New York-based MediaCom won the Gold Stevie® Award for Mobile Marketing Campaign of the Year in the marketing awards categories of The 2012 American Business Awards, the premier business awards competition in the U.S.A. (The entry deadline for the 2013 ABAs is March 27, request your entry kit here and it will be emailed to you right away.) Now that the dust of Super Bowl XLVII has settled, we look behind the scenes at how the innovative technology achieved maximum ROI for a Super Bowl XLVI ad. 

In 2011, Volkswagen’s “Mini Vader” TV spot was the must-see commercial of the Super Bowl. It was strong enough that MediaCom seeded it online way ahead of game day. Momentum was built up through mobile, search, and social media; and MediaCom was able to capture data that was vital for the targeted remarketing that turned the buzz surrounding the spot into sales floor action. This momentum turned the spot about an adorable kid in a Darth Vader costume into real call-to-action messages.

In 2012, imitation proved to be the sincerest form of flattery for MediaCom when the majority of Super Bowl advertisers copied their strategy—but MediaCom was able to do even better.

The Challenge
The challenge for MediaCom was to provide mobile and tablet support for the VW Super Bowl campaign, “Dog Strikes Back,” that would run before, during, and after game day. MediaCom developed an aggressive mobile search campaign around VW’s Super Bowl spot to not only match the blockbuster results from 2011, but also exceed them. 

The campaign included:

• Mobile search
• Contextual search, and
• Voice search

Here’s a snapshot of how MediaCom’s campaign worked: 

1.  Teaser Video
The campaign started well ahead of the Super Bowl, lending support around a teaser video.  Rather than directing people to YouTube, all these efforts drove them directly to VW’s mobile-optimized website, providing an enhanced viewing experience on a mobile device or tablet. 

2.  Increased Search Traffic Through Paid Channels
Next, MediaCom continued to spread interest and increase traffic via major paid channels, including Google, Bing, Marchex Voice, and Kontera. MediaCom secured terms that were both specific to VW and more general to the Super Bowl. The MediaCom team also worked with ad networks like Kontera to secure in-text terms like “Super Bowl,” “vehicle,” and “new car”, effectively blocking the competition from these terms.

While MediaCom aggressively beat out competitors’ search terms, the real challenge came in defending VW’s own. Not only did other automobile brands bid on VW terms, but so did brands like Sketchers, Old Spice, and Doritos. MediaCom constantly monitored in real-time and adapted relevant keywords and ad copy to defend against competition at all stages of the campaign. 

3.  Voice Search
MediaCom knew that during the game people would be especially active on their phones and mobile devices – texting, Tweeting, and searching – so the team ramped up its efforts on Super Bowl Sunday. MediaCom was one of the first Super Bowl advertisers to use voice search. Consumers searching for related terms were greeted with an audio version of the VW Super Bowl ad and the opportunity to learn more about VW.

4.  Free Skype Calls for Pizza
It’s a well-known fact that many people order food during the Super Bowl—especially pizza.  MediaCom secured “pizza”-related terms, with VW sponsoring free Skype calls from consumers to pizzerias.

Phenomenal Results
By providing consumers with an easy mobile search experience, MediaCom drove phenomenal results:

• 31.9% of YouTube commercial viewings came from mobile traffic
• Clicks increased 14% from 2011 to 2012
• Impressions increased 80% from 2011 to 2012
• A 1,745% lift in clicks on game day versus pre-launch
• Over 700,000 callers heard the VW voice ad on Super Bowl day

Most importantly, VW saw its sales soar 42% year-over-year in February, the carmaker’s best February for sales since 1973.

"The mobile media work we've done for VW shows how businesses can harness the power of new media to push sales to new heights,” commented Ryan Mocan, Digital Media Director at MediaCom. “Being acknowledged as Best Mobile Marketing Campaign in The American Business Awards shows that the business community is equally aware of this."

About Ryan Mocan:
Ryan Mocan is the Digital Media Director at MediaCom. He crafts strategies to lead and strengthen his clients business while developing POVs, providing thought leadership, and driving innovation. He also ensures that companies target the right audience to drive qualified traffic to their website, and increase their online ROI with digital strategies including SEM, SEO, social media, local search optimization, mobile, display, and web analytics.

Mocan’s work has been widely recognized throughout the industry and has received numerous accolades, including an OMMA Award; two IAB MIXX Awards; a Direct Marketing Association ECHO Award; an Adrian Award; a ClickZ Connected Marketing Award; and seven American Business Awards. Mocan has twelve years of online marketing experience and holds a double MBA in online marketing and management information systems. 

About MediaCom:
Part of the WPP Group, MediaCom is one of the largest media planning and buying agencies in the world. Billing nearly $25 billion USD a year globally, MediaCom boasts over 4,500 employees across 89 countries and in 111 offices. MediaCom provides clients with business-building media communications strategies for some of the world’s biggest and best-known global brand names.

