Customer involvement is key

Servus Erdnuss,

Building a strong brand starts with a great product and a powerful story. In this digital age, with so many channels of communication, it takes a human connection to break through the marketing clutter. Our last blog post was about the ingredients of creating an experience. Nowadays we think that it is even more important to create an experience where customers are involved. 

We found a very good example of how people can get involved and witness an experience that they will not forget that soon. In 2012, in a  Belgian town square, passersby encountered a mysterious red button labeled "Push to Add Drama." Those who bit unleashed havoc on the streets in the form of ambulances, fist fights and gunshots -- all in an effort to promote TNT's "Daily Dose of Drama."

In our point of view the video contains all of the five ingredients an experience should contain. For more information about the five ingredients take a look at our latest post.

Emotions: it contains various emotions such as fear, suprise, shocking and partly also "funny". The emotions are of course very individually. 
Tension: it creates tensions by not knowing what happens when somebody push the button and also not what happens next. Furthermore, it is thrilling to find out what or who is behind this action.
Risk: the risk of pushing the button.
People: by pushing the button people are directly involved and close to the action.
Traces: the whole experience will stick in people's mind 

On the latest post of Lara and Franziska called Microsite - Mehr Spass geht nicht, we found a very good and funny app of how to involve customers. The app is called Elf Yourself. You can simply upload up to five photos of you, your friends, family and more. After uploading the picture(s) you can choose a dance theme, write a message and then send to your friends. The elves with your faces will then dance for you. We think that's a great and funny idea. Visit their blog and convince yourselves.

See you soon.

And remember: If we can do it you will do just fine. Let's conquer the digital world together.

The FIVE ingredients for an experience

Servus Erdnuss,

Last Friday, 21.11.14 we had a very interesting guest lecture of Samuel Röthlisberger, Creative Director of the company Habegger AG about staging.

First of all what can be an experience? An experience can contain the following:

Emotions, positive or negative incidents, it is not daily, surprising and last but not least you can share it with somebody.

According to Samuel Röthlisberger we can stage an experience. How it works? Let’s have a look at it.

To stage an experience it needs the five following ingredients to be an experience:

1. Emotions/Feelings

Emotions can for example be happiness, anger, fear, joy, astonishment, sorrow etc. To stage an experience emotions need to be established. Furthermore the target group as well as the message need to be clear right from the beginning. Last but not least the cannels to generate emotions are the five senses (hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching). To read about an interesting example visit the blog of Franziska and Lara.

2. Tension

It is crucial to generate tension and it needs a structure. Thereby the suspense curve plays an important role. The curve needs a clear slope. The beginning (prolog) is one of the most important part and needs to arouse curiosity and let the spectator know that it is worth to watch further. This is the so called “tension-bathtub”. But of course the end (epilog) is as important as the beginning. The peak/highlight should be in the last third.

3. Risk

In all experiences a certain risk (lower or higher) is mostly involved as well. An example of a higher risk experience is the one of RedBull Stratos.

4. People

The human needs to be appreciated within the experience. He must be part of it. For this purpose interactivity is very important. In the blog of Denis and Remo you can find a good example.

5. Traces

Last but not least, traces or so called anchor points need to be left to make sure that the people hold in memory the experienced. Anchor points at events can for example be give aways, pictures, bracelets etc. On the other hand anchor points can also be generated in the heads of the people, whereby storytelling plays an important role. It means to generate pictures in the head of the people. We have already wrote about storytelling in an earlier blog post.

To remember the five ingredients Samuel Röthlisberger repeated them with the help of a hand as an aide-memoire.

Aide-memoire

Thumb: Emotions (because the biggest „part“)

Middle finger: Tension (if you show somebody this finger you “probably” create tension… :-))

Ring finger: Risk (risk of marriage)

Little finger: People (perceive each and everyone)

Forefinger: Traces (need this finger to find/show traces)

To read more about this guest lecture you can also visit the blog of Daniela and Damia who againg blogged directly from the lecture.  We really enjoyed watching the video of the flashmob proposal. Go watching it and convince yourselves...

See you soon.

And remember: If we can do it you will do just fine. Let's conquer the digital world together.

BLOGGING. Your way to richness?

Servus Erdnuss,

You want to make money blogging?

 If you do – you are not alone. More and more bloggers are finding that blogging is a profitable medium. Some bloggers do it for earning a few extra dollars, some for making enough money so they can stop having a part time job to get through college, and others have got it to a point where they are able to live from their blogging.

