4 questions about Buzz Marketing

1 - How a community can reinforce a brand?

There are at least 7 good reasons to use the communities:

- Consolidating buyers in their choice to take the brand to brand the community used to add additional value-added product (advice, uses unique ...) which will reinforce the feelings of the customer to have made the right choice. In addition it can reassure its relations on the seriousness of the mark, climbing a further dialogue. For example, the site of the PACE. Com offers within a community that allows members to share their experiences and enhance the data already on the website.

- Obtain a customer base that is willing to receive messages, which was not necessarily to sell the community can spend more messages quickly, more informal and non-commercial, instead of going through the usual channels of communication that are locked and formatted (both by the internal process of self-censorship by publishing procedures and validation ...). The community puts in place a less corporate communication. For example, the division of Sage CRM has established a community for users of Sage SalesLogix one of their software.

- Get customers from other brands: establishing a community theme with high added value can also be recovered from customers of other brands that are looking for information related to a generic use of the product. For example, the site www.buzzpoker.fr federates the first community of poker enthusiasts in France, but ultimately this will be a tremendous tool for recruiting crazy poker!

- If the trend in a sector or sharp edge, setting up a community around a brand also helps to make "the reference" on this subject on the Internet. Indeed, on the net more than elsewhere, there is a premium first-come, thus raising barriers to entry for the following. A community is also very interesting to federate the early adopters and influencers that will make this community a reference. For example, Orange Business Services has established a community of bloggers around the security of data, thus enhancing their expertise in this area (nb: for now this community is exclusive to employees of orange, but it should not fail to be open to a wider audience).

- Make a community work for you: set up a community can generate content via users instead of having to produce all or even ... That is how we acquire a better visibility (more text, images ... improve the natural search of a site) but also new and original content generated by the members (video ...) a bit like blogbang.com that provides members to create their own videos.

- Develop a communication tool for loyalty in the long term in that role by his "neutral" in relation to commercial messages is the ideal tool to implement a customer loyalty program.

- Get the ski field more quickly and directly. For example, the site developers of the software to animate Act allows resellers such solutions and validate them live with the new features, patches ...
Ideally this website allows you to develop specific products that can be carried by this community because after it. This is already the case in the salesforce community where customers and resellers can share together, their customers requests and their partners specific addons. It happens to the establishment of a win-win ecosystem where everyone finds his advantage.

The dangers of the community:
- No longer controls its communication
- Show its strengths and weaknesses of its competitors
- To manage its distribution channels

Prerequisites:
- Accept to hand over to users
- Provide content to the growing community members to become interested and get involved (tips, help, new content, value added ...)
- Providing the means to launch the machine to start supplying the content, and moderate figures published.
- Be patient: a community must be built over time. The accession of new members is a lengthy process that gave little fruit at the start ... and to ensure that successive it is essential that a communication relay (information in newsletters, to relay commercial, organization of events ...).
- Identify the number of leads generated or it via the community to justify its existence.

2. The viral marketing a new Eldorado?

Viral marketing is an Eldorado for both brands but also (and especially ...) for communication agencies ...

In fact all companies now are dreaming of a buzz campaign that could very quickly make them known to millions of Internet users through the calling native of the Internet allows a rapid and decentralized information.

This trend is especially strong as the apparent ease of achieving a viral marketing campaign can now dream and in most communication plans there to become a new line of video on the buzz ...

Why a video of buzz over another media (image, sound ...) me would you? Simply because the video has democratized (which has not had to suffer the projections movies weddings, communions ...) and secondly most amateur videographers have a much better control of video and bases special effects (see Film Sweden).

Finally broadcast platforms are easy to use and broadband allows for easy viewing on the Internet.

In the final video is a tool that may not cost too much and big ... if we manage to succeed his video and its dissemination (see an example of viral video failed because of bad actors) ...

