Web Ink Now

To gate or not to gate? Data from an ebook offer

At my keynote speeches, one of the most frequent questions I get is around my position that it is almost always best to make valuable content (such as white papers and ebooks) totally free vs requiring an email address to download.

The essence of this raging debate is that with a gate, each person downloading becomes a valuable sales lead, however making the content totally free with no registration required means many more people will download and spread your content via email, Twitter, blogs, and the like.

Frequent readers of this blog know that I write about this topic from time to time, most recently in a post called Say NO to squeezing your buyers.

I'm always interested in metrics to support the various positions in this debate and am excited that John Mancini, President of AIIM has agreed to share his experience with us. AIIM is a non-profit organization representing the users and suppliers of document, content and records management technologies.

On October 1, 2009 Mancini released the organization's first e-book 8 Reasons You Need a Strategy for Managing Information -- Before It's Too Late. They made the ebook totally free, with no registration required.

In just one month (October 2009) the ebook was downloaded 5,138 times. In addition, AIIM also created a presentation version of the book and posted that, also with no registration, on SlideShare. This version has had 3,353 downloads for a total of 8,491 downloads in the month. Pretty darned good result, for the first month of an ebook, I’d say.

"Making the e-book available for free and totally without registration was a new approach for us," Mancini says. "These results for unfettered access are particularly impressive when considered against a couple of more traditional examples (i.e., content requiring a registration on our web site)."

Mancini says one of the most popular pieces of content are AIIM Industry Watch research papers. "We require registration for these papers because they are also used as a lead generation program for the sponsors," he says. "During roughly the same period as the e-book, there were 1,282 page views of the research, which translated into 513 actual downloads."

So this data suggests that unlocking content at AIIM means more than a sixteen-fold increase in the number of downloads.

Mancini is convinced that the more forward looking of their sponsors will start to realize that the future lies in creating as much visibility as possible for their content rather than viewing this through the prism of name acquisition and lead generation.

"We have learned some production things along the way," Mancini says. "For example, it is not an easy process to simply produce the book in multiple formats. We learned that most people seem to want PDF. And we learned that to get a screen-readable version that also minimizes page count, it is better to format horizontally (landscape) than vertically so we'll be republishing in a landscape format in the next few weeks."

The actual content of AIIM's e-book was built in an unconventional fashion, tapping into its network of experts to solicit contributions for the book through its Digital Landfill blog and through Twitter rather than through a more traditional authoring process.

"Based on the success of the past month, we plan to launch 3 more e-books in the next few months," Mancini says. "We are convinced that providing easy access to content like this is key to our evangelical mission."

Thanks for sharing your experience John!

How about you? Do you have any gate vs. no gate metrics to share?

Grateful Dead at the forefront of marketing technology

This week I had a chance to hang out with Jay Blakesberg, long-time Grateful Dead tour photographer, in his San Francisco studio.

We discussed how the band (now called The Dead) is at the forefront of using technology for marketing. This video is about 9 minutes and includes highlights from the discussions. Please take the time to hear Jay describe what a true marketing powerhouse of a band is doing more than 45 years after they originally formed.

I suggest letting the video load before watching.
Direct link to the video here.

Details of what we discussed in the video:

:00 - 1:50 Through a partnership with Blurb, Jay Blakesberg created an official tour book for each city of the tour. At each stop, a collectible book featuring backstage and rehearsal shots is made available. A few days after the show, you go to Blurb.com and place an order and the book will include photos from the show that you attended.

1:50 - 4:00 You can get recordings of any of the tour's shows by buying from the official Dead site as a download or purchasing a CD set at the show itself which is available just 30 minutes after the end of the show.

Jay worked on an iPhone application called The Dead Tour 2009 – ALL ACCESS includes streaming audio from all the shows on the tour, streaming video, blogs, and photomosaic images. Jay also live tweeted the set lists as each concert was happening.

5:30 - 9:00 On The Dead being on the forefront of marketing technology. 45 years into their career, they are still cutting edge.

Jay has some great photography books that you can order on his site. Of course, I scored signed copies of them when I was at Jay’s studio!