But how exactly do you earn money with a blog?

Here we found a quite nice mind map which visualizes some of the ways bloggers make money blogging. (Source: Link) 

To make it a bit easier to understand here are five strategies that could help turn your blog into a moneymaker. (Source: Link)

1. Sell advertising:  This is likely the most common means to generate income. If your blog becomes a well-known one or one that is well-received in a particular niche, it is possible to sell ad space on your own. One interesting online service here is Google AdSense, where bloggers can establish ad programs. AdSense—which lets you select several ads that are consistent with the content of your blog—pays you based on how many readers click on the ads.

2. Help sell others’ products: This is another click-through opportunity. Affiliate programs enable your blog to serve as a conduit between readers and online sites offering various goods and services. Here an example: if, for instance, you offer book reviews or even just mention a book in passing in your blog, an affiliate program provides a means for your readers to click directly from your blog to Amazon for example to obtain further information. If they buy the book, you get paid as well.

3. Solicit contributions: Ask for contributions. If, for instance, your small-business blog supports a cause or issue in some fashion you can always ask for reader support. Even if you've attracted a group of regular followers who simply enjoy reading what you have to say, they may be willing to underwrite their loyalty with a little financial help

4. Market your services in your blog: Blogs are an ideal venue to share your thoughts with others, but do not overlook their capacity to generate new business as well. When appropriate, work in references to what you do and, in turn, what you may be able to offer any would-be client or customer who may be reading your blog. That can spread your opinion and your business knowledge at the same time.

5. Use a blog to deepen your existing customer relations: By using a blog to regularly communicate with existing clients as well as other readers, you can take advantage of the opportunity to fully inform them about everything your business does, which may expand your readers understanding everything of your products or services

You want to know who the 10 top money bloggers are and how much they earn with their blogs? Click here and you will find out! 

But let's get your expectations right. Not everyone who tries to make money blogging becomes rich. In fact those who do well from blogging are in the minority.  Firs of all it takes time and a lot of hard work – and it doesn’t happen for everyone. 

Visit us soon again to learn more about other very interesting topics. 

And remember: If we can do it you will do just fine. Let's conquer the digital world together.

Gathering Information in the WorldWideWeb

Servus Erdnuss

After a few posts about staging and how to become a successfull blogger, we would like to have a look at totally different topic.

The opportunities for a company for advertising in the digital world are huge. But this is not the only advantage. Counting how many times an advert in a bus has been viewed is impossible!  Counting the clicks made on an add on a website and  knowing where each click came from is difficult but manageable. Here is how it is done:

"Firms dedicated to click-counting put code on websites that reports the times, origins and frequencies of visits, or get consumers to install it buried in browser plug-ins or mobile apps. These record web-users’ digital calling-cards: the internet-protocol (IP) addresses of the devices they are using. But to assume that each IP address represents a single user in its country of registration is a wild oversimplification."

This topic is quite popular and there are endless companies that offer the service of click-counting.

One of the biggest and probably one of the best market-research firms is GlobalWebIndex (GWI)



Reported to be the "world's most detailed syndicated research into online consumer behaviors", GlobalWebIndex profiles consumers in 32 countries and represents 89% of the worldwide internet audience.
They survey 170000 consumers a year and started to ask detailed questions about internet use. This got some surprising answers such as that China and India are the top three users for Facebook.

 But when having a look at the picture above it stands out that Africa is almost totaly missing and much of the world is going mobile-only, particularly in developing markets. So how are they integrated in these numbers?

Another "company" that gathers figures is the International Telecommunication Union, a UN agency that has a lot data on technology use. The ITU estimates that 4.3 billion people around the world are yet to get online, 90% of whom are in developing countries.

With this knowledge we can be assured that the importance of digital marketing will increase in the future with the increasing number of internet users!

Thanks for visiting our blog once more =)

And always remember: If we can do it you will do just fine. Let's conquer the digital world together.

 

Sources:
http://tim-ho.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/globalwebindexLITE2.png
http://www.economist.com/news/international/21631040-who-goes-online-and-where-tangled-web
https://www.globalwebindex.net/
http://www.itu.int/en/Pages/default.aspx

BLOGGING. Your way to success!

Servus Erdnuss,

After blogging for several weeks now, it is time to analyse why a blog is so important for a business and what a successful blog should contain.

First of all why a blog?