Indeed another aspect of viral marketing is the use of social networks to disseminate information. It can be done through organized networks (facebook, koreus.com forums, communities rigoler.com, like digg as chauffeurdebuzz.com, influential bloggers ...) and free (dissemination via the Internet directly by email)

Again these tools do not necessarily a lot of money but a good knowledge of the tools and time to convince and identify influencers (places and persons) ...

Communication agencies have fully understood this because they now offer these tools in their catalog of services ... the problem is that most have a very theoretical buzz and therefore they produce videos promoting products rather than videos buzz ...

More who do evil new communication tools of Web 2.0 they are often not to disseminate their "advertorials videos clumsy" ... and therefore the last few months of communications agencies virales days have seen the benefits with quality very often variable ...

Finally viral marketing can be a good solution for a small creative company that wants to be known (with a successful example www.mymajorcompany.com) or for companies who choose a specialized agency.

However lack of knowledge of this tool and an agency, most companies will find themselves face to face with communications agencies located in the viral marketing that a new opportunity to increase customer's bill without having to assume a result ... because who can predict success at the failure of a viral campaign ...

3. Could you give 3 tips on using the new tools of marketing alternative?

- Focus first on the idea the prime substance over form. A very funny but not very well formatting will always be more effective than a nice message, but that does not viralité. You must ask yourself these questions "Why someone would transfer this information?" "What's funny enough, surprising ... that the reader will think that it would appeal, or one of his contacts?"

- Put as much time and money in putting the operation in its implementation. That is for 1 euro invested in the creation you have to invest 1 euro to promote it. This can be done by purchasing tickets to sponsorisés bloggers, buy advertising space, by renting mailing lists ... it's even more important that tens of viral campaigns arise every day, and to distinguish have a good idea is not enough to be on its success ...

- Do not forget the visibility of its brand: a viral video (or any other tool) is to attract traffic to a site, generating orders, increase awareness, make the teasing ... it must ensure proper visibility of the brand or best offer a series of viral videos with a relay on a dedicated website.

For more information you can read our articles viral videos:
- To publicize his business through a viral video
- 4 tips for successful buzz.
- Behind the buzz of a successful

4. As bloggers what do you want a brand that you approach?

A brand any interest to contact the bloggers of its theme, because they represent a huge audience (targeted or general) and so far google greatly favors the blogs in the natural search ...

There are 3 types of bloggers with different behaviors, and therefore different approaches ...

- Bloggers niche: they are sophisticated in their themes and they attract a targeted audience. To seduce them must be content, action, publicity ... relating to their activities. Personal contact is of course essential (for example, a point between the mark and a recently published article) to establish a relationship with him. Another plus is to offer a small gift that will motivate them to speak more quickly your product.

- Bloggers low hearing to mark the time income is too low to justify an individual contact. It will be interesting to make the membership or advertising adsense ...

- Bloggers stars (or influential) as their specialty, they are courted by the marks because a posting on their site is equivalent to hundreds (or thousands) of visits ... It is therefore necessary to provide a quality and highly personalized. For example, in making contact well before the release of its news, offering exclusive (very popular blogs like TechCrunch) ... and of course the evening or gift vip!

However all have in common that can only have time and therefore we have always to say why the blogger would be an article about his business, and present this argument in his email presentation.

How to create a successful online community?

Loyalty often based on creating a community of users, here's an article about virtual communities, from design to promotion.

What is a virtual community?

A virtual community is a group of people who communicate through mail, Internet, mail, telephone, for professional, social, educational or otherwise.

The word virtual is used to signify that they are not face to face communication (as in a classic association). This community can use various tools to shape the internet, simply forum like Yahoo Answers, the real-time 3D world as SecondLife.com.

The concept of community also includes many types of content, whether forums as mutual www.commentcamarche.com, sites doctissimo.com of information, sharing sites like www.scoopeo.com of links, interest groups on Facebook.com ...

The virtual community is a multifaceted tool that allows you to federate about a subject or a specific need, to earn money by placing advertising on the pages, identify influencers in a sector of activity (and thus lock in the market) ...

