Creating a Successful Viral Marketing Campaign

Brad Powers and other online marketing experts know that viral marketing can greatly benefit companies. The concept is very popular now. If a viral campaign is successful, it can “increase exposure for your company and product while increasing the number of links to your site.” Sounds simple enough… The challenge is thinking of a catchy idea.
First, identify your target audience on the web. Figure out which sites are most popular for that crowd, and create a fun, catchy, amusing or interesting picture, audio track or video that can be posted on such sites. These little clips spread incredibly fast. Another idea is to study success stories of other campaigns, like Nike, Gmail etc, and spin their technique to fit your product.

Viral Marketing Tips from Experts Like Brad Powers

If you are looking to promote a product or service on the internet, tips from viral marketing experts like Brad Powers would certainly be useful. Here are a few basic guidelines for starting a viral marketing campaign:

• Offer free things. Everyone likes to get gifts and random things for free. Distribute something accessible that is interesting, amazing or funny, and watch it spread.

• Videos are another great way to publicize something. Today, thousands of people spend hours on Facebook, MySpace and other social networks, where files like videos or entertaining images are constantly posted.

• Take advantage of social networks. As mentioned above, you can easily post links and files on these popular, active sites.

• Create a buzz. A video or image may be enough, but you need to make sure that you stay visible after the initial hype ends.

Brad Powers is an expert on Viral Marketing. Below is an interesting, entertaining and educational video all about viral marketing.

Web Use Statistics

Viral marketing is a marketing technique which promotes brands and products through social networks. Brad Powers is an example of one such marketer. Here are some interesting statistics of web use today:

• Two thirds of the world’s population have a minimum of one weekly visit to a social network or blog site.

• Polls have shown that 89% of social network users forward events, news and information to others on their network.

• Leading social networks are visited by over 220 million people each month.

• 59% of adults have admitted to the use of a cellphone to connect with their social network on a regular basis.

• There are more than 500 million active users on Facebook alone.

University Partnership Program Pairs with Clark University

In recent news, Clark University has partnered with the National Society of Hispanic MBAs University Partnership Program. Created in 2006, the UPP has the goal of providing certain academic institutions, like Clark University’s GSOM where Brad Powers is on the board, with an expanded pool of qualified Hispanic applicants for graduate business programs.

Along with 11 other universities, Clark University’s GSOM has now become a partner with the UPP in this endeavor. As Steve Ramos, interim CEO of NSHMBA said, “At the beginning of this year, NSHMBA really took a hard look at the avenues through which it offers financial assistance to students, and determined that our biggest assets are the universities. Realizing the role universities play, we became very aggressive with our efforts to recruit more universities and position NSHMBA where it needs to be in order to secure better financial support for qualified talent.”

Fynanz with Advisor Brad Powers Launches New Site

Fynanz, Inc., the financial technology company where Brad Powers is an advisor, develops customized private student lending solutions. They recently launched a new website with one entire section devoted to helping students and their parents to research about college financing options and to gain the best knowledge possible in this area.

The website, cuStudentLoans.org, includes an extensive educational blog, Twitter feed, Q&A section and links to other sites that can help you in your search for the right loans.

Fynanz Offers Innovative Solution To Seekers of Student Loans

As a valuable adviser to the student loan provider known as Fynanz, Brad Powers contributes to the successful funding of higher education for students who, without such a student loan, would perhaps not be able to pursue their dreams of getting the best education available. Fynanz was selected by CUNA as their exclusive Strategic Alliance partner for private student loans.

The idea driving Fynanz is to allow credit unions to become part of the private student loan marketplace. The technology at Fynanz and its unique integration process gives credit unions nationwide the ability to launch a customized and sophisticated private student loan program.
Fynanz offers credit unions the following types of support:

• A customized, branded website, which is powered by Fynanz, gives credit unions the ability to offer their student customers an easy and smooth application process along with a convenient way to manage their student loans.

• Each credit union determines the particular details of the product which they offer, including rates, fees borrower benefits, eligibility and loan terms. Fynanz offers advice and support through the process of developing the particulars with highly professional and experienced student loan professionals.

• Each credit union is free to develop its own credit policy and use Fynanz’s own “proprietary student loan specific underwriting model,” called the FACS or Fynanz Academic Credit Score.

This is just the beginning. Fynanz, with experts like Brad Powers offering advice, is a truly unique and innovative way to get money for higher education into the deserving hands of young, aspiring students, through easily accessible credit unions.

Fynanz Launches Innovative Web Site

July 8th, 2010 marked the date when Fynanz launched its easy to use and highly informative web site designed to help students, along with their families gain access to the crucial information they need in order to help finance expensive higher educations.

