Affiliate marketing programs/networks. A

Video webcasts can also include news announcement, product demos, and informational and training videos for channel partners and employees. . Using webcasting tools, you can track who is viewing your webcast.

a. Text messages and instant messaging. Text messaging (Short Message Service [SMS]) allows users to keyboard brief messages into a cell phone to be received by a computer or mobile device. Instant messaging entails two people chatting with each other from their computers, and it’s more of a dialogue than is text messaging. IM/TM advertising, primarily in the form of text alerts/product notices, lets marketers engage customers interactively. Unfortunately, most people in the U.S. view it as an invasion of privacy. Therefore, advertisers must offer relevant information and letting customers opt in. Customers typically do this by typing in a four-to-six-digit “short code” to, say, enter a sweepstakes, play a game, or download a ring tone or screen saver. They can also opt in to receive promotional offers, news updates, sports scores, movie listings, and other value-added items.

b. Wireless Web ads. These appear on someone else’s mobile website. Typically, a mobile Web page has one at each at the top and bottom so as not to clutter tiny screens. Users can click on links to get further information or buy (3 to 5% typically do, versus .2% for Internet ads). Companies should build special mobile sites, because regular ones don’t translate well to super small screens.

c. Video ads. Companies are creating 10-second to several-minute video ads for mobile phones. Cell phone video services can be used to access video ads, known as mobisodes mobile episodes).

d. Mobile social networking communities. There are social networking platforms where mobile users can interact with other mobile users (e.g., Sprint Nextel’s Hookt, Sprint Nextel’s The Lounges, Amp’d Mobile’sAmp’d Lounge, and Cool Talk on Cingular).

Here, marketers can:

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  Speak: Target messages to segmented community members in an interactive way
  
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  Listen: Do research to get customer insights
  
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  Spread word-of-mouth: This is done by targeting passionate consumers and giving them info and entertainment worth spreading
  
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  Support: Set up social networking sites to help customers support each other
  
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  Partnering: Join with customers to help run your business, such as though joint product ideation and design.
  

f. Mobile shopping sites. These are offered by retailers (e.g., Amazon, EBay, Toys R Us, Walgreens, Wal-Mart, Best Buy) and others (e.g., Google). They typically offer fewer features than regular websites but are sized for small screens and easier to navigate. Some allow consumers to check out, while others direct users back to their regular websites for the final purchase.

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  highly targeted (especially teens and young adults), but increasingly can be used for direct mass reach
  
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  informative: give users current, relevant information
  
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  interactivity: users can respond instantly to offers , answer the following questions about this new product
  
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  personal and intimate
  
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  always on 24/7
  
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  relatively low cost (e.g., 2 cents to send a text message, $35 to $50 for wireless Web adds)
  
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  contact people wherever they go, including points of purchase. Location-based services (LBS) can be used to locate people or objects using GPS, Wi-Fi, or triangulation, which calculates location based on cell-tower signals. Marketers can use LBS to serve location-relevant promotions, such as latte coupons for consumers on their way to a particular coffee shop.
  
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  Use to distribute branded apps—services and utilities consumers can download on their carrier networks or via some sort of handset storefront.
  

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  Unwanted ads generate bad will since most users pay for the minutes of data usage. Subscribers prefer useful ads, such as those aimed at subscribers on the go who are searching for restaurants, gas stations, movies, or stock prices, or those offering coupons or free services. Such sites have sponsors.
  
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  The challenge of achieving immediacy—content should be very frequently updated since this is what consumers expect.
  

Anyone can set one up for free by visiting a site such as blogger.com, TypePad, WordPress, or SixApart to set up an account. Technical support costs about $2,500 to $5,000 a year.

In the early 2000s blogs began being used as marketing communications tools—commercial bogs. They first gained widespread attention in 2004 when Howard Dean fans blogged to promote his campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination. Today the blogosphere—the blogging world—is rapidly growing.

Many companies let employees keep blogs related to the corporation for a particular product, thereby making the firm more transparent. For example, at General Motor’s Fastlane Chairman Bob Lutz gives an inside look at the company (fastlane.gmblogs.com), and at Microsoft’s Scobleizer employee Robert Scoble keeps a blog (scobleizer.word-press.com).

Often the goal is to get consumers or the media excited about a good or service. Also, companies permit or even encourage employees to create blogs because they can help to personalize what is often perceived as a faceless corporation, answering the question: “Who are the guys in the cubes?” Company websites link to such blogs. A corporate blog can also serve as a forum for a CEO or senior manager to convey to their publics information about what they are doing and why.

