Last week Apple announced their new 4^th Generation iPod Touch. And they did it without rolling out a new advertising campaign. Their marketing strategy for the newest installment of the iPod Touch was to let the fans generate all the hype. And it seems to be working. With online orders currently being accepted, and shipments scheduled to begin in about four weeks, Apple fanatics are eagerly waiting to try out this latest technology.

A company like Apple that has a reputation for quality products and a large (and devoted) fan base can get away with saving money on traditional marketing and advertising campaigns because Apple fans know they listen to their users and take their ideas into consideration. As usual Apple listened to their fans’ praises and concerns and have added higher demand features to the iPod Touch 4G that have been discussed on blogs, forums and social media channels. (In particular, the addition of not one but two cameras to the 4^th Generation is causing a buzz.) Apple has been known for quality so the initial reviews should be good and I predict sales will be high even in a struggling economy—good news for Apple that hopes the iPod Touch 4G will reignite iPod sales across the board.

For most companies, removing traditional advertising during a product launch is unrealistic. Apple relied (and still does for other products) on traditional advertising to build and reinforce trust and loyalty in their customer base in order to be in the position they are today. Now they can rely on word-of-mouth to generate excitement about new, upgraded products that are extensions of successful lines. But in this struggling economy it is even more critical that brands get their name and products/services in the public eye. And for the majority of brands, a strategic infusion of advertising is the most effective way to do this.

While all brands strive to have a reputation like Apple, most brands need to spend more time advertising. Could your brand be the next Apple?

Read more blogs at SCG’s 41 Stories.

-Chad Breske

If you live in one of the nine markets for the new “I’m a Mormon” ad campaign blitz, you’ve likely seen or heard the ads that convey the normalcy of Mormons today. The Twin Cities is among the nine markets that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has selected to test their campaign and I was intrigued from the first TV spot I saw during prime time about a month ago. 

I’ll admit, the first thing my suspicious, former reporter mind wondered was if the church is attempting to pave the way for conservatives’ acceptance of Mitt Romney in 2012, which could make him the first party endorsed Mormon presidential candidate in America’s history. Apparently, I wasn’t alone—Fox News leapt to that same speculation early in the ad campaign. Then I began to mentally cycle through American history and we elected Nixon (a Quaker) and the first-ever Catholic, JFK, to our highest office. And current conspiracy theorists have falsely convinced almost a quarter of Americans that we’ve now elected a Muslim. So a political candidate’s religion might be a non-issue after all.

But seriously, from a purely marketing standpoint, I think the ads are quite good. They feature very relatable (aka: normal) Mormons engaged in a variety of activities and pursuing diverse professional and personal interests while talking about their faith. The ads are well done, convincing (if normalcy is the messaging objective) and intriguing. Apparently, I’m not alone in my interest either. According to Scott Swofford, director of media for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, traffic at mormon.org is up 300 percent since the campaign launch. In test markets like the Twin Cities, traffic has spiked 400 to 800 percent above typical levels since the ads began to run. That’s an unequivocal success, from a campaign measurement standpoint.

With such positive metrics behind its efforts so far, I would expect The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to expand beyond these initial middle American test cities: Minneapolis-St. Paul, Baton Rouge, Colorado Springs, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, Rochester, NY, Oklahoma City, St. Louis and Tucson. So, don’t feel neglected if you don’t reside in one of these test markets. “I’m a Mormon” TV and radio spots, billboards, and public transit and internet ads may soon become part of your everyday consciousness. If you can’t wait, discover what all the buzz is about by visiting mormon.org or find them on Facebook and YouTube.

What do you think of the new “I’m a Morman” campaign?

Read more blogs from SCG’s 41 Stories.

-Steph Haugan

As sales people we are taught to ask questions to find out valuable information about the prospect. We are taught to use a combination of open ended and closed ended questions to get the desired result but what about the questions themselves? I have learned that it’s not always what you ask but rather how you ask that is important. 

Art Sobczak, owner of Business by Phone and producer of the weekly TelE-Sales Tip suggests that anyone attempting to create leads by phone should make every attempt to gain commitment from the prospect instead of asking for permission. You can read Art’s article here. 

Essentially what Art is saying is that instead of asking a prospect for permission such as “Can I send you a proposal?”, gain commitment by asking “If I send you a proposal will you look it over and we can discuss it in more detail on Wednesday? Generating leads using this method, as we do at SCG’s Perfect Pitch Contact Center, allows you to more quickly move the prospect towards trial.

Many sales people mistake activity for accomplishment. If you’re calling someone just to “stay in touch” you won’t accomplish much more than making another call. The goal of prospecting is to move the prospect from unaware to trial as quickly as possible. This is done most cost effectively by setting goals for each call and gaining commitment to take appropriate next steps on future calls incrementally moving forward towards a trial of your product or service. The benefits of a prepared phone conversation was a topic for my blog earlier in the year.