Between the Dark and Light: The Grateful Dead photography of Jay Blakesberg

More than 900 classic photos lead you on a journey through the colorful world of the Grateful Dead. Most of these images, shot from 1978 – 2002 have never been published before. With Jay’s back-stories, a foreword by Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, and historical essays, Between the Dark and Light is an irresistible 25-year journey through the Grateful Dead experience.

Traveling on a High Frequency: Jay Blakesberg photographs 1978–2008

A 30-year retrospective with 304 pages featuring over 1,200 photographs from the archive of Jay Blakesberg.

Top image: Jay Blakesberg photo of Bob Weir via blog.blurb.com
Second image: Tour book from the Worcester, MA shows
Third image: The Dead iPhone app

Social Media is the new punk rock

Thanks to Trevor Young the PR Warrior for alerting me to this wonderful video produced by Engage | ORM.

Back in the day, I was into punk rock. It was loud, it was NOT disco, there was a culture surrounding it, and the cult-like followings for the bands were intense. Although I didn’t do the hair thing, I did dabble in the clothing and attitude a bit (well, as much as a suburban kid from Connecticut going to Kenyon College in Ohio could).

This will date me, but… The Ramones played my high school at the time their first album came out. That was Rock and Roll High School. I was fortunate enough to have seen a bunch of other cool bands live including: The Clash, Sex Pistols, and the Talking Heads.

Watch the video now. I think the gang at Engage | ORM are onto something with this analogy. It does seem a little like the late 1970s.

Are we social media punks?

photo credit: Shutterstock

Clip this coupon for $1 million dollar off Ft Myers FL home

Here's a clever marketing & PR approach that I really like.

In an economy when there is a glut of luxury homes on the market, what can a homeowner do to make his property stand out? Why, get people talking about it of course!

Homeowner Rich Ricciani created a fun and creative world wide rave by thinking up the idea of running a coupon for $1 million dollars off the price of his $7 million Ft. Myers, FL home in newspapers.

Unlike the vast majority of people who just think of ideas, Rich actually followed through.

This creative approach sure beat simply reducing the price of the home on the real estate Multiple Listing Service database.

Rich worked with Lani Belisle of VIP Realtors to list the home and book the advertising space for the coupon, which initially ran in last Sunday's Ft. Myers News-Press.

Then it was time for Tina Haisman Public Relations to get the word out.

Tina used PRWeb to send a well-written, SEO optimized press release complete with photos, an imbedded YouTube video, and links to the coupon and home web site. "I also used PR MatchPoint to compile a list of real estate writers in the south and northeastern U.S. and I also personally targeted the big news outlets, such as CNN, Fox, NBC and more," Tina says.

The story appeared front page of The Fort Myers News-Press, aired WINK-TV and WFLX-TV, and is being picked up by real estate blogs.

The coupon will run this Sunday in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe. I love the selection of the Globe, chosen because Ft. Myers, FL is the home of the Boston Red Sox Spring Training facility. The choice of running the coupon in the Boston paper an excellent example of buyer persona profiling.

Gimmick?

Some may call this a gimmick.

Well, sure. But I think its great. When people are talking about you, your product stands out in a crowded market. And guess what? This kind of marketing is fun! If you're a realtor, it sure beats pounding wooden signs into front yards.

Well done Rich, Tina, and Lani. Let me know when the home sells.

Anti-Starbucks filmmakers hijack Twitter marketing campaign

Simon Owens points us to a fascinating example of what can "go bad" on Twitter. The instant, always-on aspects of Twitter can make a well-organized "campaign" take off in an unintended direction.

Check out Simon's blog post Anti-Starbucks filmmakers hijack the coffee company’s own Twitter marketing campaign to learn how an anti-Starbucks filmmaking group hijacked the Starbucks hashtags developed for a multi-million dollar marketing campaign and forced the company to abandon the contest within hours after its launch.

A few things stand out for me:

With social media, people don't have to agree with your message when they talk about you.

It's fascinating how quickly a big Madison Avenue-style "campaign" can go wrong.

Starbucks seems to have reacted quickly to what was happening when they took down the contest.

What do you think?

Is the Best Job in the World the best marketing in the world?

