Time 17:04

Many companies are trying to understand how forms of social media can be applied to achieve their business and branding objectives. This podcast features two examples of the successful use of social media and user generated videos.

On this episode of the Marketing Edge, we feature Vespa scooters’ Go Green Challenge and the UPS new product launch of Delivery Intercept. We also provide some of the elements of these very different campaigns that may help other companies determine whether they have the chance for a successful social campaign.

The technology platform used in these two cases is Vsocial www.vsocial.com . To me Vsocial is a video platform that is on the opposite end of the spectrum from YouTube. It is structured for businesses to host a video generated campaign as a complete web-based platform or with developer APIs so agencies can create the custom experience for those engaged in their campaign. Provident Partners has a vSocial site at http://www.vsocial.com/user/?d=144923

The agency work featured here is Matrixx Pictures for Vespa’s Go Green Challenge and Lbi Atlanta that created the UPS Delivery Intercept program. Side mention here, Archie Manning (old school) Peyton Manning’s dad, is the spokesperson for the Delivery Intercept program. Script and copy writers should listen to Archie’s segments, the writing is outstanding.

What Makes These Good Campaigns

Here is a general list of criteria for these two examples that I believe companies can use to evaluate their audiences as they consider similar types of campaigns. Let me underscore, these are general profiles of an audience. In some ways even trying to put people in categories goes against the grain of social media and 1-1 marketing, nonetheless, marketers like to have some semblance of structure as we describe the market we are seeking to attract. So here goes.

The Vespa campaign audience I categorize as Creative and Socially Conscience. This includes people who may be in areas including:

The creative type of audience is more likely to participate when the campaign involves producing something from scratch or interpreting a situation. Some may be in it for professional exposure so incorporating a set of judges known in that craft is also helpful. These types of campaigns involve lots of work and time on the part of those producing the content.

The UPS Delivery Intercept campaign is what I call Naturally Occurring

These are events that are part of everyday life and as such are likely to be recorded. This audience is participating for fun, hobby, 15 minutes of fame, and being part of a group.

In this category, there is less burden on the participant to be creative in building a storyline and requires less production skills. Their submission is a chronicle of an event that is potentially appealing to a similar audience. These are the characteristics of the Delivery Intercept program. In many cases, successful campaigns also have some recognition and reward, whether it is prize money for the winner or a charity of the winner’s choice.

Comments Bring Good Things

Remember any comments to this blog or emails to marketingedge@providentpartners.net will result in a food item contributed to a food shelf in St. Paul, MN. Also did you listen to the opening minutes of this podcast for the movie quote question? If you are the first two listeners to submit the correct answer you will win a $10 gift certificate to Subway, so quick hit the play button and send your email answer. What can I say, we like to see people satisfy their hunger.

This podcast is a demonstration of several things that I believe are important to increasing interaction within a digital community. In this case, it’s the digital community of marketers and communicators.

In this episode, you’ll hear a listener’s marketing challenge about conducting seminars and increasing attendance. The question comes from Ben Figgis of the Qatar Science and Technology Park. Ben conducts seminars around the world, educating companies on the benefits of Qatar’s technology and scientific assets. His work is designed to encourage companies to establish offices at the park.

Today’s Marketing Edge episode addresses Ben’s questions with insight and comments from folks around the world ? three different continents, to be exact. We’re bringing some global marketing perspective to this discussion on the value of seminars as a marketing tactic.

Kent Kedl, executive director of a China strategy consultancy called Technomic Asia, says executives in China love seminars and that they are a vital component of the marketing mix in that country.

Mark Mitchell of the UK-based marketing and PR firm Pattison Mitchell says Europeans are much too pressed for time to be attending seminars just for the sake of exploring a topic. There must be a strong, clear value proposition for them to physically attend any meeting.

And yours truly, Albert Maruggi, provides the U.S. perspective on using seminars as a marketing tactic, covering the two categories of seminars: pitching vs. informational.

Each contributor gives ideas on how to determine whether seminars are appropriate for the market, a few ideas on how to position them, and some promotion tactics.

Show Notes:

0:00 - 4:30 - Show setup, driving interaction on podcasts and blogs, how to get your questions answered on the podcast.