The interactivity of this community is of course set by its creator, which will define the content: discussion between members or publications unilateral communication between the various members ...

5 key factors for successful virtual community!

1 - The community should be based on the needs of (future) members and not a tool or technology.

In fact, the most common error when trying to create a community on the Internet is to spend too much time on the choice of the tool or the desire to make the "Web 2.0" ...

It is better to spend more time analyzing the needs and expectations of future members to identify what will come and participate in this community.
Always ask yourself the question: What is it? Why a person should be on my group? What does it brings? What is that these users are looking for?

If necessary remember the Maslow pyramid, with the classification of the different needs of individuals.

You must offer your members at least 1 of these elements, possibly the most basic. For example, for security advice is to use the product in case of trouble, the other considers it to be recognized as an expert in the field with a ranking of the Top users ...

It should be noted that generally the users of a community are looking for one or two major functions, and all your ancillary functions will be little used or not ... We need to focus and do what your visitors are focusing (to have the visibility, find tips, communicate with each other, ask questions ...).

A perfect example of technological unpacking is unnecessary Digg Like Blogasty.com offering very many functions, but where 99% of users use only the publication of links, then there are functions "unnecessary "but who have taken much time to its author (mapping of the members listed on a map of France, xview a square in the news, groups with thematic live un ... like Twitter).

Warning: usually works for a community must be a part of users enjoy the benefits of membership of the community and lead by their dynamism remaining members ... This may be to offer free advice to land expert in then to sell their services to attract visitors to a website ...
It is difficult to find at the outset of users entirely voluntary as is the case on large forums www.Commentcamarche.com.

2 - Watch out for conflicts of interests among different populations.

Among your members, you have to distinguish different people have different motivations (the new, experts, users, resellers of products ...).

These populations can sometimes enter into conflict with each other or even among themselves (eg if there are several retailers of different products or different websites). You must determine the rules from the outset, even if it means excluding certain types of messages or populations (or limited to certain parts of the forum).

To do this you must, of course, moderate the forum, but also delegate this task to the most active users and more "transparent". These "super users" should be identified as such in order not to generate misunderstandings with other users (color, title ...).

Remember that there are different types of members (see below), and you have to identify contributors and creators to be the real engine of your virtual community.

Attention against to keep control of your community, or you may not be the master! Always be involved (or at least informed) of the various events and developments, otherwise you may become a victim of your community ... Indeed one of your competitors may infiltrate the community and use it against you (false rumors ...).

3 - Promote your community.

It is illusory to think that a community naturally attract your customers and prospects. You must plan a launch in order to recruit members.
As for your customers you should notify by email, possibly automatically include this community, save the information in your email signature, offer exclusive events or preview in this space (eg pre-launch VIP) , establish a newsletter containing the best articles ...
For prospects, the community may be the first step towards the brand by offering a community theme not exclusively related to your brand. This community will be more general, the more it will attract a wide audience.

We must not forget your influencers (bloggers, prescribers ...) that must also be included in the project long term, as they contribute to sustain over the long term your community.

4 - Encourage members to return.

A community that does not live (message, issues, events ...) is a community that died ... it means that you realize your own content, but you plan to let users generate content by themselves (questions, debates , competitions, votes ...).

The content must be updated regularly, and communication should be sent to members (at least every month). If you start a new community you will have to provide from the outset with a lot of content in a regular line to "make the sauce, and very often intervene to create life.

5 - Measure the success of your community.

Like any marketing tool is not directly related to the sale, a community tend to be quickly abandoned if it does not prove its relevance in the generation of revenue (sales, benefits and services ...).
You must clearly identify what is the turnover generated via a dashboard that allows you to justify the maintenance of a tool that is sometimes cumbersome.

For against do not limit yourself to just the margin generated: You must also take into account the improvement of the quality of services, sales of new services (eg the forum may be an additional service to technical support) ...

Finally time to leave your community to set up: it takes several weeks or months to see a community come alive. You must allow time to time.
How to start your community?

