Cocktails Moves, Kelkoo.com, Webweekends.co.uk

** MarketingSherpa.co.uk **
Practical News & Case Studies for Internet
Advertisers, Marketers & PR Pros in the UK
July 17, 2000 - Vol. I, Issue 9

Note: Yes please forward this to your friends --
as long as you tell them to get their own FREE
subscriptions at http://www.marketingsherpa.co.uk

1. NEWS & GOSSIP: Campaign Cocktails, The eBusiness
Awards, ADScience.co.uk, and Kelkoo.com

2. CASE STUDY: Webweekends.co.uk Onto a Winner with
Competition Email Marketing Campaign

3. READERS’ LETTERS

4. EVENTS

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NEWS & GOSSIP
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* Campaign Cocktails: It’s Moved (and it’s Full, but
it’ll be Back Again Soon)

Well, folks – since so many of you are coming to our
‘Campaign Cocktails’ on Wednesday 26th July we’ve had to
move it to a bigger place. The new venue (people who
aren’t on the RSVP list, look away now because we simply
can’t fit anybody else in) is:

Pinocchio, 4 Burgon Street, London EC4V 5DR
For a map, see www.bwdma.co.uk/emarketing_zone/campaign_cocktails.html.

Don’t even THINK about trying to sneak a few friends in
because our bouncer, though she might be only 5’2” tall,
is from New Yawwk, so she’s a tough cookie…

Good news for those of you who missed out this time: our
September party (location TBA) will be bigger! Sign up
at http://www.ersvp.com/reply/londonsept today before
250 others beat you to it.

In September our guest VIP will be Seth Fineberg, former
managing editor at ChannelSeven.com. Seth is famous for
two things: knowing the best suppliers and vendors for
Net marketers to use, and being an expert on rich media
advertising. He’s just started his own consulting
business to help people just like you – if you want to
schedule a personal meeting while he’s in the UK, drop
him an email (sethf@rcn.com), or give him a bell (+1
917 653 7042).
http://www.ersvp.com/reply/londonsept

* Where Are All the Entrepreneurs?: More Nominations
Needed for the EEA eBusiness Awards

The prestigious European ecommerce Association’s
eBusiness Awards are set to take place at The eBusiness
Show this September. Nominations are simply flooding in
for awards in a whole host of categories including Best
Consumer Website, Best B-to-B Website, Most Effective
Marketing Campaign (we’ll be VERY interested to see who
lands that one...), and Most Exciting Newcomer.

So far, however, we hear that there’s only a handful of
hopefuls in the Entrepreneur of the Year and Outstanding
Contribution to ecommerce categories, and the ladies and
gentlemen of the judging panel are just crying out for
more nominees. You know what that means, don’t you?
There’s a much higher chance of winning this year. What
are you waiting for? Nominate yourselves!!
eBusiness Awards: http://www.eb2k.co.uk/awardinx.htm

* Bye Bye Banner Ads?: ADScience Trials New Ad-Blocking
Software

UK firm ADScience, specialists in Web filtering
technology, have launched version three of Adfilter, the
Internet advertiser’s least favourite product. Adfilter
gets rid of banner ads, pop-up ads and any other
‘intrusive’ elements that increase a punter’s download
time. In fact, ADScience reckon they can save the
average surfer one day of online time in every 4 to 16
weeks and, what with the majority of consumers still
paying for their Net access, that might sound like an
attractive prospect to some. What’s more, free trial
versions at the company’s Web site...

Joining Norton Internet Security 2000 (another ad
stopper), and Video Recorders that automatically cut out
commercial breaks, it’s one more thing to add to the
list of products that annoy us, folks. Whatever will we
have to deal with next? Sunglasses that protect the
eyes from billboard posters?
ADScience: http://www.adscience.co.uk

* Campaign Review for Those of You Who Think Size isn’t
Everything: Kelkoo.com

Women think it’s hilarious. Men go all uppity when it’s
mentioned. Yes, it’s the TV ad from Kelkoo.com – The
One With The Willies. As two chaps, stand in the
(little) boys’ room, one of them chortles away to
himself when he notices the size of his neighbour’s,
erm... endowment. Men are a little bit sensitive about
the whole size thing (some more than others, strangely),
and we’ve spoken to several who feel that the ad is in
poor taste. After all, they said, there’d have been an
outcry if the ad had involved WOMEN’S floppy bits...

You think we’re going to give the ad a ‘Nay!’, don’t
you? We’re not. Because it’s about the only current TV
ad for an Internet company that actually demonstrates
what the company DOES. Aiming to find users the best
prices for goods on the Net, Kelkoo.com is all about
comparison, and so is the advert. The word ‘comparison’
is actually even used in the voice over. And so, size
matters or not, we’ve really got to give it a ‘Yea!’
Kelkoo.com: http://www.kelkoo.com

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CASE STUDY: Webweekends.co.uk
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* Webweekends.co.uk Onto a Winner with Competition Email
Marketing Campaign

CHALLENGE
Having launched at the end of May,
Webweekends.co.uk, an online directory of weekend breaks
in the UK and abroad, needed a marketing campaign that
would build their user base quickly without costing a
packet - an email marketing campaign that they could
pretty much guarantee would go viral, for instance. And
so, along with strategists Motion Pixels, they decided
to run a competition.

