When a visitor stops engaging with your site, they’ve hit a dead end. This could occur after they’ve finished requesting a quote, registering for an event, or reading this blog post. The visitor got what they came for, so they close their browser, they leave your website, and the connection between you and your customer ends.
But it doesn’t have to.
In fact, more and more we’re seeing that with each of these dead ends, there’s almost always a unique opportunity to continue the customer journey.
What if, after your customer requests a quote, they are asked if they would like to join your mailing list? After joining your mailing list, what if they are asked if they would like to register for an upcoming event? And after they register for an event, what if they are presented with an engaging, relevant blog post?
Great websites do an excellent job of getting people to take meaningful actions in areas that may seem like dead ends.
Facebook invites people who’ve logged out to download their mobile application.
After purchasing a product on EBay, you’re asked to review the person who sold it to you.
And on a recent project we did for Slurpee Canada, after you sign up to receive a FREE SLURPEE COUPON, we ask you to join in on the conversation on Facebook.
Take a look at your website user flow, or see where your visitors are dropping out using your web analytics tools, and make a good list of all the potential dead ends. See if there are any opportunities for you to keep them engaged, and continue their journey. How far can you take them?
About a year ago, we posted a blog article called “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? … No, it’s a 2-year-old on a Kiddimoto”. The article covers the innovative approach that a small family business in Roetgen, Germany took to building children’s bikes with the introduction of LIKEaBIKE. Their theory was that by introducing kids to bikes without a crank or pedals, they would be able to master their balance simply by using two wheels and their own two feet.
LIKEaBIKE is designed with child safety in mind. Although lightweight (approx 3.5 kg), quality materials such as birch, beech plywood, aluminum, and the use of high grade steel fasteners ensure that a LIKEaBIKE can withstand any amount of rough and tumble. The saddle can be adjusted for height as your child grows. In addition, the cotton saddle cover is removable and fully washable.
Our son Samuel got a LIKEaBIKE just before his second birthday. The bike performed just as advertised. He was able to instantly maneuver around, and by the time he was three he was weaving in and around people with poise and confidence on the sea wall here in Vancouver. He has clearly loved his LIKEaBIKE from day one, and he’s gotten every bit as much joy out of it, if not more, than any child could have had on a tricycle or traditional pedal bike with training wheels.
The real question, however, is: “Are these two-wheel push bikes more effective at teaching balance than a traditional pedal bike with training wheels?”
Well, today, after two years on the LIKEaBIKE we thought we’d try our son out on a standard pedal bike. We wanted to see if he could pick it up without training wheels.
Let’s let the video do the talking.
Obviously the LIKEaBIKE experiment was a resounding success. This product not only provided years of enjoyment for our child, but it looked cool, and the all-wood design is environmentally friendly (not to mention lighter) than a traditional bike. And, most importantly, this product innovation actually changed the way our son learned balance—this will undoubtedly have an impact on his ability to adapt to other sports and life skills, as good balance is a fundamental skill for so many activities.
LIKEaBIKE has taken something as simple as the bike and reinvented it in a way that has a strong and meaningful impact.
In my last blog post we saw that there were conflicting reports circling the Internet about the results (or supposed lack thereof) for the Old Spice Man campaign. This seemed impossible given the buzz that the campaign was generating, and sure enough time and research revealed that the campaign actually generated a dramatic spike in sales and market share.
What gets me is the fact that so many people, including those who you think would be highly credible sources, got it wrong. Check out this apparent retraction from Time magazine’s article “Old Spice’s Viral Ads Got Attention, Not Sales”:
Update: We might have been a little too specific with the sales stats. Though Red Zone After Hours sales went down, overall body wash sales actually went up 107 percent, according to PRWeek. Good — we hope this means more Mustafa in our lives.
And it’s not as if Time was alone in misreporting the facts either. Many other major publications dropped the ball as well, including MSNBC,Yahoo, Bnet, etc.
