July marked the end of an era of sorts.  After a decade, Chrysler announced it was ceasing production of its once wildly popular PT Cruisers.  When it made its debut in 2000, its old school design made the Cruiser a massive hit with car buyers, with over a million of them sold during the model’s lifetime.

What led to the PT Cruiser’s downfall is a problem that wise brands need to keep in mind when considering their own websites.  The Cruiser fell from grace because after its auspicious start, the car never kept pace with innovations happening elsewhere in the automotive industry.  Its design aged, its engine lacked the power of its competition, and its reputation suffered.

This kind of fall from the good graces of consumers can also happen, and at a much faster rate, to a brand’s website.  Even if a site makes a great impression when it launches by providing a unique user experience, a brand can’t rest on these laurels.  You must constantly build on this success, evolving and improving your site to stay in sync with the needs and wants of your target audience as well as to keep up with or stay ahead of your competition.  Chrysler failed to do this with the PT Cruiser, and now 10 years later the Cruiser is so out of style that its days are done.

This isn’t to say that every website needs to be reinvented from the ground up on a regular basis.  Such a broad stroke might become necessary at some point, but at the very least a site’s content needs to be kept fresh and its design kept current with any innovations in website design.  You need to keep your site an online destination worth returning to, so stay focused on providing ways to make the user experience more satisfying—-whether it’s easier navigation, new or better ways for visitors to interact with the site and with your brand, or some feature that fulfills a need or want of your consumer base.

Success has to be maintained and nurtured or like a flower, it will wilt away.  Don’t let your site suffer the unfortunate fate of the PT Cruiser.  Never stop looking for ways to make it a better place to visit and you’ll be better able to keep consumers coming back.

(Note:  This was our small contribution to the annual April Fool’s Day shenanigans that take place online and offline.  For a discussion of the perils of actually behaving antisocially online, check out this post.)

There’s a new trend in social media behavior that’s recently begun to catch on with many users.  Rather than reaching out to old friends or attempting to cultivate new relationships, these individuals are instead doing things to make people de-friend or no longer follow them.  Forget social media; for these users, antisocial media is king.

Whole pages are now being created that are devoted to the sole purpose of allowing users to detail who they hate and why they hate them as a means to get these people to no longer include them in their social media circle of friends.

An example of a typical posting on one of these pages describes the source of one user’s ire as follows: “Cheese breath, always takes most comfortable chair in meetings, never holds door when you know he sees you behind him, needs to clip nose hair.  Seriously, does your mom dress you?”

Among the online destinations dedicated to feeding this latest user need is the recently launched antisocial site SnowShovel.  As explained on the site, its name stands for the item its users would most like to use to hit people who irritate them.  SnowShovel already has membership numbers approaching seven figures and expects that to double in size by the end of 2010. (more…)

Why would you try to sell children’s cereal with zombies?

I’m not sure either.

Kellogg’s Corn Pops recently debuted a new spot parodying old horror movies. As an adult, I’m not really in the target audience for the cereal so I never even noticed the ad and likely would have never given it a second thought except for one important reason: the ad scares my six-year-old.

My son is very much a member of the target audience for Corn Pops, especially given his love for sugary, sweet, and otherwise nutritionally lacking food. And he has no problem with monsters—he loves Godzilla and is a fan of the sci-fi series Doctor Who, which has its share of scary monsters and aliens.

The Corn Pops spot titled “The Spooning,” however, isn’t giving him a fun scare. Even before the commercial gets past the first few seconds, he pleads for us to change the channel. When he first did this, I asked him why he didn’t like the spot given that he never has reacted this way to any advertising. When he told me there were zombies in it, I frankly thought he had to be mistaken.

He wasn’t. There are. Zombie milkmen apparently, but zombies nevertheless. (more…)

Continuing our discussion about integrated campaigns with members of LeapFrog Interactive’s Interactive Marketing team (you can read part one here), the team talks about the importance of a good website to an integrated campaign and offers an example what can be achieved as a result of a well-run integrated campaign.

Integration seems to be the key. So if you are not committed to it, should rethink your marketing strategy?

Amberly Stitzel: No, I just think those clients who don’t integrate don’t get the full benefit of an agency approach by doing that.

Stephanie Stokell: You could go out there and do PPC for your site but if you don’t have the content on your site with the integrated SEO you will be paying more for each click and won’t be realizing the conversion rates that you could. And if they wander on to your site, even if it’s great website, if the only way they’re getting there is by happening upon it, then a great conversion rate doesn’t provide enough return because you’re not getting the traffic that you need. Everything works together to not only bring them in but to complete the whole cycle. You really have to have the whole shebang.

Christy Belden: It’s also the design of and copy for the site all integrated into the marketing of it. You have to have good design and relevant copy to drive the sale and support the SEO. It all has to match.

Amberly: So having the copy and the design for an effective website should be put first before you would even start your campaign. We can drive people to your site but if the site isn’t set up to convert then you’ve wasted marketing dollars.

Stephanie: It’s the house metaphor again. You would be sure your house is clean and straight and well-decorated before you invited anyone over.
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We sat down seven members of our Interactive Marketing team—SEO Specialist Christy Belden, Media Coordinator Emily Carroll, Interactive Marketing Coordinator Miranda Mattingly, Interactive Marketing Manager Amberly Stitzel, SEO Copywriter Stephanie Stokell (who chimes in during the second part of this two-part discussion), SEO Assistant Krista Thompson, and Social Media Specialist Emily Van Winkle—and asked them for the lowdown on integrated interactive marketing programs. From how to start one and what to include to why an integrated campaign is better than running separate interactive efforts, they filled in the gaps and offered a new way to consider interactive marketing “real estate.”

If a client wanted to run an integrated program, what should they start with?

Amberly Stitzel: First thing to do would be to ramp up SEO, perform PPC at a high budget, and then crisscross them.

Miranda Mattingly: You would start PPC at a higher budget because it’s an immediate thing, and can get immediate results while SEO might take a while to get your site up to the first results page.

When does social media come into play?

Emily Van Winkle: Social and SEO are very intertwined because a lot of the social efforts have SEO optimization. Social is going to help SEO efforts and vice versa. Often we would recommend social media be engaged when we start SEO. It does involve a lot more research, a lot more time, and a lot more development.

Amberly: Other programs take a while to ramp up. Even with e-mail, you have to build your list before you start to see significant results. With SEO, you’re going to have to get your code set up and start talking at social outlets. It’s also going to take a while for link building because you can’t do a 100 million links at one time.

Emily Carroll: With display advertising, you have to have a brand in place before you can build out your display images and decide how you want that to look, who your target audience is, and where you want to reach those people.
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