The start of the community can be very long (several weeks or months ...), should therefore follow a few rules to expand its virtual community:

- Highlight from the home page how to register and how to participate in the community, and simplify the procedure (to write a comment and only then nominate, do not ask to fill in forms too long ...) .

- Attract influencers of other topics close to yours. We just have to intervene in the communities and meet competitors by adding links to your own community or find blogs with issues close to yours.

- Produce at the outset content very high quality and high value added. This can be quickly respond to highly technical issues, post records practices ...

- Give visibility to new contributors (image of the member of days on the home page as in ClubMarketing.fr), and make sure that when you click on their profile the number of reading is recorded and that the links are clicked well tracked as coming from your site through Google Analytics so that your visitors contributor shows that you are responsible. It also give importance to your best contributors, creating a "private club", such as the Circle of Experts in Marketing www.marketing-etudiant.fr.

- Animate your community by organizing competitions and challenges, such as a contest of those who post the most information as regularly Doc-etudiant.fr.

- Be registered by Google to attract traffic via natural search. Indeed there are many communities whose content is not searchable by Google as protected by a password (eg communities Viadeo).

- Relay the contents of your community through a newsletter and / or a blog to promote the best content of the communities and make it your sounding board. In fact most members of a community that rarely do consult it, it must give them reasons to return. You can follow the example of Eric Dupin Citron.net-Press, which publishes every week a Top Hebdo links clicked most of Fuzz.fr.

- Explicitly ask your members to participate, it is enough to send a message to its members asking them to respond on a topic (survey, news ...) to give a boost to its community!

- Put some real in the virtual world: organize meetings physical, video-conference ... in order to forge stronger ties with your members.

To know what are the most important forums, you can download the map forums Francophone leaders.

What solution to create the Virtual Community?

There are many tools to create its virtual community. It is possible to create communities on private social networks like viadeo.com / Ning.com / Facebook.com / ... making it possible to capitalize on the pool of thousands of members who are already in these communities.
The interest is that these sites offer the most to create a community ready to use free! This means you do not need to manage all the technical aspect and you can focus on content. However please note that these sites are not designed for that purpose at the base and so you arrive very quickly to the limits ...
For example, in communities Viadeo.com it is not possible to add images, easily create dozens of categories ... In return, Viadeo has a very large community of professionals that you can attract and encourage them to join your network.

So there are more traditional tools to create free Forums turnkey such www.forumactif.com. The interest of these solutions is that they are perfectly suited for the management of a forum, and it is possible to shift from free (with a display of Adsense ads Print Engine Forums ), the model where you pay your own display advertising.

There are also solutions for creating communities such as thematic Pligg.com or Reddit to create its own Digg-Like. The value of these tools is to federate users around a specific topic and generate content by its users. For example www.fuzz.fr Digg Like the Press-Citron.net, Digg Like our www.conseilscreateur.com for entrepreneurs ...
The interest of these solutions is that it takes less than 2 hours to set up a site with minimum customizations (logo, translated into French ...).

To create communities beyond the sharing of links, it is also possible to use tools like Joomla, elgg.org (see example Vibstar) and Drupal.

It is also possible to create Twitter-Like its communities to create micro-blogging, use engines like http://twingr.com/et Laconica. As against these communities are very limited, because it is possible to publish messages about 140 characters ... without pictures or monitoring reactions or other frills! However this tool can be very interesting to create temporary communities (at a salon for his comments, students ...). It is also a way to involve its readers in the generation of content and enhance the membership of a group, such www.koodji.com of caledosphere.com.

It is also possible to use Wordpress to create a community, through the construction of a collaborative blog like LeJournalDublog.com or blog Safety Orange Business Services.

If you want a more personalized there are also fully customizable solutions, here is a list based on that Blog Dion Hinchcliffe, with favorites such as Joomla, Drupal and DotNetNuke (nb: the list is not ranked by order preferably you to choose according to your ambitions).