I'm often asked: "How do I market a commodity." My answer is predictable to those of you who read this blog: Create a world wide rave and people will share your ideas and tell your stories. Yes, even if you market a commodity.

Sandy beaches in warm and sunny locations are a commodity product.

This may come as a complete shock to people in tourism marketing, but it's true. The traditional approach of showing white beach sand with footprints near lovely blue water and a bikini or two just doesn’t cut it. But how can you stand out?

I've been following the Tourism Queensland fantastic world wide rave The Best Job in the World. Maybe you have too.

It's a contest to be chosen as Caretaker of the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The position has a few minor tasks, but the main thing is to use social media to talk up the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef. The job of blogging and posting videos pays A$150,000 for a six-month gig.

The application process required posting a one-minute video application explaining why you should be chosen as caretaker of Hamilton Island on the Great Barrier Reef. Over 30,000 people applied and today the 16 shortlisted finalists were announced.

Check out the videos from the 16 finalists. They rock. And the diversity is like a lesson in great one-minute video production.

Tourism Queensland created a phenomenon.

For the past two months I've asked, by a show of hands, the groups I speak in front of if they have heard of The Best Job in the World. In Washington D.C 20% of the room had (the lowest percentage). And in Tartu, Estonia a whopping 60% had (the highest). The average over several thousand people in 6 countries was over 30%.

HOLY COW. Imagine if 30% of the world had heard of your product via a world wide rave you created?

How did Queensland, Australia get so much attention? I've been to Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef twice. Yes, it is beautiful. But so are many other sandy, beachy, sparkly, bikini-clad places I've been: Koh Samui, Santorini, Barbados, Puerto Vallarta, and on and on.

Queensland found a way to get people to share their ideas and tell their stories.

Tens of thousands of bloggers and tweeters have talked up the best job in the world.

Thousands of stories have appeared in mainstream media.

I asked John Frazier and Melissa Braverman, who worked on the Best Job in the World. John and Melissa are at Quinn & Co., a New York Public Relations firm that is part of the Tourism Queensland Best Job in the World team together with Brisbane based CumminsNitro.

Frazier says that the job announcement broke in Australia on Jan. 12, 2009 and by breakfast time in London, AP was interviewing Tourism Queensland's UK director for a broadcast package which turned up later that day on the morning shows in the U.S. Within two days, there were thousands of media pickups.

Tourism Queensland set a goal to get 400,000 new visitors to their Web site over the course of the one-year campaign. They blew past that in about 30 hours and had a million hits on the second day.

DMS: What did you learn about reaching people on this project?

"We learned that if you hit the sweet-spot of the right story at the right time, it will travel like a tsunami all the way around the globe," says Melissa Braverman. "Traditional media (a Reuters exclusive) broke the story, which immediately went viral because it was a chance to have the coolest job in the world at a time when everyone else was getting laid off."

"It was a glimmer of hope at a particularly gloomy time," says John Frazier. "We've talked about this amazing success a lot internally, and we believe it was a strong idea that would have worked no matter what. However, had it come six months earlier it might not have captured the world’s imagination in quite the same way. Timing is everything!"

DMS: What advice would you have for others who want to create something that will become a World Wide Rave?

"You can't re-heat a soufflé," says Frazier. "There were quickly a number of copycat campaigns that didn't quite take off in as big a way. Best advice is to try to develop an idea that resonates authentically in the lives of real people and then find a way to mount it across as many platforms (traditional media, YouTube, ning, Twitter, Facebook, etc.) as possible."

An amazing story. Thanks to John and Melissa for sharing.

Your challenge: How will YOU create a World Wide Rave?

How will YOU create a World Wide Rave? Video and ebook

In my new video, more than a year in the making, over 100 people from all seven continents contribute to show how people spread ideas and tell stories.

Here is a direct link to the video on YouTube.

How did you do THAT?

New free ebook about how the video was made.

As I was passing around the work-in-progress video that resulted in How will YOU create a World Wide Rave?, everyone had a question about some aspect of it. How did you come up with the name World Wide Rave? The music is cool—what is it? How did you get so many photos and videos from around the world? As I answered each question, I thought back on the more than one year that the video has been in the works and the more than 100 people from all seven continents who contributed to it.

