Brian Zafron: I Eat Web 2.0 for Breakfast

Obese people eat.

Smelly people smell.

Interactive marketers, like me, interactively market.

Tuesday’s post talked about the increasing necessity of interactive marketing. Of course, the necessity is only one piece of the puzzle. Thus, today I present you with the remaining pieces, or at least the next ten… you know what? This metaphor sucks. Let’s just cut to the chase: 10 Outrageously Helpful Tips To Succeed At Interactive Marketing

(These are tips that I’ve implemented in my businesses for as long as I can remember.  Read them, learn them, and if you really want to get interactive on this crazy, crazy St. Valentine’s Day, try to eat them. )

1. Get people excited. If you don’t pique the interests of your customer, you can chuck your product and your wonderful marketing schemes out your 100th story window. Tap into passions. Get a feel for your demographic and cater to their embedded likes and dislikes. And then, and only then, start contemplating interactive designs. To those simple-minded readers, let me throw it down like this: people don’t care shit about shit unless they’re excited.
2. Think immersive. Once you get the customer involved, you want him/her to stay involved for as long as possible. No wonder 64% of this year’s Superbowl commercials included a website. That’s right, homies: 64%. Here’s a sub-tip: Utilize microsites and extensive ad units to maximize the brand experience. Basically, the more you can immerse the consumer (without overwhelming him/her with too many options/too much complexity), the better. Check out Reebok’s awesome multimedia site when you a moment – I bet you won’t want to leave anytime soon.
3. Make it personal. People are unique, or at least we like to think so. Many interactive marketing campaigns thrive on their personalization functions, the ability to customize to the individual. People love how sites like Amazon and Netflix, for example, are able to recommend products based upon past activity. But how can you customize without becoming Big Brother?  The truph (truth with a “ph” because it’s just that raw): hard work and test runs.
4. Simplicity is key. It’s not that people are stupid. We’re just busy as balls and don’t have the time nor desire to sift through convoluted information. Interactive marketing only works when the customer is interested before overwhelmed, interacting before scratching his/her head. See Hot or Not for an example of excruciatingly simple, but highly effective (and trafficked) interactivity.
5. Don’t neglect ROI. It doesn’t matter how you measure it – CPC, CPM, CPA, etc. – but clients need to see concrete results in the form of dollars and cents. All interactive marketing efforts need to keep in mind conversions down the line, particularly how text links and search words will feed into your broader campaign. In other words, target, target, and oh yeah, target.
6. Let the customer do the work. Sometimes the best way to get the word out for a campaign is to step aside. Customers enjoy the sense of empowerment and influence that comes with editorializing a brand on the Internet. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that people are listening, particularly when you are passionate about the information you are distributing. Great examples of interactive marketing, in which the “marketers” step aside, include Swiffer’s video contest and companies like Affinitive and BzzAgent.
7. Explicitly encourage virality. Give the customer a kick in the pants, so to speak. Rather than cross your fingers and hope he/she will send an email, bookmark your site, or spread the word at next week’s cooking club meeting, simply dole out specific instructions: you’d be surprised at the rate of response. Although people like to think they’re unique, they also don’t like thinking -  so go ahead perform the “thinking” for them. Take a gander through Facebook at any time and note the directness of the advertisements along the sides of the page. “Sign up for x video contest,” “Get involved in the Ron Paul Revolution,” etc.
8. Make An Offer They Can’t Refuse. Lure them in with an offer that’s sweeter than candy. The offer has the potential to not only bring in direct traffic, but if sweet enough – and I’m talking sweeter than a tootsie roll here, but not necessarily sweeter than a chocolate soufflé -  it can also initiate flurries of referrals, or in other words, virality.
9. Any tips of your own? This tip is meant to encourage you, dear readers, to respond to this post with your own tips. Let the interactivity begin.
10. Seriously, any tips of your own? This tip is supposed to encourage even MORE interactivity. Also…. I’m hungry, and I want to go eat some lunch.

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