To attract readers, the employees must be honest, providing insider “dirt,” rather than serving as propaganda mouthpieces for the company. For example, at the GM Smallblock Engine Blog, employees and customers rhapsodize about Corvettes and other GM cars. Stonyfield Farm has several blogs about yogurt. The power of talking or blogging (from the verb “to blog”) is that it appears in a personal, natural, conversational tone of voice rather than in marketing-speak or corporatese, thereby giving the company or brand a personality. Stripped of the typical style of advertising, marketing blogs in their soft-sell style almost appear as an unbiased source, although the target knows it originates from a marketer. Thereby, blogs can build trust and a relationship with customers who ordinarily tune out marketing messages. For example, General Motors’ new-car czar Robert Lutz and other GM executives keep a blog at http://fastlane.gmblogs.com , where they encourage consumer feedback. Starbucks sponsors www.MyStarbucksidea.com

Marketers also pay consumers with money or free products to blog about their products. The FTC requires that bloggers disclose such relationships, and both the blogger and the advertiser are liable for any misleading or unsubstantiated claims.

Blogs are much less expensive to build and maintain than are websites. Marketers can sign up for a blog on one of the provider Websites like Google’s Blogger.com, Spaces.MSN.com; Blogline.com, and Feedster.com. If you’re willing to pay for a more professional look, go to TypePad.com, which charge around $15 per month to maintain the blog. At one of these you can peruse the templates and click on one you like. Then, write something interesting about your firm or products. Bloggers can measure the number of clicks from their blog to Websites and measure the number of daily visits. However, you’ll need to appoint or hire someone to write and monitor the blog posts and responses.

Blogs lure more traffic to a firm’s website because it improves the chances the site will reach the top of search-engine results. Also, they encourage customer feedback about new products and services.

On the downside, the blogosphere has become crowded and id difficult to control.

A blog should be updated at least two or three times a week (at a minimum once a month) since readers are likely to return to a blog if they find fresh material, plus one of a blog’s main functions is to add pages to a firm’s otherwise static website. Also, unlike many other forms of Internet marketing, it is only one-way communication. And, blogs have become fertile ground for spammers to create splogs—fake blogs with ads.

Blog search engines such as Google Blog Search, Technorati, Icerocket, bogsearch.google.com, PubSub Concepts, BlogPurse, and Feedster are now indexing Blogs. For those who want to go deeper, firms like Intelliseek and BuzzNetrics use web log monitoring—sophisticated software analyzes the blogosphere for corporate clients. Companies use this information of constantly updated consumer opinion for marketing and new product development ideas. You can also type into Google and blog search engines the name of the company or brand, followed by a space and then relevant keywords like “awesome” and “sucks” to see what customers are saying.

Another use of blogs is to advertise on others’ blogs. They are cheap and can generate buzz. For instance, retailers are creating blogs to promote brand awareness and generate sales. For example, Bliefly.com, an online retailer of designer fashions, updates customers on fashion-related news through its blog Flypaper (flypaper.bluefyl.com). The blog must be informative (e.g., the Bluefly blog posts information on styles, designs, and fashion faux pas)—the message gets dismissed if it’s no more than an ad. However, the advertiser lacks control over what is being said on an independent blog. Monitoring services like Cymfony, CyberAlert, E-watch (www.ewatch.prnewswire.com), and Intelliseek (www.nielsenbuzzmetirics.com) monitor postings on blogs, Usenet discussion groups, and other Internet chat areas.

Blogs are also a great tool to stay in touch with customers allowing give-and-take between the author and readers.

A variation is the vlog—video blog, which began to take off in 2004. They are similar to podcasts, except that videos, rather than songs or audio, are downloaded to a computer or cell phone.

Business Week tracks the blogosphere at blogspotting.net.

Micro-blogging (micromessaging) is a form of blogging that allows users(friends, family, and more recently, businesses, employees, and consumers) to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web. The most popular service is called Twitter, where you can sign up for a handle. Users, called Twitterers (the A-listers are called the Twitterati), set up an account and use it to send tiny instant messages (140 characters maximum) called “tweets” to everyone’s PC or cell phone who chooses to receive their feeds, called “followers”. Posts, which answer the question, “What are you doing?,” can be read in real time or on the Twitterer’s Web page. Marketers monitor rants and raves about their products on Twitter and can respond to them. Marketers can become Twitterers with a following that monitors their status updates. For example, JetBlue ‘s Cheeps are limited-time deals. Marketers can also hire celebrities to post favorable tweets about their brand (i.e., brand endorsements). The marketing power of Twitter lies in the posts’ brevity and voluntary audience. Marketers can expand their following when their follower re-tweet (RT), i.e., repost, their messages


18. Podcasting and Vodcasting. Podcasts are digital files/recordings (and vodcasts are video files/recordings) of a radio-style show (audio recordings) or video clip that people create and post on the Web. (Any audio clip can be turned into a podcast with software available for free on the Web.) People can either listen online or download the shows from the Internet and listen whenever they want on their computer’s or mobile device’ digital music players (iTunes jukebox website is the leading destination for podcast downloads.).