Here was Yahoo’s retraction:
Update: A representative for the Old Spice ad campaign clarifies the sales trend and goal of the “Old Spice Man” commercials as follows: “[The] campaign is for Old Spice Body Wash overall, not specific to just Red Zone After Hours which just happens to be the body wash bottle used in the TV spots….Since the Smell Like A Man, Man campaign broke in February, Old Spice has month over month strengthened its market position and is now the number one brand of body wash and anti-perspirant/deodorant in both sales and volume with growth in the high single/double digits.”
Where did these false campaign results originate? In the old world of journalism, heads would roll if facts weren’t properly researched and double checked. We need look no further than Dan Rather’s firing for going to air with a report about President Bush’s military service without properly vetting his facts.
In a social media driven environment the media is desperate to break a story first. No one wants to be the last one out the door with a story, and you are not only competing with other news outlets, you’re competing with 190,000,000 Twitter users. Given the fact that more and more people are looking at Twitter or Facebook for their news, are trusted journalists now compromising their own standards and integrity just to stay competitive? Would they rather publish a story with half the facts than risk being late to market?
The decline in standards of journalism is only magnified in social media, because not only do you have one or two sources publishing inaccurate information, but you also have millions of people taking it as their own and spreading it to the rest of the world.
By design, social media is about sharing. To be active in the community, you need to contribute. This leads to a lot of links and re-tweets of information that people happen across, and think may be relevant to their social media circle. We now rely on our peers as trusted news sources.
On a professional level, information sourcing is very apparent in the marketing industry. The pass-it-on approach is often used as a tool to promote one’s stature in the social media sphere. As most social media “feeds” quickly refresh, pushing posts down the pages faster than you can say “Facebook”, many individuals are going beyond sharing, and taking on the duty of Social Media Aggregator. These individuals are social media mavens that use a shock and awe approach to their sharing. These people literally spend hours a day sourcing the Web in search for breaking news, insightful articles, and obscure facts only to quickly re-post it themselves with a small bit of commentary so that they can leverage in on the story.
It’s basically digital Gonzo journalism. An amazing ad campaign could break in Brazil and five minutes later you’d have 20,000 people sharing the news link while offering their own two cents. Next thing you know those bloggers and tweeters are now being indexed in Google as references that are attached to the campaign, and their opinions become part of the conversation.
It’s unavoidable that brands are going to have their marketing messages regurgitated through the Web. There’s not much you can do if the media, or a blogger, wants to weigh in on your story, and you can rest assured that someone will screw up the details or portray their opinion as fact.
Your best defence in social media is a strong offence. You need to monitor and appropriately respond to brand chatter, and ensure that your message is accurate. The best way to stop false information from spreading is to do your own part and seed the truth. Social media is far less forgiving on the strong and silent types. If your brand is achieving any form of success, then you are likely being talked about online. Be sure to be the one to share your story clearly and utilize official channels of PR and corporate communications to reinforce your message.
Lastly, we might want to all take an extra few seconds and read all the facts before we post that next article on Twitter or Facebook. We may not be professional journalists, but we do have to take some responsibility for the information we share.
I am not normally one to defend someone else’s work, particularly when it’s getting rave reviews in most circles. Yet some recent unfounded criticism that caught my eye warrants further discussion. When I saw the campaign in question, my first reaction was more along the lines of “I wish I had done that” as opposed to “Who polished that turd?” I am not alone in this fondness either, however—it seems like 20% of the Internet might agree with me also.
Yes, I’m talking about “that” campaign. The one with the spokesperson that we just refer to as the Old Spice Guy. On the bandwagon so far we have several heavy hitters. The Cannes Lions judges awarded it the Grand Prix earlier this summer, making this the industry’s pick as the most groundbreaking work in 2010. Oprah liked it so much she had the star of the ads, Isaiah Mustafa, on her show as a guest. And, the Old Spice YouTube channel is now also the most viewed sponsored channel in YouTube history.
