I’ve had a book on my desk for some time now, called “Connected (The Amazing Power of Social Networks and How they Shape our Lives)”. It was sent to me by the ‘nice and bespectacled people at Rubber Republic‘. (It conjures up images of them filing away books in a quiet library somewhere). I don’t know if they are bespectacled, but I do think they’re nice – they sent me a free book :-)
Rubber Republic are specialists in viral and social media campaigns, seeding ’stuff’ (content) to influential audiences, getting ideas to spread online: Stuff like this.
The book idea follows the same simple ’seeding’ idea that works so effectively online – send the book to an initial group of people, make them feel special by getting the book first, let them read the book, and (hopefully) get them to pass it on to somebody else, distributing the message and exposure to the original sender. The difference being that with offline the idea is never really going to go ‘viral’ – it’s not possible for somebody to read the book and then send it to multiple friends – so the sharing element is a much slower process. (It’s quite a thick book too).
It has had an effect though, and probably the desired effect. Without even having read the book, I’d already told several colleagues about the nice book idea, been back on the Rubber Republic blog and started following them on Twitter. The offline ’stuff’, in this case the book, has therefore definitely had a ‘return’ and has converted into an opinion that’s gone online (you’re reading it). It’s also had a much longer lasting effect on me than receiving something digital would have – it’s much more personal and intimate than receiving something digitally usually is.
This really does illustrate the power of including Direct as part of the marketing mix, and that offline and online can work really well together as part of integrated marketing campaigns.
So, thanks for the book Rubber Republic, and when’s the next one coming? And if only you’d include a ‘Send To A Friend’ on your Rubber Bullet email I’d probably pass that on too!
Now who wants the book next?
Mark
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@markhopetweets
