Weapons of Mass Construction In Your Promotion Arsenal

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Weapons of Mass Construction In Your Promotion
Arsenal

• Andrei Link,Trimble Navigation New Zealand Ltd
• Presentation for Canterbury SoftwarePromotion
  Workshop, 10 May 2002

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Terminology of promotion

• You see a gorgeous woman at a party. You ask your
  friend to go up to her and say about you He's
  fantastic in bed. That's Advertising.
• You see a gorgeous woman at a party. You get her
  telephone number, call her the next day and say
  Hi, I'm fantastic in bed. That's
  Telemarketing.
• You see a gorgeous woman at a party. You go up to
  her and say I'm fantastic in bed. That's
  Direct Marketing.
• You see a gorgeous woman at a party. She walks up
  to you and says I hear you're fantastic in bed.
  That's Brand Recognition.

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What is Promotion?
Promotion
Public Relations
SalesPromotion
PersonalSelling
Advertising
ConsumerPromotion
ChannelPromotion
SalesforcePromotion
MassAdvertising
Direct Marketing
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Magnificent seven weapons of mass construction

• Search engines
• Newsgroups
• Opinion leaders
• Email newsletters
• Direct e-marketing
• Affiliate programs
• Viral marketing

Relatively less known Cost effective Distance not
a barrier Overview, not a comprehensive
manual Practical exercise
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Pay per click search engines

• You pay only when your ad or listing is clicked
• Overture, Google, Looksmart
• Low cost per click (from US 5 cents)
• Low investment required (Google US 5)

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Overture example
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Pay per click search engines things to remember

• Conversion rates
• 10 0.05 x 10 0.5 cost per sale
• 0.1 0.05 x 1000 50 cost per sale
• Campaign management
• Country/language targeting

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Specialised and regional search engines

• Do you know
• 200 European search engines
• 100 Asian search engines
• Also Middle East, Latin America, Africa
• Also specialised engines e.g. Music and MP3
• Invaluable when targeting a vertical market or
  country / region

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Specialised and regional search engines finding
and using

• big-search.com, searchenginewatch.com, Yahoo,
  Google
• Research to find the really popular ones
• Sometimes local language and/or local domain
  required for submission
• You may need a local language speaker to make a
  submission

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Promotion through newsgroups

• Real Usenet
• Deja.com (now Google Groups)
• Yahoo Groups
• Topica

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Google Groups example
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Promotion through newsgroups what you can do

• Announcements
• comp.software.shareware.announce
• Useful (!) postings with signature blocks

Dave Collins SharewarePromotions, Ltd. Be Seen
Be Sold http//www.sharewarepromotions.com
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Promotion through opinion leaders

• Person(s) enjoying popularity and credibility in
  your target market can create a tremendous word
  of mouth effect
• Find in user communities, popular sites and
  publications
• Essentially, public relations, but you could also
  sell through them ?
• Inexpensive but takes time

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Email newsletters benefits for you

• Building trust and credibility
• Increasing customer loyalty
• Attracting new customers
• Selling your products
• Selling advertising

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E-newsletter example
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Email newsletters how to start one

• Clarify your goals
• Develop a list
• Decide on format, layout, creative concept
• Establish sources of valuable content
• Choose an in-house and outsourced solution
• Start publishing
• Evaluate and adjust
• Promote continually

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Direct e-marketing benefits for you

• Conceptually, very similar to traditional DM
  Target a well defined market segment with
  tailored offers seeking (usually) an immediate
  response.
• More interactive
• Allows to get more than onepositive response

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Direct email example
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Direct e-marketing key steps of an email campaign

• Define objectives and target market
• Develop a compelling offer
• Develop the email creative (subject!)
• Procure lists and determine their quality
• Calculate your ROI
• Prepare your site and the landing page
• Do the email blasts (test and big one)
• Study tracking reports and manage the campaign

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Affiliate programs benefits for you

• Easy as 1-2-3 (well, almost)
• Sellers of products or services (merchants)
  sign-up partners (affiliates)
• Affiliates promote merchants and generate sales
  or sales leads for them
• Merchants pay a commission to affiliates for
  these sales or leads (flat fee or percentage of
  the transaction)
• Benefits for sellers
• Incremental revenue
• Low customer acquisition costs

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Affiliate programs IBM example
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Affiliate programs how to start one

• Third-party solutions (Commission Junction,
  LinkShare, Be Free etc)
• For horizontal markets
• Set up cost may exceed US 1,000
• Additional costs (intermediarys commission
  and/or monthly fee)
• Internally managed programs
• For vertical markets
• Potentially time consuming
• Often buy or rent specialised software(can be
  free)

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Affiliate programs critical success factors

• Right product/price and commission
• Promoting the program and finding right
  affiliates
• Popular sites and opinion leaders
• Your customer base (no site required!)
• Sites already linking to you
• Supporting your affiliates (not a
  self-administering program!)
• Customer service
• Marketing resources
• ROI estimation

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Viral marketing what does it really mean?

• Encouraging individuals to pass on marketing
  messages to others, which
• creates the potential for exponential growth in
  the message exposure, which
• increases brand awareness and leads to more sales.

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VM Our very own example
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Viral marketing techniques you can use

• Author good content and encourage others to post
  it on their sites
• Author and circulate a newsletter
• Give away functional and/or cool software
  (utilities, games, screensavers)
• Put Tell a friend buttons on your site
• Enable visitors to send e-cards
• More

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Adding strings to your bow - one at a time
(software product web sales scenario)
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Practical application

• Choose weapons
• Pay per click and regional search engines
• Newsgroups and opinion leaders
• Email newsletters and direct e-marketing
• Affiliate programs
• Viral marketing
• Review slides and think how you can use these
  weapons (ask questions!)
• Jot down a few things to discuss with the team
  back in the office

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Conclusion
!

• Promote or die
• Vast arsenal more than covered today
• Make an effort to explore and practice
• Questions are welcome andrei.link_at_trimble.co.nz

!
!