The Engagement Principles

Landing pages have long been the darling of the online world; they continue the dialog begun when a prospect clicked on an ad or link. Yet landing pages are rarely truly interactive — one of the cornerstones of true customer engagement.

It’s precisely the capacity for reader engagement that’s driving microsites to the forefront — and made them the darling of online marketers.

From a recent post on emarketer.com

If you build a microsite, they will come, they will engage and you can get the data to prove it.

That is the main finding of a newly released Keynote Competitive Research study conducted in October 2007. The company tracked reactions of consumers planning to buy an automobile within the next six months as they interacted with microsites for various car models, including the Toyota Yaris.

Keynote said the Yaris microsite demonstrated that "the more engaged people are with product and brand microsites, the more satisfied they will be and conversion rates will be higher than for people less engaged."

Engagement metrics remain hard to define, though most vendors seem to be cobbling together a mix of standards, including time on site, pages viewed, messages left, etc.

What’s fast becoming universal among brands is the desire for true engagement — and the recognition that quality content is the cornerstone of that engagement.

Microsites are often better suited to delivering engagement style content — and in engaging prospects in a conversation — hence the rapid growth.

User Driven vs Seller Driven

I’d suggest the success of microsites in a Web 2.0 world is largely a matter of user control; landing pages force a narrative on the reader, while microsites are user-driven, and can offer elements like two-way conversation, social networking features, etc.

In fact, the emarketing post cites a 2007 Marketing Sherpa survey on Viral Marketing Tactics that generated great results and — surprise — microsites came out on top (highest "Great" results with 37%; lowest "Dismal" results at 10%).

It’s a common journalistic tool to end a story with a compelling quote, and this is ours: Keynote Senior VP Don Aoki said

"With interactive advertising, the consumer must be presented compelling content to draw him or her into the interaction. The consumer must be engaged," he said.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.

Are marketers who fail at engagement marketing doing so because they’re unwilling to look through anything but “old-school” marketing eyes? Is the illusion of control holding back today’s marketer?

That’s the contention of Arthur Ceria in an interesting Chief Marketer piece:

Culture Clash: Building a Bridge Between Brand and Engagement Marketing

Deliver a Compelling Reason
What constitutes a compelling reason to participate in a brand’s marketing efforts? Getting consumers to engage is one of the places where old school marketing collides hard with the new reality. Old school believes marketing is all about the brand, so the brand must always be front and center. But any engagement campaign that’s centered only on discussing the brand will fail.

Likewise, any campaign that offers people a confined and controlled experience will fail. We have to run engagement-marketing ideas through our own BS filters. Is anyone really going to want this information, this offering, this activity? What’s in it for them?

Successful engagement marketing must provide something of real value—entertainment, education or an opportunity to connect with likeminded others. Effective engagement marketing is never myopically brand-centered. The most successful engagement campaigns happen when a company connects the lifestyles and/or values that define a brand with consumers.

My belief — that engagement marketers appeal to consumers via shared passions and values (the spaces around the brand instead of the brand or products themselves) — relies heavily on authenticity, a notion many marketers don’t embrace.

Still, you see it working beautifully in the strategies of a few companies I’ve outlined here (on the high-tech Nike+ running site and Pyramyd Air’s non-threatening content hodge-podge)

Ceria puts it nicely when he says:

Old school adherents want to control the conversation. But you can’t
have a conversation if one person sets the agenda and determines what
everyone else should say. Consumers are no longer willing to listen to
a brand that is talking at them. They want to participate in the
process. If brands don’t open the door to these conversations, people
will take their involvement and interest elsewhere. And there are plenty of other places for them to go.

Marketing has long focused on the little manipulations needed to “break through the clutter” or to trick someone into opening an envelope — often leaning on products and the customer service staff to create brand engagement.

Today, those same marketers are struggling to cede control to consumers — and this long after the consumers have already stormed the battlements and seized that control.

Stay engaging, Tom Chandler.

