E-Marketing and All its Various Forms

1. How effective do you believe online display advertising is compared to other media and why?

I think that traditional display advertising is not a very effective way to get consumers to notice and interact with your brand compared to mobile, email and various forms of sponsorship advertising. Nowadays consumers are constantly bombarded with ads and have become so immune to seeing them on the side of their browsers that it's become increasingly difficult to gain attention and interest. When companies tailor their message by utilizing a different medium, such as a specific email list or by sponsoring a popular blog, the consumer is more apt to pay attention because the message appeals to their interests.

2. Why do you believe "Will It Blend" has been so successful?

The "Will It Blend" campaign has had great success because it is based off of the idea I mentioned above -- it pulls consumers in by asking them to participate and by creating a message that is not so broad and generic as to appeal to just anybody. The fact that BlendTec created a website dedicated to asking the public what they wanted to see put in the blender next is an incredibly smart way to gain consumer interest and interaction. People are more apt to pay attention to something if they feel like they had a hand in creating it, and they will also be more likely to tell their friends about it. However, the key element to BlendTec not only creating an interesting campaign but turning that interest into action is that they let their product do the talking. The proof is in the pudding. Or blender, if you will.

3. Name what you believe are the three most important rules for successful email marketing and explain why.

a) Use opt-in to build your lists because your reputation for being customer oriented is more important than having a large list.

I think this rule is incredibly important because you waste valuable time and money sending emails to a multitude of addresses when maybe only half are actually interested in what you have to say. This leads directly into the value of the next rule, which is:

b) Use metrics to track the open rates, response rates, and ROI. Also consider the cost of non-responses which may contribute to lower brand equity if your mail is perceived as spam.

Metrics are always imperative because they allow you to measure your efforts and evaluate whether they were worthy or need some tweaking. More importantly, utilizing metrics allows you to evaluate the equity of your brand; do people want to read your emails, are they interested in your product, etc. If you fail to measure your efforts then you might be headed down a bad path and run the risk of potentially decreasing the value of the brand.

c) Make it easy for users to unsubscribe.

In my experience, companies that make it difficult to unsubscribe from their newsletters are not very trustworthy, they don't appear to have my interests in mind, all they want is to bombard as many people as possible with the same message. This once again ties in to the previous two rules of respecting the consumer and protecting the value of your brand.