1. Joomla (free)
2. Drupal (free)
3. PHP-Nuke (free)
4. Zikula (free)
5. Sharepoint (Microsoft)
6. Lithium
7. DotNetNuke (Free)
8. Community Server
9. KickApps
10. Jive Software
11. Mambo
12. Lotus SameTime
13. OneSite
14. BoonEx
15. Crowdvine
16. Facebook Open Platform
17. Mzinga
18. Leverage Software
19. HiveLive
20. SocialGo
21. IglooSoftware
22. GroupSwim
23. SocialCast
24. Tomoye
25. Pinax
27. BlueKiwi (Start up French - Fee)
28. MediaWiki (toolbox used by Wikipedia)
29. elgg.org (free - allows you to create communities)
30. Typolight (free, an equivalent of Drupal)
31. Plone (Free)
32. Dolphin
33. PhpBB
34. shoutem.com (micro blogging free)

To go further visit the french version of this article.

Top 100 Digg-likes, social bookmarking and social networks in France

After several requests, here are the new Top 100 Likes Digg, social bookmarking sites and social networks for the period from June to November 2008.

This classification is designed to analyze one of these 3 sources of visits which ones have the most potential. In fact over the months, nearly 32 new Digg like that appeared on the net (see table), also accompanied many disappearances (www.notreactualite.com, nordactu.com, www.expert-the-net. com ...)

As each class, we will analyze traffic on www.conseilsmarketing.fr (target B2B), but the novelty of this classification fall is that we have incorporated in the benchmarking test blog Info & News "with articles devoted general public (B2C target, with jokes and information on personal finance) hosted by Blogger (note that we did not use social networks to promote this blog that remains to do tests ...). The new classification will allow us to reduce the bias to the nature of B2B ConseilsMarketing.fr.
3 major trends in the world Digg-likes / Bookmarking / Social Networks

1 - The slowing global visits by Digg Likes.

We are many professionals in the eMarketing noted that despite great efforts to post our most interesting articles on Digg like, the return on investment of time is a free fall. Indeed, even if the overall Digg likes to make more visits, it now does more for tickets as "average", only tickets top quality new or coming out of the lot ... In recent weeks we have doubled the number of articles published without seeing any major impact (and even our good articles attract almost anyone!).

The main reason is competition between the tickets mailed has become extremely strong in recent months. For example Scoopeo on the weekend of November 23 is not less than 287 scoops that have been proposed, or 1 every 10 minutes ... including the night! Given the plethora of items, most of the articles published do not receive sufficient and thus have only a click (yours), while less than a year an article quality harvested at least 3 or 4, which allowed him to be eligible for the Holy Grail of the home page ..

There are few articles that reach the home page for many reasons:
- The lack of voters on our sites: The passivity of readers is one thing (see the example of this ticket on the right where we asked readers to directly vote on the article as a result ... with 2 votes).
- Lack of visibility of the current plugins there is also much
- The creation of support groups via Twitter certain blogs to go up in the ranking.

However, if a ticket to the home page might be the jackpot: one of our articles which has Buzz to harvest alone over 1025 visits in three days with Scoopeo ... But it is not always the case because the other 2 homepages we made have not reached half that figure ...

The Digg Like remain relevant to generate traffic especially on the news "fun" or articles "Premium", but also to make referrals or set up a watch. But it became very difficult to make a place which saw the crowd rushed them.
The proof is our latest free eBook "The Best Advice Marketing 2008", which received 4 clicks on Scoopeo 10 days, although it has been downloaded more than 1 500 times.

2 - The rise of social networks.

At the opposite, the social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook ...) saw their number of members increase, and thus become a real alternative communication platform. For example Facebook groups like "Why live in love and cool water, if you can live sex and alcohol" has almost 200 000 people!

Any good eMarketeur must therefore learn to use new tools, the most emblematic Viadeo, Facebook and Twitter has attracted nearly 4 500 people in 6 months.