I chronicle the making of the video in a new free ebook that you can download here How Will YOU Create a World Wide Rave? Making of the Video

What's so cool about ideas that spread is that people WANT to share.

Thanks to everybody who contributed. If you’d like to put a banner on your blog, please do! I'd be honored. You can point to this post.

Blog Badge

Video by Your Business Channel
Mark Sinclair, Features Editor, with James Kirk, George Laycock, Jeremy Decoursey, David Chandler, Melanie Sinclair, Georgie Johnson

Sound Branding and Original Music by Audiobrain
Audrey Arbeeny: Executive Producer/ Creative Director
Jason Rothman: Lead Composer
Curtis Macdonald, Mitchell Yoshida and Audrey Arbeeny: Composers

Book, Poster, Website, and E-book design by Eymer Design
Doug Eymer, chief designer & resident genius
Tim Conroy, Production Wizard

World Wide Rave published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Matt Holt, Publisher and Shannon Vargo Editor, with Christine Moore, Kim Dayman, Jessica Campilango, Cynthia Shannon, Peter Knapp, Rose Sullivan, Deborah Schindlar, P.J. Campbell, and Lori Sayde-Mehrtens.

Editorial advice for World Wide Rave Kyle Matthew Oliver

Thank you to the following for their generous support of this project: Mark Fortier, Matt Sitomer, Mark Levy, Phil Myers, and Michelle Manafy.

I would like to thank the more than 100 incredibly generous people from all over the world who took photos, shot video clips, or participated in the photos that are shared with you in the video.

Singapore Management University: Michael Nestley, Ephraim Loy. Teoh Pei Ying, Jonathan Huang, Anirban Datta Gupta, Dorothy Poon, Tina Nirmal, Michelle Kusuma, and Apurva Prasanna

Social Media Breakfast in Minneapolis: Ring leader Graeme Thickens. (The only disappointment was they did not serve chipotle breakfast burritos that day.)

New Media and Public Relations class at Boston University, College of Communication: Professor Steve Quigley.

Women in Business Connection: Shelly Berman-Rubera

Team HubSpot: Mike Volpe, Brian Halligan, Dharmesh Shah, and Ellie Mirman

GoWeb3D Experiences: Dave Elchoness and Rahul Dutta

Ranch Lions and Wild Things, Polokwane, South Africa: Nico Prinsloo, Viv Bristow, and Frank Kasakamula.

Astronaut Scholarship Foundation and the Apollo astronauts: Buzz Aldrin, Dave Scott, Tom Stafford, Charlie Duke, Alan Bean, Jim Lovell, Vance Brand, Ed Mitchell, Al Wordon, Walt Cunningham, and Fred Haise.

Marketing Over Coffee Podcast: With John Wall and Christopher Penn

Pragmatic Marketing: Steve Johnson, Adele Revella, and Graham Joyce

The New York Islanders: Josh Bailey

Fire Station 8, Charlotte, NC: Adrian Cornette and Jason Almond

Dow Jones Enterprise Media Group: Marie Dufresne, Mark Bootherstone, and Fredrik Savin

Erin Weed
Keri Nelson
Brenda Haines
Yuri Afanasov
Chris Brogan
Laura "Pistachio" Fitton
Gary Vaynerchuk
Dr. Helaine Smith
Dianna Huff
Bob Hoey
Tim Washer
Jackie Ann Patterson
Lisa Genova
Paul Teutul Sr.
John Hodgman
Phil Lesh & Friends
Steve Garfield
Seamus Walsh
Debbie Weil
Krishna De
Mark Gladding
Reitaro Watanabe
Sandy Jeschke
Bruno Jarry
John Tatusko
Steve Yastrow
Prakash Dogra (with Leisha and Prakarsh)
Patrick Prothe
Sérgio Bastos
Tobi Singer
Donna St. Jean Conti
Gustavo Alvarado
Dimitris Christofileas
Leo Wurschmidt
Paul Baiguerra
Margarida Godinho
Damian Taubaso
David Martin
Michael Ray Hopkin (and family)
Felix Alvarado
Eugenie Verney (and daughter)
Robert Landreth
Carl-Johan Savin
Jonathan Kranz
Andrew Peters
Ricardo Prieto
Jeff Barry
the Barefoot Hawaiian
Tracy Johnson

Apologies to those I’ve missed or whose names I have misspelled. My bad. I know I’m bound to screw up a few times. (Let me know if I missed your link and I can change).

