VerticalResponse Email Marketing Blog for Small Business

March Madness - How Contests Can Work For You

“March Madness” has been rampant around the VerticalResponse offices now for the past two weeks. You know, the springtime mania that takes a sports neophyte and turns them into an obsessive, score-checking, bracket-busting fanatic. Witnessed it firsthand? Fallen prey to it yourself? For those that might not be familiar, March Madness is a US phenomenon that revolves around the annual men’s college basketball tournament and inspires more fan involvement than the Super Bowl, the Olympics, even the World Series! Why is that?

Simply put, March Madness connects with fans (and non-fans) on a more personal level. The brackets and low-entry office pools make everyone from the hoops junkie to the novice feel they have a stake in the event and encourages them to “play along at home”. Doubt the appeal of this element? Check out the ratings on American Idol.

What’s more, unpredictable college kids performing under pressure combines with the single-elimination format to create the most unexpected results (George Mason, anyone?) This lets your co-workers who don’t know a three point-jumper from a three point-turn aspire to office pool glory.

Did you know that espn.com and cbsportsline.com receive more visitors on the opening two days of the NCAA Tournament than at any other point in the year? There are dozens of sites that offer free online bracket competitions and at espn.com alone, users submit more than 1,200 a minute!

What can this mean to you? Well it’s all about competition right? Like the March Madness competition, tapping into the competitive spirit is a great way for you to attract visitors to your site and generate interest in your products without heavy-handed selling tactics. Here are just a few examples winning competitions:

• Awards  – We gave away iPod Shuffles last year for the most eye-catching emails and, in turn, our customers pointed their friends and colleagues to our site to show off their fortune. Do you have a prize that you’d want to give to your customers?

• Contests – Ban Deodorant offered a contest asking teenage girls “What would you Ban?” and directed them to a website to fill out an entry. Four thousand entries were received. Ban then sent an email inviting people to vote for their favorite choice online. In all, 61,000 participants visited and voted. Talk about a viral contest!

• Sweepstakes – Sopranos is doing an interactive sweeps where you go to a site and when a Soprano pops up you “whack em” with a virtual mallet as they emerge. Ouch.

A well-designed contest involves the customers in a way that’s more personal while making them fill out their information. Ideally, it tells a story that reflects your company’s image. You don’t need a 20,000 seat arena and a national championship trophy to get people’s competitive juices flowing. As long as the desire to compete exists, the future of office pools and similarly inspired contests will be a slam-dunk. Oh and don't forget, get the email address for that email marketing campaign!

Got any ideas of your own? Give us a comment!

Case Study: Going Viral with VR!

Have you seen this? It's one of the funniest, most clever videos I've seen, but then again, I'm a bit biased since we created it!

It's a video that outlines the benefits of using VerticalResponse in Salesforce.com's AppExchange, in an "on-beat" kind of way.

VR for AppExchange? It's pretty sweet, you can basically send mass email campaigns using VerticalResponse right from within your Salesforce.com account. Finally closed-loop marketing at its finest.

PROBLEM: Even though Salesforce.com does a great job getting us here on their site, they don't really do outbound marketing internally or externally highlighting any one partner of theirs. So VR needed to get in front of their employees as well as their customers in a cost-effective way. 

SOLUTION: When Salesforce.com met with us, Rob Lamb, Partner Relations Manager, said to me "Janine, if you want to get in front of our employees, all we need is a simple 5-point slide on why you guys rock."

Hmmm. I thought. Thanks for the idea Rob. We'll take that 5 point slide a few steps further.

So I went in to my Creative Director's office to brainstorm a bit.  "Alf, we need to get in front of Salesforce.com employees to tell them why their customers need us, it needs to be hip and cool and something they'll want to forward to all of their friends."

"JP, I think we need to do a video, maybe a rap!" Alf said, in a very "un-rappy" way.

Crazy? Maybe but off we were and in all of 45 minutes, Alf, Josh our Director of Product Management and myself sorted through my iTunes, picked out a song and wrote it. The choice? A tongue-in-cheek update of Vanilla Ice’s (in)famous “Ice, Ice, Baby”  (apologies to David Bowie and Freddy Mercury).

