Maxys Max Media and Entertainment

#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. 

Share-words: the easiest way for us to recommend you

Friday night, leading connector Iggy Pintado "Connecting people for business benefit" tweets me

Seen this? http://www.radsmarts.com/2010/05/share-words-the-easiest-way-for-us-to-recommend-you/

The fact Iggy's a bit of a legend; a trusted mate and doesn't send junk that fills your in-box gets me in.

"Share Words" = love it - is about delivering a short, easy to spread "Share Word" about your business - it's much like the Twitter day modern equivalent to the old 30 second elevator pitch and is  something we try and get through to all our clients when writing their short 15/30 sec intro CLIVE scripts

Our current CLIVE tag-line “Bring your website alive with CLIVE” still doesn’t work well enough for me.

Robin responds

• a) What are the *key* benefits that customers get from CLIVE and your service delivery (your words)?
• b) How do your most satisfied customers describe the experience of dealing with you (their words)?

What we are finding with many agencies and web developers is a real lack of understanding of CLIVE (online rich media visitor engagement) – yet – the large % of web visitors love it (if done well).

To be effective (user engagement) then the videos have to be done well – (there’s been many poor attempts at Internet video) – that means

• short sharp customer focused scripts;
• presenters emotional connection with audience (appear warm & natural),
• high quality production; 
• fast video streaming and 
• accountability for your $$$.

I posed the question to a few clients and put together a list of reasons why CLIVE works – (apologies a bit long).

Also, from a management point of view, we focus on the clients experience in the studio – making them comfortable and come across natural; the result is every new client leaves the studio with a new, much greater appreciation for presenter skills; a deeper understanding of their core message and this new unique 1:1 web presenter vistor engagement space.

Why CLIVE?

1. Builds visitor trust quickly – people buy from people
2. Delivers consistent message 24/7 – ie can “meet, greet, inform & direct” thousands of visitors per day (can be user driven/ auto play; begin muted etc)
3. A/B/C/D message variation comparison/ testing – **iconic88’s WRWM – what messages resonate.
4. Gets results – sales/ registrations etc – accountable – average Click Thru Rates @ 4%; a good message (eg Iggy saw 18%)
5. Bang for buck – easy implementation(one line code) fastest (few days) most cost effective (from $1k) way to increase online user engagement – (the most time consuming is getting the scripts right).
6. * Shows visitor 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.
7. * 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).
8. * Brand personality consistency – show’s visitor what you say in your words is how you behave e.g. Wendell/ Iggy
9. * Sales cycle flexibility from “go to whoa” (each step in sales cycle i.e. greet, introduce, offer, close and thank you steps).
10. * Global factor – time and language offerings.

*thanks Iggy ** thanks Mahei

The Challenge – some customers (“the innovators”) get CLIVE straight away and act – our marketing challenge is to change the thousands of many “Like/ Love it” into a “need it now”'s.

For those who don't like it - fine.  "Never try and sell a meteor to a dinosaur (even a young one) - it wastes your time and annoys the dinosaur" - Hugh McLeod, Gaping Void

Getting your message short, sharp and clear so it is easily understood and spreads is fundamental.