Know your audience!

Value: [rating=4] Our commentary: Marketing Minute's Drew McLellan of the blog offers some advice: "As you are crafting a new campaign that you hope will go viral" always ask yourself, is the juice worth the squeeze for my audience?". Drew analyzes this playful, interactive campaign from his local pizzeria Ciro's that plays on the Flat Stanley project (where players mail flat "guests" to each other and share pictures of their adventures). On the top of the pizzeria's delivery box includes a large cartoon image of its Ciro character tossing a pizza, and comes with instructions to cut out the character and take pictures of the character that you email in to Ciro's. The best photo's earn a wall of fame spot and a free pizza. Marketing implications: McLellan comments: "For a poor college student, this is probably just the thing to do on a Friday night. Especially after a couple beers. God only…

Question: How Do I Get My Customers To Recommend Me To Their Friends?

"€œI am interested in learning more about 'Referral Marketing' and wondered if you have any blogs or references on this subject. Essentially, my boss has asked that I e-mail all of my database with a 'Please talk about us' kind of message. I'm not too keen on this as I think it needs to have a bit more substance? Are there examples out there of people doing these types of e-mails? I'm not necessarily talking about incentivising base customers to talk about us, just nudging them to ask them to recommend us. Is that a 'done thing'?"

Answer:

Just asking people to refer does not work -- after all, why would they? Keep it authentic and treat people as you"€™d wish to be treated, we"€™re all human and it can be annoying if you sense you"€™re being hounded…