, and by the ratings of users with similar interests. i.e. it is a recommendation system which uses peer and social networking principles.

And, for B2B Marketers, a StumbleUpon addiction could actually be a good one. Here are a few cool articles and tools I’ve found while Stumbling:

• KnowThis
• IA
• Internet Marketing Simple

And, a few of the more fun finds:

• Shipment of Fail
• Clean the Screen

Now for the really good part. Turns out Marketers can pay to have their sites featured or served up to Stumblers. It’s called Stumble Upon Advertising and it’s really powerful, especially if you have the type of product or service that seems to be most popular with the StumbleUpon crowd. For pennies per view, you can target an audience with your website or blog. StumbleUpon then brings users directly to the page you specify and they rate your site. It’s a great way to drive web traffic and leads.

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Attention Conservation Notice: The following post provides a few tips on how to turn your tradeshow experience into a word of mouth marketing success.

When most B2B Marketers think of Word of Mouth (WOM) marketing, they think of online/viral campaigns or customer referral programs. But, tradeshows can be the perfect setting for some of the best WOM marketing campaigns. Where else can you get so many people of like mind together in one place, short of Internet forums.

There’s nothing like a good stunt to get everyone at an event talking about your organization which contributes to both brand awareness and demand generation if you handle the lead capture and nurturing process appropriately. The guys over at GamePlan Marketing have been praised for their stroke of genius, “Operation Blueshock¸ a guerilla stunt that involved sending 150 male and 150 female models dressed to the nines onto the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) show floor to talk up the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. For video of the stunt, visit http://www.gpexperience.com/work.php.

The results were staggering: on the day the models showed up at CES, the Bluetooth website had 18,500 hits– a 42-percent spike. In the post-show survey, 60 percent of respondents said they knew more about Bluetooth than just two days before.

So called “guerilla stunts” need not be one-hit wonders, however. A successful WOM event orchestrated by NetQoS has now become an increasingly successful yearly tradition. In an effort to catch the eye of Cisco and get a very target-rich environment to talk about the company, NetQoS marketers executed a WOM “stunt” at Cisco Networkers a couple of years ago. The company sent out invitations to an exclusive party at The MIX lounge in Vegas for an after-hours party starting at 11:00 pm. This generated a great deal of buzz on the show floor with attendees clamoring for an invite. Those lucky enough to attend were given shirts to wear the next day. This resulted in more than 200 NetQoS-clad advocates in sessions and on the show floor which helped to increase lead generation by 120% from the previous year. The next year, we expanded our presence further, booked the House of Blues and increased lead capture by more than 300%. We also gave out Flipcams to encourage attendees to spread the word via YouTube and the blogosphere.

How have you used WOM to improve your trade show experience?

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At a recent Eloqua user group meeting, an attendee asked if anyone had any Holiday-related campaign ideas or plans to share for the B2B marketers in the room. No one raised a hand.
So that got me to thinking. Can B2B Marketers get in on the Holiday action that is so often considered the sole domain of B2C?

When it comes to taking advantage of end of year themes, and non-religious Holidays like Thanksgiving the answer is clearly “Yes.” ReachForce has done a great job of this with their Marketing Oh Crap Day and Use it Or Lose it campaigns. And, at NetQoS, we used this year’s Cyber Monday Holiday shopping fiasco to promote our NetFlow monitoring capabilities in this Network Performance Daily blog post. And, we are currently having some fun with a New Year’s resolutions contest for Network Engineers.

But when it comes to Christmas, Kwanza or Hanukah, it’s probably best to steer clear or go with the generic Holiday theme. Obviously, introducing religion into the business world is not a great idea. It’s not even a good idea for some B2C Marketers. Witness this controversial ad for (WARNING: If you are easily offended, do not click here) Red Bull. According to Reuters, a priest persuaded the soft drinks company to withdraw an advertisement setting its product in a nativity scene on the grounds it is disrespectful to Christianity. Many in the church labeled it blasphemous!

Got any other examples of Marketing WTF moments involving religion or the holidays? Share them with us.

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Can you believe this is at a trade show and not Halloween? That’s right, at this year’s DreamForce, salesforce.com’s annual user conference, ReachForce found a fun way to stand out from all the other booths. The theme was Let’s Make a Deal. You can see Monty Hall in the center with his wacky contestants around. The theme definitely worked and gained a lot of attention for ReachForce and their debut software product, Insight. One lesson learned though was that some people had a hard time having an intelligent conversation with Fred Flintstone. If you try to get noticed at your next event with costumes, choose wisely who will wear them.

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Yep, you heard me, Mr. Happy Crack. The clever folks at Crack Team USA Inc. in St. Louis have managed to make a successful viral video campaign for their concrete repair business. According to the Wall Street Journal Independent Street blog:

“The video doesn’t preach, it’s not blatantly advertorial (at least in the beginning), it emphasizes brand over product and you might watch it even if you’re not in the market to get a crack repaired. Though chances are good that, next time you do, you’ll think of this company first.”

Check it out at:
http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2007/10/17/cracking-youtube-marketing-even-if-youre-boring/

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Disclaimer: Shameless self-promotion follows. MarketingSherpa just published this summary of lessons learned from its Boston Summit last week. I had the privilege of joining a number of B-to-B Marketers who shared their successes in the area of demand generation, Viral marketing, and Web 2.0. Here’s the blurb about the NetQoS viral campaign:

Experiment with low-cost video. Video content is hot, but don’t assume the only effective videos are slick, broadcast-quality pieces with high production values. As long as the content is fun, engaging and relevant to your target audience, it can create a huge buzz.

Pam O’Neal, Senior Director, Marketing Communications, NetQoS, described a viral video campaign she developed based on a simple, animated depiction of network traffic developed by one of her in-house engineers. After creating a microsite for the video piece, posting it to YouTube, and seeding a few key industry sites with mentions of the demonstration, she created a viral video phenomenon that delivered a 6330% return on investment and cost per qualified lead of just $16.

“Always have your flip camera ready. [Video] doesn’t have to have high production values. When something great happens, be there to capture it,” said O’Neal.

Of course, this was just the tip of the iceberg. If you’re interested in the full presentation, stay tuned for –what else? a video of the presentation to be posted the day after the West Coast B2B Summit.

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As new media has pushed its way into B2B marketing, many marketing departments reacted by hiring a specialist to tackle these new forms of marketing and PR, especially blogs. But as these new media have come to replace many traditional media and really become now media, all marketers need to accept blogging and twitter and YouTube and become educated, so that not just one member of your marketing organization understands these communities. In this podcast, I interview Josh Dilworth to discuss the changing landscape of marketing and PR in new media.

 

 PodCast 2: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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