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BedTimes, Feature, November 2007

Getting their attention
Buzz and your brand: ‘You’ve gotta see my new mattress’

By Barbara Nelles

Before television commercials, radio spots and newspaper ads, there was word-of-mouth—the conversation in the marketplace. That’s how a vendor’s success or failure was determined. Thanks to the Web and the rise of “social” media, conversation is back in a big way, and marketers are listening up.

“Creating word-of-mouth, buzz or “viral” marketing is about giving people a reason to talk about your brand—and making it easier for that conversation to take place,” says Kevin Burke, founder of Lucid Marketing in Allentown, N.J. Burke blogged about wearing a pregnancy suit for a month as a way to publicize the launch of Light Iris, a Web site and search engine for expectant and new mothers.

How can a mattress manufacturer enable buzz?

“Your next advertising campaign could direct consumers to a campaign microsite,” where people can share stories about their lack of sleep or even tales of how their new mattress saved their marriage, says Eric Buchanan, chief executive officer of eROI, an online marketing services company based in Portland, Ore. The point is to allow people to meet and connect and, ultimately, connect with your brand, he says.

To date, the age group most likely to buzz is young men. Hence, fast food marketers have been early adopters of viral marketing. Pizza Hut seeded the social networking Web site MySpace with videos about “Ted, America’s most-loved pizza delivery guy.” Chipotle, Domino’s and Planet Smoothie have employed similar tactics.

The Bodygroom, a men’s electric razor for shaving below the neck, generated enormous word-of-mouth this year. Normally staid Philips Norelco created a microsite, www.shaveeverywhere.com, with intentionally bleeped-out commentary from a winking “Robe Guy.” Brand manager Michelle Schwartz told The New York Times that an online campaign can be more risqué because there is much less chance of reaching people who might be “indifferent, annoyed or offended.”

Office supplies retailer Staples uses buzz of a different sort. It enlists members of its frequent shopper program to spread positive word-of-mouth by sending them packets of free products each month. Recipients must agree to promote the stuff to friends through conversation, email, blogging and giveaways.

Could you make a similar arrangement? What about donating dorm mattresses to sleep-deprived college kids who tout them on Facebook?

Or what about a viral campaign for mattresses that highlights not just slumber, but love? asks David Gale, vice president of business development at Vibes Media, a mobile marketing firm based in Chicago.

“Right now mattresses don’t have a very sexy sell,” he says. “There’s really nothing flashy about buying a bed, and that’s really too bad when you consider how much joy the product brings.”  

To blog or not to blog
Great blogs get publicized through word-of-mouth, too, but a key reason for a mattress manufacturer to add a blog to its Web site is to boost its search results. Search engines favor blogs because of their constantly updated, keyword-rich, link-filled content. 

A company planning to add a blog must “already feel comfortable having a close, two-way relationship with users,” says Forrester research analyst Charlene Li in the report “Blogging: Bubble or Big Deal?” (The report is available free from www.forrester.com.)

If a blog is your company’s first foray into the conversational marketplace, go slow. Start by appointing trusted individuals to make comments on external blogs, Li says. Give them clear, formal guidelines on what can and cannot be said. If an external blogger airs a problem with one of your products, offer a solution or suggestion. Wait and gauge reactions to your comments.

If you’re not ready to create your own blog, you should at least be reading other blogs and monitoring your brand’s reputation online. You can be sure that people are talking. Do you know what they are saying?

Creating a CEO blog can be the first step in giving your company a human face and personality.

“But the legal aspects and time commitment of blogging are valid concerns,” Buchanan acknowledges.

Successful corporate blogs are honest and open. Fake blogs and blog posts get sniffed out quickly and labeled “flogs.” Ideally, a mattress blogger would want to be viewed as an expert on mattresses, sleep and health, and would provide readers links to the latest sleep research and news. 
                                                                                       
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Building a better Web presence

By Barbara Nelles

One piece of advice is offered by virtually every expert on Web design: Avoid the look of a promotional brochure.

A company’s Web site should play the role of a concierge. It should be approachable, able to answer questions and ready to pass visitors on to trusted resources, says Ed Bardwell, chief technology innovation officer at MARC USA, an ad agency based in Pittsburgh.

“Your site needs to be organized according to how the consumer is interested in using it, not according to how you categorize your products or manage your business,” says Robyn Waters, a marketing expert and founder of RW Trend in New York City.

