Marketing Lessons from Guns N’ Roses
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“This is to all the Guns N’ Roses Fans who stuck with us thro all the s*** ” - Axl Rose
I’ve been a hardcore Guns N’ Roses fan and I am joined by millions around the globe who await their new album in 17 years..Yeah, you read it right 17 years.
By the time the new GNR album, “Chinese Democracy” hits stores on Sunday, it will have been 17 years, two months and seven days since the last time GNR fans had a chance to buy a CD of new material.
When Axl finally emerged from the Rip Van Wrinkle studio he would have found that the world had changed.
Here’s what I mean :
- When the bands album “Use your illusion” 1 and 2 were realeased on September 17 th 1991, an unknown band called Nirvana was getting ready to launch an album called ‘Nevermind’ the following week. In other words Nirvana became a cult band , lead singer Kurt Cobain peaked, died and became nostalgia between the two GNR album releases.
- The Google guys were still 8 years before they met.
- Micheal Jackson was considered a good investment. Sony had just signed him to a contract for worth 1 billion.
- The biggest game system was SEGA, Sony’s playstation was still three years in the future.
- Apple was 12 years aways from making the iPod.
- There were no digital downloads, no Facebook , no Myspace, no American Idol.
- The world’s population was 5.7 billion. Its now 6.3 billion.
- The band itself split with Axl Rose controling the rights to the Gun N Roses brand.
- It was still 10 years before 9/11 change the world.
- There was a brutal recession in US and across the globe as stock markets tanked, partly because fighting a War in Iraq.
Ok, so not everything has changed.
What’s this got to do with an Internet Marketing Blog ?
- Chinese Democracy is an album that Axl Rose has been working on for over 10 years, it has become the most expensive albums of all times. After so many delays , leaks , band link up changes it’s hard to believe that this album will ever be released.
But we can certainly learn some marketing lessons from this one.
- Building anticipation works :
The anticipate build up used for this is worth mentioning, instead of waiting until the entire album was finished, the band strategicaly made announcements when the album was in its early stages, when new band members were found, and made good use of live shows to preview select few songs. If this was not done stratigically the band would not not impacted the anticipation build up for 17 years.
- Leveraging Technology and Internet to build anticipation :
No better marketing tool can be used than the internet to leak song footage online. While this was strategically done it would have been a disaster for the band if this was not supervised and authorized intentionally.
- Keeping the trust factor intact :
Most marketing companies go too far in anticipating the trust of their customers in the initial phase of the campaign. You need to know when to stop and when to go. I am sure that most GNR fans had given up hope waiting in anticipation about the release of this new album.
- Getting attention of the media and the marketplace :
The hype and aniticipate of the release of the album ensured that they were always in the news. Back in March, the Dr Pepper people said they would offer free fizzy stuff to everyone in US if Axl managed to launch the album in 2008. Back then the likelihood of see the release of Chinese Democracy on the shelves seemed remote.
But now the day has arrived and the company is not welching. Tony Jacobs, VP Marketing of Dr Pepper, said in a statement :”Dr Pepper’s on us ”
Begining this Sunday ( 23 rd November ) at 12.01 am, coupons for a free 20 ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper’s website. Coupons will be honoured until 28 th February 2008.
The long awaited Chinese Democracy drops at Best Buy stores November 23 rd 2008 , but you can listen to the preview songs right here at Myspace.com/gunsnroses
Its received a record smashing 25 listens per second, Guns N’ Roses have not only completed their comeback, but they have had the largest ‘listening party’ in the world.
The release makes me feel nostalgic.
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Tips to make a Blog Contest successful
Contesting is an amazing viral tool that gets more exposure for your blog provided you use the contest strategically to leverage growth for your blog.
The objective of any contest should be to create a viral effect and increase usership for your blog.
Tips to make a blog contest successful :
1 ) Don’t rush:
- Don’t start a contest as soon as you launch a blog, get at least about 30 - 40 good articles on your site before lanching a contest, ensure you have decent amount of traffic to your blog atleast 25 - 35 visits a day to your blog, ensure your content encourages interactivitity from your readers in terms of comments at least about 4 - 5 good commments per post.
Once you have the above you can start to work on a contest as you have now created a solid foundation for the contest to be successful.
2 ) Keep the contest simple:
- Keep focused on the objective of being viral, keep the contest very simple. Let the user do a maximum of 5 action oriented things to gain an entry in to your contest. Anything more than 5 will not go well with the user.Respect your users time for contesting.
3 ) Create a viral buzz:
- Ensure that you give entries or points to users to create a viral buzz for your blog. You should leverage social media sites like Stumble Upon and Technorati to favourite your blog, gain visibility and increase ranking.
4 ) Ensure a link strategy for your contest blog:
- Incentivise users with entries to link your contest post to their blog. This is the best natural form of getting noticed by Google. This will result in high Google ranking and high PR in the next update depending on how many sites link to you.
5 ) Use forums effectively:
- Use webmasters forums effectively to ensure that your contest post is visible. Create a contest thread for your blog on these forum to leverage traffic and entries to your blog. Use at least 10 - 12 webmasters forum for this activity. Ensure that each thread on each forum is different, the will help you in not posting duplicate content for your blog online.
Every webmaster forum has a Contest sub section, make use of this to promote your blog.
