When I first saw the trailer for the new Ridley Scott film, Prometheus, several months ago, I thought it looked like a pretty good sci-fi film, but I wasn’t “over the moon” excited for it. The film is about a team of explorers that discover a clue to the origins of mankind on Earth, leading them on a journey through the universe where they must fight to save the future of the human race. One would think that a film of this magnitude would be able to carry its own weight through the standard release of trailers, clips and website. However, the marketing team had other things in mind.

The first piece of marketing was a TED talk video set in the year 2023 (same time the film is set in). Guy Pierce, playing the CEO of fictional Weyland Industries, describes how he will change the world.  Organizers from TED helped Ridley Scott envision what a TED talk from the future would look like and it comes off really well done.

Next, they released a video about David, a robot from Weyland Industries, where we learn about his emotions and the world he lives in. The video is very cool, for instance the robot in the video is eerily life-like. It feels like something Apple would produce to show off one of its new products.

Finally, there’s the film’s website. The website is designed to be the corporate website for Weyland Industries, complete with product list, about the company, and a career page. In fact, if someone stumbled onto this site without knowing about the film, it could easy fool them into thinking that it was an actual company.

With all of this marketing, including the mystery surrounding the plot, and the fact that this might be a prequel to Alien, movie goers will likely flock to it this summer as the buzz heats up.

Source

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If there is one word I use to describe the people and the work at Exsilio, the first word that comes to my mind is "passion." At Exsilio, no matter what role you play, no matter which client you work for, everyone - and I mean everyone - gives everything they have to make things right. 

We are not a staffing agency who provides "bodies" to fulfill a business need.  Instead, we take each and every project on with passion.  We take pride in our work like artist would with their masterpiece. 

Several months ago, I was chatting with one of our clients who shared how impressed they are with our quick turnaround.  He reminded me how skeptical he was at the beginning about our timeline and deliverables, but later became a believer.  He also agreed and felt the team's passion and dedication is something that one simply cannot convey in words until he experienced working with Exsilio.

As Walt Disney said, "It's kind of fun to do the impossible."  At Exsilio, that's exactly what we do - we aim big and we set our bar high.  It is our mojo and certainly is part of company's culture.

It was an early morning, but Jason drank enough coffee to deliver a fantastic presentation to members of the Redmond Chamber of Commerce around the idea of product and service trials.

Jason enlightened the audience to the main components of a successful trial program, which stemmed from his own experience with a seed company’s garden planner web app. Sometimes trials aren’t what you think they would be – specifically for service companies who don’t have the ability to let customers try their services.

Jason’s own experience, as mentioned, was with a seed company. He didn’t get seeds to plant, but instead free trial access to their web-based garden planning application. Simply put your garden dimensions in to this application, choose which vegetables to plant, and drag the areas you would like them to grow. The application will tell you how much of each to buy, when to plant, fertilize, harvest and how to prepare for the next season of growing.

So why not seeds? Seeds still require too much from the customer – or as Jason described, the barrier to entry is still too high.  Seeds require the customer to know when and how to plant them, prepare a place in their garden, and then harvest them – all on their own. With the garden planner, the customer feels empowered with their how-to sheet from the seed company, a list of things to buy, and how to do it. Nearly foolproof.

Now on to more…

It may seem a no-brainer for a company who produces products to offer trials – it’s easy to download trial software, take a power tool for 30 days to try on projects at home – but the service industry should also have a stake in this kind of offering.

Trials have long been a stable and justifiable way for companies to win the favor of potential customers. Costco floods its stores with tasting stations, auto-dealerships let you take test drives, and software companies give free trials or limited versions of their products – all popular and rewarding ways to get new customers.

So how do you trial something that isn’t tangible, something that is a service versus a product? You can’t possibly try insurance out, and then decide in a week if you like it or not. No one is going to expect to be able to give a bank some of their money and see how it goes for a month.

So what if trying out a service didn’t actually mean trying the service itself. What is it about a service that you are really interested in? It’s the knowledge, the know-how and the expertise of those performing it. I don’t do my own investing or banking, because I have no idea how to do it, and would do poorly at it. I don’t fix my own roof because it’s dangerous and I don’t have the tools, or any idea if it would actually work.

Service trials are successful when the one interested in the trial is given just some piece of the intellectual store behind what makes a service good. This can be done when the service provider writes a whitepaper containing proof, evidence or how-to behind what they do.

