I received (quite a while ago) my bloggers relief pack, from Berroca, after following a tweet from Grace @ Postscript 5. I had the start of this post saved in my drafts, so I decided to finish it off, seeing im just back from my hols, gives me a good start back into blogging for this week.
You can view what you could get in your own pack – a berocca glass, a poptastic keyring, a pen holder and a pack of berocca over on Flickr here.
I have to say, that the tactics now being employed by some pharmaceauticals companies in link building is nothing short of brilliant. From an SEO point of view, giving things to bloggers is always going to win brownie points, and links. Created by London Agency Outside Line – this marketing campaign is taking the strategy of a competition, and giving it a new twist. A “bloggers relief pack” giveaway ticks a few critical online marketing strategy boxes:
1). Make the competition winner feel a winner.
I got “chosen” or “selected” as a blogger who was worthy of the prize. So yep, I’m definitely going to shout about it. They also put links to blogs who have entered the competition on their site, and this shows up on my website logs. They provide me with some decent traffic as well, so it stands to reason that I return the favour.
2). Pick your winners carefully.
I’m pretty sure that Berrocca are only chosing bloggers with an existing audience, and thus, the word is likely to get out pretty quickly.
3). If possible, give away a sample of the product.
If you believe in your product, give it away for free, and turn a prospect into a long term customer that will purchase the product again. I tried it, and it did provide relief of a hangover. An unlikely use perhaps, but it worked, and considering that they decided to try a different approach to marketing that I admire, I’m more likely to purchase again, as they are automatically on my radar for being innovative in their marketing.
4). Make it viral
Let your potential customers talk about things for you. Putting a little promo on a subdomain, then getting the message out via other blogs (and twitter), is brilliant. I guarantee a few of you guys will read this and pop along and enter your blog for free, and so the circle of promotion continues.
It’s worth taking notice of this for a few reasons. Pharmaceauticals companies are finding new ways of getting themselves established in search. Viral link building campaigns are certainly much more white hat and productive than the traditional “underground” or black hat SEO.
We have all seen it for Viagra, Cialis etc. dropping links on blog comment forms. It’s great to see at least one pharmaceautical marketing campaign that breaks the mold, perhaps on the whole the will eventually woken up to marketing 2.0.