Janine Popick, CEO and Founder of VerticalResponse in San Francisco, California, USA, has won multiple Stevie® Awards, most recently for Executive of the Year in Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations in the management awards categories of The 2012 American Business Awards, the premier business awards competition in the U.S.A. (The entry deadline for the 2013 ABAs is March 27, request your entry kit here and it will be emailed to you right away.)

Now that the novelty of a new year has come and gone, you may have slipped into some old bad habits with your email marketing. Today, I’m going to share 8 things that will spice up your email marketing in 2013.

1. Facebook—More Than Status Updates: You have got a Facebook page, right? Well, it’s super easy to set up an email address sign-up form on your Facebook page, and nearly every email marketing service provider has instructions for this. Plus, while you’re driving people to check out your Facebook page, give them a reason—like a sale—for supplying you with their email address.

2. Email + Social Media = Power Couple: Email and social media need to be thought of as a great team, like Jay-Z and Beyonce. If you utilize one and not the other, you could be missing out on some killer traffic back to your website or blog. Include social media icons linking to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Pinterest sites in all your emails and newsletters. These give your readers another way to engage and connect with your business. Want even more engagement? Share your emails on your social networks each time you send one.

3. Start at the Top with Pre-header: We’ve all read a million times that your subject line is one of the most important parts of your email. But, the pre-header (i.e., the first line of text above the body of your email) serves as a wingman, or secondary subject line. It shows up in the mobile version of your email, and provides more content, which can get more people opening your emails. Use a pre-header regularly and see how it impacts your open rate. 

4. Kick Dull to the Curb: If your subject lines are a snooze-fest, then using a pre-header won’t help. If you’re sending out a monthly newsletter and your subject line is “February 2013 Newsletter,” you can certainly do better. Read the content of your newsletter. What’s the most interesting thing that stands out? What do you think would make someone stop, read, and click-through to your website? Craft your subject line using that info. No more dull subject lines. Ever.

5. ALT Text Has Got It Going On: Follow my advice from Kick Dull to the Curb and add some zing. ALT text is the copy you place “behind” an image (instead of the default tag) that displays if your recipient’s email browser turns images off by default. For example, instead of leaving your image’s super-exciting default tag of “dogfood3.JPG,” you could write: “Get 25% off all dog food until 3/31/13!” This will give your readers more context if their images are turned off, and prompt them to enable images to get the scoop.

6. Target Practice: It’s time to do more with less. Take portions of your audience based on what they’re doing (or not doing) and send them a message that means something to them. Here’s an example: Got a winery? I bet you know who bought Pinot Noir in the last 6 months. Send an exclusive offer to your Pinot fans and see if you get better results than just sending it to everyone on your list. Give ‘em a killer deal to try a new varietal at a steep discount.

7. How Often Do You Do It? Have you been sending monthly or weekly emails, at the same time, every time? Time to shake it up! Try to mail more often, or maybe less. It’s simple and easy to test: Just take a portion of your list (say 20% for trial purposes) and send two newsletters a month instead of one. See if you get a lift in opens and clicks, or a decrease in unsubscribes.

8. Content Rules the Roost: You know your business inside and out, and everything that makes it interesting and unique, so share this in your emails, on your blog, everywhere. And use your content to your advantage. You can take blog posts you’ve created with a common theme and turn them into a helpful guide, or take a few guides you’ve written and turn them into an eBook. At VerticalResponse we do a number of webinars with a common theme, like Facebook, then send out a bundle of them to our prospects. By providing useful information, we help potential customers; and when it's time to look for an email and social media provider, we hope they’ll remember us.

By getting back to the basics with these 8 Email Marketing tips you can succeed with your subscribers, prospects, and customers in 2013 and beyond.

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About Janine Popick:
Janine Popick is the CEO and founder of VerticalResponse, a leading provider of self-service email, social media, event marketing, online surveys, and direct mail solutions for businesses and non-profits. She has won the Stevie Award for Best Entrepreneur in the Stevie Awards for Women in Business every year since 2008. Janine recently won the U.S. Small Business Administration award for Small Business Person of the Year and was named a 2012 Small Biz Influencer Champion by Small Biz Trends. Janine brings over 20 years of experience leading direct and Internet marketing programs for some of the biggest brands in technology and entertainment. Follow her on Twitter at @janinepopick.

About VerticalResponse:
VerticalResponse Inc. provides a full suite of self-service marketing solutions for small businesses, including email marketing, social media marketing, event marketing, online surveys, and direct-mail marketing. Its mission is to empower small businesses and non-profit organizations to easily and affordably create, manage, and analyze their own marketing campaigns. Users can benefit from a wide variety of features via a single dashboard, including more than 700 free email-marketing templates; social media management tools to create, schedule, and publish content, and engage with followers; and robust reporting so that they can understand overall marketing success. VerticalResponse is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information visit www.verticalresponse.com.