It’s not enough information so that the customer could then go execute the service themselves – and they wouldn’t have the experience to do so anyway – but enough to get the customer interested, and to feel like they have been informed and guided by an expert – you – the person they will go to for the actual job they need done.

Want to continue the conversation? Let's chat. Contact Us.

Email marketing is a quick, cost-effective marketing solution for businesses of all sizes. Email returns $40.56 for every dollar spent*, so even the most modest budget can see a significant increase in conversion. Considering the low barrier of entry and high ROI, I believe that email marketing should be the first step for any small or medium business (SMB) really seeking growth.

It can be easy for an SMB to lose track of marketing efforts between manufacturing a product or delivering a service, keeping in touch with existing accounts, resolving support issues, and everything else that goes with running a business. But with a little upfront investment, and I do mean little, any SMB can implement a customized email strategy to earn first-time customers and maintain relationships with returning customers.

But an email campaign is only as effective as the strategy behind it. Email is not a tool to sell to your customers. It’s an opportunity to build a relationship that leads to a sale. What follows is a brief introduction to the email lifecycle of your potential customers:

CAVEAT: Let’s assume that your constituents have already opted-in to receive your emails by way of an online form, a transaction, or a physical capture like a signup sheet at a cash register. Email capture and list-building is both an art and a science, and we’ll cover that some other time.

1. Welcome email – You’ve already jumped the first hurdle. Now that your constituent has agreed to receive emails from you, thank them for the interest, provide a glimpse at what’s to come, and provide them with a small incentive. A simple “thanks” and a 10% off coupon goes a long way.
   
2. Newsletter – Your constituents have told you that they want information, and this is your chance. Your SMB should offer a regular newsletter with business updates, new product releases, tips and tutorials, or anything else that will help users see the value of your business.
   
3. Information Requests – Every email you send, along with your website, should have an option for receiving more information. If a constituent has reached out to you and said that they would like to talk on a more direct basis, make sure that you have a designated person or team within your organization to specifically address that request. Not every customer will receive an email like this. Those that do will form a distinct perception of your customer service and product support, so make it a positive one.
   
4. Transactional Emails – If a user has placed an order with you or registered for an event, provide them with a record or receipt. This system should be automated so that it is timely, accurate, and low maintenance. Also consider automating relevant follow-ups like a shipping notification and a customer satisfaction survey.
   
5. Repeat – So you sold something- good for you! Now repeat the steps above to solidify a lasting relationship with your customers. Thank them for their business, stay in touch through your newsletter, and respond quickly and effectively to requests for more information.
    

In the coming weeks, we’ll talk more about each of these stages in the email engagement cycle, including best practices and testing strategies for optimization. Stay tuned to our blog for follow up posts, and leave a comment or shoot me an email if there’s anything specific that you’d like to talk about.

*2011 stats from the Direct Marketing Association’s The Power of Direct Marketing: ROI, Sales, Expenditures, and Employment in the US, 2011 -2012 Edition

Welcome, GeekWire Readers!

If you were to look up “Exsilio,” maybe just to learn how to pronounce it, you’d also find the definition of the Greek word meaning “leap forward, or bound ahead.”  The company is as unique as their name; since Exsilio started in Irvine, CA, their continual innovation keeps them at the top of the competition, with strong growth year over year.

We believe our work speaks for itself, and with 80% of our business from past clients, we think that’s pretty good backup.

Since 2006, when we opened our first office in Irvine, CA with just four employees, we have continued to grow in every one of our departments. We’re proud that our turnover is very low, keeping the quality of our work high, with employees who are dedicated and loyal to us and our clients.

While our story is not unique, we believe it’s rare, and we invite you to experience the difference of working with a company who cares as much as you do – about your bottom line, your deadlines, your stakeholders, and your business in the years to come.

Read more about us

Contact us

Rovio, makers of the insanely popular game Angry Birds, a game which has been downloaded over 700 million times, recently launched their newest title, Angry Birds Space. As one might imagine, the game takes place in space and uses a new element in the gameplay; the gravitation pull of planets, on which the birds’ targets sit. This adds a fresh layer of new gameplay dynamics. 



