X-CUBE 120400v.1.i.6: A Comprehensive Guide for Small, Minority, and Women-Owned A/E/C Firms

X-CUBE 120400v.1.i.6

Terrence O’Neal Architect

Amie Gross Architects

Morgan Architecture

Horace Harris and Associates, Architects

Meta Brunzema Architect

Leni Schwendinger Light Projects

Bradford Construction

Lorshel, Inc.

SpecSimple.com

SoulBeautiful.com

Whitaker Davis Associates

Parkchester Children’s Dental Group

All ‘Bout Childhood Dentistry

Marketing Know-how: What to do when your marketing campaign works.

Out and About – What’s Buzzing with A/E/C

Diversity News: Minorities «R» U.S.

Cyber scene: From money-hungry ladies to Fed-heads

Marketing Blitz: The RFP process

Industry Events

Non-Industry Events

Marketing Article: Viral Marketing

A Win-Win-Win Effort: SpecSimple’s philanthropy works for everyone

Marketing Know-How: What to do when your marketing campaign works.

You sent out the obligatory promotional mailing and bingo, clients
respond and the next thing you know you have three big new jobs. You’re
understaffed, you’re maxed out, but you need to maintain the appearance of a
calm, well-run office what do you do???

1.

Touch Base – Call up your clients often and communicate with them.
Tell them where you are with their project. Explain to them what is
happening in your office. Ask if you can start the project at a later date
(surprisingly, some clients are happy to wait a month or two for you).

2.

Go high tech – Negotiate for your clients to pay for online project
management software. They’ll buy into the idea when you show them how much
money will be saved on mailing and printing. They will like the time saved
and efficient communication. Prepare yourself for the few tough areas like
electronic sign-offs (some clients aren’t there yet). Your tech savvy is a
marketing tool in itself. If you’re a contractor, equip your site office
with a computer, email, a CAD reader and a printer — the architect will
love not having to fax and messenger you everything and they’ll be able to
email you updates and revised drawings. Give yourselves the advantage that
puts you infront of the competition.

3.

Bring in the interns – They can help keep your office together during
busy times by helping with the small tasks and wearing different hats:
librarian, messenger, database manager, web site maintainer, etc.

4.

Outsource – Call up Consulting for Architects for a little extra help
in a crunch. Team up with a smaller firm that is hungry for work. Commission
someone to write the executive summary of a large proposal you’re working
on. Hire an expediter. Find a CM to handle some of the construction
administration. Hire InfoEdge to maintain your samples library.

5.
Test out your younger staff – Give those upstarts a chance. They are
itching for the responsibility so give it to them and see how they do. Some
workers will take a less-paying job or will work for a smaller firm in
anticipation of getting more responsibility and experience.

6.

Keep marketing even in good times! A well-known woman owners rep who
was very successful servicing Citicorp in the 1980’s learned this lesson.
She was doing so well in the boom years of the ’80s that she didn’t maintain
a regular marketing program. When the recession of the early 90’s hit, her
neglected contacts and limited brand awareness was a big hurdle for her to
overcome in terms of maintaining a strong client roster. Now, fully
recovered after 10 years, she swears by a consistent marketing effort, even
in the middle of this great economy.

