AIMS Discussion List June
8, 2005 -- Issue 604
AIMS Canada
The growth of RSS feeds, blogs, viral marketing, custom media, and
paid search has reached a point where they are no longer novelties, but
requisite tools of the media industry.
A room full of marketers gathered recently in Toronto at our Word
of Mouth Marketing Breakfast Seminar, as a follow up, we asked
Toby Ward, Prescient Digital
Media a few questions...
Q: What is the biggest thing that marketers need to do to
effectively use online marketing in their overall campaigns?
A: Know your target audience. Whether through
surveys, interviews, focus groups, usability testing, log analysis,
etc., it's critical to understand your users and readers and to tailor
your marketing in such a way that it resonates with their own personal
opinions, preferences, and buying or reading patterns.
Q: Who's using online viral marketing 'right' in
Canada? In the US?
A: In Canada, both iTunes and PureTracks.com have
done well with buzz marketing. Outside Canada, Curves, Microsoft (for
Halo 2), and Beer.com (Virtual Bartender) have all done good work and
generated great 'buzz'.