One week later the video was done - GarageBand and iMovie to the rescue. Alf transformed himself into a rap hero and his team really pulled it off. A video that is by far the most fun and most viral thing Salesforce.com has seen yet. It's the next wave of "Lazy Sunday" for businesses! If you haven't seen the feature "Lazy Sunday" from Saturday Night Live, check it out. The clip has been viewed more than 5 million times.

In our clip, Furious Alf (his alter ego perhaps?) stalks the mean streets of San Francisco and rhymes about the many benefits of VerticalResponse for the AppExchange.  With lines like this we knew we had a hit on our hands:

“Will it ever stop, yo, I don’t know
Install the app and let’s go
Lists of any sizes, you know we can handle
Light up the app and watch it burn like a candle”

The folks at Salesforce.com thought so, too.  The video made it all the way up to the CEO and landed a spot on the company’s CRM Success blog, which you can read here.

To date, there have been over 600 views of this video. 

Not bad for a self-produced video - no amount of advertising could have made inroads as quickly or as cheaply – or inspired people to willingly pass it on. And no other medium would have facilitated this process like email.  Email has become such a part of everyday life, that it’s easy to forget just how effective a tool it can be, particularly when it’s done with a light, creative touch. 

Remember:

“Email’s a problem VR solves it
Test drive the app while your client installs it
AppEx, Baby
VR for AppEx, Baby!”

So check it out, forward it to your friends, and if you're interested in more information about the AppExchange go here.

Email Marketing Awards Contest!

So you think you have a great email marketing newsletter?  Want a little recognition for your efforts?  Need some hardware for the office trophy case?  Then enter MarketingSherpa’s 2006 Email Awards!

MarketingSherpa, one of the Web’s foremost resources of marketing know-how is recognizing email newsletter excellence in more than a dozen categories.  The winners (in both the B-to-B and consumer divisions) will receive a slew of terrific publicity for their firms, greater readership for their emails and some very attractive gold and silver cups to display on the mantle.

In addition to a gala awards ceremony at Chicago’s House of Blues (timed to coincide with the Email Marketing Summit on April 20th), winners will be highlighted in a special issue of Marketing Sherpa that’s posted online and mailed to 173,000 readers!

Sound good?  Then submit your nominations (it’s ok to vote for yourself) before the March 31st Deadline.

Below are the 12 entry categories.  For more information about the contest, click here: MarketingSherpa Email Awards

1.    Best opt-in campaign
2.    Best Email Newsletter for marketing purposes
3.    Best Sales Alert or Dedicated Offer Broadcast
4.    Best Advertising Campaign in Third Party Email Newsletter(s)
5.    Best SIG (email signature)
6.    Best Welcome letter to new subscribers
7.    Best Automated Series (autoresponder)
8.    Best Automated Personalized Email (trigger-driven)
9.    Best viral email campaign
10.  Best postcard-style (sort copy/small creative) campaign
11.  Best (or most dramatic) test you learned from
12.  Best email alternative (RSS, SMS/mobile, desktop app)

The Value of Customer Testimonials

As you may have noticed, we’re in the middle of a serious ad blitz here at VerticalResponse.  When we were devising the campaign, we considered a number of different approaches and decided that instead of tooting our own horn, we’d let our customers do it for us.  If you visit our homepage, then you’ve seen the results – valued customers offering testimonials about the benefits of VerticalResponse. Here are answers to some questions you might have:

Why Customer Testimonials?   When a customer is willing to have their face, name and company  splashed all over your website – or across city buses and billboards, as was the case with some of our clients – it gives the ads an unmatched level of credibility.

How Do I Find Candidates? If you don’t already stash customer feedback somewhere, you should start.  Just be sure to get their approval before using endorsements. Oh, and be sure to include the full name, company name (for B2B) and their locale.  This conveys the impression, "hey they're real customers" - they're not just "John from NYC".

Also, if you know you have a good customer don’t be afraid ask them for their testimonial, you may be surprised what you find.  People are much more likely to offer unsolicited complaints than unsolicited compliments, so if you don’t actively probe for information, you may miss out on some  of your best endorsements. 

What Makes a Good Testimonial? Steer your customer so that they get pretty specific on why they love your product or how they use it. The goal is that the audience can envision how they might use the service in a comparable way to achieve similar benefits. Oh, and keep it short, you'll lose your reader if it's a novel.