4:30 - Situation description by Ben Figgis of the Qatar Science and Technology Park

6:30 - China perspective on seminars from Kent Kedl of Technomic Asia

11:30 - European perspective on seminars, which is very different than in China, according to Mark Mitchell of Pattison Mitchell

18:30 - U.S. perspective about seminars, which is a bit mixed, but nonetheless, it is still a difficult proposition for a company to conduct successful seminars on its own

Total running time: 28:31

We invite your comments on these and other podcasts. There are a number of ways to comment:

• Post a comment on our blog, http://providentpartners.blogspot.com
• Call 651-695-0174, hit 3 for the Marketing Edge listener line and leave a voice message
• E-mail me at amaruggi@providentpartners.net
• Send a letter to (or bang on our door at): 790 Cleveland Avenue S., Suite 221, St. Paul, MN 55116

Interaction is critical to social media, and we want to drive valuable discussion on our blog. So for every comment we receive ? whether it’s audio we play back in a podcast, written on this blog or yelled at us after banging on our door ? Provident Partners will donate a can of food to a local food shelf. Our financial budget for this effort is $100 per month, so let us hear what you have to say!

[tags]Seminars, global, Kent Kedl, Mark Mitchell[/tags]

Today?s Marketing Edge features a podcast debate about blogs. I, your host Albert Maruggi, am joined by Michael Keliher, PR practice manager for Provident Partners, to duke it out over whether businesses should get into blogging. The verbal sparring is moderated by John Havens, About.com?s guide to podcasting.

We hash out some of the pros and cons of blogs, from a business and marketing perspective. I take a ?What will blogs get me?? approach. Mike highlights the social and interactive benefits of blogging.

Show notes:

• 1:00 - 3:00 The objectives of a blog
• 4:00 - 12:00 Who is using blogs? Why should a company care about what blogs are saying about their products or services? How can companies use a blog?
• 13:00 - 17:00 What influence will the legal department have in a company blog? Is it worth it for marketers to battle legal opposition for blogs.
• 18:00 - 26:00 Should institutions provide a forum for discussion? How do you determine whether a blog is serving its purpose? Is the number of comments a good criterion for determining whether a blog is successful?
• 27:00 - 33:00 What role does trust play in establishing a blog?

We invite your comments on these and other podcasts. There are a number of ways to comment:

1. Post a comment on our blog
2. Call 651-695-0174, then record your comment on the Marketing Edge comment line (line #3)
3. E-mail me at amaruggi@providentpartners.net
4. Send a letter to or bang on our door at: 790 Cleveland Avenue S., Suite 221, St. Paul, MN 55116

Interaction is critical to social media, and we want to drive valuable discussion on our blog. So for every comment we receive ? whether it?s audio we play back in a podcast, written on this blog or yelled at us after banging on our door ? Provident Partners will donate a can of food to a local food shelf. Our financial budget for this effort is $100 per month, so let us hear what you have to say!

Today’s Marketing Edge features an interview with Nomi Prins, author of “Jacked: How Conservatives Are Picking Your Pocket.” We highlight how some marketers are being intellectually dishonest in marketing their services and products, and we discuss the opportunities for the honest folks to capitalize on such slight of hand. You know what we mean: You’ve seen the Blockbuster ad campaigns for NO LATE FEES, only then to be hit with a “restocking fee.”

Banks peddle their credit cards like they’re giving away money, but at every turn there are fees for not using ATMs, using the wrong ATM, making late payments, and the list goes on. Forrester Research did a report this summer on fees and their impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty. The fee for this little report is $249.

Nomi traveled the country and interviewed hundreds of Americans to learn how they feel about their money. She describes how average working men and women believe the economy is affecting their lives and whether they believe they are in control of their financial destinies.

Nomi makes the connection between a sense of helplessness among a growing portion of Americans and declining savings rates, increase debt, and real wage income declines during the past five years.

I made sure to steer clear of the partisan politics because I believe that only muddies the water. We stay focused and take aim at the marketing practices, primarily in the finance industry. In addition, the discussion highlights how social media have increased consumers’ ability speak out, which should be reason enough for marketers to pay attention to these practices.

The half-truth is an unethical marketers weapon and the asterisk his shield. When customer-service reps respond with the line “Well, that fee is covered in your terms and conditions,” we?ve reached a point of intellectual dishonesty in marketing. But I believe social media are the sun on the horizon that can expose these tricks. (Speaking of which, stay tuned for an interview with the editor of the blog at Consumerist.com on this very topic.)

Consumers should ? and will ? speak out when they feel they have been wronged, or as Nomi puts it, jacked (great title, by the way). Smart marketers will do the profession a service by appreciating consumers’ ability to spread information like wildfire around the globe to like-minded groups and by incorporating it into their marketing tactics.

By that I mean that corporate marketers should be candid in explaining product benefits, open about the products shortcomings, enthusiastic about a product’s improvements, and responsive in a dialogue among their customers.