According to Bruno Bucher  there are six reasons:

1.   One or several company blogs form the backbone of digital marketing.

2.  In the context of corporate communication blogs can and are allowed to develop an own life.

3. Blogs have the potential to become a real medium for a company and thus represent an actual added value.

4. The organization of a blog forces a company to build and maintain a digital marketing strategy.

5. Blogs allow to be journalistically active for any purpose and requirements of a company

6. The viral effect of a blog is much greater than that of its own website.

But just having a blog does not mean that it will be a success. Let’s see what makes a blog successful.

We found the following 10 characteristics of successful blogs: 

1. Goal & target goup
2. Unique content (see our post Content is king)
3. Passion
4. Regularity
5. Unique layout
6. Write about other: A good example was the blog post of two of our classmates. Lara and Franziska from the blog In hollowness we trust hollowness-design.blogspot.com. They did a post called I am REALTIME MARKETING where they wrote comments on all the blogs of the digital marketing class. It was great to read such nice comments and I am sure that such blog posts can be one of the most successful ones. This also show the fact that this post has received 22 Google+ recommendations immediately. Thanks again for this very interesting and unique post!
7. Write about yourself
8. Own style
9. Communication with readers
10. Marketing

To read more details about these 10 characteristics click here (only in German available).

All these 10 characteristics seem very reasonable. Let’s have a look at a practical example of a successful blog and find out if he contains these characteristics.

Marriott International: On the move

Goals: Customer satisfaction, sales, crisis management

Bill Marriott is one of the most famous corporate bloggers in the world. The company chairman actually does his own posts on a weekly basis. This personal involvement has won the site loyal fans since they know they are getting the word from a real executive. The company has reported generating millions in direct sales from this blog and has also used this as a platform to set the record straight in the event of a bombing or hostage situation involving one of their properties. (Source: Link)

In our point of view this blog fulfil mostly all 10 characteristic of what a successful blog should contain. Visit the blog Marriott on the Move and convince yourself.

You want to learn how to make money with a blog? No problem visit us soon and you will find out! 

And remember: If we can do it you will do just fine. Let's conquer the digital world together.

It`s all about staging part II

Servus Erdnuss

As promised we are already back to talk a little bit more about staging. With researching this topic we realized how important staging is. A famous saying says: Do not judge a book by its cover! But lets be honest, we all do. You never get the chance for a second impression. This is something companies noticed and use staging to represent their brand at its best.

Here are three more goals of staging:

Stimulating the limbic system positively
The limbic system is a complex set of brain structure. It supports a variety of functions including adrenaline flow, emotion, behaviour, motivation, long-term memory and olfaction. When reading this definition by wikipedia we have to admit that if we are able to generate all this functions as a brand we would be really successful! The limbic system is also responsible for the release of endorphin. This was probably the reason why people started to talk about limbic marketing.

Mise-en-scène
After founding a digital marketing strategy, a storytelling strategy and a social media strategy we are focusing on the question how to stage the whole thing. The most important step to consider is that everything needs to be staged individually. The meticulously planning on when and where to implement or present is an important detail that should not been let out. For this it is sometimes a good idea to hire professionals.

Create experiences
By giving the customer an experience, the company ensures that the customer will remember the store or product and it is more likely that he/she will come back another time. A company that really knows how to create an experience is starbucks. How is it possible that we pay more for a coffee at starbucks, the coffe doesn`t taste better than anywhere else and the stores are not out of this world, but at the same time we go to starbucks. Over time they created a very strong brand which includes their core competency "the starbucks experience". Here is a website that explains quite nicely what the experience is all about. But what about the digital world of starbucks.  Have a look at the great graphic of this post and get to know the digital experience of starbucks

I hope we informed you well about the new topic "staging". Next time we want to get to know more about the possibilities of web staging. Therefore come back soon

Thanks for reading this blog and always remember: If we can do it you will do just fine. Let's conquer the digital world together.



Sourches:

the book: digital marketing by Bruno Bucher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbic_system
http://digitaltransformationconversations.com/pictures/Starbuck-Infog.jpg

It`s all about "staging"

Servus Erdnuss

After a few weeks of blogging we got our first grading from the lecturer. We are more or less happy with the result and are looking forward to the next weeks of blooging. But the ambitious girls we are, we want to improve our blogging skills and therefore also our blog. Due to the fact that our lecturer wrote a great book about digital marketing, which includes the most important knowledge you need for being succesfull in digital marketing, we would like to inlighten you about a new topic: staging.