Have you been guilty of calling for just the sake of calling?

Read more blogs at SCG’s 41 Stories.

 -Randy West

A few weeks ago, I experienced Southwest Airlines for the first time on a flight to Chicago. Right from the gate, I discovered a bizarre world exists in the monotonous airline industry. Typically, one carrier blends in with another, only to be differentiated by pretzels vs. peanuts. Southwest, known as a no-frills budget airline, definitely stands out. Its promise: “To get you to your destination safely and comfortably with a laugh or two along the way.” The result: An aggravating experience for this first-time Southwest flier. 

As the majority of airlines have introduced baggage fees, Southwest has boldly done the opposite. Their current marketing message, “Bags Fly Free,” is both direct and enticing. The medium on which they advertise also sets them apart. Fifty of their aircrafts have giant stickers with the slogan, “Free Bags Fly Here,” and 1,000 of their luggage carts boldly state, “I Carry Free Bags.” This is great placement. While you are awaiting takeoff on a competitor’s flight, you are reminded that you could have checked your bags at Southwest at no extra charge. For me, the beauty of free bags meant that there would be an abundance of overhead space for my weekend carry-on, making boarding a breeze. Or so I thought.

Which brings me to the second point of difference on Southwest flights: there is no assigned seating.  At the check-in kiosk, I was offered a $15 upgrade for “priority seating” and a free beverage. Not realizing the value of this offer, I declined. When my boarding pass said “No seat assigned. Group C-8,” I assumed I would get my assignment at the gate.

I arrived at the gate and soon realized that seating on Southwest is a glorified melee. Feigning order, Southwest asks fliers to line up alphanumerically. The majority of fliers are in Group A, having purchased the upgrade (this was later confirmed by all the drink coupons being redeemed). Group B consisted of people who had checked-in electronically many hours before departure. And Group C was comprised of myself and a handful of other people, who had naively checked in upon arriving at the airport. 

This is where Southwest’s no assigned seating concept FAILS, especially on a full plane. People began to file onto the plane with singles opting for a window or aisle seat, leaving many lone middle seats available. People traveling together obviously wanted to sit together, so they kept walking until they found two adjoining seats. As people passed open seats (usually the shunned middle ones), a bottle-neck effect was created. Everyone had shuffled to the rear of the plane where there weren’t any seats left so the whole line had to back up the aisle. At this point, my bag and I were stuck going backwards. As one of the last to board, all of the overhead bins had been snapped shut, and I was stranded with no place to stow my bag. Finally, after desperate searching, my carry-on ended up above row 28, and I was in row 7.

Finally, I was seated, albeit sweaty and agitated. Then the strangest thing happened. As the flight attendants began their oratory on exit rows and oxygen masks, I heard them rapping. On the intercom system. On purpose. This is another way Southwest sets itself apart. During the obligatory safety summary, the flight attendants tell jokes, sing songs and rap. Maybe due to my bag-separation anxiety (I realized that I would have to wait for everyone to deplane before we would be reunited), I found the “comedic” presentation far from funny. But, from a marketing perspective, I had to give them kudos for doing the unexpected. In the five minutes that passengers usually tune-out, Southwest had engaged their audience and created a brand experience.

Overall, Southwest is doing some very novel things which set them apart from competitors. Having survived the chaos, I will give Southwest another chance.  Now prepared, I will splurge on the upgrade, and I will have my iPod handy if I’m not in the mood for a rap. And, maybe this bizarre Southwest world WILL make me laugh and calm the cranky traveler in me.

Have you flown Southwest? What do you think of their seating and schtick?

Read more blogs at SCG’s 41 Stories.

-Joy Wagner

EXTRA POLL: Do you think the disgruntled JetBlue flight attendant, Steven Slater, should get his job back?

Has the low cost of email marketing made it a more appealing marketing tool with each passing day?  If you’re thinking of shifting your marketing dollars to email simply to save costs, you may want to read this article before hitting the Send button.  Because if your message isn’t getting through, have you really accomplished anything?

A recent report by MailerMailer confirmed what you may have been suspecting for a while now – email success rates are in decline. Open rates dropped from 12% in the first half of 2009 to 11.2% in the second half and click-through rates declined from 2.6% to 1.6%. Both have been in decline since 2007.

This does not mean you should abandon email marketing. In fact, we know it’s played a highly effective role in many programs we’ve developed for clients. But if marketers are thinking of consolidating the majority of their direct marketing tactics to email solely for budgetary concerns, they may want to reconsider. 

There’s no doubt email marketing costs less to produce than other channels such as direct mail or telemarketing.  But as SPAM blockers continue to get more sophisticated, as poorly disciplined companies overwhelm inboxes with irrelevant offers, and as people continue to get overwhelmed in their digital lives, the success rates of email campaigns is likely to continue this decline.

