In today’s marketplace, direct mail campaigns need to be innovative from both a strategic and creative standpoint to leave an impression. Your potential customer comes across so many different promotions every day, so it’s crucial to create something that he or she will want to hold on to—not something that will end up in the wastebasket.
Designers frequently turn to alternative materials, three-dimensional packaging, add-ons, or just about anything that will help them engage the target audience. The most effective promotions make you part of the experience.
Let’s look at Bosch’s “Lawnmower” mailer.
The aim of this campaign was to get selected dealers and distributors excited about the launch of the new, battery-operated lawnmower. The idea was to use a unique direct mailer, a calendar, where every page is cut to simulate a wild lawn. The user becomes part of the action by tearing off a page every day, thus emphasizing the long battery life of the company’s lawnmower.
What’s the most engaging direct mail promotion you’ve received? Did you keep it?
Another PR pro that I follow recently tweeted a YouTube video of TrendHunterTV’s Top 10 Publicity Stunts (thanks @PublicityGuru). So, I gave it a look.
Some are just for the sake of doing a stunt and they’re worth a chuckle. But, others actually delivered results.
You may hear people argue that the publicity stunt is dead—that the public is no longer “fooled.” But, in my mind, that’s not the point.
Sure people are drawn to the wacky and unusual and most are smart enough to figure out when there’s a marketing component, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t hear your message.
Publicity stunts are about delivering a message. They step up awareness by speeding communication of the message, not just the stunt. Preserving the message is the hard part. The marketers behind the Christina Aguilera perfume stunt in Israel certainly pulled this off.
When they work, publicity stunts payoff in positive media and buzz about your message, whether it’s measurable media or word of mouth. And, a good publicity stunt will go viral.
For b2b, tradeshows are a great forum for publicity stunts. Break out of your booth, get on the surrounding streets and do something different—your audience is tired of the same old routine.
In business-to-business marketing, we use a lot of acronyms and coded keywords, like ROI, SEM, VARs . . . even B2B itself. Well, let me add another one that should matter to anybody with something to sell: RYA. It means “Remember Your Audience.”
During my long career as a wordmonger, I was also a writing teacher and coach, which inspired RYA. My students taught me that it’s easy to fall into a self-imposed writing trap: Even though you know what you want to say, it’s always possible your readers (or viewers or listeners) won’t understand. You have to speak the audience’s language or else you lose them.
There was once a TV commercial about a famous American comedian whose act totally flopped in England, because the crowd simply didn’t grasp his cultural references. The same thing applies to your communications. Will a typical visitor to your website understand your buzz phrases and terminology? Even if he does, will he care? Is your message timely and relevant? Are you explaining your products and solutions clearly enough?
When communicating, be careful with what you say and how you say it. RYA . . . or they could be gone ASAP.
Two of my favorite things in this world are: (1) the world itself (Planet Earth) and (2) guerilla marketing. So, when I stumbled across a way to sustain one by doing the other, I was super ecstatic!
There is a fairly new “natural media” called clean advertising, which works by literally cleaning your ad or message into almost any dirty, smut-caked wall or walkway. Think of it as reverse graffiti—a way to make earth-conscious, artistic advertising.
Clean advertising is created with custom, high-pressure washers that selectively remove dirt, creating a contrast between the dirty surface and the good-as-new original color of the pavement. One of the great things about clean advertising is that it can be highly targeted around events or toward a specific demographic.
Clean Advertising done by Curb, the world’s first natural media company.
Just when you thought sustainable guerilla advertising stops there, just wait until you read the next sentence! Other simple, yet brilliant methods gaining popularity include snow tagging, water art, mow ads, solar art and one of my other favorites—moss art.
It’s time to clean up AND have fun doing it!
What are your thoughts on clean advertising? Have you come across any yet?
My grandpa turned 92 yesterday. Over his birthday lunch, grandpa told stories about the Ploiesti Air Raids in WWII. Sixty-six years ago to the day (on his 26th birthday), grandpa was flying practice runs from Libya for this bombing mission that targeted oil refineries in Romania (a significant source of oil for Nazi Germany).
I’ve heard lots about Ploiesti over the years. Today, I Googled Ploiesti for the first time. It took multiple search attempts:
“Plueste mission” = 4 results in Spanish
“Pluheste low-level flying mission” = 0 results
“Plueste, Romania” (yes, I tried the wrong spelling again) = “did you mean Ploiesti, Romania?”
Why yes, I did. With the correct spelling, I tackled Google again.
“Ploiesti mission” = JACKPOT! Wikipedia delivers the top listing
So, what does this have to do with B2B marketing?
Your potential customers can’t spell your “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” solution or product name!
And, they certainly aren’t going to find you online when your SEO strategy is based on optimizing it—your efforts will be fruitless.
B2B marketers need to focus on how users search. Users search for keyword phrases that describe a problem in order to find a solution; they don’t know your solution exists and, if they do, perhaps they can’t spell it.
There are free tools to help you research and logically deduct what keyword phrases will drive quality traffic to your site. Try WordTracker or Google Adwords to start. You may even consider a misspelled keyword as one of your keywords.
Are your SEO efforts centered on your product name? Can using a misspelled keyword pay off? Did you already know how to spell Ploiesti?