My creative instinct motivated me to write this after I saw opinions that panned the campaign as an over-indulgent art piece without a true sales message. I then subsequently read some similar articles on Bnet and Yahoo, and I felt that this couldn’t be further from the truth. The ads themselves are transforming a category, and helping to convert many males from traditional bar soap to liquid shower gels that many have oft-perceived as being too feminine. The campaign uses an ingenious mix of masculinity, thanks to the use of an ex-NFL wide receiver and “manly” activities such as carpentry, horseback riding, and motorcycling. It also has feminine appeal with a well spoken, rugged, and handsome spokesperson. It’s positioning Old Spice as the product that guys will like, and women will want their guys to have. It’s definitely not my grandfather’s product anymore.
In my world, we are challenged every day with trying to take our clients’ budgets and leverage the hell out of them to gain every possible competitive advantage available to us (Chuck Porter refers to this as making your clients Famous). PR, viral video views, and social media chatter are channels that can be influenced, but not purchased outright. You need to have ingenuity, timing, and of course entertainment factor in order to be successful.
Speaking of successful, I generally hear that getting a million views on YouTube is pretty good for a viral campaign. When a campaign hits 100 million views such as Old Spice has, then we should really sit back and think about the significance of that. For example, I live in Canada, a technically advanced, industrialized nation. The population of Canada is approximately 33.3 million people. By that math, the Old Spice Man has been viewed by the equivalent of every man, woman and child in our entire freakin’ country three times each. Staggering.
Now, I know, I know, that’s all really great but it doesn’t mean that it was a good investment. Advertising is intended to sell product after all, not entertain people, right?
Well, to that I say “yes” we are here to sell products, but if we could sell people something AND provide consumers with a bit of an emotional connection, like say a smile or a laugh at the same time, wouldn’t we be building a better long-term relationship? All too often initial sales numbers get skewed by promotional activities such as coupons or price cuts. Promotions are great, and highly necessary, but we can’t let short-term numbers cloud the long-term success of a deeply seeded viral campaign. Whereas traditional marketing campaign results could be reasonably measured in blocking charts of weeks and months, a viral campaign with 100,000,000 (and growing) followers could take decades to effectively measure as it is so deeply rooted in Internet culture that it will continue to bounce around the “Interwebs” long after the media budget is pulled and the last SKU for that fiscal is measured.
Campaigns with the level of viral reach achieved by the Old Spice Man have already proved that they are effective at drawing viewers. Lots of them. The fact that those videos will continue to propagate is a given. What’s not yet understood is the long term ROI around such an online following.
Before anyone starts throwing sales numbers around, and I have read decent articles covering some campaign metrics here, and here. I’d also like to remind any naysayers that body wash is a product with a relatively long shelf life. Depending on how you purchase it (single bottle vs. multi-packs for example) you could go anywhere from two to six months between purchases. That would dictate that even a highly successful brand campaign is going to take a while to show results at the cash register. And, as I suggested earlier, a campaign like this will likely be providing huge volumes of highly valuable brand impressions for years to come as the viral momentum is simply too great to fade away anytime soon.
So, for anyone out there with a bad case of creative-phobia, hear this: you cannot measure the ROI of a successful viral campaign in weeks or months. This isn’t a TV campaign that has an off switch. Using traditional media measurements to map out the ROI of a viral campaign is like comparing an airplane to a spaceship. In traditional media (the airplane) you only got carried as far as your budget could take you and then you came in for a landing. In the online world (spaceship) you need enough budget to break the stratosphere, and seed the campaign in the community—once you do that, your concept is free from the gravitational pulls of a traditional budget, and it starts to build its own momentum.
Facebook is widely lauded as one of the most successful websites of our time. It has approximately 500,000,000 stated users. For a campaign to reach an estimated 20% of those people online in under a year is amazing. To do it for a campaign selling soap is even more amazing. My hat is off to the team at W+K and the Old Spice Man for the amazing job they’ve done to date. Keep it up.
And hey, @oldspice, feel free to drop us a line at @HotTomali. Canadians like body wash too.
The Hot Tomali team is back from a few days in New Orleans, having attended the fantastic Ad Age Small Agency Conference that brought together small agencies from across the continent to share insights and strategies on how to be better at what we do. Aside from feeling pretty proud about being the only double winner at Ad Age’s awards show, we also took away some great insights that are valuable to agencies and businesses.