It’s all very «hush, hush» but the National Organization of
Minority Architects is helping a group of students develop what might be
the next great American art form: Hip Hop Architecture. NOMA’s annual
conference, held in New Orleans last month provided a Hip Hop «Cypher»
to discuss the latest addition to the world of design. Watch for
announcements from NOMA over the next few years about the development of
this cool concept.
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We recently saw a moving presentation by Nell Lewis Daniel about a wonderful
program called «Design Directions» sponsored by the Cooper
Hewitt, National Design Museum. Design Directions is a comprehensive series
of free design education programs that enrich students’ creative development
and help them pave a path toward higher education and career opportunities
in design. Get involved! Whether you want to promote general design
awareness, help prepare high school students for careers in design, or
benefit from the enthusiasm and fresh perspectives that city teens can offer
you, this program is for you. Contact Nell at 212.849.8390 or daniene@ch.si.edu.
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Who can fault the Regional Alliance? Gathering together its
fabulous mixture of members including government w/mbe officers, directors
of affirmative action from big contractor companies, small sub-contractors,
industry press, supporting business consultants and representatives from
related professional associations all gathered on October 12th for the 8th
Annual Awards Luncheon. Woman-owned Altus Metal & Marble Maintenance won
contractor of the year. Carl McCall gave the address. We sat at Bradford
Construction’s table, and had a very interesting conversation with Deborah
B. Beck, the Executive Vice President of the Real Estate Board of New York.
One of her jobs is negotiating zoning codes on behalf of the Board. She had
helped set up an alliance between REBNY and the NYC Association of Black
Real Estate Brokers but sadly the relationship never gelled.
We appreciated the story and hope to see REBNY reach out again to
make community ties in the future.
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Professional Women in Construction hosted its yearly trade fair on
October 30th. The most notable table at the event was «Central New York
Architecture & Construction» a new trade magazine. CNY Architecture
& Construction is a full-feature magazine highlighting buiding and
restoration efforts throughout Central New York. CNYAC is dedicated to the
resurgence of our area as an economic giant, which is partly based on the
contributions made by architects, engineers, construction managers,
contractors, suppliers and others. Visit their web site at www.cnyac.com
Shelly Straub is the Publisher and Editor-In-Chief. Add them to your press
list!

Just how powerful is the emerging African American market? The
Business Case for Diversity http://www.diversityinc.com/businesscase,
a report by DiversityInc.com, shows that African-American consumers will
represent the largest buying power group by 2001 at $572.1 billion. That’s
approximately two out of every three dollars spent by minorities.

There was a recent article published in the Chicago Daily Herald
entitled, «Hispanics and Asians

Lead Way as U.S. Minority Population Rises». The article
provides diversity demographics information to help support «business
case» issues regarding supplier diversity. Key findings are:

The Census Bureau reports the nation’s two fastest-growing minority
populations are Asians and Hispanics. – Between July 1, 1990 and July 1,
1999, the nation’s Asian and Pacific Islander population grew 43.0 percent
to 10.8 million, and the Hispanic population grew 38.8 percent to 31.3
million. – California, Texas and New York – the three most populous states –
continue to have the highest numbers of minorities, but Nevada, Georgia and
North Carolina experienced the biggest percent increases. – Nationally, the
country’s white population increased 7.3 percent between 1990 and 1999 to
224.6 million. Blacks remained the country’s largest minority group,
experiencing a 13.8 percent spike during the same period to 34.8 million,
while the American Indian and Alaska Native population increased 15.5
percent to 2.3 million. – The Hispanic and Asian growth is largely being
fueled by immigration. – California had the biggest Hispanic population with
10.4 million. Over 2.7 million Hispanics moved into the state between 1990
and 1999, a 35.8 percent increase. – As for Asian population by state,
California had the most, 4 million, up 36.8 percent in the 90s. New York was
second with just over 1 million, up 44.5 percent.

Have you squeezed out just about all you can from
your over-saturated markets? Do you want
some powerful strategies that can dramatically increase your income in
virtually untapped markets? If you answered, «yes,» then you may
want to send for a FREE COPY
of a special report published by Whitaker Davis
Associates (www.whitakerdavis.com) on prospecting and selling in minority
markets. In this report is a 3-step formula for success. This formula is
overlooked by most sales professionals when it comes to prospecting. Anyone
trying to sell or market in minority markets can benefit from this formula.
Interested? Send an e-mail to davis@whitakerdavis.com
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Everyone’s going «diverse»
including the Society for Marketing Professional Services
(SMPS). The SMPS Outreach Diversity Task Force goals are to: 1)
increase membership by creating an awareness of SMPS and recruiting new
members from the A/E/C minority community; 2) act on the knowledge that
diversity is directly linked to the bottom line via new perspectives,
underserved markets, and an untapped talent pool; and 3) enrich the SMPS
experience by diversifying its membership to reflect the multicultural and
multiracial makeup of this nation. Minority firms are offered membership
rates at the NYC SMPS events and a national database is being built for W/MBE
A/E/C firms, which will be hosted on the SMPS web site. To receive a form
for including your firm in the database email ega@outoftheboxmarketing.net