To help drum up hype for the game’s release, Rovio launched a worldwide marketing campaign. To help launch the game, Rovio teamed with T-mobile to turn the Seattle’s Space Needle into a giant sling shot with an Angry Bird attached to it. Some other aspects of the campaign include a deal with Wal-Mart to sell limited edition goods and clues to unlock bonus levels of the Angry Birds Space. Another includes a deal with Barnes and Noble to sell merchandise and earn games credits. So far the game has sold 10 million copies in three days and is estimated to reach 2 billion downloads by the end of the year. With a marketing campaign like this for the world’s most popular mobile game, I don’t see that being out of the question.

In our latest venture outside the office and the land of code and Expression Studio, we have teamed with the Irvine Chamber of Commerce to bring "Legends and Leaders" to the Orange County business community.
 
In its second year, Legends and Leaders is an extradordinary event showcasing standouts in corporate Orange County. Four times this year, we will meet for lunch with an individual who has been uniquely successful in his or her industry.
 
Last month, we met and learned from Wing Lam, co-founder and CEO of Wahoo's Fish Taco, a large and extremely popular chain of fresh fish taco restaurants with locations from California to New York.
 
Meeting Wing was an incredible experience, as someone who is a pillar of the Irvine business community, dedicated to philanthropy, and gives a fresh perspective on corporate culture and marketing a business.

Wing's vibrant personality, long hair and  beard, flip flops and board shorts fit right in with his natural sense for what customers want. Wing has had huge success driving marketing and advertising for Wahoo's by listening to his customers and going with his gut.

It was a great pleasure to meet Wing, hear his story, and be inspired by his approach to business.
 
Stay tuned for May's Legends and Leaders special guest and a recap of the lunchtime presentation.

Learn more about Wing Lam

For decades, retailers having been trying to gather their customer’s interest, habits, and behavior to better understand how they should be targeted. More importantly, they are using these collected and sometimes purchased demographics to determine when your life is about to change. They do this because most people’s purchasing habits are grounded and only change for important life events, such as: moving, filing for bankruptcy, getting a new job, etc. If retailers can find a way to predict when an event may happen, they can manipulate you with targeted ads.
One of the most successful retailers of predictive analytics is Target. Every shopper at Target is assigned a unique Guest ID that is tied to their credit card, name, or email address. Target uses the demographic information gathered from this Guest ID to study shopping habits. What they found in particular, is that women shopping habits tend to change when they become pregnant, with increased purchases in unscented lotion, zinc and magnesium. Target can then use this information and send women ads specifically targeted towards them, based on how far along in the pregnancy Target’s algorithms think they are.

It’s crazy to think how competitive retailers have become to get our shopping dollars and the lengths they will go to. One can only wonder what their next move will be to get our attention.

Source

Reading Kristina Halvorsen on my new Kindle Fire this morning, I came to the realization that I'd recently been shirking my strategic responsibilities as publisher of online content.  I've recently become team lead on an online outbound content program for a client's technical audience. My official title when I first came on the team over two years ago was "content strategist."  I managed curation and aggregation of the inbound content resources when evaluating products.  To the extent of my job scope, I absolutely fell into a content strategy role. 

As my experience and responsibilities expanded into more of a marketing communications role on the team, my oversight into content strategy was compressed into larger responsibilities around outbound marketing strategies for the experience.  The organization shifted, and thusly, content strategy was folded into everyone's ownership.

Now the lead on our team, my interest in content strategy is rekindled and three-fold:

1. Exceeding client needs around technical guidance for its leads and existing customers (measured by satisfaction with the program)
2. Our client draws a lot of web traffic and this can make it easy to approach marketing from a "drag-and-drop perspective," focusing on checking off channels rather than finding and converting influential customers. In some ways, channels are more productive for meeting goals and easier to measure, but I've seen this approach backfire in vendor relationships - your value is discounted, devalued in favor of the very channels you've cultivated. But how do we find those influentials, convert them to advocates, and measure this?
3. Having launched its website back in CY11 Q3, Exsilio - now ready with beautiful actionable data for more than a quarter - is ready to optimize the site.  There's an opportunity to combine analytics with a content strategy audit and build a strong case for specific tweaks to improve our lead acquisition and nurture our current client base. 
4. These very analytics are also converting me to the idea that blogging and inbound content strategy overall can drive a very targeted lead to your door, long-tail style. (Yes, I know I'm late to this party.) 

The result here is that I'm spending the next twenty business days proving the practice of what I preach - blogging on these four topics to create a forcing function for my yearly goals. I'd love your feedback and helpful encouragement.