Things are Changing
For agencies these days, it’s all about digital, and it’s all about business. Any Creatives in the conference must have been muttering, “Where are the ads?” as speaker after speaker focused on the need for agencies to engage customers online. It’s not that the great creative idea doesn’t matter, but it is now inextricable within the online media capabilities. As Tom Martin of Converse Digital stated, “The industry needs people who speak advertising like a native yet are fluent in digital.” Social Media was front and centre; not in a buzz word way, but in successful examples that are grounding some new marketing principles. Eric Ryan, the founder of Method, had a great perspective on this: “Every brand in social media should have a social message.” And Michael McSunas recognized the spread of expertise that is evolving in social media marketing when he questioned, “Do young people understand how to market through social media? Or do they just understand how to use the platform?”
Agencies are now about the business. Literally. Eric Ryan had seven years of experience in advertising with high-end consumer brands before deciding he should apply his marketing excellence to his own brand, and started the incredibly successful Method home care products. Kenny Tomlin, founder and CEO of Rockfish (the winner of Ad Age 2009 Agency of the Year), has a goal of 50% of agency revenues coming from branded companies they create, marketing technology they licence to clients, and joint business ventures. This model of agencies marketing their own companies and systems really shows a client that the agency knows how to make business happen. We were particularly excited to see this model succeeding, as Hot Tomali has been developing its own products for years with the HotCMS content management system, our retail training platform, and our business partnership with Cientis in creating a physicians community for electronic medical records systems evaluation.
Things are Staying the Same
Agencies have always had a role in advancing their clients’ marketing knowledge. Not since Mad Men times, though, has this been so important with the shifts to digital marketing. As Tom Martin stated, “A small agency is there to guide clients through this new digital age.” And what hasn’t changed is the desire of agencies to play a bigger role in the strategy layer of marketing: “Too much tactics and we all turn into machines.”
Most significantly, the biggest thing not to change was agencies’ desire to do great work for their clients. It was an enriching experience to be in a room where job #1 is to help clients connect better with their customers. Through every speaker, and every discussion thread, this objective was obvious.
And in the end, it seems none of us could come up with a better moniker than “small agency” as Ad Age has defined it. “Independent”, “Nimble”, “Way Better”, were bandied about as replacement for “Small”, but we left with the creative challenge of branding ourselves. Regardless, I think we all agree with the conference lunch sponsor when they stated:
“Where is it written that brilliant ideas only come from big places? That’s right. Nowhere. And we know it. … We know that really great thinking can happen anywhere people have brains to think with. And since that’s just as likely to be your shop as it is any other, why shouldn’t you have the same shot at online success?”
On June 19 and 20, 2010 I embarked on my second Ride to Conquer Cancer. This year I was lucky to share this experience with my client Jeff Hornell of Sonray Sales and his girlfriend, Kimberly. This epic 255 km bike trek from Vancouver to Seattle takes place to raise money for BC Cancer Foundation. We (myself and my supportive fundraising team at Hot Tomali) have raised over $12,500 for this cause over the last two years, and it’s such a great fundraiser that I’ve already signed up to participate again in 2011.
This isn’t your average fundraising event. A 255 km bike ride is a physical feat. It’s something that you need to prepare for both physically and mentally. Even though the distance is broken up over two days, it’s enough to give you a sore backside, and some aches and pains that stay with you for a while. In spite of the distance this is not a macho race—it’s a “ride”. People of all ages and varying levels of fitness participate, not to prove something, but to “mean” something.
Along the route many riders bear yellow flags on their bikes. These riders are either cancer survivors or they are currently fighting cancer. Seeing these brave individuals push themselves with such determination is nothing short of inspiring.