A.
What Women Will Do For Money!
In coordination with key sponsors, venture partners and supporting
organizations, Springboard 2000 Enterprises is pleased to announce
Springboard 2001: New York, which will take place March 12-13, 2001 at One
Chase Manhattan Plaza in New York City. Springboard 2001: New York will be
co-hosted by Chase Capital Partners
www.chasecapital.com, Quetzal/Chase
Capital Partners www.chasecapital.com, and the Flatiron
Foundation www.flatironpartners.com. Building on successful
venture forums in the Silicon Valley, Mid-Atlantic and New England,
Springboard 2001: New York will showcase 25-30 women-led, e-commerce,
technology and life-sciences companies to the area’s leading investors. For
more information visit www.springboard.org This event is LIMITED to
accredited venture, angel or corporate investors and event sponsors — the
qualifier price tag is over $600. You GO girl!

B.
A Sad Digital Tale
Everyone knows Network Solutions because they probably had to purchase their
domain name from them. Well, it was once owned by Emmit J. Henry, an African
American man, back before the internet had caught on. He tried in vain to
sell domain names to all of corporate America but they didn’t take him
seriously when he told them that the internet was the wave of the future.
Broke, Mr. Henry sold his company and actually ended up owing money to the
people he sold it to. If only he had been able to hold on for a few more
years…

C.
Web Site No-Nos – Excerpted from an Inc.com article by Jan
Gardner
After judging the Inc.com Web Awards 2000, the jury had a slew of small site
no-nos to share:

Mistake 1: Putting form before function. Minimize bells and whistles.
Forget the flash intros.
Mistake 2: Simply putting your company brochure online. Be different
and creative online!
Mistake 3: Having features that don’t work properly. Above all, make
sure everything works.
Mistake 4: Making life difficult for users. Try to avoid features
that slow your site unacceptably – like music files.
Mistake 5: Making it hard for people to buy. Try to provide a simple
e-commerce form that is secure.
Mistake 6: Inadequately measuring the bottom-line impact. Don’t
forget to measure your investment with a good visitor/hit tracking system.

There’s a lot of free stuff at Fedmarket.com. Have you used any of the

following resources?

Procurement Offices

http://www.fedmarket.com/vtools/links/procure_offices.html

SIC Codes

http://www.fedmarket.com/btools/links/sic.html

News Wrap Up

http://www.fedmarket.com/news/wrapup/index.html

DOD Award Announcements

http://www.fedmarket.com/news/dod/dod_index.html

«How to» Articles

http://www.fedmarket.com/vtools/articles/index.html

PROPOSALWORKS.COM – <http://www.proposalworks.com>
The site includes a free, fully searchable library of best practices,
evaluator guidelines and actual winning proposals.

Marketing Blitz: Winning the RFP Game was presented by Susan Campbell
of Campbell Tiu Campbell, Inc. and Elizabeth Geary-Archer of Out of the Box
Marketing at the NOMA 2000 conference in New Orleans. (“RFP” stands for
Request for Proposal.)

A client may issue an RFP to a group of architects to see who will submit
a proposal that will best suit their needs. The client may offer a “pre-bid
conference” to answer any questions. Once the client receives the
proposals, they will have a “selection committee” review the proposals
after which a “short-list” of two to five architects are usually culled
out from the rest and asked to give a presentation or participate in an
interview. Then one of the firms is chosen for the job and contract
negotiations take place.

Upon receiving the RFP, read it in full and then determine whether or not
it is beneficial for you to respond to the RFP. Ask yourself, “is this a
good project for my firm? Do I have a chance of getting this project? Do I
have the resources to do the work?” Do I have an existing relationship
with the client or anyone on the selection committee? Call up people you
know who might be able to give you some background information about the
client or the project. If you have any questions for the client, write a
letter and send it as soon as possible. Try to find out what other firms
received the RFP. Sometimes you can eliminate the competition by forming
joint ventures with them. When selecting your project team, try to pick
consultants that have experience in working with this client or who have
worked on similar project types. Have a meeting with your team and
strategize. Attend the pre-bid conference and ask for a copy of the sign-in
sheet to see who your competition is.