Staging is the global expression for all the measures, which help to draw attention to a product or brand. The goal is to produce unique, unforgettable and inimitable customer experiences, everywhere where a venture is in contact with the customer, doesn`t matter if it is to promote the product or show the service at its best.

But why is staging important?

1.  The display of a product, service, enterprise or even a person is as important as the actual product itself, respectfully the actual adducing service  
2. A noble quality of a product or a service demands a noble packaging.
3. Only the suitable staging of a story is the completion and arouses the product to life.
4. Whatever kind of customer relationship a venture wants to have with their customer, it needs to be planned and realized thoroughly and in every aspect with clear intentions. 
5. A flagship store is a flagship store. A flagship website should be a flagship website.    

So now that we know why staging is important we definitely want to know more. And foremost what are the goals of staging? Bruno Bucher lists in his book 6 goals. We searched the web to show you  an  example for every goal.

Increasing the visibility and the brand recognition
An industry that knows a lot about getting great brand recognition is the fashion industry. Their flagship stores are normally big in size and at a prime location. They are an event in itself and definitely increase the visibility.

Emotionalize the message, the advertising instruments and the rooms

As already mentioned in another post storytelling is an essential part of emotinalizing a brand. If you want to refresh your memory here is a great blog about this topic www.digitalworldrookie.blogspot.ch A brand that definitely knows how to tell a story is Nespresso. We love their interior design. When you walk into a store you immediatly feel comfortable, relaxed and are ready to buy some coffee =)

Activating the 6, respectfully the 12 senses

Regarding the theory of Rudolf Steiner there are 12 senses. One of them is the scent. Almost every store plays music and we already know that music is influencing our shopping behaviour. But what many don`t know is that the scents we smell in a store are aswell chosen to guide our shopping behaviour. Scentair is a company that specializes in creating the perfect scent for their customers. Take a look at their website: www.scentair.com

I hope you are as fascinated by the endless possibilities that exist to influence the customers as we are. If you want to learn even more about digital marketing and staging visit us soon again and read more about this topic in our next post.

And always remember: If we can do it you will do just fine. Let's conquer the digital world together.

SHIT there is a STORM

Servus Erdnuss,

Do not get lost in the storm! Read further and learn more about a very interesting and important topic in the world of digital marketing.

What is a shitstorm?

Shitstorm describes the massive and public criticism of a company, a product or a public person that is usually carried out in social networks and subsequently virally disseminated. According to Bruno Bucher this process does not only happen on a certain platform or the Internet but also expand to all possible media channels. And it usually goes to a revolt, which may have different sources, but is rapidly evolving into a veritable mass of bullying against a certain company or person
The phenomenon is usually triggered by an initial criticism, justified or not, that subsequently loses its objectivity and factual accuracy and becomes increasingly aggressive and /or abusive.

What can be done?

According to Bruno Bucher it is crucial for those concerned that they behave correctly in the eye of the storm and do not pour fuel to the fire in the form of confirmation and so nourish the prejudices further. A so called script, which will be prepared by the social media team, is recommended
The preamble of such a script might look like this:

“We note that major accusations are made against our company.We make every effort to investigate these allegations and to go to the buttom of any discrepancies in our business processes and to eliminate these. We will inform the public about our next steps as soon as possible.”

An example of reacting wrong to a shitstrom

In the year 2010 Nestlé was confronted with a shitstorm which was caused by the environmental organization Greenpeace. Greenpeace criticised the usage of a great quantity of palm oil for producing Nestlé’s KitKat. The shitstorm was initiated through a social media campaign with a shocking YouTube video (to see the video click here). This campaign spread rapidly. Consequently Nestlé wanted to prohibit the video by switching off certain fan pages in order to escape the discussion. But the opposite happened. The attention increased and the video spread even more rapidly in the net than before.

“Spiegel Online” analysed the Greenpeace campaign. The graphic above shows how the usage of the term “palmoil” after the start of the campaign on blogs, social media and on news pages exploded.

The example of Nestlé shows how important it is to be prepared to a shitstorm and to react accordingly in order to protect your reputation.

You want to learn more about digital marketing? Visit us soon again and read more about interesting topics.

And always remember: If we can do it you will do just fine. Let's conquer the digital world together.

Sources: 
http://www.clickworker.com/en/crowdsourcing-glossar/shitstorm/

http://www.bureau-karlheinz.com/#SHITSTORM