Fynanz, which relies on the advice of many marketing experts such as Brad Powers, is a financial technology company which develops “perfect match” private student lending options and also powers the cuStudentLoans.org private student loan marketplace. The new website, which can be found at cuStudentLoans.org, has great features such as Ken’s Korner. This unique element of the website offers a virtual financial aid advisor; including an educational blog, Twitter feed, FAQ section and additional links to informative and useful sites as well as articles containing the latest, constantly updated content.

Social Media and Twitter Success

It has been suggested that Twitter is “the most popular social tool for this decade.” Anyone who is trying to promote themselves or their companies/products, might want to take a look at what Twitter can do for them. Initially many are pretty skeptical about having a Twitter account. But then once they start using it they are shocked at how popular it really is. When it first started out, Twitter allegedly paid a few celebrities to make controversial tweets to get the ball rolling. “You see Twitter isn’t going get a chance to bribe some celebrity to write something offensive, so they just monitor them and try to make their tweets famous by pushing them towards mainstream media.” So for those wanting to have a go at promoting themselves, check out Twitter.

Viral Marketing 101

If you want to market a product, service, or idea, but don’t want to spend money, viral marketing could be your best option. If you put your idea (video, blog, photo) on to a website like Facebook or Twitter and you have around 300+ followers and the idea is attractive, it can spread like a virus (hence the name viral marketing). What happens is that your 300+ friends will forward it to their 300+ friends and so on until there are thousands and thousands of people who see your idea. And you actually haven’t done a thing! It is easy, costs nothing and it is the free technology that is doing the work for you. This is an especially good idea for those who don’t have the capital that is often needed for marketing services. Today, Brad Powers engages in viral marketing techniques.

Creating Synergy Between Sales and Marketing

Lisa Arthur has an important piece in Forbes.com that outlines five steps to build sales and marketing synergy. She explains that, while lead generation is important, "Demand and lead generation alone are not enough. Instead, you need a solid business strategy that will use both customer retention and new prospects to drive value and growth. That strategy must be market-focused, not just product-focused, and it must be integrated with other core business functions."

She continues by outlining five essential steps to build sales and marketing synergy. Certainly, these ideas can be helpful to everyone from the novice social media person to the more experienced executive like Brad Powers.

She ends the article by explaining that, "At times, B2B marketers today can feel like they’re running the gauntlet, facing new challenges every step of the way. But, don’t think of developing a strong working relationship with sales as just another obstacle you need to overcome. In fact, it’s just the opposite. Creating synergy between sales and marketing will help smooth the ride through today’s rocky marketing landscape, while driving value and growth for your company."

Social Media Changes

Social media is certainly an interesting area, and one that is constantly changing. As any social media specialist, such as Brad Powers, can tell you, you have to stay creative to keep up with the ever-changing internet world.

One fascinating project right now is The Influence Project. This experimental project online saw 6000 people register in just 24 hours. As explained by the creators of the project, “We've created a platform where anyone can see what happens to his or her social network when people are asked to take an action. The scoring is based partly on how many people click on the link to your profile, and partly on a bonus awarded to people who get others inside their network to sign up and take part.”

In their November issue, they are hoping to name the most influential person online. Certainly, an interesting project to follow and one that many people are enjoying participating in as well!

Powerful Online Advertising

For those looking for the most powerful online advertising, they might want to check out the statistics for newspaper sites which are claiming that “ads there are most effective.” According to a survey undertaken by Harris Interactive and the Online Publishers Association, more people buy products that they have seen advertised on a media site than on a social-media site or general Web portal. Why is this the case? Findings indicated that “users were more likely to believe that advertisers on media Web sites were more reputable and that such feelings were related to trust the users had in the sites.”

Brad Powers: Some Internet Marketing Strategies

Social networking is all the rage, with no sign of its popularity diminishing. On the contrary, the success of social networking websites seems like an unstoppable trend whose potential for commercial reward might be limitless.

Internet marketers, such as Brad Powers, have explored the many ways they can utilize social networking sites to help sell their products and/or services. Here are just a few ways marketers can take advantage of the unique opportunities available from the popular networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and MySpace.

1. Competitions- You can get people to sign up for your company’s social profile by sending emails advertising a contest you are holding. If the prize is really cool, and signing up is as easy as a few clicks of a mouse, then it is likely that you will collect a lot of potential customers that you can advertise to.

2. Viral Marketing- whether using videos, photos, games or other media, viral marketing has enormous potential to quickly get the word out about your product or service to a very large number of people. The key to the success of a viral marketing campaign is to be creative; doing something that will attract attention and make people want to share what they have seen with as many of their friends as they can.

3. Advertising- this is risky, as it can be expensive and there is a chance it will not work. But if you have a big budget and can afford the risk, advertising could be another element in your company’s overall marketing strategy.