“Shift the language to be benefit-driven,” Bardwell says. “Consumers are not interested in fabrication differences between each bed in the line. Instead, convey how it feels to lie down on different models. Make the benefits come to life for the online visitor.”

Manufacturers should remember that people who arrive at their site may be ready to buy.

“Make it easy: ‘Click here to shop online.’ ‘Print out this spec sheet and bring it to the store with you,’ ” Bardwell recommends.

The No. 1 thing people look for when they arrive at your site is contact information, including a phone number for your company, not just your dealers. Make it simple to find.

Also consider enabling consumer-generated content. Create a consumer forum or add consumer ratings and reviews.

“Consumers tend to say negative things about manufacturers’ Web sites: ‘It didn’t load fast enough’ or ‘I went to your recommended dealer and they were out of business,’ ” Bardwell says.

Consumer forums can be a first step in humanizing your brand and, in turn, combating those “I hate fill-in-the-blank” Web sites.

“It’s time for mighty brands to come out from behind the curtain,” Bardwell says.

Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization is “an affordable no-brainer,” says Eric Buchanan, chief executive officer of eROI, an online marketing services company based in Portland, Ore. “Everyone should do it. You need to optimize your Web site so it turns up among relevant top 10 results. The other component of SEO is evaluating your pay-per-click advertising to make sure the cost-per-converted-lead is as low as possible. Most companies buy fewer than 500 keywords, usually generic terms. Instead, buy the specific words mattress shoppers use to talk about your business.”

To stay on consumers’ online radar screens, brands need to create a presence beyond their principal Web site, Bardwell says. Your presence could include mentions in blogs, product rating sites, bookmarking sites and news stories, as well as company-generated microsites, even separately posted product pictures, videos, Webcasts and blogs. Your options are growing by the day.

Adding social bookmarking buttons, such as del.icio.us, Furl and StumbleUpon, to your Web pages is easy and can boost your site’s search placement, as well as generate buzz.

Bookmarking visitors can save, share and comment on content, photos or anything else they find helpful or unusual at your site.

Creating a complete online presence is more important than ever with rollout of “universal” or “blended search.” Now results pages at Google, Answer.com and other search engines automatically include a variety of content—not just text links but also video, music, images and blogs. Now is the time to create new, meta-tagged content.

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Mobile marketing taking off

By Barbara Nelles

Reaching people via their cell phones is a new marketing frontier with enormous potential.

In the United States alone, there are more than 237 million cell phone users texting 12 billion messages per month, says David Gale, vice president of business development for Vibes Media, a Chicago-based agency specializing in mobile marketing. He estimates that only 1% of that volume is commercially sponsored.

The fact is, people—especially those under 35—are sending, receiving and viewing all kinds of information on their cell phones. The social networks Facebook and MySpace have added mobile components and some new players, such as MocoSpace, are meant solely for cell phones.

“Everyone who buys a bed has a cell phone. If you’re not thinking about how the public is using their cell phones, you should be,” Gale says.

There are four protocols for communicating via cell phones: basic texting (short message service or SMS); multimedia service (or MMS, which includes photos, ring tones, games and podcasts); the Web; and interactive voice response (or IVR; voice menus are one example).

The texting explosion happened in the last two years.

“Nonvoice use of cell phones has very high penetration up to about age 35. The real sweet spot is 18 to 25. Eighty percent of this age group uses their phone for something other than voice on a regular basis, whether it’s text messaging, instant messaging, Web surfing, email or some other data service,” Gale says.

The question is, should you spend money on mobile at this point?

“If you do, it should be a fraction of your overall spend,” Gale advises. “This is a new, nontraditional medium and entirely unpredictable.”

He suggests starting with “basic, low-level communication” and “creating your own benchmarks to determine what works for your business.”

Try things like once-a-month sleep tip text messages or a quarterly reminder to rotate a new mattress.

By law, cell phone marketing is permission-based, thus any mobile campaign requires an outdoor, online, TV, radio or print component with a call to action. Participants must opt in by dialing a designated “short code,” typically four to six digits plus some text. If you want to promote a contest to win a new mattress, it could be “winabed.” A return text message might say: “Thank you for your entry. Good luck! And check out our new line of airbeds available at Bob’s Beds at...”

