Maxys Max Media and Entertainment

Doing It For the Kids - Brand Engagement

This morning I found an old badge we created in our Maxy pub days - The Secret Swillers Doctors and Nurses Party.

Way back before online social media marketing and corporate conscience we formed "The Secret Swillers Society" - it's motto "do good". Basically it was a way to channel the often humorous and creative antics of the back bar/ sports bar guys (and girls) into giving something back to the local community. Charities included the kids ward at St George Hospital; the local pre school etc.

The benefits were enormous - our customers and staff belonged to something greater than one and the community responded with increased patronage.

Funny how ideas evolve - this approach to business and engaging community now accelerated and mainstream marketing thinking through online communities and brand engagement initiatives.

Five tips for creating community campaigns?

• Find a common goal amongst your customers, staff and management.
• Get buy in from the top - strong leadership is required to clearly define the message and ensure adequate project resources.
• Make sure the campaign is aligned with your brand values.
• Empower your staff and customer to create, share and engage.
• Enjoy the experience and have fun.

#FRED and Thanking Your Fans

Today, online word of mouth (WOM) is critical to your brands health and success.  The old days of your hungry customers sitting around the TV consuming your advertising message are long gone.

Yesterday my Facebook Photography Fans page hit 200.  (This morning 199 - bummer I lost someone overnight). 

Introducing FRED - Fan Retention Engagement & Development

FRED is a new program we're working on for brands and services which incorporates both online and offline customer marketing, engagement and experience

From a Maxys Photography point of view - special thanks to my 199 fans (below) thus far.

#VIDEDM - Video Email

Today a large percentage of the way we communication online is through email.

One of the questions I am often asked is about video in emails.

For the last few months I've been experimenting with CLIVE and emails and Electronic Direct Mail (EDM's) campaigns.

To make the CLIVE video email concept easier to communicate I've just created "#VIDEDM" - (note: the hash tag is a Twitter thing that basically allows group discussions around a tag).

Objective

The idea is to build on the success of CLIVE customer feedback for websites and expand that to complete customer life-cycle engagement - (from marketing and customer enquiry through to proposal, purchase and ongoing service)

Client Comments

1. * CLIVE shows visitors you’re REAL and different. Not a two-bit operator with a website template like all the others/competitors. Cut through by being visual and different.
2. * Courtesy – shows visitor you’re a person/business that has the courtesy to greet me when I visit your site by introducing yourself to me as people do (visually+audio).

#VIDEDM Proof of Concept 

My old mate Don Rogers (and naturally empathetic sales person) joined the CLIVE team a few months ago. 

For anyone to sell CLIVE it's fundamental for them to personally experience the CLIVE production process - that way they speak from experience.

We also understand that PEOPLE buy from PEOPLE.

Problem: Our customer prospects and leads come in from all over the country, historically impossible to follow up face to face without lot's of $$$ for travel.

The Solution: Develop a "meet and greet" clip for Don that he could quickly send to any enquiry.

Using the video code create a custom demo of Don on any clients website- for example - say Westpac (the banks always talking about personalising their services)

Clicking on the image takes the client to their custom demo.

Using Google Analytics and Woopra we can see which clients responded.

#VIDEDM CASE STUDY - AD:TECH SYDNEY 2010 #ATSYD

In March 2010 we exhibited at Ad:Tech Sydney and generated over 640 leads over two days.

As part of the followup campaign we created a custom demonstration for every lead and emailed out a follow up message (five days after the event).

For example

Results

• 640 Sends
• 367 Unique Views
• 686 Clicks
• Return On Investment (sales versus total event costs - 5 weeks)

The next stage is looking to incorporate the delivery of scripts across multiple reps/ partners and staff through complete customer engagement.  Applications immediately to mind are any B2B EDM (Business to Business Electronic Direct Marketing Program) - eg sponsorships; events; business proposals.

And the Nature of Creative that Attracts

When deeply reflective many a talented artist, writer, sports person, scientist etc will tell you that their ideas and inspiration are driven from a very deep natural creative energy - of which they say they are simply channelling.  Author Julia Cameron's - The Right To Write and the Artisit Way are great reads for understanding the spiritual elements of creativity.

Macolm Gladwell talks of "Blink" and our instantaneous subconscious recognition of quality.

Dan Roam talks about the Back of a Napkin - the ability to reduce a message into an often simple, two dimension sketch to convey a key message quickly.

Garr Reynolds, Presentation Zen talks of applying the principle of sumi-e - The goal is not simply to reproduce the appearance of the subject, but to capture its soul to convey.

Seth talks of Tribes ; Iggy talks of Connectedness and the team at Forrester's talk of Groundswell

A conversation I've been recently been following is that  "share-words"  and the subsequent blog regarding “Why makes a blockbuster blog? and why do people share/ FREE on the web?”

From a business marketing perspective the original post had immediate “value” with the greater audience – (which is very much like many of the new online software models of today) - Iconic88 talks of "WRWM - What Resonates With Me" (BTW I love this) is the new adoption of the old "WIIFM - What's In It For Me"

Influential (and connected) trusted third party advocacy helped spread.

Why share? –

As you know libraries have been written on human motivation – ie makes you feel good; Maslow's Hierarchy etc.

Sharing – money is not always the primary driver – often it is a consequence of doing good work.

My own personal, probably “hippy” (born in the 60’s) view -

• Creativity is universal (not owned) – we simply channel and mould the universal consciousness to a physical expression which others can perceive (at many levels) - thanks Julia.
• Like music – good content resonates – I think “Share Words” struck a chord – the concept combined the emerging trend of short concise messages (twitter trend) with the deep rhythmic bass of Internet connectedness – ie universal collective collaboration. (Woo hoo – maybe too much coffee!)
• Like water – knowledge in meant to flow – any real gift, talent, knowledge, information etc has an intrinsic drive and will naturally spread – it’s how we all progress.
• The barriers to sharing are often artificial constructs such fear of ridicule/ failure; must make money (though we all need to eat) or lack of knowledge.

In a nutshell, I think sharing is much more fun (rewarding)- it’s about your audience – it’s like playing in a band and watching your audience have fun dancing; like writing a blog (or book) and watching people respond, connect and engage – or a film, photo, aroma, anything that connects.

Do good and it comes back ten fold.

A Kevin Costner - Field of Dreams flashback - build it and they will come.