Financial Services Marketing Summit
iMedia Conference Speaker: Brand Activation

Q&A

Questions/Answers via text message haven't been edited. The last four numbers have been deleted for privacy.

 

Question from 917-749-xxxx : Kasina.com
Answer : Thx for the self promotion. It's actually kasina.com/blog

 

 

Question from 646-408-xxxx : Netbanker

Answer : Thx 

 

 

Question from 917-544-xxxx : Blog: Nytimes.com

Answer : Thx

 

 

Question from 917-716-xxxx : Gawker

Answer : thx!  It's Nick Denton's blog who also was at iMedia in San Diego

 

 

Question from 646-470-xxxx : Finserv

Answer : Thx

 

 

Question from 908-723-xxxx : OpusResearch.net

Answer : Thx

 

Question from 203-517-xxxx : The lack of response to the blog question leads to my first
question. How relevant really are financial blogs to the population at large?
Answer : I'll let the afternoon keynotes tackle that issue... I think 3 of the last 6 or 7 speakers will address blogging directly.

 

 

Question from 917-604-xxxx : Can you list your favorite blogs?

Answer : I like PaymentsNews,  iMediaConnection, Adtech, MarketingSherpa and others

 

 

Question from 585-820-xxxx : How much credibility do blogs really have...aren't most just read by the authors?
Answer : Have you read my blog at Amazon.  Not only do I read it, but so does my mom and assorted family members I incentives with second stage premiums

 

Question from 818-731-xxxx : Random question: when it comes to the UCMS customers, how do the different media consumption habits of Millennials change the game for financial marketing?
Answer : Great question!  Millennials are accused (rightly so) of continued partial attention.  We attacked the issue by attempting to activate our brand.  Students have no need and no trust of media and branding campaigns via media.  Brand activation for us meant trying to position ourselves as #2 (second supplier gambit). 

 

Our efforts to reach out center around what their problems were and luring them in with premiums, then Second Stage Premiums SSP and then 'tricking' them into doing well for themselves with our CAT (consumer advocate truth) educational materials

 

 

Question from 404-438-xxxx : What kind of mobile marketing do u utilize for ur program? How do u get legal on board and who dictates best practices?

Answer : Getting legal on board for anything is an all day conference topic in its own right.  I'd go at it in five stages
a) researching our own TOS
b) cut and paste what another division did/does and use their same vendor
c) partner with vendor with zero violations and use them to distribute messaging
d) proactively advise legal by outlining touch points of your sms campaign
e) ink the agreement that has diagrams / flow charts as appendix/attachments

 

Question from 646-408-xxxx : How do u leverage Facebook?

Answer : Right now we don't buy media on Facebook as we leverage traffic on campus.  We don't rule out buying Facebook media in the very near future.

Question from 847-757-xxxx : What methods do you find as the best for communicating with college students? Email, sms, social networking sites?

Answer : This is a loaded question.  We allow students to pull information instead of pushing them.  If there are new ideas we'd like to present, we do so using peer to peer marketing.  I'll post an article about this within two weeks of this event.  If you'd like a copy, email me at larry@duck9.com

 

Question from 917-544-xxxx : Who pays you?  What do credit card issuers measure from your program?

Answer : Card issuers only pay per properly filled out application.  Card issuers don't pay for contestant entries, outbound text messages or to sponsor Credit Strategies Seminars.

 

Question from 646-408-xxxx : Can u be a fico manager tool on mentor..no ads...tool to user?
Answer : Right now, we don't embed ads into the text messages we send to students.  Duck9 is a pure FICO boosting tool via sms

 

Question from 646-221-xxxx : How do u make money?

Answer : we make money doing lead generation.  Our database of students and recent graduates has certain FICO scores.  Their offers get loaded up as a text link on a page they see when they log in.

 

Question from 917-716-xxxx : how do you assure the phone numbers are real?
Answer : The phone numbers submitted are real because they are confirmed with a sms / text message before the student leaves with a free slice of pizza.  The student "contestant" is sent a text message and the phone is placed into a box.  Once the phone gets the sms, the phone (along with picture ID) is returned to the student.

Question from 917-204-xxxx : How can mentorship marketing be done effectively online?
Answer : Mentorship marketing can be done by pushing tips, strategies, techniques and ideas on the product that you represent via banner ads. Ideally the message coincides with consumer needs via a consumer advocacy truth and meets them where most web surfers are at: No need and No trust. These banner ads "sell" free newsletter subscriptions, text message updates, sms reminders or rss feed broadcasting your CAT (consumer advocacy truth).  More on these tips are on my Amazon Blog.  Google "Larry Chiang, Mentor Marketing"

 

 

Question from 646-408-xxxx : Right..make your service an app

Answer : Advertisers at the bleeding edge are starting to explore Facebook apps (short for applications).  These apps leverage the user base already on Facebook to perform company specific services while simultaneously being socially shared amongst Facebook friends.  Some popular ones include, "where in the world I've been", "Rock You" and "Slide". 

 

 

Question from 310-713-xxxx : Will college students continue to simultaneously consume media when they graduate or is continued partial media attention just a phase?

Answer : college students will stay habitual multi-taskers even after they graduate. Fresh graduates multi-task not only when someone else is talking, but also when they're talking. We ran focus groups that showed working IQs fell 20-35 points when the subjects were consuming media from multiple channels. Reading speeds were decimated and comprehension of new material was near nil.

Question from 208-340-xxxx : Is it feasible to develop strategies to monetize social network sites? And if so what are the key factors?

Answer : If I knew, I'd be rich. but I do think monetization of social networking sites boils down to

a) Is your message easy enough to repeated by a drunken sophomore on a Saturday afternoon? If it isn't and compelling, make it better AND simplify it!

b) Design a campaign that has second stage premiums (SSP)

c) Activate you're branding by attempting SSP, SSG and aligning with a CAT to drive email/cell phone number collection

 

 

Question from 206-828-xxxx : How would you spend $500k to promote new printer offering for students?

Answer : I'd do a contest live on campus with the majority of funds. I'd sponsor sophomore women groups at Barron's rank 2-6 schools with picture confirmation that my logo was on the back of a t-shirt. I'd "pay" students an SSP (second stage premium) if they loaded my logo up on their facebook page.  I'd promote an entrepreneur contest that pits upstarts from one campus against another.  I'd do a Spring Break promo where students would "Print Money": i.e. Use the new printer to print out pizza coupons on red paper for local FREE slices of pizza.  Basically, as a rule of thumb, I'd take 50% of the budget and allow people to 'win' things and activate my brand around 'winning' and my CAT (consumer advocate truth)

** QUESTIONS END **

 

Larry Chiang -"Treasure Map of Lead Generation"

Larry Chiang's power point and iMedia's Case Studies

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Read Q&A from the session October 18, 2007