A Summer of Content: Bailey Counts The Ways to Create New Web Posts
Leave it to Matt Bailey to tell us about an online “tax rap” competition hosted by Vanilla Ice on Intuit (TurboTax)—where they drew about 700 entries to post online. Because when it comes to talking about marketing, analytics, and in this case, building content, Bailey has always drawn very high marks from SIPA Conference-goers.
“Intuit has been very inventive to give people tools to create content,” Bailey, president of SiteLogic, said at a session at last month’s SIPA 2010 Conference. “Now they have hundreds of videos of people talking about how great TurboTax is. Last year they did another successful competition around comedy routines.”
Fortunately for SIPA members, Bailey will be back at the microphone, Nov. 10-12 in Miami for the association’s 27th Annual Marketing Conference—titled Marketability in a Multimedia World: Maximize Your Return on Engagement. Bailey will serve as the keynote speaker on social media in addition to leading a pre-conference marketing workshop on Improving Results with Web Analytics & SEO.
At SIPA 2010, he told those in his session that “as president of an online marketing agency, we tend to come at content a little bit differently…Basically, it comes down to two things: you can either create your own content or react to what’s out there. It’s a choice you need to make based on your resources and creativity with those resources. Once in a very lucky while, things happen without doing either.”
One of the best examples of content creating that he gave was Southwest Airlines. He urged everyone to check out their Websites. “Everyone blogs on the Southwest Airlines blog—the president of the company, pilots, baggage handlers, desk clerks,” Bailey said. “They all provide people with insight as to what’s going on with the company.
“For instance, the CEO said they would evaluate the [cattle call] seating policy [after some email protests]. So they put it out on the blog and asked for feedback. Should we do assigned seating? They received 648 responses, overwhelmingly negative to assigned seating. Turns out that the people [who protested] were not typical customers. [And in the process], they got some amazing stories to post like ‘That’s how I met my wife.’ Business people said there’s a child over there so I’ll sit over here; conversations that got started in the seating area continued on the plane.”
Obviously, the seating policy stayed as is. “It was reinforcing for the audience to know that they could effect change”—or no change in this case, Bailey said. And great content was created.
As with all of Bailey’s talks, there were examples of the enjoyment he takes from using analytics and seeing other people use them as well. “It’s important to understand what people are looking for,” he said. A company did a promotion on YouTube with videos of dune buggies and Volkswagen beetles. They were able to determine where audience interest peaked—during the vroom vrooms—and waned—during the quiet time. They added more sound, and sales of exhaust systems took off.
Bailey said that sometimes he finds these new tools on analytics and doesn’t get any work done for a couple days, playing with them.
Another successful promotion involved the state of South Dakota, a client of Bailey’s, asking for vacation stories to post—“and they didn’t even have to be of South Dakota,” Bailey said. But the winner did get a camera and a free trip to Black Hills. Through analytics, Bailey was able to determine that people on the South Dakota site were looking for maps and leaving early when they didn’t find them. So they revamped the content and people stayed longer.
“My first trip [to South Dakota] was amazing,” he said. “I quickly became a South Dakota evangelist.” Going to Miami will also be an exciting trip for him—as well as attendees who get to hear him. Vanilla Ice may not be there, but a few warm days in mid-November among friends and colleagues should suffice nice nicely, baby.
*******************************
Register today for just $697 and save $100!
SIPA’s 27th Annual Marketing Conference
Wednesday – Friday, November 10-12, 2010
The Ritz-Carlton, South Beach, Miami
Unbelievable Room Rates of $179 –
book now, last year we sold out!
Early Bird Registration Now Available
View complete agenda and expert faculty here
Questions? Contact SIPA at 703.992.9339 or email us.
Sign up today and we’ll see you in Miami!
[text_ad]