Adding the first 10 visitors to the classification, we see that they represent 2 / 3 of total visits and total first 20 80% (while the 100 did that last 20%). If we need to focus on some sites, it is the leaders that we must act!

3 - Likes Digg have been recognized as "not responsible" for their content.

The verdict of the trial Fuzz / Olivier Martinez fell on Friday, the company Eric Dupin was not responsible for the link posted by a user on its site.

This means that Digg will Likes to breathe again, and we will undoubtedly assist in the months to come to the creation of numerous clones ... unless the trial Wikio / Olivier Dahan does not change the situation!

The Top 10 Digg-likes / Bookmarking / B2B Social Networks

No. 1 Scoopeo.com
The leader returns to its first place despite endless failures, delays irritation and crashes as a result of delays too great.
It is the No. 1 with 2449 hits in 6 months, an average of 408 per month (240 or more if we cancel the peak of more than 1,000 visits). As against, it is clear that visitors to Scoopeo are less interested in content than the average visitors.

No. 2: Viadeo
Of course, it is pertinent that in B2B, and unnecessary for News & Tips. However it should be noted that attracted 2241 visitors, 90% of what Scoopeo. This proves that the media is particularly effective in driving traffic to business information, and that is a credible alternative to the likes Digg, visitors are also generally more concerned than those of Scoopeo (1.92 page views / 1.57).
Despite less time spent using this tool over the past few weeks, this site is still up 49% of its visitors in the space of 6 months.

No. 3: Wikio
The strong growth of Wikio (66% visiting and 4 places in the ranking), is mainly because ConseilsMarketing.fr became for a few months the number of category 1 Marketing, which allowed us to obtain a Increased visibility.

No. 4: Facebook
Although it is more oriented B2C (the number of page views lower), is nevertheless a network that brings thousands of visitors. As against it requires a lot of time to both communicate information, but also to maintain its network over a Digg Like where you just posting a simple link. Therefore, lack of time it fell by 2 places.

No. 5: ConseilsCreateur.com
Also fell by 2 spot for a technical unavailability of several days, but also by a lack of visibility due to its highly thematic. However, visitors are still very good.

No. 6: Tutmarks.com
The Digg like tutorials to maintaining in the ranking, with a good natural search of Google, and that quality information is published.

No. 7: Zataz.com
The High Tech Like Digg has become increasingly used by other websites, and thus the competition is tougher to appear. However, the selection is good, giving a good visibility to its articles. 32% less visits are partly explained by subjects less high tech ConseilsMarketing.fr during the last period.

No. 8: MSN Reporter
The Belgian Digg like Microsoft has made a great progress in recent months (30%) for the simple reason that there are fewer new positions on this Like Digg, which allows our new to have a chance to appear in home page.

No. 9 StumbleUpon
This site has dropped sharply since the classification we have just used this tool to promote our products in recent months, but 80% since the visits of the period had concentrated around an article that was a real rush with over 900 visits.

No. 10 Paperblog
This is the surprise of this ranking, with an increase of 67% to 86 monthly visits. The increase in the number of visitors must come through a change in the graphic chart of the site, and may be a better listing on Google. Nevertheless, for a service that does not take time (the update is automatic) is one of the best returns on investment.

We did not experience on Digg likes étrangés (except meneame.net), resulting in Digg likes foreigners appear almost in the Top 10.

Fuzz.fr back sharply, and it is sure it will be further invigorated by the fact Eric Dupin has won his trial!

Come4news decline in the ranking, because of the large number of videos posted on ConseilsMarketing.fr, and they may have on their site.

Twitter is up sharply (14 seats), following the tests we carried out in November (an article will be dedicated in early December).

Dingueduweb.fr, represents a new kind of sites to distribute its content. Indeed as "Viedemerde.com" it allows users to record on the home page what we do today.

Marketingrama.info has stalled for several months, it is possible to add new ones, and therefore the site loses many places.

