I am going to go on a bit of a late night rant - my apologies. When I see a good marketing campaign, I do my best to point it out, so others can emulate it. When I see a poor marketing effort, I try to point out the flaws, so improvements can be made.

Before I start my rant, I have to say that Jet Blue is my new favorite airline. For the past few months, I’ve tried my hardest to only fly Jet Blue, which is difficult since they don’t fly everywhere I fly (yet). I love the fact that they have televisions on their aircraft, and their employees are always super friendly. One thing that has always bothered me though is their online reservation drop down menus. They ask for departing and arriving cities, the date of travel, and the number of passengers, which is all pretty standard. My question is why does the # of passenger drop down menu default to zero passengers? Wouldn’t they assume that at least one passenger is flying? I’ve been booted back to the main page for forgetting to change this one too many times. While minor, this is a frustration that can easily be eliminated by thinking like a passenger rather than a marketer.

You are probably asking where is the flaw in their marketing effort rather than their reservation system. Today I received an email from Jet Blue, touting their new wireless access on one of their airplanes. I clicked through to their homepage and saw this: “Featured web fares: $69 each way New York, JFK to West Palm Beach.” Unfortunately, there wasn’t a clear mention of when this is applicable, and I just spent the last 10 minutes searching various travel dates with no luck. I am sure I could call, but I would probably get a “sorry, that’s a web deal only” answer. It’s just frustrating when a company presents an offer but makes it very difficult to find the offer. It’s one thing if they stated the travel dates and you can’t use the tickets on those dates, but it’s annoying to have to scour the website to find it (with no luck).

One company that actually makes it easy to find the special web deals is Greyhound Bus Lines. They offer a link to the special web deals page where you enter the date of travel, and you get the advertised fare. Print your tickets and get on the bus. Piece of cake.

When a company makes a great offer and makes it easy to redeem said offer, they’ve done a great job. The point of direct marketing is to generate a calculable ROI. Jet Blue was able to elicit a response from me, but they made it very difficult for me to book a reservation, so I went down as an unconverted lead instead of a sale. Marketers should think like consumers, and they should make it as easy for the consumer to respond as possible.

I am here in the Apple store on Fifth Avenue again checking some things out, and they have some awesome point of sale (POS) technology. There are people walking around with handheld credit card scanners to complete the purchase. The only catch is that they don’t print receipts. How do you get your receipt, you ask?

Email!

What a great way to build the customer database for future direct marketing efforts. When they email you the receipt, they can probably send you an offer to make an upsell purchase. They may also re-offer you that extended warranty you passed on before. The sky is the limit with this technology. I am constantly impressed with the way they do business (the rep next to me is speaking in Spanish to a customer, BTW), and I am glad I bought some AAPL stock a couple of weeks ago.

I am curious if buyers are automatically opt-ed in to receiving future solicitations by allowing them to send your receipt via email. I may just have to make a purchase to examine their after sale direct marketing efforts. Regardless, they are certainly building a huge database with a ton of transactional information.

Last week I blogged about Citibank’s purchase of ThankYou.com to go along with its “Thank You Rewards Program.” While it may seem like the obvious domain name for this program, many corporations simply assume its customers will find out more information about a branded product or service by navigating to the corporate site instead. Last week, I congratulated Citibank on this wise purchase.

I was reading a post on Frank Schilling’s SevenMile.com blog about Citigroup’s branding of Mortgage.com, and I wanted to bring attention to this. Clearly the ThankYou.com purchase isn’t just a one time smart move. There is a strong marketing culture at Citigroup, and its domain acquisitions prove that the company understands its customers’ web surfing habits.

Mortgage.com is miles ahead of any other domain name in the mortgage industry. Sure, Citigroup executives could have said “if a potential customer wants a mortgage from us, they will navigate to Citigroup.com or Citibank.com.” This could have been true, and nobody would really say otherwise. However, the Citi branding of Mortgage.com allows Citigroup to make their pitch to ANY potential customer who wants a mortgage and visits this site. Instead of paying $x.xx or more per click to attract customers to its site, they now own all of these leads. They’ve eliminated the competition that existed, and they don’t have to compete with other advertisers.