In preparing your proposal, provide an organized cohesive presentation.
Start off with a “Why Our Team?” page, which provides a bullet list of
your team’s selling points. Use lots of pictures. Print double-sided so
your proposal doesn’t appear to be too thick. Use a tasteful recycled
paper to show you are sensitive to environmental and efficiency issues. In
your qualifications, tailor your experience to match the needs of the
client. In your project approach, show the client you have studied the
issues regarding their project by mentioning any conditions you might have
seen on a site visit or can anticipate from reading the scope. Have your
consultants write brief paragraphs explaining their approach and
site-specific comments. Use the “evaluation criteria”, which is usually
listed in the RFP, as a guide for what to include. In your reference
section, list direct contact information for references. Send a fax or email
to your references letting them know you are listing them as such and remind
them about the work you provided for them and the points you want them to
remember specifically. Narrative bios are always more engaging than
traditional resumes. Turn your proposal into a focused, easy-to-read,
magazine.

If you make it to the “short-list” and are invited to an
interview/presentation, make sure that your presentation meets the
evaluation criteria. Meet with your team for a rehearsal. Try to avoid using
slides as they tend to put people to sleep. Provide a “leave-behind”
that summarizes your selling points. (This should include an agenda with the
order and name of the presenters, the “Why our Team” sheet, a team
organization chart and other summary information. Always bring the project
manager and team members who will be doing the actual work to the
presentation. The client wants to know who they will be working with.
Remember to state that you want the job and ask for it (diplomatically, of
course). This sounds obvious but it is important to communicate your
simplest intentions of wanting to get and complete the work.

Whether you get the job or not ask for a “debriefing” of why you
were/were not selected for the job so that you can track what works or what
doesn’t work in your presentation.

The NYC School Construction Authority is trying to get a tan: on
Wednesday, December 6th, The NYC SCA will hold a day long seminar on how to
go after work at the agency. The invited guests are women and minority
architecture firms, which the SCA hopes to hire to do some of the $1.6
Billion worth of work that must be allocated by June 2001.

Nordic Design: The Generation x , Dates: through 12/30/2000, “Nordic
Design: The Generation X” (50 young Scandinavian designers), Scandinavia
House, The Nordic Center in America, 58 Park Avenue, New York, NY, For
further information: Tel: 212/879-9779 www.amscan.org/scanhouse

X
High-Performance Green Building Design, Thursday, 12/07/2000, 5:30 to
7:30 PM, Location: Portuguese Trade Commission, 590 Fifth Avenue,
between 47th and 48th, Fourth Floor, New York, NY 10036, Sponsored by:
US Green Building Council/New York Chapter and the Environmental Business
Association of New York State; Description: Current status of NY
State Green Building Tax Incentive and USGBC’s newly-drafted LEED Commercial
Interiors Document; Speakers: Joe Hittenger, IIDA, Assoc. AIA, USGBC
LEED CI Committee, and currently heading the Sustainable Design Initiative
for Studio Architecture; Registration Contact: EBA/NYS; Reg. Tel:
518-432-6400 x 224, Reg. Fax: 518-432-1383; Member Price: EBA/NY
Member $10; Nonmember Price: $15; More Info: donna@eba-nys.org
<http://www.aiany.org/calendar/donna@eba-nys.org>

The SMPS Holiday Networking Party – Come schmooze with the industry
big-name firms and specialty houses. Join fellow marketers and industry
professionals in celebrating the holiday season. Paticipalte in our annual
raffle and Toys-for-Tots drive, Tuesday, December 19^{th, 6:00-8:00 a.m.,
The National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South. COST: – PRE-REGISTERED:
$75 for Members/$90 for Non-Members – AT THE DOOR: $85 for
Members/$100 for Non-Members. For Further Information or To Register: Call
the Mary-Ellen Cocchi at 516.484.1020}

*Urban Transit Club ~ Meets the 2nd Saturday of each month @ the
Masonic Hall, 71 West 23rd Street (19th)@ 6th Avenue, Chelsea. Each meeting
includes a slide show, covering rail & bus topics. Doors open 6:00PM;
show @ 7:00PM. $5 non-members. Next @ bat:12/9. For more info,
contact < or <http://members.aol.com/glenn6398/utc.html>

“Lab” – the blurrying distinctions between new media, design,
architecture & art are the subject of a group show, on view Tu-Sa thru
January 13 @ Artists Space, 38 Greene Street (3rd floor), between
Broome & Grand, SoHo (BMT J/M/N/R/Z or IRT #6 – Canal Street stations).
The gallery will holding a “Night of 1000 Drawings Benefit,” 12/7,
6:00-9:00PM. 212 226-3970 or see also TALKS – 12/6 – Extreme Architecture

*Thanks Bruce!