After witnessing the Yellow Flags I am now resigned to the fact that no amount of fatigue I could experience would ever have quite the same perspective. For example, one rider that I encountered during the ride was moving slowly on the second morning. Very slowly. A volunteer at the first pit stop came in after stopping to speak with this particular rider and seeing if she needed a lift. She refused, and was determined to make it on her own steam no matter how long it took. What makes this particularly impressive was that she was doing this after having recently undergone two breast cancer surgeries and having one lung removed. She was not able to ride her bike up hills, and had to walk whenever she started to ascent. This was due to the fact that she had a broken rib at the time.
My fellow riders and I looked at each other in disbelief as we heard this story. I proclaimed on the spot that you wouldn’t hear another peep from me about my aches and pains for the rest of the trip. As tired and sore as we were, there were people out there doing the ride with us that were enduring a bigger physical challenge then we could ever even imagine. Their journey wasn’t going to last for two days—it is something that they will endure for the rest of their lives.
This was just one example of of many brave displays of courage witnessed during The Ride to Conquer Cancer. It’s just one example of why we need to maintain hope. It’s one example of why we need to raise money to improve treatments and support families affected by cancer.
In all, the 2009 Vancouver Ride to Conquer Cancer attracted 1,701 participants and raised $6.9 million dollars. In 2010, it attracted 2,252 participants that helped raise $9.2 million dollars. That’s $16.1 million dollars of fundraising in just two years. This is a level of funding that can make a significant difference where it is needed most. That kind of money can pay for much-needed medical trials, cutting edge equipment, and break through research.
I’d like to extend a big thank you to all of those who have supported me on my ride. I also need to acknowledge the great work done by the volunteers on The Ride to Conquer Cancer. They are the ones who really make this event possible. You guys rock!
For those interested, a full gallery of photos from this year’s trip is available on Hot Tomali’s Flickr account.
How clever are we? Well we replaced the word action with the word freeze to get you to read this body copy in an effort to sell you on the benefits of our FREEZE THE MOMENT with Slurpee contest.
So it’s safe to say that we’re super clever. But we don’t want all the spotlight. Besides, our eyes are sensitive to light.
Hopefully yours aren’t. And hopefully, you’re not against the idea of winning $5,000, Slurpees for a year, and potential TV stardom to go along with that spotlight. If you don’t, well, you’re just lying to yourself and you will go to hell. Oh, there is a hell. We’ve been there. There’s no soap there. And if there’s anything worse than a liar, it’s a stinker. So be true to yourself and get involved. Visit slurpee.ca for the who, what, where, when, how, and sometimes why of our FREEZE THE MOMENT contest. (Like we said, we’re super duper clever — why else would we throw a duper in there?)
In the meantime, watch out for all things Slurpee, as Hot Tomali recently launched the Big Gulp of Slurpee campaigns through TV, three radio spots (Ricardo – Seeeeeeeven, Steven Wright – Priiiizes, and Kip – Mooooooment), CITY-TV IDs, guerrilla stunts, BT Television live stunts, a website and contest, Live 7/11 Remotes, this blog, that blog, and everything in between.
Website measurement is now firmly planted in the business lexicon, thanks to Google. “Google Analytics” has become a generic term among companies, meaning that lots of stuff on a website is trackable. It’s true: I was told by Omniture that its premium analytics toolkit, Site Catalyst, has over 100,000 report variations! So, the problem is not measuring your customers’ site engagement, it’s understanding that measurement data to create improvement in the experience. Technologies continue to emerge and evolve that are intended to help us understand what web customers are doing, but sometimes you just have to look them in the eyes and ask them.
Online usability testing is just starting to gain a greater appreciation despite being around from the late &rsquo’90s, and with decades-old off-line roots in advertising focus group testing. Where Web analytics can tell you the, “what people are doing” on the site, it lacks the intuition of the, “why people are doing that” on your site. For example, analytics tools can report that 32% of visitors to a product page are returning to the homepage rather than purchasing, but it’s a darned mystery in that data of why they go that direction. If you want to know, why not ask them?