It’s so easy, but so many companies just don’t understand this. I can’t say enough positive things about this great purchase.

**Although Mortgage.com was acquired by Citigroup, when they purchased ABN AMRO Mortgage Group, Inc.

I was with a friend last night discussing the advantages of interactive marketing. There are far too many to name, but I think the ability to be creative is one of the most compelling reasons, followed by the opportunity for viral messaging (peer to peer). One problem some people have is finding trustworthy partners who can produce top quality material. It’s true that the really good people are always busy working on other projects. The key is to engage them ahead of time and not expect a finished product overnight.

I hope to give more insight in future posts, but I wanted to share a great campaign my friend created while working at his former advertising agency. His task was to introduce the Philips Bodygroom shaver to the American market.

His campaign won a ton of creative awards, including:
The One Show Interactive: Gold Award (2007)
Clio Interactive: Gold (2007)
Art Directors Club: Distinctive Merit (2007)
Webby Awards: Webby Award & People’s Voice (2007)
Cannes Cyber Lions: Gold (2006)
The FWA: Site of the Year (2006)
The FWA: Site of the Month (2006)
The FWA: Site of the Day (2006)
Design Interact: Site of the Week (2006)
Advertising Age: Digital Campaign of the Year (2006)

Check it out when you have a chance:
http://shaveeverywhere.com/

And if you want to get in touch with my friend for your interactive marketing needs, let me know. He now works for a highly creative firm that can help make a big impact on your marketing.

On October 3, I blogged about the United States Postal Service’s campaign to make consumers aware of threats posed by scammers. In that post, I said that the campaign was great, but “the USPS should never have used a .org domain name where the .com is taken. If they needed to have that specific .org, they should have bought the .com for whatever it cost.” Well, as it turns out, the USPS did buy FakeChecks.com the following day. According to the Whois History service, they utilized the services of Sedo on 10/4, and it now shows the USPS as current owners.

Congratulations to the USPS for “getting it” both figuratively, and for litterally getting it, by purchasing the name they needed much more than the previous owner. Now all they need to do is forward that URL to FakeChecks.org, as the .com currently shows a “Welcome to Your New Virtual Private Server!” message.

Shortly after graduate school, I worked at Wunderman, the direct marketing agency under the Y&R Brands umbrella. I was a Project Manager on the Citibank retail merchandising account, one of the agency’s largest clients. Wunderman created direct mail packages, financial center brochures and financial center advertising including displays, window slicks, sandwich boards, ATM machine screens, and many others.

In 2004, Citibank unveiled their “Thank You” program, a rewards program that thanked customers for banking with Citi. I worked with some great creative people at Wunderman (Gus Tejerina, Barry Dickson, and Terry Pierce among many others) who came out with some great catchy advertising based on the “Thank You” theme.

At the time, I hadn’t purchased my first domain name, so suggesting that Citibank should buy ThankYou.com was never something I considered. In retrospect, with such a huge branding initiative undertaken by Citi, this domain name was critical for Citibank to own. Up until 2006, the domain name was owned by a company called 800 Brands, Inc. Sometime in late 2006, the domain name was purchased by Citibank, where it now anchors the “Thank You” rewards program.

Because of the major branding done by Citibank and its advertising agency partners, ThankYou.com became an essential asset that Citibank needed. Although they probably ended up paying much more for the name than they would have paid had they bought it before the campaign, the fact that they spent the money shows that they are smart marketers.

When a company unveils a new campaign or marketing slogan, they should always prepare for the best case scenario. They should ask, “if this becomes huge, will people expect to find more information at slogan.com?” If the answer is yes or maybe, they should buy the domain name before the campaign is dropped. Not doing this can result in missed contact opportunities or added expense when the name is needed.

At NYU, I was taught that Direct Marketing is a one on one communication with a consumer where the reaction (or lack of) can be tracked, and a return on investment can be calculated. Direct marketers use specific calls to action to encourage consumers to respond, providing a trackable and measurable result.

Generic domain names that are parked at companies like Fabulous or SmartName provide the perfect direct marketing test bed. You have a trackable medium (using web analytics), with a call to action in the form of related links of enticing offers. If a visitor clicks through, that’s the response, and the revenue generated from the click is part of the return on the investment. If there isn’t a click-through, the domain owner knows the content wasn’t of interest to the visitor.

