TODCon Keynote from Danny Kastner

I have to admit that I was none too impressed when it was announced that the guitar-playing contestant from The Apprentice--Danny Kastner--would be the keynote speaker at this year's TODCON (The Other Dreamweaver Conference). I knew that he ran a web-based marketing company--Popstick.com - but I had a hard time getting over my prejudices from his gig with The Donald.

I was dead wrong.

Danny gave a fascinating talk about the methods he advocates for his clients--creating marketing campaigns that are geared towards interactivity and community building. Along with his made-up-on-the-spot-song shtick (yes, he did that too) he also was dead on in the methods he described for marketing in these days of highly-interactive web sites. Some notes from his talk:

**He started by discussing how many companies almost get the idea of creating marketing campaigns based on the kinds of ineractivity and communication that people seek out on-line. Some are close, but too many start with a fresh idea and then revert back to old ways (i.e. 3 or 4 years old) methods for marketing. Simply put, an ad that takes you to something that's little more than the basic company website with no focus on interactivity, experience and community is an ineffective ad. It essentially uses the same advertising and marketing concepts that print and TV advertisements have always used, while ignoring the advantages and capabilities of on-line expereinces.

**He advocates defining a brand by its experience. In other words, to really create band awareness it's not enough to just get the name out. Brands that take advantage of the Web create customers who are advocates for your product and have a sense of comunity.

**Advertisements on line should lead ideally to a rich-media landing pad--a micro-site that features fun interactive content with the option to connect to other users of the brand.

**When comparing rich-media advertising and marketing to traditional TV advertising he notes that on-line ads have a huge advantage in that the content can be replaye on demand, can be shared with others, can collect viewer data, and allows for immediate delivery.

**An example of a micro-site (and his example of a designer air company was pretty funny) might include the ability to not only subscribe, but also create a profile, allow dialogue between customers and between customers and the company, and take advantage of things like blogs that can help keep your customers connected.

**He noted that this kind of marketing takes time to build. Unlike traditional ads where a company can make a big splash but then see interest tail off over time, rich-media micro sites take time to build interest, but then are able to sustain interest among customers.

**He stressed the importance of building communities and communication. Even when the communication might be critical of the company and its products, the way that the company responds to its customers in an open forum can go a long way towards building goodwill and actually increasing customer loyalty.

**He doesn't think much of the traditional "metrics" that are used to measure the success of on-line marketing. More important that page views and click-throughs is the building and sustainment of communities around brand loyalty. Short-term ROI isn't really applicable in on-line marketing where the real goal is to build communities.

**Finally, he says that the best way to spend marketing funds on-line is to invest in communities and customers. Interactivity is the hub for all of those efforts.

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So, instead of what I thought I might get--a little ego session about The Donald and Danny's appearance on The Apprentice, what we got was a funny and creative guy with some really thought-provoking comments on the direction of on-line marketing. Considering that most of the attendees here are independent web developers and designers it was a spot-on message for us to hear.