Experiential Marketing Turns to Non-Event Options

What happens when experiential marketing—the strategy of engaging customers in branded live experiences—faces a world where events are being cancelled or postponed thanks to novel coronavirus fears? The blow to b2b experiential marketers is significant. Back in January 2020, the Demand Gen Report found that 53% of U.S. B2B marketers surveyed rated in-person events and tradeshows as their most effective channel for driving lead conversions, above digital-only efforts such as e-mail and the company websites. Of course, that was before the coronavirus began to scuttle plans. The event drought doesn’t mean that the power of experiential marketing vanishes, but marketers do have to adapt. As experiential agency Fake Love’s CEO Alanna Lynch explained in a recent AdWeek article, since there’s no doubt experiential marketing will be affected, "particularly around large-scale events with a global audience," the company is "proactively thinking about how our approach to branded experiences may need to evolve in the short term, more specifically, how physical activations could be experienced virtually and then shared virally." In a ClickZ post, Gretchen Scheiman reminds experiential marketers of the potential power of online experiences, ranging from gaming like Fortnite, to educational platforms like Kahn Academy to McDonalds restaurants, where parents who might hesitate to send children into crowded Happy Meal Play Zones can visit happymeal.com for downloadable coloring pages, activities and interactive games. Jillian Ryan at eMarketer likewise urges pandemic-deprived marketers to "go digital and be nimble" as virtual conferences replace physical events, creating digital touchpoints whose content and engagement can still influence the intended audience. Indeed, event cancellations can provide a great opportunity for marketers to A/B test whether their physical event presence is as crucial to conversion as presumed, Ryan notes. Plus, experiential marketers have some good old-school options that have been technogically enhanced for interactive engagement. Ryan urges consideration of direct mail as an experiential tool, for example. In addition to its visual and tactile engagement, direct mail can be highly targeted and personalized, and now, thanks to digital print technology such as QR, VR and AR, digitally interactive as well. Similarly, ClickZ’s Scheiman reminds that targeted e-mail is another great way to create a direct line of communication with people around an event or experience, physical or virtual, with links to interactive digital. For more, see our website blog post at https://www.acculist.com/b2b-experiential-marketers-have-options-to-pandemic-cancelled-events/

Direct Mail With Social Sharing Revs Response

Taking social media and direct mail from parallel tracks to integrated teamwork delivers added response power to multi-channel marketing campaigns. For those who are scratching their heads over mail-social integration, we recommend a Target Marketing magazine article by Summer Gould, including two case studies as templates. Gould boils a successful mail-social marriage down to a simple formula: Use the power of social sharing to expand mail response. Basically, start with an existing direct mail campaign that is working well. Create landing pages for the target audience to visit and direct recipients to those pages in the mail piece. Ask the audience to provide the information that you want on the landing pages. Finally, to get your offer, ask people to share with others. Marketers don't have to reinvent the wheel to get this done, but they do need to remember to include vital spokes! Gould starts with the basics: Define objectives and the target market. Then adjust direct mail design to include landing pages and social media sharing. Make sure that the offer is the same for both direct mail and social media, and be sure to effectively incentivize sharing. Focus carefully on the data capture required in return for the offer, including social media accounts so you can reward those who share! Finally, make sure you have the social media monitoring software to track results. Gould's article offers two case studies that should inspire emulation. First, Chick-fil-A, which wanted to both build its customer database and increase store traffic, launched a direct mail campaign of 5,000 plastic postcards that included social sharing. Thanks to the viral impact, the campaign gained a 279.8% response! Second, Stein Mart wanted to increase store redemption through a referral program. The discount retailer mailed 20,000 postcards with a social sharing component, and the campaign gained a total response of 150.58%. For more, including links to the case studies for details, see our web blog post at http://www.acculistusa.com/drive-response-by-integrating-direct-mail-and-social-sharing/

Use Social Sharing to Rev Direct Mail Response

Integrating the targeted power of direct mail with the viral power of social media can turbocharge results, and a recent article in Target Marketing magazine offers some good case studies as models for how direct mailers can harness social sharing to significantly boost response. Article author Summer Gould cites two examples: 1) Chick-fil-A, which integrated social sharing with a mailing of 5,000 plastic postcards for a whopping 279.8% response to grow its store traffic and customer database, and 2) Stein Mart, which used viral social sharing with a 20,000-postcard mailing to earn 150.58% response for a referral program and in-store redemption. Put simply, the formula involves directing the target audience of a proven direct mail package to a landing page/social page to provide data, get a reward and share the promotion. But of course, it's not simple. The secret to success lies in executing the details, starting with eye-catching, call-to-action design for the direct mail and the landing page and social media creatives. The goal is to not only push response but capture customer data for reward delivery and database growth. It means defining the objectives, the target audience and the desired data capture carefully. Most of all, it means developing a killer offer, which has to be the same for mail and social venues. It has to be the right offer for the right audience at the right time. It must grab attention, drive action, and inspire viral sharing. Of course, sharing is helped by extra incentives offered to any who share, from coupons to freebies to whatever wows the target audience. Although the case studies both come from retail marketing, the lessons can apply to other verticals, including nonprofits. For links to the case studies, see our post at http://www.acculistusa.com/social-sharing-can-turbocharge-direct-mail-response/

Secrets to Getting Your Video Ad to Go Viral Online

If you're envious of ads that go viral online, with shares and brand recognition expanding exponentially, here are some hints to the secret sauce. MarketingProfs recently shared an Unruly study of online sharing of Super Bowl video ads via social media, blogs, etc. What do the top viral performers have in common? Don't count on the pull of a celebrity spokesman, the study shows. Only three of the top 12 most-shared ads online from this year's Super Bowl featured celebrities, and only 13% of the 100 most-shared ads of all time. Instead, try to trigger emotional response (reactions of sadness, anger, happiness, and so on). The most-shared Super Bowl video online this year was Budweiser's feel-good "Puppy Love," for example. Reaching for a humorous response may be risky, however. Most of the Super Bowl ads that tried to generate laughs fell flat as measured by online sharing. The Unruly analysis also cites inclusion of social motivators (appeals to social good, shared passions and opinions, for example) as a way to give an ad viral momentum -- with highest shares earned by ads that included multiple motivators to tap different viewer segments. Of course, sharing isn't much good without brand recall. Unfortunately, the study also found that brand promotion often fell short so that heavily shared ads did not always have equally high brand recall. For details of the analysis, see the MarketingProfs report at http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2014/25217/what-makes-an-ad-go-viral-online