CAMPAIGN
An e-mail announcing the competition, for one
of the site’s weekend breaks, was sent to 250 contacts,
friends and colleagues. Yes, once again, folks, no
prospective customers were emailed, and no purchased
lists were used. Recipients were invited to register at
the Web site for the chance of winning. Naturally,
those who registered were automatically subscribed to a
weekly promotional e-newsletter (unless, of course, they
opted out) and, crucially, given the opportunity to gain
extra bites at the cherry by nominating up to ten
friends. For each registered friend, the nominator
would receive an extra entry into the competition.

RESULTS
In the first week the competition received over
1,000 entries. These entrants nominated an extra 3,000
people. Last week was week six and, says Debbie
Caldicott, Head of PR at Motion Pixels, entries were up
to 4,000, with over 6,500 nominees. These results have
‘well exceeded expectations,’ Debbie tells us. Even
better is the fact that so far only 19 people have opted
out of receiving the weekly promotional email.

NOTES: Webweekends are giving away a total of six
weekends for two over a three month period, so the
number of registered users is expected to continue
growing at the same rate. Furthermore, previous
registrants are automatically entered into each new
competition that opens, and again given the option to
nominate friends. Debbie Caldicott explains, ‘we’ve
aimed to offer something tangible to people. The more
they want to win the prize, the better the whole thing
works.’

COST: Depends on the prize involved, but we’re only
talking a couple of hundred quid really.

Webweekends: http://www.webweekends.co.uk
Motion Pixels: http://www.motionpixels.co.uk

EDITOR’S NOTE: Has your company run a successful
marketing campaign that you think other Internet
marketers would benefit from reading about? Contact us
(editor@MarketingSherpa.co.uk) and maybe we’ll write a
case study about it!

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READERS’ LETTERS
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We’re always pleased to receive emails from our readers,
and we thought that we’d share a few recent ones with
you this week, along with our replies, natch!

Dear MarketingSherpa.co.uk

Re: Your article on Payphone adverts [July 11, 2000 –
Vol I, Issue 8]
> No points for label clothing e-tailer Brandshop.co.uk,
> though - their ad, which offered Levi 501s at thirty
> quid to customers ringing from the Payphones
> themselves, was still being spotted on phoneboxes in
> Greater London two weeks after the promotion ended on
> June 16th...

Spotted two today (11/07/00) in Blackpool!!

Kate Cormack
Managing Director
[email address and telephone number supplied]

**************************
Online web design training
http://www.weblecturer.com
Because knowledge is power
**************************

Dear Kate

Nice to see that you take your beady marketing eyes with
you wherever you go. And also nice to see your sig
meets MarketingSherpa.co.uk’s stringent criteria...

---
Dear MarketingSherpa.co.uk

I loved your Practical Know-How on email signatures
[July 11, 2000 - Vol. 1, Issue 8] – as the person who’s
supposed to promote our Web site I couldn’t agree more.
But how do you fix the line length so that one’s little
asterisks (see my signature below) stay in the right
place? Cheers,

Holly Ellson
Online Marketing Officer
WWF, the conservation organisation
[email address and telephone number supplied]

********************************************************
* www.panda.org - news and information about WWF's conservation work *
* www.passport.panda.org - the online campaigning tool for taking *
* action on global conservation issues – got your Passport yet? *
********************************************************

Dear Holly,

Sorry to hear that your asterisks are giving you gyp.
The trouble is, while you might send your email in a
mono-spaced type face like Courier (which makes lining
up your asterisks easy), you can't guarantee that your
readers will be looking at it in the same font... We
send MarketingSherpa.co.uk out in Courier, but the
default font for incoming mail in Outlook Express, for
example, is Arial.

The only way around it is to avoid using 'boxes'. If
you want to highlight something in your sig, just use
asterisks above and below like this:

********************************************************
Get new marketing case studies every week!
http://www.MarketingSherpa.co.uk
Practical news for Internet marketers & advertisers
********************************************************

Try also to keep emails to a maximum of 55 characters
across so that people viewing in narrow windows don't
see across two lines of text what you want them to see
across one. If the layout of what you’re sending by
email is important you might also want to consider
putting a hard return at the end of every line of text
(like we do!) just so you know that the wrap will occur
in the same place for everybody. Hope this helps – good
sig, by the way...

----
Dear MarketingSherpa.co.uk

You made some good points in your article on email
marketing [June 26, 2000 – Vol. I, Issue 6], but you
missed a bit! You mentioned that HTML emails are not a
good idea whilst most of the British public has sluggish
connections to a pay-to-access ISP, but you forgot to
mention how annoying they can be when you’re trying to
read your email offline!! I hate those embedded tags
which try to reconnect you to the Internet periodically
– there’s nothing more irritating than hearing that
dialling tone when you’re busy doing something else.
Don’t you agree?

Matt Gillam, www.holidaywizard.co.uk

Dear Matt

Yes – we totally agree! Thanks for raising the point.
We don’t know about you, but we think about the biggest
culprit for this at the moment is Wotch.com, who send
their media-rich emails with monotonous regularity...

----

Keep up the good work, folks, and keep your comments
coming – why not tell us what you’d like us to write
about in future issues? Email
editor@marketingsherpa.co.uk

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