How Can I Use Testimonials to the Greatest Effect? Since testimonials are the most authentic endorsement of your company’s work, you should place them in a spot where they’re readily visible.  We don’t expect everyone to buy space on the back of a bus, but finding a high-profile location on your website is a good start.

Another thing to consider? The "type" of company or "person" giving the testimonial - how will your audience relate to them? People tend to be more receptive to messages from those they can relate to, so if you want to grow a specific type of customer, it’s best to highlight that type of customer.  If you’re seeking a broader audience, then you’d do well to feature customers from a variety of backgrounds.

Whatever approach you take, customer testimonials are a great way to spread the word about your company without spending a fortune on creative and ad placement.  Speaking of which, we’re always seeking more candidates for our ad campaign!  All interested parties are welcome, especially our friends from beyond the U.S. borders.  If you’re interested in offering a testimonial or perhaps appearing in one of our ads, send an email to janine@verticalresponse.com. 

VerticalResponse for Non Profits!

VerticalResponse is excited to announce a brand new discounted pricing program for non profit organizations. Non profits that qualify will enjoy a 15% discount for email and printed postcards.  We've also launched 4 new non profit email templates to spice up your campaigns!

How does it work? A non-profit organization must simply complete an application and fax it to VerticalResponse at (415) 808-2480, where it will be reviewed for approval by our compliance team. 

More info? Go here to find out the details.

Case Study: The Most Dangerous Surf Competition on the Planet!

This is pretty exciting and a great representation of how a timely email marketing campaign drives results.

Earlier this month the Mavericks Surf Competition was held. Mavericks is a surfing institution here in Northern California and a legendary name among surfers worldwide, with three-story waves for brave surfers to endure. Kier Beadling, CEO of Mavericks Surf Ventures, who doesn't ride these waves himself but has the charge of promoting this crazy event, had a tough job. Get 50,000 fans to the waves on a 48 hour notice. Wow! This rabid fan base has grown rapidly since Keir teamed up with partners Douglas Epstein and Jeff Clark, the big wave surfing hero and Mavericks pioneer, so indeed it was a difficult task.

Do they have budget? No. But in just two years, they've doubled their email list size and got NBC to cover the event.

How were they originally getting the word out? They used their own personal email accounts and according to Kier it quickly became an impossible task as their list size grew to an unmanageable size.

VR to the rescue! Kier had heard of VerticalResponse through his local connections here in the bay area (can you say word of mouth marketing?) and was in need of a few things:

1. He needed someone to manage a good size list.
2. He needed a reliable service he knew he could trust to get the email marketing campaigns out so that in just 24-48 hours notice the tens of thousands of fans could come.
3. He needed to be CAN SPAM compliant with a working unsubscribe.
4. He needed a cost-effective solution since the Mavericks doesn't charge!

If anyone wants to watch this crazy competition, it airs 2pm ET/11am PST on May 13, 2006 on NBC. If anyone wants to see it online before that go here.

Yeah, this is sort of a self-serving blog, but I thought it was a great story for both the Mavericks and VerticalResponse. Thanks for letting us share Kier!

Got any good stories of your own? Give us a comment!

The Heat is On...AOL That Is

You may have read the Breaking Down The AOL/Goodmail Stir post. Well the pot has been heated up even more this week. Just a quick post on what's happening.

Organizations from MoveOn.org to Gun Owners of America, over 50 in total, are banning together in protest of what they're calling the AOL Email Tax. The protest, organized by the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) is called DearAOL.com and has garnered over 1500 registrants in just a week. They are protesting the quarter of a penny charge that mailers will spend to get email into the inbox, bypassing AOL's filters.

What's the real issue here? Well the organizations opposed to the Goodmail/AOL program feel large businesses stand to benefit the most as they have the budgets to cover the costs thereby making it "pay for play" situation.  It is likely that AOL will refute these claims and issue some response outlining how their relationship with Goodmail will benefit companies of all sizes (and budgets).  We'll of course update you should this information surface.

What do we say? VerticalResponse remains on the AOL Standard Whitelist as usual and your email continues to be delivered.