The discipline of online usability testing involves selecting a representative sample of customers, bringing them into a face-to-face test environment (this can be as simple as a computer and an activity-recording device in a boardroom), and moderating them through a user scenario with a set of associated tasks. The process can be both simple and challenging. As the guru of web usability Jacob Nielsen stated a decade ago, you only need five testers to determine 80% of the usability problems in a particular scenario. This means learning can occur very rapidly, to provide the foundation for some very significant improvements in your site architecture. The challenge comes in recruiting a representative sample of your customers, in effectively moderating sessions to minimize bias and maximize insights, and in collating the opinions into actionable documentation that roadmaps both business and technology improvements for the site.
Technology is even trying to simplify the online usability testing discipline. Usertesting.com is a service where you can just throw in your own site scenarios, define a tester group by selecting ready-and-waiting web surfers with some basic demographics filtering, and ta-da… instant insight! There’s just no substitute, however, for a trained expert to work with you on defining and executing a successful, strategic, testing program that works in concert with your web analytics insights, and can even guide much more effective Google Optimizer multi-variant test programs.
Talk to us, if you’re ready to stare your online customers in the eyes.
An email address may be all you need to start identifying who your customers really are. You wouldn’t think an email address would tell you much about them, other than whether they like Hotmail or GMail, or whether they haven’t changed it since high school. However, your customer’s email address is really a great gateway to learning more about them.
Using their email, you can send them surveys. You can ask them to update their personal information on your website. Or, you can even Google their email and aggregate the information you find.
But now, thanks to Flowtown, there is another method to enhance your customer dataset.
By entering one of your customer’s emails into Flowtown, it instantly searches the web to determine their name, sex, occupation, age bracket, location, and social networks they belong to. So, all of the sudden, rockstar101@hotmail.com actually means something!
One downside I can think of is Flowtown only seems to provide information for individuals who have their email addresses associated with social networks/online profiles. So you are unlikely to find information pertaining to every single email on your database. However, as people become more liberal in their use of social media and giving of their personal information, I’m sure you’ll find information pertaining to a good percentage of it.
For many businesses, what Flowtown provides is all you may need before starting to segment your database.
So try it—run Flowtown on your database. And then the next time you think about sending your customers a survey, or building an exhausting form on your website to collect their name, age, and occupation—try to keep things a little simpler. Just ask for their email, and that should be a pretty good place to start.
Hot Tomali is very pleased to announce the launch of a new website for our client Metropolitan Fine Printers. Everyone who’s involved in print production, be it agencies, businesses, or other printing companies, knows “MET”. This printer is at the top of its game as proven by last year’s accolade of Canada’s Printer of the Year from Graphic Monthly Canada, and in 2008 MET was the most awarded printer of over 34,000 printers in North America.
So, what’s a printing company doing online? To quote Scott Gray, MET’s senior manager, from his first blog post on the new site: “It’s our business to communicate so we figured let’s make it easier for you to get to know us.” It’s that, and deeper. Metropolitan Fine Printers wants to connect with prospective clients in BC, and around the world, to convey their unique value for clients’ printing needs. The company continues to innovate the print industry: they were one of the first printers in the world to adopt Computer To Plate workflow, they took lithography to new limits in 2001 with 1,700 lines per inch, and in 2004 introduced MET Enviro UV special inks and coatings for a new level of print vibrancy. Metropolitan Fine Printers always has an exciting story to tell, and the company saw the web as the place to do it.
A significant challenge in this site development was to convey the quality and innovation that Metropolitan Fine Printers applies in the print environment, to a digital medium. The solution was to let the experts speak: many of the staff have spent their entire printing careers at MET, and have contributed directly to their clients’ successes. We incorporated “wide screen” video segments into the site with interviews that powerfully convey the MET message. Imagery has also been key: carefully crafted photography that shows MET quality. We also introduced a blog to the site that allows MET to communicate directly to their visitors about what’s going on at shop, in a voice that is authentic and insightful.
In the early weeks since launch, the site is successfully delivering on its mandate of connecting with clients, and generating business. Search traffic alone has increased over 500% from the printer’s previous site. And the Request a Quote feature is bringing in leads every day. Metropolitan Fine Printers, masters of print, now have mastered the digital domain.