A special thank you to our canine friends who posed for photos: Pukko & Bailey

Your challenge:
How will YOU create a World Wide Rave?

Chet the dog: blogging and on Twitter to sell books

There are more than a hundred thousand books released in the English language each year. How the hell do you stand out?

Well, you can follow the lead of Lisa Genova, who used social media to turn a self-published book into a NY Times bestseller.

Or you can use social media and have fun with your characters at the same time, like Spencer Quinn has done with his new book released last week called Dog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery.

Quinn started a blog and Twitter feed in the voice of his main character. But, get this, the main character is a dog. Meet Chet, the wise and lovable canine narrator of Dog on It, who works alongside Bernie, a down-on-his-luck private investigator. Chet might have flunked out of police school ("I'd been the best leaper in K-9 class, which had led to all the trouble in a way I couldn't remember exactly, although blood was involved"), but he's a detective through and through.

I just love Chet's blog and Twitter feed. Quinn speaks dog language amazingly well. Great stuff.

Example tweet: "Love surprises myself. Finding a forgotten chew strip, for example. What beats that? Not much."

From Chet's blog: CONGRATULATIONS STUMP!

"Way to go, Stump, winner of the Westminster Show last night. The ears on that old guy - maybe the best I've ever seen. And the whole show - is there anything better on TV? Not that I know of. I didn't catch quite all of it, on account of when the dogs run around the circle I get a bit excited. Did you see how many treats they got? Watch how the handlers are always reaching into their pockets - that's for treats! Can't tell you what kind because there’s no smell on TV, one of the big drawbacks. Are they working on fixing that? Also, TV has sound but it’s not quite right. Bernie never seems bothered by that. Maybe humans don’t notice. Humans are full of surprises, but I've liked just about every one I’ve ever met, even some of the perps we've taken down."

There is also a Chet Appreciation Society on Facebook where one discussion centers around who (as in which canine actor) should play Chet in a movie version of the book.

This is a fantastic example of smart marketing! And considering that this is Quinn's first book and it is selling briskly, the marketing is working amazingly well.

World Wide Rave at Singapore Indoor Stadium

World Wide Rave (the book) is now at the printer and is scheduled to start shipping in late February.

It's been an absolute blast to get photos and videos of the World Wide Rave poster from all over the world. In fact, we have images from all seven continents. Thank you to all who have participated. Watch for a blog post here in a week or two putting it all together.

Over the weekend, Tina Nirmal, Apurva Prasanna, and Michelle Kusuma posted this wonderfully clever video on YouTube that they created in Singapore. The short video very neatly articulates a powerful idea.

As you can read on their blog describing the video, they used the World Wide Rave photo and video shoot as an opportunity to portray the Singapore Indoor Stadium as one of Singapore’s iconic locations.

Tina, Apurva and Michelle decided to do something different. The video, which took two days to create, is a huge collection of still photographs, which they stitched up to portray the idea of World Wide Rave.

I love it. Thank you!

While I have not been to the Singapore indoor stadium, I did see Michael Jackson perform at the Singapore outdoor stadium in 1993.

Separately, a number of images from Singapore have appeared, making it the second most represented country after the U.S. You can find more images from Singapore here. News Flash! Localized World Wide Rave breaks out at Singapore

smashLAB shows what to do when another company hijacks your name

Imagine that your successful company has been doing business for years with a name that people recognize and that you think is kinda cool. Then imagine a big corporation launches a television program that uses the exact same name as your company.

Ugh, right?

Imagine how your life would be if the TV show sucks.

That's exactly what happened to smashLAB, a strategic interactive agency in Vancouver.

However, Eric Karjaluoto fought back in a very clever way by launching www.smashlabsucks.com.

What do you think of Eric's response?