Both startups and established firms use podcasting to connect with customers, employees, and investors. They’re showing up on firms’ websites. Some podcasts are straightforward marketing (less likely to be listened to), while others are more entertainment, with only passing reference to corporate creators. For example, Whirlpool features interviews with real people –moms balancing work and family, dads staying home to raise kid, and Nestle Purina published podcasts on animal training and behavioral issues.

The key is to create engaging content—insightful, educational, or entertaining. Depending on inherent interest, podcasts typically run from 5 to 45 minutes. They are informal and often conversational. There are no set rules of frequency, but listeners should know when they can expect a new podcast. Other marketing materials can promote the podcast.

Most independent podcasters are mimicking TV’s early model by signing up sponsors to pay for the content so listeners get shows for free. Sponsorships usually involve a 15- or 30-second audio ad at the beginning of the podcast. Monthly prices range from a few thousand dollars to over $50,000. For instance, Volvo sponsors podcasts on Autoblog.

As audience metrics improve, some podcasters are moving to the radio model of charging a specific cost per thousand.

Others are exploring consumer subscriptions (typically a few dollars a month) and pay-to-play.

Marketers should spend time understanding the dynamics, rules, and language of a social networking site before attempting to establish a presence there. Marketers generate buzz by posting status updates announcing sales promotions, special events, and the like, and creating fun brand profiles (profile pages) on mass social networking sites like MySpace.com, Facebook, LinkedIn (a business professionals’ networking site where individuals and firms can post profiles of themselves and job offers, sometimes called “My Space for grownups”), Bebo, and Ning. The brand profile pages allow marketers to promote their brand with photos, customer reviews, etc., make sales, provide information, and offer branded applications such as ringtones that users can add to their own pages. For example, Burger King’s mascot, The King, purports to be a 52-year old from Miamui. American Eagle Outfitter’s MySpace page is mostly an ad for the youth-oriented clothing chain, but it also features discussion forums that cover topics from fashion to store employment. Also, using data MySpace and some other social networking sites provide on user profiles, advertisers can target them with very specific ads, which raises privacy concerns. Brands can encourage interactions by including pages where users can “poke” brands (interact with them) or write on their walls. Advertising on social networking sites like eook can be very targeted because of public information users share on their profiles, such as their hometown, , college they attended, hobbies and interests, and group affiliations.

. Firms also post videos on video-sharing sites like YouTube.com (where they can establish channels) and Flickr, which are viewed by thousands on the site and then sent to millions more virally as viral videos. A video forwarded by a trusted friend instantly adds credibility to a marketer’s message. For instance, Hewlett-Packard sponsored a contest for the best video featuring an HP calculator.

There are also more targeted social networking sites, i.e., vertical social networks, which cater to the specialized interests of their members, such as BabyCenter and Imeem, a music and media social networking site. They are less cluttered, and users tend to trust them and their ads more than the major social networking sites.

Marketers can establish their own brand websites or brand communities, promoting them in offline ads. Consumers can get information, ply games, get tools, read blogs, receive special insider offers, etc. using such sites for a hard-sell pitch is a no-no. For instance, at MyCoke.com you can “meet friends, make music, perform” with the help of music- and video-sharing software. Kellogg and Jenny Craig both offer online support groups for women trying to lose weight. Nike.com has a community” link offering links to Nike running clubs and a runner’s network where users can create personal profiles and interact with other community members.

Other brand communities are established by consumers, such as NissanClub.com, established by Nike users. Here, members can post topics, communicate privately with other members, respond to polls, etc.

Marketers can monitor these sites to see what consumers are saying about their brands. Metrics include time spent on the site, friend bases, and how many times their brand is mentioned on a site. Although negative and even ugly comments are at times posted, marketers must accept this as part of the Web culture.

A very popular social networking site is Linden Labs’ Second Life, an Internet-based 3-D virtual world(community)—a simulated fantasy world where avatars—3D cartoon representations of players—live, interact with other avatars, love, plat, and try to get rich, using Linden dollars, easily traded for U.S, dollars at an official currency site.

Created in 1999, Second Life came to international attention via mainstream news media in late 2006 and early 2007. A downloadable client program enables its users, called "Residents", to interact with each other through motional avatars, providing an advanced level of a social network service. Residents can explore, meet other Residents, socialize, participate in individual and group activities, create and trade items (virtual property) and services from one another. Residents can buy an “island” for an initial fee of $1,650, plus a monthly fee. For instance, Coldwell Banker opened a virtual office to sell virtual real estate in Second Life, visitors can visit Nissan Island, and IBM built a replica of its Almaden Research Center. Marketers can also pay real cash to occupy real estate in Second Life.

Social networking sites engage the power of ongoing relationships (e.g., fans on Facebook). As a result, network members are more likely to respond to messages on the site, including ads, if they blend in with the social context.