The entertainment X-factor has always been a driving force behind advertising, one of my favorites being Macintosh’s release commercial in 1984…but what we’re seeing now is truly remarkable and only limited by ones creativeness.  Remember Volvo’s commercial with that cute Darth Vader kid, the Old Spice guy, or how Snickers helped to propel Betty White back to stardom?  Of course you do, those are some top recent examples of commercials that were highly successful and popular in the mainstream market.  With the web though, advertisers no longer are limited to 30second blips and ‘PC’ messages directed to a mass audience.   Case in point, K-Swiss‘ Kenny Powers commercials and his claim of “making marketing that touches people”.

Caution: Video contains flagrant and funny material.

You can now speak to and engage your customers unlike ever before and having a catchy video or slogan can help propel your message to the next level.  The key to creating what you hope to be a ‘viral’ advertisement, is knowing your fan-base and developing your strategy wisely.  K-Swiss would never get away with such an edgy commercial in the mainstream but by reaching out to their fan-base and those that will listen and engage with this type of message, it has been advantageous in defining their brand and creating hype.  People are choosing to see their commercials instead of being forced to, and that’s as good as gold to a marketer!  So in 2012, don’t be afraid to be bold, to entertain, to shock, to embrace comedy, to say what you really want to say, and go VIRAL!

THE CHALLENGE: List Growth and Season Ticket Sales

Like many sports teams, the marketing team measures it’s success by the number of season and game day tickets sold. LA Galaxy had long used email as a mechanism to communicate through newsletters and alerts to fan. They have all of the traditional collection and lead generation techniques in play across their websites, social networks and regular contests and special offers. LA Galaxy needed a new way to find and engage their most important fans.

THE SOLUTION: Live Capture through iPad App

The FanMail team, led by Josh York, introduced LA Galaxy to the idea of live fan collection using iPads. The idea was simple enough: arm a team of interns with LA Galaxy iPads to scour the stands during game days, looking for the most ardent and passionate fans. Offer these fans a great incentive to sign up on the spot and watch the fan list grow.

FanMail technical architects quickly set to work on engineering the app. With a limited budget and the season just around the corner, FanMail needed a solution that was quick, lite, effective and scalable. Since the iPads needed to work on the Los Angeles 3G network (which is sketchy at the best of times), data transfer was an issue so the app needed to be able to work with as little data draw as possible. In addition, it needed to look good. It needed to represent the brand and draw fans into the experience when they saw it.

Using ExactTarget Microsite Technology, Smart Capture and HTML5, the FanMail team produced a powerful fan collection tool for the iPad. Branded for LA Galaxy and never having to leave a single page, the app collects name, email and phone number in a very efficient and elegant experience.

See a video of the function here: http://www.screencast.com/t/Z5cHHCe7

THE RESULTS: 1000 New Fans and Program ROI in 3 Games

“The iPad is still very new and fans like to play with it and enter their information on the spot,” said Bryan Arguello, database coordinator of the LA Galaxy. “Because the fans enter the information themselves, it’s more accurate and we get better results and higher engagement from our fans.”

In just its first three home games, the team secured more than enough new season ticket holders to pay for the cost of the iPads and added nearly 1,000 new fans to its database.

“The LA Galaxy averages about 350 new subscribers per game, as interns scour the stadium and parking lots armed with the five iPads,” Arguello said. “With 13 more home dates through October, the team hopes to add more than 4,000 new fans by the end of the season.”

Each week, marketers from around the world join the ExactTarget Nexus partner ecosystem on Twitter for a conversation about trends and best practices in the interactive marketing industry. On Thursday, March 31th we will join ExactTarget for a live Twitter Chat about the topic, Creating Brand Fanatics. The conversation is hosted by @ETNexus,  and features the latest topics in the digital marketing industry. You can follow and participate in the conversation on Twitter with the #NexusCafe hashtag, and be sure to add the hashtag to your tweets.

We look forward to seeing you there!

In honor of their 20th anniversary (August 6-8 2011), our client Lollapalooza launched one of the coolest and creative timecapsules I have ever seen. The Lolla team is great at interactive marketing (and throwing some damn good festivals). They always have compelling content at each of their marketing touchpoints and really push the innovation needle in the music industry.  Check out their interactive timeline and get ready to feel nostalgic (and old). I know we do over in the office. 