Using web analytics, the domain owner can determine whether the advertising links are relevant to what consumers want when they navigate to his site. He has the ability to test many different variables (keywords, images, colors, layout…etc), which is also a hallmark of direct marketing. I seem to remember a mantra of “test everything.” Using some parking programs (like Trafficz), the owner can even write content to offer information that may also invite the consumer to click through and/or return.

Parked domain names can be a great precursor to development. Before investing thousands of dollars into a domain name, the owner can see what visitors want and what isn’t of interest. Using my Customs.com as an example, based on the CTR and clicks, I can determine whether people are looking for customs clearance information, customs lawyers, custom cars, or possibly even Halloween costumes due to a typo.  Based on the analysis I’ve done, it’s pretty clear that they are looking to find passport, travel, and other information associated with customs clearance and requirements.

I just saw a neat advertisement from the National Football League targeting Latino football fans celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. The advertisement is in Spanish with English subtitles, and it directs viewers to NFLatino.com. Knowing that some people may accidentally navigate to NFLLatino.com, the NFL owns the typo of their domain name, and it forwards to the correct website. Its’ a small thing like this that ensures there is no leakage in direct navigation traffic.

Yesterday I blogged about the USPS’ new anti-scam campaign directing people to FakeChecks.org. The whole point of my post wasn’t to criticize the Postal Service - I think the campaign is smart and the message is good. However, I believe there is a good chance many viewers will end up on the wrong website, not owned by the USPS.

A perfect example can be found on the KETV 3 website, a Santa Barbara news station. Directly from their website:

“According to the US Postal Service, scam victims lose $3,500 on average and are often responsible to repay banks for the money lost. The Post Service met with officials and residents to issue warnings and give tips on how you can avoid being scammed. The US Postal Service and Postal Inspection Service have set up a website at www.fakechecks.com so you can report fraudulent activity.”

Whether we like it or not, many people automatically assume a domain name is a .com no matter what the extension is. This confusion could potentially lead people to the wrong website, as can be seen by this inadvertant news article.

I just saw a television commercial sponsored by the United States Postal Service, and although I am not surprised by the lack of forward thinking, I am shaking my head that the USPS just doesn’t get it.  

The advertisement (during primetime MLB playoffs) begins with a disheveled looking man walking onto a bus and choosing a seat next to a woman.  He begins by informing her that she just won a random lottery sponsored by a clearly fictitious organization.  To claim the multi-million dollar prize, all she needs to do is write the man a check to cover some random fees.  Essentially, the man is playing the part of an in-person Nigerian scammer commonly seen online.

It is a clever advertisement (and ongoing campaign) playing on the fact that these scams are much more obvious in person than online, and people need to beware when they receive suspicious emails.  I dig the message.  I think it is very important for non-web savvy people to know about these scams, know how to spot them, and know what to do when they come across one.

HOWEVER, the commercial ends with a large graphic directing people to visit FakeChecks.org for more information.  GUESS WHAT!  FakeChecks.COM is owned by someone else.  How many people do you think will accidentally directly navigate to the .com in error - especially considering some web browsers automatically enter the .com extension?  The USPS should never have used a .org domain name where the .com is taken.  If they needed to have that specific .org, they should have bought the .com for whatever it cost.  They then should have forwarded the .com traffic to the .org so they didn’t lose any eyes. The advertising campaign probably cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Why would they chance sending confused consumers to the wrong domain name, especially considering the message.    

This reminds me of the time Dick Cheney quoted something from FactCheck.org and accidentally directed people to FactCheck.com, owned by none other than Frank Schilling.

This has to be one of the most ironic, idiotic campaigns I’ve seen in a long time. The USPS just doesn’t get it!  

Just to be a bit more clear, I am not advocating that the USPS shouldn’t have used a .org.  I think the .org suits this campaign quite well.  I think they might have been wise to choose another domain name where the .com was available, as people will inevitably enter the wrong extension.  In my opinion, many consumers are trained to goto the “.com” extension.  Why take a chance that some consumers will do this and end up on a site not controlled by the USPS.