Xobni – Marketing between the lines!

 

 

 

This morning I downloaded the product, Xobni, an add-on to Outlook. At the end of the installation of the add-on software, the Finish dialog box wasn’t just wasted space. Xobni took advantage of an opportunity to connect with their target market! They filled the wasted space with an friendly picture of the xobin team along with the message “Thanks for installing!”  Kudos to the xobni marketing team!

Where is the wasted space in your business processes? Examine all of your customer communications and look for ways to connect and utilize print or electronic pieces that are usually boring but could be used to make a connection.

Consider these possibilities:

• Invoices
• Receipts
• Auto-responders
• Envelopes
• Email signatures
• Form letters

As you look at your communications, ask these questions:

• Is our mission expressed?
• If not, how can it be incorporated cleanly?
• How memorable are we?
• How can we add valuable info in small spaces that are usually wasted?
• How can we build goodwill in what is typically wasted space?
• Are we likeable-as a company?

Any new ideas on making the most of wasted space on standard (dare I say–boring) communications?

Post your thoughts. I’d love to hear from you!

You better not be Twishing on Twitter

I missed one on the WSJ web 2.0 quiz this morning. (I actually guessed it-but only because it was multiple choice!) Here is the question: What is twishing?

A. An online game like whist

B. Scamming users of Twitter

C. Hoping the T will arrive

D. A Wii-based online dance craze.

Answer: B. Scamming users of Twitter

Like me, you’ve probably heard of phishing scams-the emails that imitate messages from banks or other online accounts-and invite you to login. When you do, you are actually logging into a fake site allowing hackers to obtain your login/password combination and access your real account. Well, twishing is just like that-except it is used exclusively to gain access to twitter accounts. You can avoid the problem by not clicking on suspicious links in tweets or in email. If you do click on a link, carefully examining the URL of the page you land on. For example, if someone tweets or emails a website link to you, make sure you look before you login when you land on what looks like twitter.com. Check the URL, if it says this: http://twitterblog.access-logins.com/login or anything other than http://www.twitter.com, don’t login.

Have you been twished? How about phished? Share your story.