More dancing, less talk.
The New York Coalition of Black Architects /NOMA in association with The
Urban Bankers Coalition, Inc., The Black Data Processing Associates, The
National Association of Black Accountants, The National Alliance of Market
Developers, Inc., The National Black MBA Association, Inc. — Invite you to
their Annual Christmas / Kwanzaa Celebration Thursday, December
21, 2000 – at the New York Roxy, 515 West 18th Street (Between
10th & 11th Avenues), New York City, 6:00 P.M. to 2:00 A.M. Music
by DJ Tommie Allen Complimentary Hors D’oeuvres / Cash Bar,
$25.00, Advance Sales Only. For tickets email ega@outoftheboxmarketing.net.

FAST COMPANY, Company of Friends Holiday Party – Heath Row, from Fast
Company Magazine (and worldwide Company of Friends guru), will once again
grace us with his humor and the many stories from his worldly travels. Again
this year we’ll be at the Society of Illustrators… one of most cozy places
in Manhattan for a company of friends dinner. There’s nothing like the warm
glow of a fireplace and a glass of red to ensure good conversation amongst
good people. Join us again this year for the festivities. Tuesday, December
12th (7 – 9:30pm) Society of Illustrators, 128 East 63rd Street (btwn Lex/Park)
$25 per person – includes full dinner! RSVP http://www.ersvp.com/reply/fun7129

Mon 12/11 NY New Media Association’s Annual Holiday Bash. 7pm
-10pm. The Toy Building, 200 Fifth Ave. $115 (free for NYNMA
members-membership is $150 so do your math…)You can register already at <http://www.nynma.org>

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Viral Marketing: It’s Catching

Viral marketing used to happen by accident. Now marketers are looking for
ways to infect consumers with their messages via the Web. This
article is from: ADWEEK http://www.adweek.com/iqinteractive/000605iq_05.asp

You can spend $10,000 or $1 million on a marketing campaign, but in the
end, the best ads are the ones that transcend their main purpose and become
entertainment. Anheuser-Busch’s recent Budweiser «Wassup» campaign
is one example. Although the ads originally launched on TV, the campaign
gained momentum on the Web with lightning speed. Within a month of its
online debut, many users had downloaded the ad from the Web site and sent
it, or myriad variations, to friends and business associates, say analysts.
This phenomenon-the purest form of viral marketing-is an advertising medium
that many hope to capitalize on. Unfortunately not everyone will succeed at
duplicating the pure viral marketing experience, leading many companies to
go at it from an artificial means.

Over the last six months, e-mail marketing has exploded due to a low cost
barrier and relatively high response rates, says Michelle Slack, a senior
analyst with Jupiter Communications. The category is expected to grow from
$164 million last year to $7.3 billion by 2005. At the same time, per-user
e-mail volume will explode by a factor of 40, according to a report issued
by Jupiter last month. In 2005, 268 billion commercial e-mails will go out,
a significant increase over the 3 billion messages sent in 1999.

Companies are already cashing in on viral campaigns. Visit 10 commercial
sites on the Web and you’re sure to find links to tell-a-friend-type
promotions. Open an e-mail and you may find a text-based promotion or banner
ad embedded in the message. Entertainment and e-commerce industries are two
of the most successful categories gaining ground by using viral marketing,
says Jupiter’s Slack.

But there is also a downside to viral marketing. A highly-charged anti-spam
sentiment has emerged over the past 12 months, forcing several companies to
pull viral marketing efforts all together. Going forward, marketers will
need to demonstrate caution. With more e-mails making their way into
consumers’ inboxes, the chance that commercial e-mail-even opt-in
marketing-will be viewed as spam also increases.

