Leadpile’s Blog

Many of you may be thinking that I am crazy saying that there are benefits to the H1N1 virus. Getting the flu may not be fun, but if you are are in the business of household personal care items, you could not be happier. Brands such as Johnson & Johnson have been seeing a large increase in sales on many of their germ killing products. Purell hand sanitizer, Clorox, and cold medicine are just a few of their germ products that people are reaching to. Just looking around the office I can see all three of the above products with people using them constantly. With that being said, it comes to no surprise that in October along with Johnson & Johnson saw at 10.7% sales increase. That was the larger increase among all companies in this market.
People are going to do whatever it takes to not get sick, if that means buying a bottle of hand sanitizer and disinfectant wipes a week, they are going to do it (at least until the H1N1 virus subsides). If you are a marketing there is no reason why you should not be taking full advantage of this. Especially since we are still in a “recession”, having the biggest sale increase for that market is amazing. For all you green enthusiast who do not want to get sick and do not want to hurt the environment, there is a whole line of environmental friendly disinfectant products. Whatever the case may be, it definitely pays to work with what is out there and target what people are buzzing about.

It comes to no surprise that economist are saying that spending will be down this year for the holiday season and Halloween is no exception. Consumers are cutting their spending across the board this Halloween. From candy to costumes to decorations, it is predicted that consumers planning to celebrate the holiday this year will be down two percent. Even the pumpkin patches are taking a hit!
What is one market that thrives this holiday? The alcohol business, specifically Captain Morgan rum (number 2 in rum sales). Adults love Halloween just as much as the kids do and Captains realizes that. Their new slogan of, “Calling All Captains” is being pushed through several of the marketing verticals. They have made a huge push this season not only coming out with new television ads, but also three Halloween parties, and a photo content. According to Tom Herbst, Director of Marketing, “We feel like Captain Morgan sort of owns Halloween. No other brand markets as much as we do and sees the return from it…Halloween has always also had an adult component to it and when that adult component reached mainstream, we felt that this was an opportunity to jump on it and bring the unique Captain energy to it.”. This time of year is one of the busiest for the brand. With the captain always being in costume it makes sense that this is his time to shine. I am sure that there will even be many individuals who dress up as him for Halloween. So this Halloween when someone asks what you would like to drink, go for the Captain. Why you say? Because you and the Captain can make it happen.
It is amazing the effects a “captain” can have on a company’s marketing. Leadpile and all other companies I am sure wish we had a catchy mascot like the “captain” to spread our marketing message!

This week Google launched a test for the ‘Wave”, a new interface for communication that allows group discussions, email, instant messaging, picture and video editing and posting, blogging… there really is not much that this new communication tool does not do! A selected 100,000 people were invited by Google to use this new tool during it’s testing phase, and then to supply feedback and suggestions.
The Wave is set up in a real time format allowing conversations to transition from email to live conversation such as instant messaging. According to wave.google.com, the definition of a Wave is as follows:

• A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.
• A Wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.
• A Wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a Wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

If the Wave is able to combine all of the forms of conversation that are currently available, how will this change an industry such as Lead Generation? Will this replace the need for topic specific forums, and blogs? If a demand for lead types is posted, and instantly a supplier is able to respond and make a connection and discuss in an open format for others to see, it could be a huge thing for brand recognition! Being able to edit content and rewind to see where posts are coming from, could be an asset when the need for “damage control” arises.
I have signed up to be on the list of hopefuls in the next rounds of invitations sent out, I can’t wait to get on this wave!

It looks like big brand names are maybe seeing that technology (the internet specifically) is where they need to look to to promote their products bigger and better. In recent years, luxury brands have not had to look at using the internet to generate business. They would do costly things like high end fashion magazine layouts or lavish displays at their stores. However, when times are tough (and you see a lot of traffic on your website) you brainstorm on ways you can generate business for the smallest cost. This is why many luxury brands are now looking at the internet as a way to generate more interest in their “brand”. Previously, businesses could solely depend on traditional sources of revenue, but never the internet. Adage.com reports that less than 33% of luxury companies were using the internet to generate business. I can not imagine this, but it seems it is in fact true. The future of the internet is really where it is at, yet some are just a little slower at seeing the “light” it seems. I guess better late than never!

Almost anything or anyone you want to know more about can be found on the internet. However, when you go to a website is there something that stands out as something that makes you “trust” that website as a reputable source versus another website? There are in fact certain reasons consumers seem to trust one site over another. Nielson Global did a survey on consumers to see what makes them trust a particular website and it’s advertising versus another.

What this information really tells all of us in the lead generation industry is, that maybe we need to continue to focus on how we can really become a more trusted source by consumers. TV, newspaper and other sources came out ahead of methods such as banner ads, mobile and other online lead generation methods. The question then is how do we increase the trust level our consumers have for websites we are working with to generate leads? Brand recognition is pretty high on the list of trusted sources, however not everyone has a brand that is known, or the financial ability to generate that awareness.
Leadpile, and I am sure all other lead generation companies, are all looking at this sort of information as informative, but how can we take this information and apply it to what we do?

“Two thirds of businesses are unaware they will be able to use their own name in place of domain extensions such as .com, .org, or .net when Internet domains are liberalized next year,” according to internetnews.com. This is something huge for companies that want to control more of their brand in the online space. ICANN (The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) oversees domain names and is going to start taking applications for new top-level domains early next year. This means that potentially larger companies could have even more of an online presence, and maybe even more credibility and brand recognition. So, do companies know about this change that is coming the first part of next year? Leadpile now knows, and certainly will take note. Will this affect the lead generation business?