| Cydni Tetro presents a slideshow on new media. |
Cydni Tetro was the presenter in the innovations in marketing workshop. She explained about podcasting and how to integrate this new technology into your business. Tetro told how new innovations keep you connected and how big and influential the online community really is. There were 22 billion consumer videos viewed in 2007. WOMM is becoming very popular in the $254 billion marketing services sector. This is word of mouth marketing.Talking to someone on the internet who has used a product or had an experience with a service and shares that information via their blog or other means. Things like Facebook and Myspace are incredibly popular.
New marketing is about complexity and individuality. Pod casting is a real conversation between individuals. Pod casting creates dialogue between parties and stops the one way push of information of most advertising. Tetro explained different types of new media including pod casts both audio and video, blogs and microblogging, social sites, Wikis, RSS and several others. The technology generation is always changing and information is being exchanged in new and exciting ways.
The Youtube generation seems to be those 18-30 years of age, but the podcasters are generally 30-40 year olds. Pod casts can be educational types of materials. Tetro mentioned the Mommy cast which puts out information on moms and children and the things and products that are important or useful to that niche. Dixie paper products is sponsoring that pod cast and uses it to launch their new products. That site has 250,000 subscribers.
Tetro said bloggers must be very committed. To be consistent they need to post two-five times in a week.
Microblogging and Twitter are for small bits of information. You can Twitter from a cell phone. Tetro told of a cell phone advertising marketing technique used by Subway to send out coupons on cell phones. The coupon redemption rate for those receiving the text message was 20 percent.
It’s a very connected world pointed out Tetro. Myspace has 57 million views a month. You can create a page for your business on Myspace.
Tetro told the story of a powerful blender which was marketed on Youtube with real employees blending up all kinds of bizarre combinations of items including old shoes, nonedible items, etc. Since those Youtube videos were shown and changed on a regular basis the blender company has received 10,000 inquiries for their product. The blender company is now requested to make appearances on news and talk shows and their product is rapidly expanding due to this exposure on Youtube. “They did things right, they said we have a cool blender and they showed what it does. That’s how things get talked about. That is the power of a viral market and an online community,” said Tetro.
In online shopping, companies are beginning to allow customers to retain their shopping cart and also offering a bill me later option. In case, a user leaves without buying, then that user has the option to come back later and their items are still saved without having to start over.
With more and more cell phone connections, 3.2 billion to date, the text message marketing campaigns will become more prominent. Most people have unlimited text and it’s an inexpensive option for businesses. Two thirds of Americans will use a facebook or social site at least once in the next month.
Tetro also pointed out the downside of this type of marketing, if someone has used your product and didn’t have a good experience, then that information can be detrimental. When the Dell service center didn’t respond well to problem solving, then everyone knew about it. When Ipod had the battery problem everyone knew. But, she said this gives the company a chance to react and change what’s wrong with their product and that experience gets out there too. If someone has a good experience with a company then this information goes out too.
Technology will keep advancing and Tetro advised everyone to get involved or risk falling behind.