E-mail and viral marketing

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E-mail and viral marketing

• MARK 430

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Todays class will cover

• Marketing communications
• Email marketing
• How to get your email delivered and opened
• Understanding SPAM legislation
• Viral marketing
• Putting it all together
• Case study of Lord of the Rings (website and
  viral marketing)

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E-mail (direct marketing)

• Marketing-related e-mail is 22 of a typical
  Internet users in-box (conservative estimate)
• More than half of this is spam (marketers have
  abused and misused email?)
• Advantages
• Cheap
• Direct (include hyperlink to website for
  click-through)
• Disadvantages
• Bad reputation because of spam
• Emails keep changing
• No direct correspondence between person and email
  address as there is with physical mail

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Metrics for Electronic and Postal Mail
Source Jupiter Communications as cited in
E-mail and the different...
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Why does SPAM continue?

• Cost to sender is minimal
• Very low response rate (0.025) required to make
  SPAM profitable
• Nature of the worldwide global network enables
  SPAM
• Legal penalties difficult to enforce

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Permission marketing (opt-in versus opt-out
direct marketing)

• Seth Godwin coined the term permission
  marketing to describe opt-in
• Ask people what they are interested in
• Ask permission to send them information
• Then do it in an entertaining, educational, or
  interesting manner
• Opt-in techniques will grow considerably because
  it is seen as an effective way to reach people
  who have been made skeptical of traditional
  marketing techniques

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eMail marketing challenges

• Even with opt-in, there are considerable
  challenges in
• Getting your email to the recipient (spam filters
  etc)
• Getting them to open it when they get it

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Some tactics to help get your email delivered and
opened

• Double opt-in subscription process
• No pre-checked boxes
• Visible update email or preferences link
• A recognized, expected, consistent sender name
• Branded subject lines and subject line content
• Based on How Nongeeks Can Increase eMail Delivery

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Some tactics to help get your email delivered and
opened (contd)

• Be aware of how content (spam) filtering works
• Message proofing and pre-testing
• Personalization and segmentation
• Think about images instead of text (downside!)
• Manage user expectations
• Select appropriate send time
• Based on How Nongeeks Can Increase eMail
  Delivery

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Stay legal

• Canadian legal position
• no legislation in place yet
• Being considered by the Spam Task Force
• US law the Can Spam Act came into force on
  Jan 1, 2004
• Requirements for commercial emailers

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Viral marketing (word-of-mouth direct marketing)

• Any strategy that encourages people to pass on
  your message to others
• Let the users of the Internet do your marketing
  for you
• It works, and its free
• Hotmail used this technique to raise product
  awareness
• Be careful of customer perception that they are
  being used people are increasingly
  sophisticated and cynical

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Elements of a viral marketing strategy

• Free products or services
• Easy to pass on to someone else (Recommend it
  email to a friend etc)
• Build in scalability (get ready for the rush)
• Build on common motivations and behaviours
• Understand and exploit existing communications
  networks
• Some examples of virals from Lycos Cheeky Emails

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Marketing communication Putting it all together

• Case Study Marketing Lord of the Rings
• Based on information taken from Internet
  Marketing Building Advantage in a Networked
  Economy. 2nd Ed. Rafi A Mohammed et al.
  Irwin/McGraw Hill. 2004.

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The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings

• Framing the marketing opportunity - the LOTR
  brand was already well known before the films, so
  the strategy had to build on that
• Marketing opportunity analysis understanding
  customer needs
• film has elements that appeal to several
  audiences (action, romance etc)
• existing fan base was already very active online
  - good opportunity for viral marketing
• website could serve various interests
• hard core fans could get behind-the-scenes info
• others could find out about actors
• others may be interested in the cultural aspects
  of Middle Earth
• Risk was that fans may not like the movie, in
  which case the Internet could be a liability -
  bad reviews travel fast

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The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings

• Marketing strategy
• Segmentation the potential audience varied in
  demographics and psychographics. Hard-core fans
  were targeted separately from general movie
  goers, women targeted separately from men
• Targeting and timing
• the strategy was to target core LOTR fans first -
  these would eventually become evangelists for the
  product. Need to instill trust early on, and
  encourage viral marketing. Community building
  with established Tolkien websites was also done
• Secondary groups and mass audiences were targeted
  using website, and conventional mass media

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The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings

• Marketing strategy
• Positioning
• once the audience segments were defined, the
  positioning of the movie was decided, with online
  and offline positioning working together to
  provide consistency
• best positioning determined to be a stunning
  action/adventure with a classic good-versus-evil
  story that focuses on a ring with great powers
• a lot of focus on the ring in communications
• lot of focus on the setting, the landscape, the
  costumes and the creatures
• online and offline advertising campaigns were
  separately tailored for male and female audiences

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The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings

• Implementation The Marketing Program
• viral marketing formed the core of its
  communication strategy - powerful tool for
  generating awareness. Used pre-existing fan base
• LOTR newsletter (click-through rate of gt50 and
  forwarding rate of 25)
• Partnering and shared content - content provided
  to other websites - advertorial material -
  increased market reach
• heavy use of downloadable viral content on
  website (eg. preview footage)

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The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings

• Implementation The Marketing Program
• Official website raising awareness - first
  preview footage April 2000 - objectives
• show early adopters that the film would be of
  high quality - generate early buzz among key fan
  group
• give something to the fans - keep them excited
• drive awareness of website and the movie
• Execution - co-ordinating the power of the
  community - used other Tolkien sites, daily
  email alerts, and countdown image releases.
  Intention was to create high expectations for the
  exclusive launch
• 1.7 million downloads within first 24 hours
• 10 million downloads within 21 days

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The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings

• Use of official website
• Many people who use the site are already
  committed to the brand
• The customer experience at the site had to
  satisfy the committed fan, yet encourage
  exploration by novices
• had to make newcomers feel welcome - not as
  though it was an exclusive club
• The other marketing challenge was to integrate
  online and offline materials

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The marketing plan for Lord of the Rings

• The customer interface of the website - the 7 Cs

Context highly visual style, inviting look and
feel, topic-based interactive interface
Content focus on filmmaking, wealth of material
photos, audio, clips etc
Customization Low, no registration
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Stages of Desired Customer Experience on the
official website
Experiencing Functionality Trailer and video materials for viewing readily available Navigation is simple and clear for downloads, community, cast and crew information Easy sign up for e-mail and promotions on homepage Direct links for actions including ticketing, online ship sales and merchandising
Experiencing Intimacy Website visitors articulated the value they derive from the site experience Consumers trust the information they find on the site Strong community has developed within site areas E-mail interaction allowed for open, clicking and forwarding to others
Experiencing Evangelism Strong evangelical support from the user base Trailer and new content postings are seeded throughout community areas as well as on other sites and posting boards Creates a strong sense of consumer ownership of the brand The website becomes a trusted friend