According to an article from InternetNews Dell has generated over $1MM in the last 18 months by posting sales and promotional messages out to their Twitter followers.  The Dell Home Outlet currently has over 3000 followers.  Although $1MM is not a huge amount for Dell the example does show that the Twitter audience is somewhat in the buyer mind set.

This is a pretty standard use of Twitter in these early days of the service.  Companies are creating Twitter accounts to push product information, special offers, or customer service updates.  Once Twitter determines a business model I’m sure there will be additional opportunties for marketers to leverage this micro-blogging technology.

Over 50% of bloggers attempt to monetize their blog one way or another.   Mostly through Google Adsense ads or similar advertising network.  Blogs provide an interesting avenue to leverage the good will of the blogger with their audience.  Opportunities include:

• Display / Banner ads: You can work with a blogger ad network such as Federated Media to get your display ads on specific blogs or blogs that focus on specific topics.
• Pay per Post:  This is where you pay the Blogger to post your marketing message.  Izea is one firm that facilitates this approach.  Be careful here — think about the quality of the blogger before getting involved with pay-per-post.
• Blogger Outreach:  This is where you or your agency has a relationship with top blogs in a specific category.  For some categories, such as Mommy Bloggers, there are firms that manage this kind of outreach.  The bloggers get products to review, content for their site, coupons, contests and other things that add value to their blog in return for them blogging about your product and service.

Some thoughts on marketing through Bloggers:

• If you’re a direct marketer converting eyes into dollars then take a look at pay-per-post.  Other wise think twice about this approach.
• Know what blogs your messaging will be displayed on.  There are very few top tier blogs in any catagory and a lot of bottom feeders.
• Difficult to scale.  There will be a limited number of blogs generating traffic that targets your consumer.
• If you’re buying key words through Google you are advertising on blogs.  The ads on this site are Google adsense ads (click on one!)

Measuring ROI

Depends on the tactic.  If you are buying display ads all of the display ad ROI measurements apply. If you are paying per post and converting those clicks to sales you have a direct ROI.  If you are doing Blogger Outreach it is a bit more difficult.  I suggest doing the following:

• Use Blogscope.net to measure the buzz around your product or service.  Trend over time to see how your campaign increases the buzz.
• Onlien coupons.  If you are selling a product or service try providing the bloggers with coupons that you can track.  You should be able to track the coupon redemption back to the blogger that provided the coupon.
• Follow up surveys.  See if you can offer a survey to the bloggers readers to measure their product awareness and purchase intent.

The nost interesting thing about blog marketing is that there is a discussion happening right now that most products and services should be involved in.  Bloggers mostly talk about products and services that mean something to them personally or professionally.  For example, I just search Blogscope.net for “High Yield Seeds” — there are 3006 blog posts on the subject.  See if the blogosphere is talking about your industry or brand.  You may be surprised that there is a robust conversation going on.  You should figure out how to be a part of it.  A consistant blogger outreach strategy will allow you to take part in the conversation — and sell more product.

Interesting data just in from Nielson Online.  65% of individuals that view online video view content between 9-to-5 on workdays.  Not a huge surprise — if you’re sitting in front of a computer all day your likely to sneak a video now and again.  Actually, 65% seems small.  Every time I hit CNN or Digg I end up watching a video.

However, you’re a marketer.  You’re thinking, “Hey, I spend a ton of cash on TV to reach my audience as they shove Doritos down their throats in front of the boob-toob.  How about capturing some of that magic in the middle of the day?”  This data helps sell the message that online video is not just TV on the computer — it is TV on the computer at work!

Nielson Online – Weekdays outpace Weekends for Online Video

Email marketing is exactly what it sounds like – marketing communication through Emails. Opportunities include sending emails to a list of email addresses you have gathered (I call this the House List), sending your email communication to a third party list, or buying lists of email addresses to send your email to.

Some definitions you’ll need to know:

Open Rate: When you send an email to a list of addresses not all of recipients will open the email. The percent that do open the email is called the Open Rate. In my experience a 20% to 30% open rate for emails to a house list is considered good.

Unique Click Through from Opens: This is the number of unique recipients that opened your email and that click on a link in your email. I use this number rather than the Click Through Rate from sent emails because it tells you how engaging the email is to those that opened the email.

Types of email lists:
House List: This is a list of email addresses you collect.

3rd Party Lists: You may allow other marketers to send email messages to your list or as part of your regular email message. This is using a 3rd party list to send your emails.

Bought Lists: This is a list of email addresses you purchase from a list company. This is not necessarily spam as the email addresses sold have most likely opted in to receive some sort of marketing emails. However, these email addresses are often gathered through creative means.

Costs:
The most common way to purchase email lists is by a cost per thousand (CPM). Rates vary depending on the quality of the list — I’ve seen prices between $5 per thousand up to $100 per thousand. I’m sure you can get junk lists for less and very qualified lists for more. I’ve also seen email lists be sold on a CPA (cost per activation) basis where you only pay for sales or leads.

ROI on Email
Email is an extremely powerful marketing tool that can show a direct ROI for online sales or lead generation. Your house list is gold and can be nurtured to perform for you time and time again. And it can be a very valuable asset that you can use to barter for 3rd party lists. Bought lists can be lucrative if the list is of quality email addresses and the recipient was not duped into providing their address. Overall, ROI is a simple calculation of the cost to send the email over the sales or leads the email generated.

For email marketing that does not tie directly back to a sale the ROI is more difficult to measure. I suggest identifying what is important to your management and building out surveys that capture that data. For instance your management may identify purchase intent to be a meaningful measurement. If so, survey your house lists on a regular basis to determine how your email marketing is effecting purchase intent.

Thoughts on Email:

• Add value.  Provide information to your list that adds real value.  Go beyond the “buy this” mentality.
• Take care of your lists.  Measure, monitor, and figure out how to grow the list and reduce the churn.
• If you are selling directly you need to use robust behavioral data to tweak out every last sale.
• Be upfront and legit.  We all hate spam.
• Your emails are an extension of all of your other campaigns.  Think strategy at a high level to incorporate all of our online tactics including social networking, user generated content, contests, sampling, and even market research.

I came accross this example of a Walmart Advergame today and thought it worthy of sharing.  I don’t have any stats on how it is performing or if the intended audience is Moms or Kids.  But this is a good example of taking a basic game engine — in this case a simple matching game — and layering on a Walmart message.