If you believe that peers and family are the most trusted source of information about products, then marketers should do all they can to facilitate those conversations. We are slipping from age of “marketing as a monologue” into a multiple-conversation age in which people all over the world can comment on your company?s stuff. I call it the “multi-sational age” ? multiple conversations in multiple formats. (If I were a really good marketer, I’d try to trademark that. But I’m under no illusion that anyone would intuitively understand what “multi-sational” means ? experiencing and sharing information at all levels in a variety of formats ? so I’ll just say it here. If you like it, spread the word.)

If you really think financial-institution marketers are doing a good job, consider recent Nobel Prize recipient Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank. He has figured out how a bank can be profitable by loaning money to the poor of Bangladesh. Among his principles is the idea of viewing credit as a human right. His aim is to help poor entrepreneurs and families help themselves to overcome poverty. His “microcredit” concept of providing small loans is targeted to the poor, particularly poor women, and get this: The most distinctive feature of Grameen’s microcredit is that it is not based on any collateral or legally enforceable contracts. It is based on “trust,” not on a legal system or procedures.

Based on trust ? ain’t that rich.

The past three guests on the Marketing Edge have been among the biggest visionaries of the podcasting medium: Leo Laporte, Scott Bourne and Paul Dunay. Today we continue that line up with Andrew Michael Baron, the founder of Rocketboom, one of the first and most successful video podcasts on the Web.

Rocketboom is a video series of social news-style packages, less stiff than a typical news package with people that can make an emotional connection to the viewer. Rocketboom has contributors from around the world giving new perspectives and a global reach. For me, a 48-year-old veteran of journalism and communications, it?s amazing to see because this is the CNN model at a thousandth of the cost and infrastructure, not to mention human resource capital necessary to get a news package on the air (or cable, as it was).

Twenty years ago, local reporters would send in their local news packages with customized tags in hopes of getting on CNN, being discovered, and advancing their careers from places like Bismarck, North Dakota, and Omaha, Nebraska, to major-market TV news. Fast-forward to today and twenty-somethings are bringing global news to viewers with unbridled editorial license. The difference I see is that there is no real need to climb the ladder to the next career rung. It?s more about the information and less about what it will get this 21st-century journalist because there is much less of a hierarchy.

Rocketboom taps into the social fabric of Web communication one thread at a time. This Marketing Edge podcast highlights how participants in this network ? participants being everyone from producers of popular shows like Rocketboom to anyone commenting on a blog ? have one currency: honesty. Whether it is their opinion about a social condition or their impressions of using a product, their review of a new song or their discussion of a new technology, they are seen as honest brokers of information.

The more a participant?s information is viewed as accurate, thoughtful, honest and objective, the greater the weight that is given to that participant. Now for a marketer, multiply that participant by 10 or 100 or 1,000 or more. Each consumer is a potential participant in this discourse and can have great impact on how your brand is represented.

This is what you?re facing today and in the future. It is an environment that sniffs out the dubious and rewards the candid. Consumers of all types are more cynical, and marketers should be sensitive to the exponential power of these new social media. Today, the total number of participants might just be starting to move the needle, but the power of their opinions and actions are spreading like wildfire.

Albert Maruggi is the host of Marketing Edge and president of Provident Partners.

We’re coming at you live (or nearly live) from the Podcast and Portable Media Expo in Ontario, California. Albert Maruggi, your host here at the Marketing Edge, recaps some highlights from the early sessions at the Expo. He talks about the need for a new word to describe podcasting - something that doesn’t make people think they need an iPod to listen in. He also discusses the idea of quality over quantity with regard to a podcast audience.

Albert is joined by Leo Laporte, host of the This Week in Tech podcast and general tech guru. Leo was one of today’s keynote speakers at the Podcast Expo, and he’ll share some thoughts with us about the podcasting world in this podcast.

Stay tuned for more from the Marketing Edge, live from the floor of the Podcast and Portable Media Expo.

If you’re interested in learning more about Provident Partners’ podcasting seminar Oct. 6 in St. Paul, MN, call 651-695-0174 or visit www.providentpartners.net.

Part two of a two-part series with guests Paul Dunay, director of global field marketing for BearingPoint, and Mike Gauthier, CEO of e-tractions. They are pushing the envelope on new ways of reaching out to new media and Web site users to identify the type of content the users value. Their methods involve a combination of using RSS and IRSS tactics along with podcasting, vidcasting, e-mail and Web microsites. The Marketing Edge podcast is produced by Provident Partners.

This podcast focused on how an IRSS feed is put together, the advantages of using IRSS, and the ways marketers can use it to further customize content and offer new content relevant to the user.