There are other issues aside from consumer perception. The most common
viral marketing delivery method-HTML e-mail-can pose a technical problem.
Marketers who use this type of e-mail as a delivery vehicle are often shut
out. America Online, which is the nation’s largest Internet Service
Provider, has 22 million users, but its proprietary e-mail program doesn’t
support HTML-based e-mails. The challenge then is to create a marketing
campaign that balances content with caution. Retailers and advertisers need
to learn how to incent people without incensing them. Recognizing that not
everyone can capture this balance, today there are at least five companies
that specialize in viral marketing, and if the research is correct, that
number is sure to grow, says Jupiter’s Slack.

Kelly Wanser, Epidemic.com’s chief executive officer, says she doesn’t
think that what her company does is truly viral, even though its billed as a
viral marketing service. Epidemic.com attaches to consumers’ outgoing
personal e-mails. If the recipient of an ad clicks on it or buys something
after clicking through, the e-mail’s sender gets a piece of any resulting
profits.

In order to thwart spamming, Epidemic.com doesn’t base its incentives on
the number of eyes that are looking at a message. Instead, they base
payments directly on traffic and sell-through, says Wanser. And, since
Epidemic.com can track the source of a message, it can not only see how far
its ads are going, but exactly where they originated from in the event of a
problem.

The consumer-driven process is fairly simple. After downloading a small
software component, consumers select their favorite ads or allow
Epidemic.com to do it for them. Since every member of the program discloses
personal demographic information, it’s easy for the company to target ads,
giving advertisers such as Dell Computer, Hanes, 1-800 Flowers.com, and
Omaha Steaks a highly motivated audience.

There’s even a feel-good component to the program. Consumers can donate
their earnings to charity or raise money for a specific group.

To date, Epidemic.com’s program is succeeding. At the end of the first
quarter, the company posted 10,000 ad impressions per month and was signing
up new members at a fast clip. Members are also reaping the rewards, with
the average monthly pay-out hovering at $20. Members who recruit other
members get a piece of their earnings, too.

«Our business model is working because we’re not focused on getting
people to give us their e-mail addresses,» says Wanser. «We’re
expanding the reach of a banner ad and providing a service to consumers,
too.»

Like Epidemic.com, Favemail is looking to brand consumer e-mail.
Consumers can download a small plug-in or, if their e-mail doesn’t support
HTML, sign up for a free Web-based e-mail account. Then, they can select an
ad or banner from 165 «faves» available on the site. If they like
more than one ad, users can create an album of ads that they can run on a
rotational basis. They can also turn ads off completely, giving users a
comfort level that is often missing in viral promotions. Favemail doesn’t
limit users to revenue-generating ads. The company will also let them create
and attach their own ads. There’s even a photo cropping tool so users can
attach personal photographs to their messages.

Those members who choose ads make a profit when friends and associates
click on them and complete e-commerce transactions. Favemail gives its users
50 percent of any profit, but that percentage may climb to as much as 70
percent as its user base grows, says Hani Elnaggar, vice president of
products and services. While the lure of cold, hard cash is definitely
driving customers to the site, not everyone is in it for the money. Today,
only 20 to 40 percent of all users attach revenue-generating ads, says
Elnaggar. These non-earning ads, which are often generated by organizations,
are used to publicize a favorite sports team or show off a personal Web
site. «This is really more about getting people to change the way they
think about e-mail advertising,» he says.

On the business side, advertisers that want to embed their own messages
into corporate e-mails can sign up for a partner account. This provides
additional tracking and reporting components. Customers can publicize their
products and services without necessarily selling anything. «Right now,
this isn’t necessarily about making money. It’s about building brand
awareness,» says Elnaggar.

In November, Gazooba.com introduced its Recommend a Site service so Web
surfers could evangelize sites and get paid for it. Today, just eight months
after the launch, the service has evolved. Gazooba.com is still covering all
the viral marketing bases but has shifted its focus from consumers to
businesses. Instead of waiting for consumers to sign up on the Gazooba.com
Web site, the company is handing off the responsibility to potential
advertisers. For example, the company is currently working with a sports
site that gets plenty of visitors but few registrations.

«We help the site tell its visitors, ‘If you tell your friends to
register, we’ll give you a T-shirt.’ Our software makes it happen
seamlessly,» says Andy Raskin, Gazooba.com’s chief executive officer.

