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By Michael Knipp
Marketing in a recession is sort of like creating the illusion of breasts on a drag queen’s freshly Naired pecs: It’s a filthy job, but somebody has to do it.
Just ask Matt Skallerud, founder of Pink Banana Media, a marketing firm that specializes in helping companies harness the power of the Internet to build brand loyalty among consumers.
The firm – which teaches clients how to speak with its target audience, the GLBT community, instead of to it – implements recent advances in online communications, including social networking and Web 2.0 tactics, such as blogs, photos and video, as primary marketing components – an attractive, cost-efficient alternative to traditional marketing, considering today’s economic climate.
Throwing his hat into the GLBT Internet ring early on – he launched GayWired.com in 1995, but has since sold it – Skallerud has stayed ahead of the curve when it comes to positioning companies for success online, first by creating Web sites, then by working with those companies to sell products, place banner ads and target the profitable gay market via e-mail.
“[Pink Banana Media] makes some of the marketing efforts done by businesses worldwide more effective and focused, as well as more relevant in the lives of GLBT consumers,” Skallerud, 42, explains. “This, in turn, should benefit the GLBT community in being able to have marketing messages that truly mean something to them, in an environment where they are in full control of what messages they choose to see and hear, rather than being just marketed to as a number in this $712 billion demographic.”
With a finger firmly on the pulse of online trends and after identifying a need for targeted marketing toward GLBT consumers, Skallerud launched Pink Banana Media in January 2008. In the first year alone, the firm acquired a diverse cache of clients, including Connexion.org, Falcon’s video-on-demand service, NYC & Co., Interactive Male and Clear Channel’s PrideRadio.com.
“Over the years, many companies have come to see me as the person who can best help them in reaching GLBT consumer online,” says Skallerud. “Between this experience and the current outreach we are doing based on the Web 2.0 tactics we apply for our clients, we’re quite busy now, and we’ve staked out a nice lead position in this Web 2.0/social networking marketing space.”
Despite Pink Banana Media’s early success, however, times have changed. Like many marketers, Skallerud is forced to find savvier ways for companies to connect with consumers. It’s not just about maintaining a Web presence or sending e-mails these days, but rather interacting and consistently engaging online communities.
“There was once a time when the Internet made targeting the niche within the niche viable in the GLBT community,” Skallerud says. “For example, an advertiser could target ‘gay sports fans’ or ‘gay travelers’ in ways they could not do so before.
“With social networking, advertisers can now target ‘gay football fans’ or ‘gay outdoor enthusiast’ – basically more details and targeted niche groups that are more relevant to their business.”
But targeting those niche groups is one thing. Convincing companies to cough up the cash amid a worsening financial fallout is another.
Skallerud is keen to point out, though, that it’s times like these – when business owners are forced to make smarter choices on how to spend their money – that change the game and how it’s played.
“As more companies seek to reach [the GLBT] market, especially in a downturn in our economy, we have the confluence of more companies trying to make outreach with less dollars to spend,” he says. “The last time this happened, back in 2001, e-mail quickly became the marketing method of choice for many companies learning the new tools of focused and targeted online marketing. This time around seems to be no different, only it’s not e-mail and banner ads that these companies are educating themselves about – this time it’s the social networking with the goal of becoming relevant in the lives of today’s GLBT consumers”
And it’s with these super-specialized social-network marketing techniques that companies will get the most bang for the buck.
“My recommendation for most companies is to spend the time to learn how social networking works and can thus work for them. Social-network marketing is almost all labor and very little hard cost, so for a company with negligible marketing funds but extra time on their hands, they can do most of the marketing themselves.”
Skallerud also believes that when the dust from the current crisis settles, it’s these early adopters of GLBT social-network marketing – the ones who have put in the work – who will profit.
“Marketing has made that fundamental shift from the mass market concept of advertising to the more focused, yet labor-intensive concept of social network marketing. E-mail and banner ad campaigns will still remain relevant, but they will be tied more closely with an overall social-networking component so that a company placing banner ads on a site will also receive more editorial coverage, exposure with their blogs, photos and video and perhaps more tie-ins with the Web site’s other media outreach, including Facebook groups, Twitters and more.
“But they’ve got to fully embrace the techniques to reap the benefits.”
WEB LINK
» PinkBananaMedia.com
Pink Banana Media 2009 - All Rights Reserved
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