Deceptive marketing practices are on the rise, contends a Brandweek article which includes several quotes from yours truly. In an age of increasingly jaded customers, I said the practice harms all marketers — and that it runs counter to truly engaging with consumers:

"The public is exposed to so many messages that when a growing percentage of those messages turn out to be deceptive, the result is yet another upward ratchet in consumer cynicism," said Tom Chandler, a 20-year ad copywriter and consultant based in Mount Shasta, Calif., who operates ChandlerWrites.com. "That growing suspicion of marketers and brands has become so profound, some companies can’t even get customers to open envelopes containing real documents."

Engage, Don’t Deceive

One of the pillars of engagement marketing is authenticity; deception doesn’t create engagement (for long),

There’s also the larger question of brand value; I have to ask why anyone would risk their expensive, carefully cultivated brand with a cheap trick designed to get an envelope opened?

"What I don’t understand is why organizations allow deceptive practices to undermine their carefully [and expensively] cultivated brand images in the first place," said Chandler. "I recently received a series of envelopes from a large credit-card bank where I held an account. All shared the same alarmist stamp that "Important Information" about his account was enclosed. "Of course, it wasn’t important information," Chandler said. "It was a series of cross-selling pitches. After a month or two, I canceled my account."

While some marketers will always be tempted to cut ethical corners, it’s simply not possible (nor desirable) in the engagement marketing world.

Is there a silver lining in the rising tide of misleading (however slightly) marketing practices?

For engagement marketers, I believe there is. The more jaded and fearful consumers become, the more secure your engagement marketing bond.

Titleist plunged headlong into engagement marketing when it created the NXTube.com blog — a humorous blog spoofing its own NXT golf balls.

The site looks amateurish because it’s supposed to, but behind the effort lies the wit of John Cleese — legendary Monty Python comedian.

The blog’s concept is direct (and yes, hilarious): Cleese plays the role of uptight Scottish golfer Ian MacCallister, who contends Titleist’s NXT golf ball is so good, it’s ruining the game of golf:

Welcome to my blog. My on-line home and repository for all things anti-NXT. I must confess. It is certainly thrilling knowing that my wisdom will be transmitted across the World Wide Interweb for billions of people to see. So without further ado lets get to it.

Titleist is at it again. They’ve just introduced the new NXT Tour and the grotesquely named, NXT Extreme. Click here to view their propaganda. These new spheres of destruction are loaded with golf-wrecking technology – improved aerodynamics thanks to a “staggered wave parting line” and a little arrow printed on the side to help you line up putts. Let’s call it what it is: a cheater line!

Clearly Titleist will not be satisfied until every green is drivable and every putt is a tap-in. It’s depressing. Golf is supposed to be difficult. It’s a Scottish game for goodness sakes. There’s no place in the game for the uncoordinated masses. It was never intended for the hoi polloi.

Join my crusade against Titleist and their impure technology. You must resist the siren call of easy distance and effortless control. Watch this space for updates and to see what you can do to help. Remember, apathy is the enemy. Together we can derail the NXT Tour and NXT Extreme once and for all.

Interactive & Engaging

The public is invited to participate by submitting photos and stories detailing the “alternative” uses for NXT golf balls. It’s hard to know what’s real and what’s user-generated on NXTube.com, but golf enthusiasts appear to have embraced the blog; user-submitted photos of NXT golf balls used for target practice, decorations, etc adorn the site.

NXTube.com even offers up its own “live” Webcam (it’s not, but it’s funny anyway), crank-calling videos, and slide show.

And unlike the BravoTV blogs I recently wrote about, NXTube.com is wholly interactive; reader comments evoke in-character responses like:

Go ahead, test away. But I can see it now. You drive the NXT ball 297 yards, hitting some poor elderly woman in the head while she is feeding squirrels. The woman comes after you, hitting you in the kneecap with a cane. Next thing you know, you’re answering to a judge about charges of aggravated assault and a broken cane. I’m guessing PETA would also get involved once they find out you were responsible for depriving squirrels of life-saving food.

OR… you could just hit a feathery 58 yards straight as an arrow, finish the round at a respectable 145, hurt no one and probably get a lifetime achievement award from the AARP.

Your choice, either way.