At SCG, our philosophy has always been no single tactic on its own will meet your marketing objectives. We know that it typically requires a minimum of 8-12 interactions to move a prospect from unaware of your product or service to taking action – and that can’t be accomplished as efficiently or effectively through one channel. For example, we typically recommend an integrated approach to converge on the customer. So to support an email campaign, telephone follow-up or mailing more detailed information such as a white paper on the topic might be the best answer. Only through this type of integrated approach can you be confident your message is reaching its intended target.

So however tempting it is to focus your marketing budget solely on email campaigns, resist the urge.  It will pay off in the end.

-Jeron Udean

You’re most likely using Google Alerts to be “alerted” to news updates about a particular company or topic. I continue to rely on them for updates and believe they are a helpful resource for news. But what about tracking the social media universe? As marketers, we know that tracking and monitoring conversations around your brand(s) is a necessity. This is where Social Mention comes in very handy. Social Mention is a social media search and analysis platform that aggregates user-generated content from across the web into a single stream of information. In other words, it allows you to easily track what people are saying about a company, individual, a new product or any topic across the web’s social media landscape in real-time. For example, you can track mentions of a company on Twitter as a way to quickly respond to followers or make yourself aware of current sentiments about your brand.

Social Mention monitors more than 100 social media sites including Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed, YouTube, Digg and Google. It also offers a strength score (is your brand being discussed in social media?), sentiment (positive, neutral and negative), passion score (a measurement of the likelihood that individuals talking about your brand will repeatedly do so) and reach (or range of influence).

There are more sophisticated social media tracking programs available, some of which SCG uses, but as a first step, Social Mention is a cost-effective way to start tracking and measuring. As the Social Media B2B blog explains, it’s a great addition to your listening toolbox—and can be an especially valuable tool for B2B marketers.

How do you keep track of the conversations happening around you and your brands?

-Jenny Silgen

About two-thirds of our agency’s business mix is B2B. The remainder is B2C and Public Affairs. We do digital marketing work for all of our clients and also provide an ongoing program of social media for each. I thought it might be instructive to share some of the observations and conclusions we have made in discovering some of the relevant distinctions between B2B and B2C social media.

First, I think a key difference in B2B is the added edge social media offers the sales team. Its ability to connect marketing to sales – and support lead generation – is proven and we are seeing B2B companies shift their budgets away from traditional media (like print ads in trade publications) to social media. Since a key goal of B2B marketing is to convert prospects into customers, the ability of social media to cost-effectively support a longer, more complex, bigger ticket sales process highlights the other key advantage in B2B – more manageable scalability.

Scalability is a permanent challenge for social media in my mind. A key benefit of social media is customer engagement. It is easier from a scale perspective to offer consistent and meaningful customer engagement to B2B clients because the audience is generally much smaller and thus it is more manageable to keep things at a personal level. Much of the social media programming I see on behalf of B2C companies is in reality broadcasting, not interacting.

Despite the clear benefits of B2B social media, we find more natural executive buy-in with our B2C client companies for a couple of reasons. First, they are very quick to grasp that it is a cost-effective way to engage with consumers. Secondly, user-generated content from brand enthusiasts often helps expand the reach of their B2C social media campaign and reduces some of the major B2C scalability challenges. Consumers don’t need to be engaged directly with the company to engage with the brand.

Conversely, most of our B2B social media audience really likes receiving access to very specialized custom content (such as an ongoing blog on adhesives), but is less inclined to overtly engage or share information because often they are using our social media platform for their livelihoods and don’t want to reveal to competitors what they are up to.

Now that I’ve pointed out some of the key differences, it’s important to point out that I see far more similarities between the two. For both, you’re probably better off  demonstrating thought leadership or supporting a relevant cause than just pushing product. Also with both, you need to realize that although the tools are free, it’s far from a “free” venture, as it takes a lot of effort to keep your social media campaigns current and relevant – and thoughtfully respond to your followers. Finally, with both you need to have a strategy and reason for doing it.  For example, a B2B company may not get any value in having a Facebook page that focuses on their products. But if they want to recruit better employees, they may find value in creating a Facebook page that shows they are a fun place to work with a dynamic culture.

Whether you’re in B2C or B2B, we have found social media to be an effective vehicle for reaching and engaging your target audience on a differentiated, authentic basis. We use the same SCG Digital Content Flow model as a starting point for both. 

-Patrick Strother

One of the perks (or perhaps curses, depending on how you look at it) of living with a guy that’s a complete sports nut is having the privilege of watching ESPN on occasion. So you can imagine my surprise last week when I discovered the TV was set on ESPN in anticipation of LeBron James’ announcement of where he would play for the next few seasons. I’ll admit, I really had no interest in finding out “The Decision,” but when I watched the spectacle unfold on the screen before me, I couldn’t help but get drawn into the ridiculousness of it all. Granted, LeBron James is a phenomenal basketball player – that much I’d gleaned from the prime-time ESPN special – but I just couldn’t grasp why it was such an event. It made me start to wonder what happened to filling airtime with news that isn’t self-serving.

