Online Earth Day Promo a Web 2.0 Success
April 24, 2008 - IdeaStar client TCP Inc. celebrated Earth Day 2008 with an online video event produced by the IdeaStar Spinfield team. The manufacturer of energy-saving compact fluorescent light bulbs ( CFLs ) presented illumiNation, CFL Education for a Better Tomorrow four times throughout the day. Many viewers pre-registered to watch the 45-minute event focusing on CFL facts, myths, and misconceptions.
“The results exceeded my expectations,” Michelle Heffner, TCP E-Business manager, said. Prior to the Earth Day event, TCP sent out e-mails to notify its sales reps, utility contacts, consumers, and other industry professionals. Registrations continued to come in throughout Earth Day, for a total of 202 – although registration was not needed to view the video.
Approximately 400 people viewed the video during Earth Day. There were 318 visitors from the U.S., 50 from Canada, a dozen from Europe, and several visits from China, Turkey, Brazil, Hong Kong, India, South Africa and others. The video will be divided into three to five minute educational segments and posted on the TCP Web site and a TCP YouTube channel for future viewing. Visitors to the illumiNation site may currently view information regarding CFL recycling, where to buy CFLs, CFls and mercury, how to clean up a broken CFL and more.
IdeaStar Online Marketing Manager Steve Lamb said online marketing played an important part in the Web presentations. “Social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Care2 played a key role in getting the word out to the public in a viral effort. E-mail marketing with IdeaStar’s Pulsar e-mail marketing system enabled TCP to make their reps, distributors, educators and others aware of the event. Pulsar also enabled us to send reminder messages and follow-up surveys with all the people who pre-registered and opted-in to this illumiNation event.” He added environmentally-conscious bloggers were contacted to help with promotion, and possibly blog about it afterwards.
During the presentations, TCP representatives answered questions from viewers through an online customer service chat program. Most questions involved where to recycle CFLs or where they can be purchased.
“This entire project is a perfect example of how a global corporation like TCP can utilize Web 2.0 to target consumers that they would have never been able to reach through traditional media outlets,” Steve said.
“Earth Day 2009 will be even better. We have a whole year to plan, plus a list of interested people to market to,” Michelle said. “We’ll have time to do our promos, e-mail campaigns, blogs – all that Web 2.0 stuff which works so well.”
IdeaStar Inc., based in Cleveland, OH, is a full-service Web development firm which designs, programs, manages and promotes leading-edge Web sites and e-business applications. For more information, contact IdeaStar Business Development Manager Laurel Baldwin at 800-766-2635 ext. 110.