The NXTube.com blog represents a sizable investment (a former client worked with Cleese, who isn’t cheap by any means), and it’s too bad they didn’t leverage some of the video better (I could only find one video on YouTube).

In fact, they seem to have overlooked quite a few viral marketing opportunities, which is a real blot on their effort.

NXTube.com is pure fun, and Alexa rankings suggest the average visitor consumes 11 pages of content. That’s not bad at all — a testament to the engagement power of humor in an interactive setting.

Titleist may be ruining the game of golf, but they’re doing wonders for engagement marketers.

Technorati Tags: engagement marketing,marketing,viral marketing,nxtube.com,john cleese,titleist,golf ball,humor in marketing

Bravo TV has ridden the reality TV wave with a long list of "reality" TV hits, including The Queer Eye For the Straight Guy, Project Runway, Top Chef and others.

"Reality" shows engage readers by offering them compelling characters struggling with real-life situations or competitive pressures (imposed by the programs themselves).

Of course, television isn’t interactive, and in an attempt to bind fans to the shows (which often suffer several months-long breaks between the broadcast of "seasons"), Bravo has embraced engagement marketing tactics; they’ve launched a long list of blogs authored by show participants and judges.

It’s an interesting engagement marketing strategy — one marred only by the poor technology behind the site.

Blogs Everywhere

As I write this, Bravo’s blog count is at 72 blogs and rising. That’s a lot of blogs, and more are added as new shows are released and others move into new seasons.

Still, participation looks good; despite the lack of truly interactive blogs (blog authors rarely respond to reader comments), the more popular posts garner several hundred comments.

Clearly, Bravo is betting heavily on blogs — which makes their flawed implementation of them all the more confusing.

Get the Technology Right

Outside of a very, very cluttered appearance and sometimes confusing user interface, Bravo TV’s blogs have a problem.

Each blog entry is broken up across several relatively short pages, so reading a single entry can involve moving through a lot of pages — and every time the page is redrawn, all reader comments are loaded again.

That means viewers with slow connections (or gasp — dialup) could wait for several hundred comments to load in order to read only a few paragraphs of an entry.

Then they’d get to do it all over again when trying to read the next few paragraphs. It’s either a horrendous oversight, or an attempt to maximize the number of pageviews (usually for advertising purposes) — a shortsighted tactic given the value of engaged fans.

Active Engagement

An e-mail to Bravo TV’s press contact went unanswered, so I can’t speak to the traffic numbers or the network’s own perception of the strategy’s success or failure.

The fact that they’re adding new blogs — and basing so much of their site’s content around them — suggests they’re still happy with the choice of blogs as tools of engagement.

It’s an exceptional engagement marketing strategy; rather than fill their site with content generated by third parties, Bravo jams their online presence with content generated by the very stars of their shows.

Judging by the response from judges and participants, the stars are seizing the opportunity to promote their own brand.

Suddenly, generating arresting content becomes a win/win situation for both network and its emerging reality stars — not to mention the fans, who gain a measure of access they don’t enjoy anywhere else.

It’s an interesting — and compelling — example of engagement marketing on a grand scale.

You might believe engagement marketing is the province of big companies — those who can afford big-dollar social networks and viral videos produced by top-notch Hollywood talent.

Happily, nothing could be further from the truth.

Witness the industry dominance of Pyramyd Air — the retail leader in the airgun niche.

Airguns??

It’s not glamorous, but like any niche, as long as you’re in it, you might as well be in it to win.

Which is exactly what Pyramyd Air is doing.

Engaging With Customers - Affordably

I first found Pyramyd Air prior to teaching an online marketing class; they became a case study in the benefits of high-quality content marketing for my mostly small and medium-sized business owners.

Despite the fact I also trumpeted Nike’s glossy, high-tech running site, Pyramyd’s tactics became the focus of our discussions. Why?

Because Pyramyd is doing what almost any business can do.

For example, Pyramyd’s Web site is not exactly a thing of beauty, but they leverage engagement marketing techniques better than all but a handful of Fortune 1000 firms.

They engage customers with a wildly informative daily blog (written by industry expert Tom Gaylord), twice-a-month podcasts, numerous "how-to" and product review articles (in an editorial style) and even short video snippets.

