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27 January 2012
Providing Incentive Prizes for Positive Online Reviews: Resourceful or Cheating?
By Bryn Adler, Internet Marketing Associate
Internet marketing is seeing nothing but growth. But in the past year, we’ve seen specifically a greater influence placed on customer reviews through review sites such as Yelp, forum sites like Quora, and social media reviews and recommendations.
In fact, HubSpot recently published information showing that people trust online recommendations more than they do traditional advertising:
- 71% of people are more likely to purchase based on social media referrals
- Products that have received 50+ reviews create greater returns
- 61% of consumers use search engines to read about products before a purchase
So it was only a matter of time before retailers realized they could take advantage of this boom by offering prize incentives with a push to give the product a positive online review.
In an article published yesterday, The New York Times examined a deal in which VIP Deals boosted the star rating of an Amazon Kindle Fire leather case by “offering a refund to customers in exchange for a write-up.” Customers were offered the case for $10 plus shipping and handling, instead of the $59.99 list price, and had the option of a full refund in exchange for writing a review.
Currently, the case has 310 five star ratings out of 335 reviews, and many of the rest are four stars.
Image courtesy of The New York Times
While this may seem like a blatant scam, customers who participated in the deal and who were subsequently contacted for the article saw no harm in it.
This kind of incentive is the next step on a road leading to black hat SEO. Providing refund incentives for a positive review is, at its core, cheating. It is bribing customers into providing reviews that may not be true and it is a marketing scam. Historically, trying to cheat the online system may work in the short-run, but subjects you to a long-term negative brand reputation once these tactics come to the surface. Just as Google has re-worked its algorithm to detect scam sites, researchers are now working on models that will help in detecting bogus reviews.
Creating marketing messaging campaigns centered on gaining positive reviews is one thing, but prompting positive reviews through blatant unethical means will never serve you or others well.
What’s your opinion? Has your company come across any issues with online customer reviews?
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Posted by Paul Regensburg at 2:43 PM | 1 Comment
20 January 2012
Getting Started with Responsive Design
By Bryn Adler, Internet Marketing Associate
When it comes to the future of website design, smart devices (phones
and tablets) are quickly becoming top factors in determining design
approach. In order to be mobile or tablet optimized, you have a few
options at your disposal:
1. A separate website optimized and designed for mobile
2. A responsive website design
3. App development
In October, we took you through five starter tips for mobile website design.
These tips cover what to look at when designing a mobile-specific
website as an accompanying piece to your current website. Most B2C and
ecommerce companies are turning to this strategy because it allows you
to condense mobile consumer behavior to a few key steps.
But what
if you’re not interested in a separate mobile site? What if you want to
maintain the content and design of your desktop website in a clean
mobile version? This is where “Responsive Design” comes in (don’t worry,
we’ll get to apps in a future post).
What is Responsive Design?
Responsive design is the process of developing your website so that the site can re-format and re-size itself according to the user’s screen resolution. For example, this allows you to design your website in a four-column layout for desktop resolution that will, once it senses a change in screen resolution, change its layout to accommodate the user.
Categories: Web / Interactive
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 10:51 AM | No Comments
11 January 2012
Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr: 3 Visual Social Platforms Poised for Branded Growth in 2012
By Bryn Adler, Internet Marketing Associate
While content is king in many inbound marketing circles, certain social sharing platforms are rising to the top to be the "next big thing" by catering to a long-held design standard: people respond to visual brand representations.
In addition to content-based social media standards like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, visual sharing sites Pinterest, Instagram, and Tumblr are becoming increasingly effective in presenting an overall brand online.
Categories: Brand / Marketing · Web / Interactive
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 2:30 PM | 2 Comments
04 January 2012
The Altruisim of Inbound Marketing
Why does inbound marketing seem to have such an altruistic
tone? Today’s marketers seek to be “partners.” They are in the business of providing valuable content that will inspire trust. Content is often something they give away – for free! The new analytic tools empower you.
Inbound marketing arrives on the heels of the Open Source movement, which began in earnest in the late 90s and encouraged technologists to give away their code to the online masses and adopt a communal attitude based on building better products through sharing IP rather than coveting it.
Once Open Source became a cultural phenomenon it gave birth to a new generation of movements empowering the individual or the consumer. Crowd-sourcing is one child and inbound marketing is another.