The sports site, along with a major long distance carrier, is using a
variation of the Tell-a-Friend program, but now the onus is on them to make
sure users don’t spam, a common problem for some e-mail marketers. In
addition to this program, the company also offers permission-based viral
e-mail campaign technology to advertisers, says Raskin.

One of the things that sets Gazooba.com’s offer apart, says Raskin, is
its reporting functionality. «We can analyze a customer’s data and see
what the top 10 things people send to their friends are. We can see who are
the top spreaders of the word,» says Raskin. «When you know that,
it’s easier to design a program that works.»

It’s difficult to be all things to all advertisers, but that’s exactly
what L90 is trying to do. The company offers viral marketing, opt-in reward
programs and direct marketing. L90 is also looking to garner traditional
advertising business by selling banner ads and access to more than 10
million opt-in e-mail addresses as well as offering ad development services.

«We let advertisers test out their marketing involvement. They can
spread their advertising dollars around to different programs to see which
work best for their particular needs,» says Matt Spiegel, L90’s direct
marketing specialist.

On the viral side, L90’s L90Link program is a program that puts small
promotional ads directly on to client Web sites. When the customer clicks on
the ad, which can be anything from a free product offer to a percentage off
a purchase, they receive the reward. They can score additional benefits by
getting their friends to accept the offer, too. E-mail messages, which
sometimes contain audio and video, are sent out with a promotional link to
bring recipients to the site. Ever mindful of spam, L90 controls the entire
viral process, monitoring and limiting the number of e-mails that are sent
by one person.

Today, the company’s program is far ahead of traditional promotional
banner ads, which have a clickthrough of about one-half of 1 percent. A
whopping 8 percent of the people who fill out the company’s online forms
will actually use the service.

«Viral marketing can show people how well a campaign is doing,»
says Spiegel. «No matter what program an advertiser uses, they should
be able to see real-time reporting, like they can with ours, and make
adjustments appropriately.»

Gary Drenik, the president of Prosper Business Development knows good
word-of-mouth is the best form of advertising, but it is often the most
difficult to achieve. He also knows that if you start out with an ad base of
30 million people, it’s not too difficult to create good buzz.

Prosper originally made a name for itself providing marketing services to
telecommunications and media industries. Today, Drenik’s company, via a
partnership with PennMedia, is taking its contacts and combining them with
e-mail newsletters, merging content, community and advertising. PennMedia
creates and maintains more than 700 newsletters, which will be branded so
they appear to be coming directly from their sponsors. In addition, the
newsletters will be customized with local content, making them appealing to
readers looking for news and information that hits home. Local ads can also
be embedded for additional local flavor. Since content is targeted, many
subscribers often pass on the messages to friends and family.

The company is targeting the same traditional media players that is has
always worked with including radio, TV and cable operators. The program lets
the companies embed their messages into the newsletters. The combination of
lifestyle-oriented content and PennMedia’s huge user base may help
struggling local stations boost viewer and listener retention and, more
importantly, visibility. «We can really offer advertisers something
special,» says Drenik. «After all, even Who Wants to Be a
Millionaire doesn’t deliver 30 million people to advertisers,» he says.

Although all of the services say their clickthrough and success rates are
high, analysts have no way of knowing how well viral marketing is doing on
an aggregate basis. This is especially true in cases where companies are
creating their own viral campaigns. For every «Wassup» campaign,
there may be 100 others that don’t fare as well. Even the incentive-driven
offerings may hit speed bumps down the road as viral marketers compete
directly for funding with other forms of advertising, says Jupiter’s Slack.
In the end, the companies that succeed may fall into specific categories
that tend to do better with viral marketing, she says. The entertainment
industry does well, as do companies that already have well-known brands.

«Marketers should keep in mind that viral marketing is a great idea,
but you should always be thinking, ‘Can I make this work if it feels to
artificial?’ You’ll always hear about success stories,» says Slack.
«The best campaigns are going to be the ones that you don’t have to
promise your users anything.»

When it comes to getting the word out, e-mail is the killer app. Viral
marketing, which is a term that is often used interchangeably with e-mail
marketing, is succeeding because consumers are becoming the medium by which
advertisers get their word out. Since the messenger is familiar to the
recipient, consumers are more likely to trust the message. Health and
lifestyle Web site Asimba.com found this out first hand. Last September, the
company had 30,000 members and scant marketing funds. They needed to get
their message out and register new users without spending a lot of cash.

