I don't usually blog about client business, but this current campaign we're running for AppliancePartsPros.com is an exception imo because of the nature of the "news" itself.
Appliance Parts Pros is a pure ecommerce internet company that has been growing steadily for 8 years now and they have embraced blogging, direct interaction with customers, and search, in all their strategies to date. When Wildfire (working in conjunction with Page Zero Media) was tasked with coming up with a holiday promotion that could extend beyond traditional, the natural fit was to run a blog contest and engage the community outside of a strict online contest structure. We started by looking at 'who' AppliancePartsPros is at its core, what makes sense for the brand, their customers, and their community. The result is the "Comforts of Home" Holiday Contest. The promotion was built in two phases: the first was philanthropy and a donation to US soldiers serving overseas in Iraq or Afghanistan by sending 80 "Comforts of Home" care packages out in early November. The second was the contest itself, where not only can participants enter to win an iPhone® or Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer®, but, if they have a blog, can also help to build an item in a care package that will be delivered in mid-December. For every 5 blog posts about a holiday cooking horror story, or a text, video, or audio message to US troops, one additional care package will be sent.
Of course, a key part of this promotion is outreach to the community; be they military bloggers, food bloggers, holiday bloggers, or DIY bloggers. We spent a significant amount of time getting to know the space and who might be interested in hearing from us directly. We also prepared a Social Media News Release (I refuse to call it a press release because the people who consume the content may not be "press", but the item itself is "news"). We used a customized version of the Shift Communications template for the SMNR and so far the feedback from the community we are reaching out to has been terrific and heartwarming. The outreach and interaction is on-going, and is now moving into the news media phase as well. We did not include comments or trackbacks on the SMNR because of the blog posts and comment abilities there (where folks should be heading to enter the contest!), but did include Digg, del.ici.ous, and Flickr links.
I'm proud of this promotion, the SMNR, and having a fantastic client willing to try new things. I'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback on the release and the contest, and will share results when appropriate.
On another, related note, I am thrilled to welcome Rebecca Muller, a former client of Wildfire's and all around stellar interactive pro, to the Wildfire Strategic Marketing fold as Director of Client Service. If you haven't already, check out her terrific blog - The Direct Approach - which is linked as well from my sidebar. Her contributions to this campaign have been much appreciated and welcome (if you have any questions about military blogs, or bloggers, she's your woman!).
[photo credit: Appliance_Parts_Pros on Flickr]