Mister-Wong.fr is in collapse, as tapemoi.com, Yoolink, Bluegger, pickaxe, Blogometrie (he no longer enjoys the support of Caledosphere) ... we hope that the webmaster will be able to restart because they are historical actors in the world likes of Digg!

It is worth noting the launch of Koodji.com (ex Kestufe) based on an engine like that of Twitter seems to have found its place in the blogosphere of New Caledonia.

The Top 10 Digg-likes / Bookmarking / Social networks B2C

No. 1 Scoopeo.
For info & Tricks is the No. 1 with 202 visits per month (and we've posted a few news for our tests).

No. 2: blooops.com (humor)
With 88 visits per month, the second is relatively less Scoopeo ... but it is a source of interest if you publish articles humorous content.

No. 3: MSN Reporter
With 87 visits / month, like Digg general is affordable, even for a small blog.

No. 4: Interview-web.fr
If offers information on People, the Digg Like interview is of course essential to ...

No. 5: Fuzz.fr
Although it is strongly oriented high tech, it is possible to spend a few items that are more or less derivatives.

No. 6: Come4news
We have posted only one article, the theme of the blog is not too appropriate to the writing of news items. It is therefore a very high ranking!

No. 7: Zataz
This site is fond information geek, one or two items have managed to generate a little traffic but it is not really the right target.

No. 8: ABCDaire (tutorial)
This digg like tutorials is one of the best surprises of this list, because even if it fails to meet tutmarks, rising sharply in both rankings (18th in B2B for a new site).

No. 9: Jook (Jokes)
The competitor blooops remains much less popular, with 25% of visits from his brother. But nothing is lost yet, with 22 visits per month, the margin of increase is significant.

No. 10: DingueduWeb
Just as in the Top 10 B2B, this site has a captivated audience and generate visits although ergonomics and philosophy is not designed to focus on websites.

Here is the link to the complete top 100 in french

Wifi, a guerrilla marketing tool!

Here below a video with an excellent example of Guerrilla Marketing. The principle of guerrilla marketing is to have maximum impact with minimal investment.

The rental agency Sixt would hit the target CEOs and major accounts attending airports to offer their car rental services to high-end price dégriffé. But the advertising competition at airports is very high (billboards 4 × 3, Kakemonos, signs ...) they had to find something original and high-impact ...

The solution was simply to offer advertising on Wifi! The communications agency has installed WiFi terminals 6 in Sixt counter at the airport, then they called the network with marketing accroches (Rent a BMW Z3 for 159 €) ... We just have to activate the Wifi and all business of the airport have seen on the screen Wifi network (PCs, iPhone, Smartphone ...) this promotion, and of course by clicking they arrived on a website with the plan to access at the rental Sixt!

How to respond to the economic crisis - Part 1

The current crisis is everywhere: in newspapers TV, in magazines, in discussions at the coffee machine ... Yet this crisis is a crisis of confidence in that the results of the previous year are good for most businesses and activity does not (yet) suffered a major decline in the last quarter of 2008. Most companies are just beginning to collect some slowdowns since November.

But it is now too late to expect a good year in 2009: companies are now anticipating a crisis-which they themselves caused by reducing their budget by cutting spending not helpful in advance, preparing to reduce the wing of the organization, to freeze the increases ...

In this context, it must therefore expect a difficult year 2009 and the first months will be decisive for whether the crisis of confidence will last one year, or if it will be a longer trend.

The companies have no choice but to prepare for setting up an anti-strategy, but also preparing to grab the opportunities when they arise. Indeed, it is not for nothing that the ideogram for "crisis" in Mandarin also means "opportunity" because difficult times enable more nimble companies to catch up (or buy) competitors slower or less reactive.

For that we offer this first series of 13 tips on adjusting your business policy and marketing deal with the consequences of the crisis.

1 - A strong competitor or redeemed.

We must seize the opportunity to offer competitive bids times very aggressive to customers who will surely lose confidence in the products of the brand. Do not forget to go door to enter the distribution system if necessary by identifying the dealers via the Internet.

