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Making the Connection to the Real World

Aug 18, 2008
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This post is about marketing, online and offline marketing and relevant for business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumers (B2C) as well. It also relates to affiliate marketing, specifically affiliate recruitment. It is more for affiliate managers and advertisers, but affiliates might also find some of the stuff useful or at least interesting.
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After having some fun with the video for my interview with the guys from the PepperJam Network in June, I did decide to play around with it a bit more.

I am an amateur when it comes to producing and editing video and I also have no professional video recording equipment. However, I tried to do the best with the resources and experience that I had available to produce a short seven part mini-series, which is only about 27 1/2 minutes in length total.

Since I am using video, my blog post did remain unusual short (compared to my regular posts here at ReveNews.com). Transcribing might becomes an option one day, but as for now a summary of the video content has to suffice.

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Virtual marketing online is simple and cheap compared to marketing offline and using traditional media. However, the online space is crowded and it will only get worse in the years to come.

Getting attention is not so easy anymore and making a personal connection with customers or business partners in the virtual world was always hard to impossible.

Especially businesses that are literally virtual-businesses only often forget about the power of real world marketing. I present to you some real world examples that are intended to function as reminder and inspiration for you. Something likes case-studies if you will.

I picked a few specific real world marketing campaigns that illustrate how you can not only get attention and new business from it, but also improve customer retention and loyalty.

Here is the first video of the series…

YouTube Preview Image

I created a playlist that you can easily access the remaining videos here.

If you have high-speed internet access and prefer better quality videos, you can download the high resolution version (640×480 pixels) of those seven videos among older videos of mine in .AVI or .WMV format via Mediafire.com (free, no delays, no need to sign-up).

Cheers!
Carsten Cumbrowski
Internet Marketer, Entrepreneur and Blogger

Update! I thought that this might be helpful :) .

The video index

  1. Video #1
    Introduction to the subject and to myself
  2. Video #2
    Example: Nourishlife (Merchant) with affiliate program at ShareASale, managed by the OPM Schaaf Consulting. They sent out product samples to potential affiliate partners to recruit them for their program.
  3. Video #3
    Example: MoneySavingGuide.com a resources site that helps people with saving money. They sent out little gifts, such as a piggy bank and some (fake) coins in a sack to promote their website.
  4. Video #4
    Example: Mahalo.com, the human powered search engine by Jason Calacanis. They send active contributors to Mahalo a little welcome or “thank you” package, which includes a towel, a basecap and a coffee mug, all with the Mahalo logo on it to show their appreciation to people’s contributions.
  5. Video #5
    Eample: Criss Angel fan club “The Loyal” welcome package. Criss Angel is a magician (TV show “Mindfreak” and starting in October, his new show with Cirque du Soleil, called “Believe” at the Luxor hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada). The membership is online and virtual. Members get access to special content. Welcome package includes a welcome letter, a high quality print of Criss Angel’s Mindfreak and a Membership VIP card/id.
  6. Video #6
    Example: MarketingSherpa Membership package. B2B virtual membership for marketing professionals to get access to the extensive MarketingSherpa content, guides, how-to’s, case studies and statistics. Package includes a folder with Membership certificate and the year when you became a member. The folder contains an index with all the articles etc. with a code for each article for easy access on the MarketingSherpa website. Also a book with the MarketingSherpa Email Award winners of 2006 and 2007.
  7. Video #7
    Personal Example: Affiliate Summit “Friends” fridge magnets and conclusion to the subject and the shown examples.

About Carsten Cumbrowski

Internet Marketer, Entrepreneur and Blogger. To learn more about me and what I am doing, visit my website and check out the “about” section.

Twitter: ccumbrowski
Filed under: Affiliate Marketing + Case Studies + Customer Relationship Management + Internet Marketing + Internet Strategy + Micro-Content
  • http://www.gypsybandito.com CT Moore

    I think you did a great job, Carsten. Being a tv producer and being a video blogger are not the same thing: http://www.bloggingtips.com/2007/10/12/video-blog…

    That being said, I don't think that there was anything about your vlog post that was necessarily amateur.

  • http://www.cumbrowski.com/ Carsten Cumbrowski

    Thanks for the kudos C.T. I appreaciate it. Interesting post and I recall the video post by Loren Feldman that you cited. I like Loren's attitude, you could call it "being blunt" hehe.

    A PC sucks for video editing. I spend may too much time trying to get the video and audio codecs and DirectShow filters to work properly. I know already more about that stuff than I want to :( .

    I decided to use video for this subject, because I wanted to show the actual items that I am talking about to illustrate that they are not fancy at all and that they do not have to be fancy either.