6 ) Ensure reputable sponsors:
- Good sponsors and prizes are always an attraction for any contest. Ensure you tie up with reputed blog and sites to build attraction for your contest. High the value of the prizes better the response to your blog contest.
7 ) Get high commenting:
- Ensure that you comment intelligently on top traffic blogs in your niche and drive traffic to the contest post instead of your home page.
Let’s see how WebTrafficROI performed on the above points in terms of traffic and readership.The figure below indicate the before contest and after contest scenerio.
RSS users : 38 122 ( till last night, not sure what happened to the feedburner this morning, its only showing me 40 RSS readers )
Alexa ranking: 3,85,000 2,18,000 ( the blog is moving rapidly below th 200 k mark )
Technorati : 62,300 35,630
Google PR : 1 2
The contest has shown that it can significantly improve your blogs ranking and traffic in less than a month. You need to ensure that all the above factors are well executed.
The blog did not spend any money on advertising the contest on any blogs nor did I comment on blogs leading to the contest page.
The traffic and readership for the blog was a natural and viral progression of effectively leveraging the contest post on the blog.
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Awesome Thanksgiving Contest Results - Did you Win ?
I want to thank all my reader who participate in the Awesome Thankgiving Contest and Congratulate all the winners of this contest.
The draws were a random pick and the list of winner is mentioned below :
First prize : Directory XD from Directory XD
Second prize : JR from Get Internet Marketing Strategies
Third prize : Wiehanne from Wiehannecontest.com
Fourth prize : Honeul from MissHoneul.net
Fifth prize : Yan from Wpbeginers.com
Sixth prize : Cyndiee from Cyndiee.com
Seventh prize : Theme Lib from ThemeLib.com
Eighth prize : Akira07 from StartingFrom20.com
Nineth prize : Sherry from Ilovecontest.com
Tenth prize : Navjot Singh from Submityourcontest.com.com
Please check the Thanksgiving Contest post for your prizes. I am contacting the sponsors for this contest, but you may also visit the sponsors page and contact them directly for your prize. You can tell them that you won XXX on WebTrafficROI.com and claim your XXX prize.
If you have won a prize on WebTrafficROI or if you have any issue claiming your prizes from sponsored sites please contact me webtrafficroi {at} yahoo{dot}ca
I want to also thank my sponsors Health-Web-Directory.com, ShankerBakshi.com, Creadiv.com, Frogstr.com, TusharDhoot.comandCoolWebDeveloper.comfor sponsoring the wonderful prizes on my blog.
Thank you everyone once again for your valuable time and support in making this event a grand success.
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6 Tips for Improving site conversion during recession
If you have a new site or blog, initially you ll find that you don’t get a lot of traffic or your traffic is like a roller coaster ride high on some days and low on other days. Don’t get intimedated by this trend even the best of bloggers go through such a traffic cycle.
More traffic does not alway mean more sales, qualified traffic leads to better sales. You can convert low traffic by ensuring that your site is tuned for conversion.
1. Ensure you have a neat layout :
If you are a blog owner, ensure you have a neat blog theme depending on your niche I recommend you to use the Ultimate Blogging Theme if you have a blog about Internet Marketing, Blogging or Make Money Online. This is a tried and tested theme for successful conversions even if you are a new blogger or have less traffic.
2. Understand your Surfers :
What do people surf on your site, where do they come from , what are the keywords that drive people to your site from search engines, how can you leverage those keywords in your post to get better conversions and higher traffic for search engine, Improve banner placements and Call to action in your articles. You need to push the surfers to the right places which deliver the right traffic.
To drive conversions with low traffic you need to understand every move of your surfer on your blog or website.
3. Use Google Analytics
I use Google Analytics on my blogs, its the best free tool available online. Ensure you install and understand the analytics package, Google Analytics is free and a good place to start, understand which pages your visitors are entering on and make sure you funnel these visitors to your “sales page”.
If you have an article or sub-page which is attracting the visitors, ensure this page delivers the information they are looking for but also encourages them to visit other pages within your site.
4. Ensure you pre-sell well :
Getting the traffic to your page is the hard part, don’t let yourself down when they arrive, ensure you mirror the key selling points, benefits and features of the product you are recommending.
Ensure you have completely pre-sold the product before letting them leave your site, as an affiliate you have done your job, it is now down to the merchant to ensure they close the sale. Ensure you are promoting the products that convert the best, a poor converting merchant site can undo all your hard work. I recommend that you work only with well know affiliates like Market leverage, Niche More etc.
5. Split Test
You can try different header text, different call to actions or complete pages, why not create 3 more index pages which different approaches and see which ones convert best?
6. Use clear call to actions :
Your visitors are looking for guidance, ensure you clearly explain where they should go next. If they land on a product review, give them a number of different opportunities to visit the product’s landing page. If your surfers visit your index page, ensure you show them the path you wish them to take.
You don’t need deep pockets to succeed during a credit crunch simply innovation, determination and the right guidance.
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Awesome Thanksgiving Contest ends today
Just in case you ve missed the Thanksgiving Contest, you can send in your entries by end of today - 10 th November 2008, Eastern Standard Time. So far the blog has received more than 80 entries for the contest, more than 1200 views and more than 130 comments for the contest post.
The term “Thanksgiving Contest” was number two on Google and was the main driver for visits to this post. If you have not yet taken part this could be your chance to win some great promotions for your blog or site.
Enter the Thanksgiving Contest and make your blog count.
The contest winners will be announced by end of this week.
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