Banking on the popularity of viral marketing, Asimba.com posted a
prominent link on its site for a Friends and Fleece viral e-mail program-a
take-off on MCI’s Friends and Family campaign. Users could earn points
towards a free fleece vest by referring friends. Once 10 of their referrals
registered on the site, the fleece was theirs. The link paid off. Today,
Asimba.com boasts more than 500,000 users, says Adam Roth, the company’s
vice president of marketing. «One of the nice things about this
referral program is that we knew people weren’t going to be referring other
people who they didn’t feel comfortable telling about us,» says Roth.
The viral route also saved the company quite a bit in marketing costs. Roth
estimates Asimba.com paid $3 per user acquisition versus the $300 that the
company would’ve paid by going the TV ad route that many dot-com companies
seem fond of. Free Internet Service Provider Bluelight.com also went the
viral route. Surprisingly, the company didn’t offer free gifts or
incentives, yet even today they are still getting plenty of pass-along, says
Dave Karraker, the company’s director of marketing. Bluelight.com, which is
a Kmart company, posted a simple tell-a-friend link on its Web site. That
link translated into the second-largest source of new subscribers, says
Karraker.

«People are passing on our message because they think it’s such a
good deal they want their friends to know about it. If our service wasn’t
free, it probably wouldn’t work as well,» he says. Jupiter
Communication’s Slack agrees. Users will only pass on a message that
benefits them or their friends. Those programs that adhere to this adage are
likely to succeed.

Even if they follow it to the letter, there will be some that are
unsuccessful with viral marketing. For example, this spring, home
furnishings retailer Ikea was forced to pull a viral promotion from its site
a mere 24 hours after it was posted. The problem? The offer, which gave
visitors gift certificates as a reward for publicizing via e-mail the
company’s latest store opening, was misused. Even though Ikea limited the
amount of pass-alongs to 10, some visitors spammed strangers who in turn
complained to the company. Again and again, retailers are learning that
people don’t like spam.

«It’s very important for anyone who is doing viral marketing to make
clear to their users that any use of spam is unacceptable,» says John
Mozenia, co-founder and vice president of the Coalition Against Unsolicited
Commercial Email (CAUCE), a grass-roots anti-spam organization. «In
concept, it’s a fairly good way of doing things.» -KJB

“They cheered!” exclaimed Suzanne Swift,
President of Info Edge and SpecSimple.com, clearly elated with student
response at the Sample and Literature Drive Awards Dinner sponsored by her
company. Swift was handing out checks to FIT, NY Institute of Technology,
Parsons, Pratt Institute and School of Visual Arts. A week earlier her
companies had overseen the transfer of over two tons of finish samples and
literature donated by local architects and designers and delivered to each
school’s design library.

“Last year’s Drive was a win-win-win situation,”
says Swift. “Architects and designers donated materials, which were picked
up by furniture dealerships such as Arenson, Dancker, FCI and WB Wood
Integrated Interiors and delivered to local design schools. This year, we
added a fourth “win”: Manufacturers got a chance to participate by
anteing up cash for every box of materials collected. Haworth, Herman
Miller, Bernhardt, Bill Gross and Associates, R. M. Weiland and OR
Associates all donated money. The funds collected are earmarked to hire
design students to maintain their school’s libraries.

“Today’s design students are better prepared to
be tomorrow’s business leaders because of the support of InfoEdge and
SpecSimple.com,” says Lovejoy Duryea, Chairman of the Interior Design
Department at the School of Visual Arts. Ms. Duryea went on to praise the
firms’ pioneering efforts, whose “scholarship sets a trend and raises
the bar for the industry.”

“We’re looking forward to next year,” said
Basima Rum of Kliment and Halsband Architects. “We were thrilled to
participate! The benefits to the students in NYC design schools as well as
to our “green initiative” here in the office make it really worthwhile.”

If you have any comments, suggestions, or if you have an event that you
would like us to include in X-CUBE, please email Elizabeth Geary-Archer at
ega@outoftheboxmarketing.net