Inbound marketing represents the new world order as it applies to marketing. So what happened when marketers learned a better way than to push a one-size-fits-all agenda on their customers? They changed their tune and adopted a necessarily value-based persona. For better or worse, this has taken on an altruistic tone.
From what I’ve observed, this change in marketing and actually, business culture, is a hard adjustment for quite a few marketers who began their careers in the bad old days of cutthroat, competitive sales and marketing, bereft of the concept of being a partner or agent of empowerment. People who began their marketing careers before the late 90s remember marketing could often be a pretty hard boiled and highly competitive profession for which they focused their energies towards wielding every advantage they could over competitors to generate leads the sales force could convert. Sure they believed in their product or service but they were often more focused on gaining the advantage and beating out the competition.
So, it comes as no surprise that some marketing executives with whom I’ve spoken recently are skeptical of inbound marketing. My perspective is that if you don’t embrace the culture, it’s hard to embrace the practice. The “trust culture ” inbound marketing seeks to promote is at odds with the practices many marketers learned in their formative years. The only way to test the efficacy of Inbound marketing is to dive in, adopt inbound marketing best practices for six months and measure the results. Pick a pilot program, find an inbound marketing firm or practitioner and together design a campaign that incorporates content creation, search, lead generation and measurement. Like starting anything new, the first two tools you need are commitment and an open mind.
Categories: Brand / Marketing
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 9:41 AM | 4 Comments
22 December 2011
The Top 5 Holiday Marketing Campaigns of 2011
Bryn Adler, Internet Marketing Associate
Every year, companies compete for the onslaught of holiday shopping dollars by putting their best creative foot forward, creating targeted marketing campaigns that evoke the best and worst of the holiday season.
This year, the most successful campaigns weren't heartfelt or warming, but sarcastic and witty – a sign of the times? – and are memorable in their off-kilter themes. RainCastle took a look at this years top campaigns and made list our favorites of the season.
1. Target – The Christmas Champ
Target's veteran crazy female shopper is no surprise at number one, given her massive success last year and the inescapable buzz that surrounded her return this year. Striking fear in the hearts of all soccer moms, the Christmas Champ trains Rocky-style for the year's biggest sale at Target with terrifying cheer. A fan favorite is her holiday card orchestra, conducted while wearing overtly comical pearls, which is the cherry on top of a seriously scary Christmas season.
2. Best Buy – Game on, Santa
Best Buy took advantage of this year's rise in gamification by capitalizing on the theme of "games," challenging Santa to a game of gifts: with Best Buy, you can finally beat the old guy. Stressed out shoppers of all ages love watching the jovial character flounder as a Mom casually comments from the sidelines, "Aw, guess I didn't leave any room for you."
3. Old Spice – MANta Claus
Like the Christmas Champ, the Old Spice man has been a revolution in character advertising. He's the James Bond of deodorant, and his holiday messages are just as enticing as his past campaigns. Feeling that getting gifts for all 7 billion people in the world is "the least I can do," he starts with Twitter fan @beautyjunkie, and commissions a pair of heels made out of jewelry for the fan. This integration of social media, followed by a look at the 80s-style computer metrics set up to accomplish his giving goals, is the perfect pairing of old and new technology for mass appeal.
4. Ebay – Buy it Now, Buy it New, 12 Days
Ebay's Buy it Now, Buy it New campaign is centered on embarrassing family members who just don't understand. Like the popular "I don't want my grandmother's jeans" ad, the 12 Days ad features a teenage girl who takes caroling as an opportunity to pinpoint exactly what she wants and doesn't want from her list, while chastising the family for last year's blunders –"Especially from you Uncle Dave, were those acid wash jeans?" Bratty, yes, but the purpose of these campaigns is to prove that eBay is where the cool kids shop, for all of their new and used wants. Ebay's target audience will relate to the teenage sass and understand that all she wants for Christmas is an iPad, not a needlepoint pillow.
5. Honda – Happy Honda Days, Car Gift
Another shining example of character advertising, Honda spokesman Patrick Warburton serves as a voice of reason in an otherwise over-the-top holiday season. By removing Honda from the traditional family holiday push – "Are you a millionaire? No? Then you probably don't give cars to people as presents" – Warburton appeals to the average Honda customer (while, of course, highlighting that he is actually a millionaire, because the car on display is for his niece.) Simple, funny monologue-ing, at its finest.
Categories: Brand / Marketing · Web / Interactive
Posted by Paul Regensburg at 12:24 PM | 10 Comments
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