Nevertheless, ESPN and LeBron James got the publicity they were after. According to Nielsen, the hour-long special was the third most-watched program on cable television this year, with an estimated 9.95 million viewers. It was also the highest non-NFL rating on ESPN this year and website visitors spent 130 million collective minutes on espn.com that day. Some would say that it was an example of powerful PR tactics. After all, the LeBron James hype did manage to generate significant coverage on multiple media platforms, boost professional basketball content, and give advertisers tremendous exposure. On the other hand, an article on MinnPost.com points out that this type of programming has weakened news media and taken away from real journalism. So where do we draw the line between using star power to get ratings and delivering real, authentic news?

To be fair, the six million advertising dollars spent on “The Decision” by VitaminWater, McDonald’s, State Farm Insurance, Microsoft’s Bing and the University of Phoenix were donated to charity. According to an article in Advertising Age, the Boys & Girls Clubs of America received $2.5 million from the program. While the charitable contributions did help mitigate the sensationalism of it all, the fact remains that newsmakers are being given increasingly more power to dictate content to the news media. And I have a sneaking suspicion that we have not seen the last of this kind of overly dramatic programming.

Did you tune in?     

-Mary Nhotsavang

This year’s Taste of Minnesota, an annual summer festival of music and food, was an expensive ticket. This Fourth of July celebration started in 1983 with free admission, but today attendees pay $20 to $30 a ticket, depending upon the time of day you arrive. Hopes were high for the event, which this year had more food vendors and well-known musical acts (like local artists Atmosphere and national act Counting Crows) than in past years. In the end, the event received mixed reviews because frankly, in these challenging economic times this celebration that is branded for Minnesota families was too costly for them to enjoy.

I remember going to the Taste of Minnesota in the 90’s and having such a good time. We spent a lot on food and drinks, danced to good music, enjoyed the rides and had a lot of fun—with no cover charge. I know the cover was intended to bear some of the expenses; it just needs to be within reason.

This year, the Taste of Minnesota’s brand was confused—it’s billed as a family event for Minnesotans, but many can’t (or don’t want to pay) the high admission fee. A family of four entering the Taste before 4:00 would have to spend $80.00 before even taking a bite to eat! And while the stormy weather over the holiday weekend didn’t help, Faris International Management, owners of the event, told Dave Orrick of the Pioneer Press that they recognize changes need to be made, and they are going to figure out what needs to be done for next year.

I look forward to seeing how they reinvent their brand (and pricing) to better reach their target audience of Minnesota families.

Did you attend the Taste of Minnesota? What did you think of the event?

-Carol Payne

In this age of the Internet, a businesses’ website is just one component of a complete online digital presence.  Typically a site will have various pages with standard company information: about us, contact us, and products and services. But in today’s world of instant information, customers (current and potential) demand more information, faster. Companies are responsible for effectively integrating new communication technologies to increase their reach to current as well as potential customers.

Before marketing on the web, companies relied on printed brochures, sell sheets, catalogs, business cards, sales team staff, calling programs, direct mail, trade-shows, advertising, and public relations. And while all of these marketing strategies are still vital and necessary today, when it comes to web marketing it’s a waste of the variety of free marketing tools to simply rely on a digitized version of your brochures.

When the web was first introduced, the pressure on companies was just to have a presence to avoid being left in the dust by competitors. Then the issue became how to drive potential customers to the site. Direct email to your current and potential customer list, SEO and pay-per-click ads worked (and continue to work) as your yellow pages to drive site traffic. But why stop there?

Today there are a plethora of social media options ready to be used to promote your company. The use of these social networking sites has extended far beyond their initial purpose, and continues to evolve. The idea of this new web marketing strategy is based on a building with no roads analogy:

Imagine your business is a building with a sign on it, located in the middle of nowhere with no roads in front of it. No one (current and potential customers) can get there unless they know exactly where it is. Now imagine for every form of access someone has to your website, a road will be paved to your building. That first road will be “highway SEO”. But the more roads to your building, the more potential customers. Now if you actively use a blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, buzz.yahoo, StumbleUpon, delicious, flicker, YouTube, and SlideShare you would have 11 more roads to your building and a lot more visibility to you business.

Increasing your digital presence allows your company to reach more potential customers, and allows you to more creatively share information. Below is a great graphic that illustrates the top social networks and how to best use them to you advantage. Thanks to cmo.com.

And below is the Conversation Prism (courtesy of Brian Solis and JESS3) which illustrates many more social media outlets than what I’ve listed above.

How are you creatively building digital visibility for your company?

-Trevor Nolte