Dunay is also a speaker at the Marketing Sherpa B2B Summit in October 24 and November 14. His blog about technology marketing is a leader in the field: Buzz Marketing for Technology.

You can learn more about IRSS tactics and receive a sample IRSS feed tracking report by calling Albert Maruggi at 651-695-0174 or e-mailing him at amaruggi@providentpartners.net.

Among marketers who are early adopters, podcasting has become an almost regular thing. It is, however, still very much in its infancy. We are still in the market with machetes, clearing a path to reveal either the promised land or a swamp of quicksand.

In some cases, as we hear in this podcast, there is a garden of new prospects, media coverage and significant benefits that result from podcasting. Today Albert Maruggi, host of the Marketing Edge and president of Provident Partners has an engaging conversation with Paul Dunay, director of field marketing for BearingPoint and author of the Buzz Marketing for Technology blog, and Mike Gauthier, CEO of e-tractions, a conversion and tracking company. Paul uses Mike’s services in BearingPoint’s podcasting tactics.

Paul is also a speaker at this year’s Marketing Sherpa B2B Demand Generation Summit in Boston, October 23 and 24, and in San Francisco on November 12 and 14.

In this podcast, we?ll highlight:

1) What B2B marketers can get out of podcasting in either the prospecting function or with the sales team internally.
2) We talk about the types of podcasts for different audiences — content, length and how podcasts are used to further qualify a prospect
3) How podcasting is positively affecting conversion rates on unique landing pages and where to place that crucial registration page — before the podcast or after?

Provident Partners is an offering a ?Podcasting Recommendation Review? for Marketing Edge listeners. The review answers the question, Should my company use podcasting? Call 651-695-0174 or visit www.providentpartners.net/podcasting for more information.

Marketing Edge Podcast special guest Scott Bourne: Scott is speaking at the Portable Media Expo later this month on the topic of Selling Podcast Sponsorships. We?ll also preview his remarks at this popular conference being held Sept. 29 and 30 in Ontario, California.

There are early adopters and there are visionaries. Provident Partners is an early adopter of podcasting. We were one of the first marketing firms in the country to see the medium as a business tactic and had early success with the new medium.

Then there are those who are visionaries. Those are people that work with a blank canvas. They are the ones who paint the picture for the early adopters to enjoy. The early adopters see a picture and imagine what can be done in that scene. How many different pictures are within a picture? The early adopters ask, “What if we took this??”

The visionaries have a blank canvas and ask, “Why can?t we do this??” Today?s Marketing Edge guest is a visionary by anyone?s measure. He is Scott Bourne. In 1995 he founded NetRadio. Bourne had executed the radical idea of playing music on the Internet, all kinds of music, especially that being ignored by the three-minute-and-done commercial radio world.

This podcast, hosted by Albert Maruggi of Provident Partners, examines:

1) The possibilities of using podcasting and podcast sponsorships in the marketing mix
2) How to best add podcasting to an integrated advertising budget with a hell of a lot better metrics than some other traditional advertising
3) How to view the new medium of podcasting in relation to other media so that companies can best take advantage of this new social way of communicating

Bourne is the host of several podcasts, the ones I recommend as absolutely must haves are Podcasting Tricks. They are really not tricks — just really smart stuff to do to make you and your clients look good. And for the Mac people (I personally suffer from Apple envy) there’s ilife zone. You all understand that being addicted to Windows is a lot like smoking. You?ll find me outside government buildings in 10-degree weather, hopelessly attached to my PC because it?s a habit. Enough joking.

Bourne is frequently on the O?Reilly Network and is among the friends of the This Week in Technology and Friends Network with Leo Laporte.

You’ve all seen how Amazon and other online retail sites create affiliations, you know, People who bought this book also bought… Creating associations is the efficient wrinkle for marketers. Non-Profits have been doing this type of associating for a while in the physical world. For example, producing rides for cyclists or marathons for runners with the objective to raise money and expand their network of advocates.

Albert Maruggi, host of the Marketing Edge podcast for business and consumer marketers, provides insights into how to tap into associations and reach their audiences as well as the communities they are incorporating into their fund raising efforts.

It also touches upon our corporate communications directors and marketers can enhance the company’s or clients’ community relations through charitable giving.

This podcast features tactics used by the MN Aids Trek, reached out to the cycling community in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro and an interview with First Giving CEO Mark Sutton.

Maruggi is riding in the 175 mile MN Aids Trek on Sep 9 and 10 from St. Paul to Duluth, MN. We invite your questions which will be used on the Marketing Edge podcast by calling 651-695-0174 or email amaruggi@providentpartners.net Or visit Provident Partners