Seihaku’s Blogmarketing Bible

The actual buryers of Essboard are the parents of elementary school children although the children uses it. Many variety of strategic keywords have been developed in this aspect of psychology, where the children wants to look more mature like high school students. In such keyword strategy, if we can call the process of developing various keyword and contents to customers and non-customers, a two-dimensional strategy. Such keyword strategy aimed towards non-customers are very critical and absolutely required for marketing as well.

First by choosing a keyword that an elementary children are interested in, then create a new story by converging the keyword with the product so that variety of interesting ways are used to keep them entertained. Contents that emphasized the brand as the original, by differentiating image and quality, were used initially to existing customers; and words such as fake, imitation and even death sentence, were used as applicable keywords.

In order to provide information to customers who are interested in other wheel sports equipment other than Essboard, 2006~2007 Korea Skateboard review was promoted. The important thing here is that many customer’s interest and click was drawn from the PR that included the competing products. And furthermore, this brought about an opportunity to have a new recognition on the Essboard.

Review contents were promoted with an intention of a win-win situation for this industry. If a zero sum game with a specific product is the aim, benchmark strategy is ideal. Also, a free donation corporate image marketing was promoted, in an educational aspect, to the domestic alternative culture schools and Korean schools located in Beijing, due to the influence of an executive interested in education. Promotion called Essboard Hip Hop Culture Project were also promoted for the susceptible teenagers.

Most notable event was when we gave Essboard to Jisung Park and other Manchester United’s players as a fan. Promotional contents about PPL products from TV, dramas; pictures and story on foreign Essboard manias; and UCCs were posted to draw customer interests. Korean Essboard Design Contests were also held as a design development project in conjunction with a network by Design Colleges and their students.

An interesting thing to note here is that as many as 141 various contents are continuously promoted as a promotion or events, but it is most critical to expose a combination of various keyword at a perfect timing, through their blogs. (Shaolin Temple, UV Blocks, Soccer, InnoDesign, G-Market Purchase warning, impulsive buying, capoeira, Yuna Kim, MaNyerYooHee, MUST HAVE, Chocolate, Penance Helper, Beat-box, Hip Hop, Air force one, January Effect, Palace S, Generation Consensus, Examinees, X-Game, etc.) In other words, contents that react to the keywords of customer interest, are posted at the same time.

You can see that core keywords, Essboard, and other diverse surrounding keywords are blended to form a content mixture through various approach methods. The fact that Essboard blog contents were able to reach the customer in a variety of ways, in less than a year, shows that it created a structure of trust and connection, different from advertising.

If you search the keyword Essboard on naver now, you can see that Seihaku’s Essboard story comes up as a top result. As mentioned above, you need to understand that blog marketing isn’t just posting articles on the blog, but creating various, complex contents in which the corporate operation extends to all areas, including marketing, promotion, development and advertising.

In blog marketing, more you know, more you become friends with customers.

Participant contents are the most highly valued blog contents?

It is interesting to think about what is and will be the most highly regarded contents in the blog and Interent world. Let us look at one most effective contents in the content abundant world of Internet; a content where it induces people into participating. For example, the bulletin board on ‘Roh-Sa-Mo’ (President Roh Enthusiasts Association) website. As people began to engage in intense discussions on the board, more and more people started to gather. Consequently it reached a record click figure and demonstrated a power that is remembered by many.

Contents are developing from records to ads; knowledge to know-how. But eventually, contents with marketable value comes down to a question; “Is the target audience participating?”. A single shout isn’t so effective but contents reflecting a conversation or a response of another can act to create a whole new value, unlike any conventional ad catch phrase.

Then what is a content that can draw a response from a customer?

And in setting a concept necessary for content creation, you should not think lightly as if you are writing a diary; but to analyze and anticipate the future to the maximum extent in order to create the most suitable approximation possible. Contents need to be created on the basis of such future scenarios. In order words, in creating a contents, an partial approach that only considers the blogger, target and the product should not be taken; but a general approach which takes into accounts all aspects of blogger, target, product, current trend, fad, interesting issues, age prospects, best timing and even the expected. Contents as such can only be able to draw the unpredictable attention of netizens regardless of mess-media exposure.

In proceeding the Essboard marketing, I had an opportunity to create a content on “Park, Ji-Sung”, who belongs to Manchester United. And there was an incident that drew forth an explosive response from many netizens. Seihaku, a blogger, once sent Essboards and fan letters to Manchester United’s athletes; Louis Saha, Edwin van der Sar, Gary Neville, Wayne Rooney, Patrice Evra and Park Jisung. Guess what happend? Ms Catherine Hall, who is a granny in the reception of Manchester United’s practice fields, notified the players of this gift and also told the Korean IS reporters, who were looking for gossips, of this gift incident. They posted a news article regarding it and it began to adorn the headlines of various portal sites which in turn drove a massive traffic of many soccer loving netizens to the blog site due to numerous scraps here and there.

Things like this could happen. But a truly interesting thing then occurred; someone posted an article on the blog saying he “gave rollerblades as a gift to Manchester United’s players” and netizens who read the article visited the blog and then began to write a reply posting saying that there is “an error in the article” thus requesting a correction to be made. In consequence, many replies were posted and in turn caused the blog click figures and even the portal posting’s click figures to multiply. Later on, Patrice Evra, one of the players who received the gift, scored an assist to Jisung Park’s second goal and a reporter, watching the game, posted an article saying, “Evra, Assisting Jisung Park’s 2nd goal. Returning a favor, of a gift from a Korean fan.” Due to this incident, many soccer loving netizens gathered at the original blog scene through Internet search, and the response continued for quite a while.

In the end, as voluntary participation of netizens were added to the contents based on a original planning, enormous effects were achieved that shook the whole mass-media. In order to achieve such a degree, you will incur marketing expense in multiple millions. But the more important aspect of it is that it succeeded in drawing a positive customer response. It created an end-product that were able to gain authenticity and drawn credibility from the unbelievers of commercial marketing. It cannot be striked back from the competitors since it’s not a corporate ad and it is important to note that it does not give the sensitive customers a negative image. We need to pay attention to the participant contents which has the ability to draw enormous response once it pops up.

Keep an eye on the possibility of participant contents; the flower of blog marketing.