Pyramyd’s site isn’t pretty, but to search engines and airgun junkies, it’s pure art.

The Blog Leads the Way

Tom Gaylord’s daily blog clearly taps into the passions of his airgun readers; most blog posts generate more than 100 comments, and the comment count on popular posts exceeds 300.

Those are startling numbers given the size of the airgun market (as a niche, it’s not exactly in the same league as celebrity gossip or technology).

The blog itself is conversational in tone, and though I don’t recommend this to my clients, it’s even hosted on a free Google Blogger account. (Really - don’t do this.)

Pyramyd offers a page of helpful articles and another filled with monthly podcasts.

Gaylord’s blog posts are crammed with information, and slaughter some of blogging’s sacred cows. They’re long (by blogging standards), and though he breaks up the text with frequent subheads, his subheads (and copy) lack hype or strong benefits.

It’s an excellent illustration of engagement writing; he’s not talking to an audience as much as sharing with them, and avoids withering his credibility with excessively amped copy. In fact, he recently wrote a blog entry largely condemning a new air pistol with: "As the Typhoon stands today, it has very little to recommend it."

His readers crave information and a demonstrated passion for the sport, and he provides both in spades.

In short, Pyramyd Air isn’t selling airguns or pellets; the product here is rampant, authentic passion for airgunning — which then translates directly into airgun and pellet sales.

Does it drive revenues? Consider this: despite taking over several nearby spaces, Pyramyd has outgrown its building and is moving to a newer, bigger building.

That, my readers, is a problem any business would embrace.

Stay engaged, Tom Chandler.

Interrupt marketing isn’t dead. It’s just receiving fewer marketing dollars, and the trend away from traditional media channels is picking up steam — and fast.

Marketers want to engage customers, and Nike — the one-time interrupt marketing monster in the sports world — is betting on social media and engagement marketing (where brands engage with the passions and values of their customers).

In an excellent New York Times article, the extent to which Nike’s channeling its marketing budget into engagement marketing becomes apparent:

Read the rest

I’ve been less-than-sanguine about Second Life’s potential (especially its commercial potential) even as it was being hyped into a very, very hot online property.

Corporate marketing types were drawn to it like flies to a barbecue, possibly for some less-than-compelling reasons. My take was simple; it was modeled on our current lives, so traditional marketers felt their traditional “interrupt” marketing techniques would apply.

To a group reeling under a tidal wave of new, connection-oriented marketing media channels, Second Life was one Web 2.0 technology traditional marketers understood.

Turns out they didn’t.

Even Wired magazine — which has shoveled its share of hype on the Second Life pile — questions the intelligence of marketing on Second Life, especially given the now-apparent lack of participation:

Then there’s the question of what people do when they get there. Once you put in several hours flailing around learning how to function in Second Life, there isn’t much to do. That may explain why more than 85 percent of the avatars created have been abandoned. Linden’s in-world traffic tally, which factors in both the number of visitors and time spent, shows that the big draws for those who do return are free money and kinky sex.

Well, OK, perhaps porn sites and a handful of other entities can find a profitable home on Second Life, but commercial entities spending thousands to build and maintain a Second Life presence are going to be hard-pressed to justify that presence when the “Second Home Office” gets 27 visitors a week.

To those contemplating a business presence on Second Life, here’s a suggestion: the “real” world of engagement marketing is waiting — no funky avatar required.

Technorati Tags: second life, wired, marketing

In this month’s installment of my series of business blogging articles for Chief Marketer, I look at the new Britannica Blog — a blog from a knowledge-based brand that’s been around since 1768 — but one that’s plenty capable of learning the latest blogging tricks.

In this case, Brittanica’s wide-ranging blog includes some posts clearly designed to provoke engagement — challenging their readers with intellectually charged posts on controversial topics.

Some deride it as “linkbaiting” — the practice of deliberately baiting readers with controversial posts — but the term carries a negative connotation that doesn’t apply, at least not in this instance. Still, the UK Guardian had this to say:

And as Britannica standard-bearer bloggers proceeded to press every hot button of internet culture - Google, Wikipedia, copyright, even hoary complaints about the youth of today - it turned into an impressive demonstration of the contradictions of putting a style in the service of a contrary cause. Like fighting for peace, this was flaming for scholarliness.