Added bonus: this week only, fans have a chance to snag 3-day passes for a mere $60. All they have to do is visit the homepage and wait for a buy button to appear. Have no fear, if you don’t snag these awesome tickets, early bird pricing tickets go on sale April 5th. I know I am going to be stalking the site!

-Lauren ( @lmeanslauren)

Email is a huge part of interactive marketing and is very valuable compared to its more expensive marketing counter-parts. We all get that, but what surprises me are how many companies, bands, labels, promoters and so forth, are still sending batch and blast emails and are not taking advantage of relevancy, automation, segmentation and testing. These are the easiest and best ways to increase ROI on your email program.Here are some tips to quickly increase the value of your email program.

Testing:
A recent study by Econsutancy ‘Email Census 2011‘ found that only a third of  the 900 responding companies (32%) carry out a regular amount of testing for email marketing. SAY WHAT?! Always test your emails! I can’t stress this enough. Even if you are savvy with outlook rendering and gmail image blocking, it is always smart to make sure that links work, images are displayed properly, to see how your email is displayed without images, & how it renders in different mail clients, ESPs and mobile.  Imagine sending an email and your call-to-action is a dead link. Trust me on this one, test your emails or you may as well throw a part of your marketing budget down the drain.

Here is my quick check list before doing a live send:
1. Are all the links working?
2. Does it render correctly in different email service providers and mail clients? Mobile? ( Don’t forget mobile! 80.8% of smart phone users report reading their email on mobile devices! )
3. Is my call-to-action clear? Easy to find? Easy to convert?
4. Do I like how it appears in the inbox; what is above the fold?
5. Are their any mispellings?
6. Is the correct From Name selected?
If it passes the test, it is ready for round two of testing. If it is an important sales campaign, A/B test the subject line and conversion placement. Then send that beauty. Before the next campaign, make sure to revisit and see what was successful and what was not.

Relevancy:
Having relevant emails that improve the lives of the subscribers is like printing money. We follow the Subcriber’s Rule philosophy and push our clients to use data to serve the individual, honor their preferences and provide them with timely and useful information. Batch and Blast is a thing of the past! By giving a fan easy access to when you will be in their town and an easy way to buy tickets, I can guarantee you will increase sales. That email is way more valuable than an email of your whole tour and a “buy tickets” button. Make your emails relevant and easy to convert, your subscribers will be happy and engaged.

Segmentation:
Segmentation drives relevancy.  First, make sure you have a clean list and you are practicing list hygiene. Segment your lists by metrics that are important to your company and make emails cater to those goals. A good example of this is tour marketing: Segment your lists my tour region, state or city to send emails specific to the segment. Another great example is life cycle marketing: segment them by where they are in your sales cycle and provide relevant information to them.

Prospect- Target them with incentives and or information that improves their life  Make it easy to convert.
Loyal Client- Use behavioral data to increase sales. If they buy tickets to the same event every year, send them an email around the time they usually buy their ticket and thank them for being a long-time customer & offer an easy way to purchase ( or an incentive).  It is an easy way to make subscribers feel appreciated.
Defection – run a re-engagement program with them. If they still do not click or open, remove them from your lists.
Abandoned shopping cart automations are also a great way to lift revenue.

Automation:
Adding automation to your program is a great way to save time and provide easy automations. Set up a birthday reminder and send out a personalized birthday email. Make sure every list has a welcome email. It is a great way to deliver an incentive and set expectations for your new subscribers. Down the line, look into way other automations would be helpful to your company. A great one for labels is an automated email that runs based on subscriber data and preferences. This means a list of 800 people can be sent 800 different emails based on their location and different band preferences. It doesn’t get more relevant and easier that that. (To find out more about our automation consulting and services, click here to reach a consultant)

If you haven’t already, make 2011 the year of data. Collect and compile subscriber profile, improve your list quality, test your emails before send and segment your lists. You will be pleasantly surprised by how much lift, return and buzz you will get from these simple measures.

To find out more information about any of these topics or to set up a consultation, click here. We are here to help!

-Lauren (@lmeanslauren)