2 - The business no longer consider the morale and the new targets unattainable.

There is of course review the objectives, but neither too early nor too late ... In addition it is necessary to take action, Team Building (trail Karting, cooking ...) to regonfler morale of troops and reunite teams that will be turbulent address the crisis.

3 - The Best Commercial leave the company to go to another company that pays better.

In case of departure (or termination) is the corporate memory disappears, it is essential to keep order not to lose relationships and customer knowledge. Therefore more than ever set up a CRM solution to keep the history of trade relations, potential customers ...

4 - The sales are more difficult.

It should promote exchanges among business but also with marketing teams to take into account the good practices and identify key points that can tear a sale. If necessary we need to call an external firm that through an external will be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your sales process and possibly the best.

5 - Customers are even more pressure on prices, and are playing competition.

It is imperative to control costs and further improve its quality of service (performance customer service and technical knowledge of technicians, assistance in setting up solutions ...) and its reactivity (answer within 24 hours at a Quote, deliver faster ...) so that the client can no longer take into account the price, but a complete service.

6 - The margins are shrinking and crumbling.

We must remind the trading limits permitted in terms of discounts, and review its trade policy, such as pricing. Sometimes it is interesting to re-schedule according to the typology customers to provide more room for negotiation.
At the same time it is essential to review its product range by removing products that do not relate to the company (eg propose that offers 3 product line instead of 5). Similarly it is necessary to analyze its services to identify opportunities for growth by defining different offers entry-middle-high range, or set up new offerings with modern communication tools (eg support entry range by email and chat, mid-range support with unlimited phone calls and high-end support with guaranteed response within one hour ...).

7 - too commercial or not enough variable in their wages.

Depending on the situation the company needs to review its remuneration policy favoring such a fee on the margins instead of sales, increasing a fixed when goals are difficult to reach by setting up of premiums on new customers acquired or the quality of information returned in the CRM to focus capital clients ...

8 - marketing no longer work as well.

It is necessary to analyze its customer base and identify the profile of your best customers (CSP, business, business size, record purchase products purchased ...) to address communications and offers. At the same time you have to buy files this type of prospects to be sure to propose an offer.
At the same time it is necessary to establish channels of loyalty to effectively exploit its customer base (eg proposal for additional services to 2-month promotion to go to the range over after 6 months ...).

9 - The marketing expenses are reduced.

It is necessary to be creative and do the same with less money. For example building partnerships with companies offering complementary products for emailing Crusaders. We must use new tools cheaper or more effective that are not currently used, such as SMSing, voicemail, emails with videos, membership ...

10 - Customers are longer to decide.

Should be put in place a tracking leads, if necessary with actions planned in the long term if the decision cycle than 2 months. This chain of exploration should take into account the different stakeholders in the project proposals from competitors ... and what kind of message to push for the different stages of decision-making (from education, and to the end of promotions).
At the same time he must reassure the client of the firm's performance, and the merits of choosing a company in a difficult economic environment for many businesses.

11 - The trade was more difficult to make big business.

The manager must be present at the side of its business to support them and encourage them in the deed of sale to key moments. Moreover, the Directorate-General must have a clear priority on the objectives of the company so that all know what is most important to do in their daily work.

12 - The commissioners are overwhelmed to achieve the objectives, the company becomes rigid.

To continue to move forward without jeopardizing the daily activity must outsource certain activities to become more responsive. For example make use of proxy forces at the launch of a new product for a commercial transaction, to attack a new business ...

13 - The competitors are very aggressive in the market.

The company can focus on a niche market for s'hyperspécialiser (but be careful not to be dependent on a small number of customers or be on a weak market). However, in all cases it will be essential to differentiate its products and enhance its USP (Unique Selling Proposition, ie so that your products are different from your competitors). ... We must focus the needs and problems of its customers to respond optimally to market.
Also it will set up a watch to monitor what our competitors and analyze their offers (arguments, weaknesses ...) for effectively.

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