Make the Most of Your Tradeshow Investment Using Word of Mouth Marketing - B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #76
Friday, February 29th, 2008Attention 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?
B2B Marketing and Sales Tip #51 - B2B Marketers Can Get in on the Holiday Action Too!
Friday, December 14th, 2007At 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.
Marketing WTF? - Playing Dress-Up is Not Just for Halloween
Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
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.
Marketing WTF? - Say Hello to Mr. Happy Crack
Thursday, October 25th, 2007
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/
B2B Marketing and Sales Tips #32 - Take a Crash Course in B2B Marketing with These Marketing Sherpa B2B Summit Lessons
Wednesday, October 24th, 2007Disclaimer: 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.
The B2B Lead Podcast #4 – Adapt or Die – Marketing and PR in the Blogosphere and New Media
Monday, October 15th, 2007As 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.
The B2B Lead Podcast #3 – Making a Viral Campaign Successful - Seeding
Monday, October 15th, 2007The thought of undertaking a viral campaign may seem a bit daunting. But say you have created the perfect video, now how do you actually get the right people to view it and pass it on – the whole point of a viral campaign. In this podcast, listen to my interview with Josh Dilworth at Porter Novelli to explore how detailed planning and execution of the seeding component made my viral campaign at NetQoS a major success.
Anti-virus Software Company Unleashes a Viral Marketing Pandemic
Thursday, October 4th, 2007Take a look at this wonderfully cheesy YouTube video from Symantec, the makers of Norton Anti-virus software.
Their web site is even better http://www.nortonfighter.com/.
How to Alienate Even the Most Loyal Customers
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007To be fair, this has nothing to do with B2B Marketing but it is a cautionary tale applicable to anyone in the business of customer loyalty. Steve Jobs recently slashed the price of iPhones by from $599 to $399 only 2 months after loyal customers waited in long lines to buy a phone. This prompted an outcry and loads of negative publicity. Kudos to Jobs, however, for taking this step to make it right:
B2B Sales and Marketing Tip #16 – B2B Marketing Campaign Watch – Lessons Learned in B2B Viral Marketing
Thursday, September 6th, 2007B2B Marketing Campaign Watch – ReachForce Customer Shares Lessons Learned in B2B Viral Marketing
ReachForce customer, NetQoS, was recently honored by Marketing Sherpa for an innovative B2B Viral Marketing program that continues to generate a steady stream of B2B leads for the company. Read about it in the Marketing Sherpa Hall of Fame. The campaign involved a blend of new media, traditional public relations, blogger relations, demand generation, and an elaborate seeding campaign. NetQoS placed the video on YouTube and Google Video, as well as on more targeted sites such as Digg, Techmeme, Brightcove, Grouper, Motionbox, DailyMotion, GoFish and Veoh. At that point, the viral effect took over netting 66,000+ views on YouTube, numerous press mentions, pickup by the popular TechCrunch tech blog, and more than 1,800 downloads, some of which have already turned into sales meetings. O’Neal will speak about how the leads from the Viral campaign compared to traditional Marketing Campaign leads and how she is leveraging Deliberate Marketing techniques to increase the value of those leads at the upcoming Marketing Sherpa B-to-B Demand Generation Summit this fall. More details coming soon on The B2B Lead blog.