True or not, you can’t deny the effectiveness of a traffic-building strategy that generates mentions in other leading online media, especially if you can avoid the negative aspects of controversial posts.

Avoiding the Downside of Linkbaiting

One downside of linkbaiting is that conversations often spiral downward into a morass of petty name-calling, but Britannica’s blog short-circuits that tendency with blog guidelines that prohibit personal attacks, testy language, etc.

It’s a good example of putting blog editorial standards in place before discovering you need them — an excellent idea for any business blog. Spelling out the limits of behavior in any business-related forum is an often-overlooked step, though a critical one, and Britannica sets out their mission right in the sidebar:

Britannica Blog is a place for smart, lively conversations about a broad range of topics. Art, science, history, current events – it’s all grist for the mill. We’ve given our writers encouragement and a lot of freedom, so the opinions here are theirs, not the company’s. Please jump in and add your own thoughts.

Off and Running

The Britannica Blog boasts an extremely wide range of topics (everything from pop culture to quantum physics — and pretty much everything in between) and a blue-ribbon list of intellectual heavy hitters.

The range of this blog is enormous, which could prove both a benefit and a hindrance, especially given the proliferation of narrow-focus blogs.

In the final analysis, there’s nothing wrong with challenging content, and Britannica clearly isn’t trying to simply irritate readers into responding via obnoxious posts. What they have accomplished is simple; they’ve drawn attention to themselves, done so in a way guaranteed to attract visitors, yet avoided the traditional downsides of the strategy.

(You can read my Chief Marketer article here (it’s longer and significantly differently from this post)).

Technorati Tags: britannica blog, linkbaiting, britannica, blog, blogging

Are corporate “loyalty” programs really effective? A recent Direct magazine article suggests the answer is “sortof. And no.”

Does engagement marketing offer any hope?

Loyalty Marketing: Still Growing — But Growing Ineffective?

Designed to drive customer retention, loyalty programs offer a premium (frequent flyer points, rewards points, etc) to keep customers connected and “loyal.” Of course, incentive-based loyalty programs suffer an obvious flaw; your competitors can simply offer the same incentives, and you’re left trying to differentiate yourself.

The problem? Nobody’s truly connecting with anybody; most loyalty programs are little more than marketing payola — a kickback to customers for choosing one vendor over another. The result?

This From Richard Levey at Direct Magazine :

Americans now hold 1.3 billion loyalty program memberships, up from 973 million in 2000. And with 109.9 million households in the United States, that equates to around a dozen each.

So all is well in the loyalty arena, right?

Wrong. Regardless of how many they belong to, each household is active in fewer than five programs, according to a census by retention services firm Colloquy. And that marks a drop from 2000.

It appears the loyalty of “loyalty” programs is falling. So how do you maximize your loyalty program? How do you make it “sticky” — so customers keep coming back? And how do you bind a customer to the brand?

Give Them Rewards — AND Engaging Content

Engaging with customers via their values and passions creates a bond far stronger than 5,000 bonus miles, but combining the two strategies is the marketing equivalent of superglue.

The good news is that engaging with the participants in your loyalty program doesn’t involve digging them out of the general populace; they’ve already identified themselves.

How Do You Engage?

Engagement occurs primarily via two-way media channels, and anyone willing to make the sizable investment in a loyalty program should consider taking it one step farther.

Imagine an airline loyalty program might (blog, social network, etc) featuring the potential uses of loyalty points — and inviting members to share the “rewards” they enjoyed thanks to their points.

Populate it with engaging content, and suddenly, loyalty program members form a community (adding value to the loyalty program), sharing experiences. Did a loyalty member enjoy a vacation because they redeemed their points? Did another visit a long-unseen family member?

The beauty of social media is that your participants add their stories (and credibility) to your own, enhancing your brand and creating a bond that’s pure marketing superglue.

Technorati Tags: social networking, blog, blogging, loyalty program, loyalty marketing, rewards program