The mobile call to action can be added to any ongoing ad campaign, with the only additional cost being that of the mobile usage itself. One day, Gale predicts, mobile short codes will be as ever-present on marketing materials and packaging as a brand’s name and URL.
                                                                             
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Mixed media: Old tactics get tech twists

By Barbara Nelles

While traditional media retains an important place in the ad mix of most mattress manufacturers, there are some subtle shifts taking place. Digital innovation is having unexpected impacts, and new media is increasingly attached at the hip to older channels.

Here is a look at the current state of the media mashup.

“If you buy print or radio now, it’s often bundled with a banner ad,” says Ed Bardwell, chief technology innovation officer at MARC USA, an ad agency in Pittsburgh. “You must expand your reach beyond traditional channels, partly because media don’t stand alone anymore and partly because of the evolution of the audience. The fastest growing demographic of digital media adopters is seniors, not kids for whom digital engagement is organic.”

Print and online are merging, too.

“Why do a 16-page circular when you can save print and production costs with eight pages that send people directly to the Internet to view more product?” Bardwell says. “It’s just a smarter way to get more exposure.” 

Leveraging the old with the online can add impact. Nikon launched an ad campaign based on the idea that “anyone can take great pictures with a Nikon D40.” To illustrate its point, the company gave cameras to 200 residents of Georgetown, S.C., and then ran a series of print ads pointing readers to a Web microsite where residents’ photos were posted.

“Look no further than the tech sector for further inspiration when it comes to integrating media into a cohesive program,” Bardwell says. “Examine how Microsoft and Apple have rolled out significant campaigns targeting niche audiences for their major product releases.”

TV advertising goes digital
Digital innovation is helping make television advertising more affordable—and more targeted.

“For as little as $2,000, a company can create and launch a local campaign on cable,” says Rosabel Tao, vice president of corporate communications at Los Angeles-based Spot Runner, an advertising agency with a library of thousands of digitally customizable TV spots.

A single spot costs $499 and can be customized with new video, voiceover, text and more. The agency also creates original campaigns that “can be taken down to the local level.” For instance, a marketing arm of DeBeers commissioned a national campaign, which its retail partners can access online and customize to individual stores and markets.

Similarly, New York-based Visible World works with advertising agencies to convert existing TV spots into hundreds, if not thousands, of permutations targeted to individual markets.

“It’s the same ad, the same spot,” Bardwell says, “but you are able to program in different demographic profiles using a digital dashboard—make it Spanish-speaking, build in different levels of affluence. It can be snowing in the Northeast and sunny in Florida.”

Conceivably it’s possible to vary a spot from household to household, Bardwell says.

Some advertisers commission digital spots that never make it to TV or cable. AngelVision Technologies in Portland, Ore., creates three-minute digital “impact movies” with more than 20 uses. 

“Adding video to a Web site attracts visitors and makes them more likely to stick around,” says Jeff Otis, vice president of business development. “A company can address its audience’s pain points, draw out common objections and conclude with a call to action.”

In addition to adding video to its Web site, a mattress maker could offer the movie to its retailers for store play, run it as television advertising, show the movie in office lobbies or post it online as a standalone image brochure. An impact movie also could form the core of a buzz marketing campaign. 

Direct mail to email
Capturing email addresses and converting an offline database into “warmer” online prospects is the goal of PIN-coding campaigns, says Ryan Buchanan, chief executive officer of eROI, an online marketing services agency based in Portland. 

A PIN-coding campaign uses direct mail to encourage recipients to go online and enter their PIN code. In return for supplying their email address and perhaps answering a few qualifying questions, prospects receive something of value.

Incentives could be sleep tips, coupons or the opportunity to win a prize, Buchanan says.

Follow-up could include opt-in e-newsletters or informational emails. Send them on weekends when the open-and-click rates are highest.

“Enable readers to rely on you as a third-party news and information source,” Buchanan says.

Giving and getting back
Make sure your company’s philanthropic work is part of its reputation.

A 2007 survey conducted by the Opinion Research Corp. found that with price and quality being equal, 87% of consumers say they are likely to switch from one brand to another if the other brand is associated with a good cause—an increase of 31% since 1993.

“Younger consumers especially have learned from an early age to, when faced with similar products, perform a ‘cultural audit’ of the company,” says Robyn Waters, marketing expert and founder of RW Trend in New York City. “Beyond its product, how does a company treat its employees? Is it respectful of the environment and giving back to the community?”