I recently had the pleasure of being interviewed on the Entrepreneur Magazine eBiz Show. We talked about interactive marketing and brand immersion. Here is a transcript from the first segment.

Rob: Jackie, welcome to the show.

Jackie: Hi Rob, thanks.

Rob: So let’s start right out with what is interactive marketing?

Jackie: Interactive marketing is a marketing strategy and it’s designed to encourage your target audience to interact with your marketing message. So this means we’re basically creating a two-way conversation between your brand and your target audience.

Rob: So can you give me just a couple of small examples to illustrate that?

Jackie: Sure. For instance, rather than simply pushing your message on somebody you’re going to pull them in by providing content that they might be interested in or that they might find engaging our stimulating in some way. And you’re really sort of making your brand a part of their lives.

Rob: Oh, okay. So most online businesses are somewhat familiar with marketing strategies like pay per click. Maybe you could illustrate for us what’s different from pay per click and interactive?

Jackie: …Pay per click can be really effective for driving people to your website, but the question is once they get there what is their experience going to be like? So what we’re talking about that makes interactive marketing different is pulling people in where pay per click is more of a push method.

Rob: Okay.

Jackie: So most marketing falls into one of those two categories, push versus pull. In push you’re pushing your message on to someone, you’re telling them what you’re all about. With pull you’re pulling them in by enticing them and encouraging them to experience your message. You’re providing them with content that they choose to experience and by making that content something that’s relevant to your audience’s lifestyle, now you’re integrating yourself into their lives.

…

Rob: Okay, excellent. So what are some types of interactive marketing campaigns?

Jackie: Well with interactive marketing you can employ a wide array of tactics. For example if your audience is comprised largely of college students you might run a campaign and involves a web portal that features things like online games, short videos, message boards, and all of this would be branded. You might also include an email campaign and for college students you might include SMS and mobile content also.

Rob: Right. So those seems to be all tools that you use for the interactive marketing, but I guess the interactive part of it is almost one step back from that? It sounds more like a philosophy or an approach to marketing.

Jackie: It is an approach to marketing. And you know, you can employ various tactics to carry out that approach, but it’s really about encouraging your target audience to interact with your brand. And when we use the term “interactive� that’s what we mean. A lot of people think interactive just means something that’s on a computer.

Rob: Right.

Jackie: And so we’re talking about interactive in the definition of a two-way relationship, two-way communication, where you’re encouraging your audience to interact with your brand and experience your brand on a more personal level.

Rob: Right. Well, we’re going to get into some of the examples that you talked about, some of the tools that you talked about, we’re going to get into more detail with them. So maybe, let’s start with something that people are pretty well familiar with, let’s talk about good strategies for email campaigns and what the benefits of using interactive email campaigns are.

Jackie: …I think one of the biggest benefits of using email is they keep your brand fresh in the minds of your audience. So timing emails correctly is a big thing. And making sure that the content you provide is something that’s relevant so that people will actually read your email when it comes and not just delete it and put it in the trash.

Rob: Right. Not automatically just hit that filter that goes straight to the trash can.

Jackie: Right. And so again, it’s about providing relevant content. It’s about assessing who your target audience is and then figuring out what kind of information they’re going to really find useful and that’s how you make yourself relevant and that’s how you’re going to differentiate yourself. So in the case of email for instance, we had a client that was a pharmaceutical company and it was an arthritis drug, so we made sure that every month we delivered patient education information, tips for people who have arthritis or are living with arthritis, practical things that they can do every day to make their lives easier.

Rob: Right.

Chris: With email campaigns, Jackie, how do you get around all that automatic deletion and filtering?

Jackie: It’s tough. I think one of the ways that you do it is definitely by getting people to opt in and not spamming people.

Chris: Right.

Jackie: In my opinion spamming is not okay and if people have opted in properly and you go through that process with them they’re going to be responding to you and that way you’re going to be included in their approved list of people who can send them emails.

Chris: And you have to actually identify, you have to brand yourself very clearly very quickly in that subject line, don’t you?

Jackie: Yes you do, absolutely.

Chris: Otherwise people, even if they opt in, they might not recognize what they opted into.

Jackie: Right. The subject line is definitely vital.

Chris: And what you’re talking about with email campaigns, I have a newsletter that I get that I always open and look at. It’s interesting. I forget the guy’s name, I’d actually like to give him a little plug here, but I can’t remember his name now, but it’s computer tips. And I’ve been around the block many times with computers, but the thing pops up and it says, this week’s computer tips from Gil or Joe or someone, and I always open it and take a look at it.

Jackie: Right, it’s easily recognizable.

Chris: Right.

Jackie: If it’s something you’re going to send monthly you can say, “the tip of the month brought to you by…� and that way every month it’s recognized in the inbox.

Chris: Right, and that struck me as interactive marketing as well.

Jackie: Absolutely.

Rob: Yeah, and you said something that was pretty interesting to me which is that it’s consistent, that you have a schedule that it comes out on.

Jackie: Right.

Chris: Is there a formula, Jackie, that you use?

Jackie: We use different formulas for different clients really. A lot of it depends on who the audience is and what kind of information we need to communicate. If you hit people too often then they might get turned off and if you don’t hit people often enough then they might not be exposed to your brand enough. So I find for most businesses, a monthly email tends to be pretty effective. Depending, though, on what you’re sending out it could be biweekly or quarterly. But I would say anything more than biweekly, again, depending on the business, might be getting a little pushy.

Rob: And the quality of that information is pretty important from what it sounds like.

Jackie: The quality of the information I think is vital because otherwise people aren’t going to bother reading it. But also I think if people find the information useful they’re going to be likely to forward that on to their friends and that’s going to create a viral effect which is another really good benefit of email campaigns.

Rob: Right. I think you bring up a really good point. And it’s really bringing a value-added experience to the buying process.

Jackie: It is. And that’s a big part of what interactive marketing is all about, is a lot of value added. You don’t have a brand without forming a connection with your audience and the way to form a connection with your audience is to engage them.