Fynanz Celebrates Milestone

In recent business news, Fynanz, Inc., a leading financial technology company, announced that they have just signed with their 50^th credit union. Their two most recent partners include Princeton Federal Credit Union and Dort Federal Credit Union.

In the past 90 days alone, Fynanz has more than doubled their credit union partnerships.

As Jeremy Zager, Chief Financial Officer at Dort said, "Dort Federal Credit Union is excited about our relationship with Fynanz and we are looking forward to bringing a private student loan product to our market. Both the loan portfolio diversification and the growth potential associated with offering private student loans are in alignment with our strategic vision and credit union mission."

The Benefits of Retweeting

This blog post explores the question about whether or not retweeting helps with internet marketing. Some may be surprised to learn that the answer is yes. Retweeting allows Twitter members to post links to the pages they view. Many people who are experienced in viral marketing, like Brad Powers, will explain that retweeting does, indeed, benefit the company.

Retweeting is free and effortless on the part of the company, meaning that more money can be spent on other areas of internet marketing. It basically offers a way for others to do your marketing for you.

In order to get people to retweet your pages or posts, you’ll need to have fresh, innovative content that entices readers.

Fynanz, Inc. with Advisor Brad Powers Welcomes New Executive

Fynanz, Inc. is excited to welcome a new member to their executive team. Jim Merrill has joined their team as a Senior Vice President of Sales. He will be managing the sales and client implementation teams that work with Fynanz’ credit union and school partners.

Fynanz, Inc., where Brad Powers is an Advisor, offers these words about the new hire:“With his vast expertise in the credit union industry, the addition of Jim Merrill to our executive team further enhances our credit union expertise and shows our commitment to develop and manage private student loan programs that meet the needs of credit unions, their members and students nationwide,” said Vince Passione, Fynanz CEO and Founder.

Tips for Business Success

Whether you’re in business, finance or marketing, it’s certainly helpful to hear from seasoned professions. This blog post from The Kirk Report makes a very interesting point, that sometimes less is more. Sometimes, when you are seasoned and know too much, you take that information for granted and don’t properly focus on the task at hand. Read on to see more on this important topic.

Brad Powers & Clark University Excited about New Book

The Clark University Graduate School of Management, where Brad Powers is on the Board, is excited about a new book being published. The book, What Poetry Brings to Business, is co-authored by Ted Buswick, executive-in-residence in the GSOM. An electronic newsletter of the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada just listed the book as among its ten most highly recommended leadership books.

Co-written by Ted Buswick with Clare Morgan of Oxford University and Kirsten Lange of the Boston Consulting Group, the book will be published this Spring by the University of Michigan Press.

Brad Powers: Sales & Marketing with eWOMP Technologies

The Town Sports International (TSI) health club company is the largest of its kind in the Northeastern United States. It owns and operates the Sports Clubs Network of clubs. This network includes New York Sports Clubs, Boston Sports Clubs, Washington Sports Clubs and Philadelphia Sports Clubs.

The company has many qualities that keep it first rate and client oriented. It includes innovative fitness programs, well-trained staff, and high quality facilities. It focuses on member satisfaction and makes this its number one priority across all of its sports centers.

In total, the Town Sports International includes nearly half a million members, and even has three locations in Switzerland! For their sales and marketing, which is certainly a large undertaking, they have employed eWOMP Technologies, where Brad Powers was the Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing.

Brad Powers on Getting Involved at Clark University

Clark University graduate Brad Powers would be the first to take pride in his old school’s latest worthy venture. The university has established a Community Engagement and Volunteering (CEV) Center. This center will be the perfect way for all those associated with the university – students, staff and faculty – to help the Worcester community through useful service in the community. This center will show those who get involved how to positively affect others while learning how to be a leader and at the same time, benefit from all that Worcester has to offer. Indeed, such a venture isn’t new for a community like Worcester which enjoys a long history of student involvement. Nonetheless, this center will be more of a central body where this kind of important work can take place.

Brad Powers and CEV

Anyone who studied at Clark University would be thrilled to take part in a center like the Community Engagement and Volunteering one. Brad Powers is definitely someone to talk to when it comes to gaining leadership skills, as can be seen, for example, in his founding of the Active Response Group in 2004 which sought to “provide marketers, agencies, and brand managers a way to simultaneously increase revenues, decrease costs and get closer to their consumers.” If this new Center fulfills its aim of helping students find an active role in the community, and learn what it means to be a leader via communal work, then Brad Powers is certainly someone who would support it.

Alliance Between Fynanz, Inc. and CUNA Strategic Services

Just recently, CUNA Strategic Services and Fynanz, Inc created a new, important alliance. Their alliance is aimed to help credit unions to get into the private student loan market while assisting borrowers to finance their tuition and achieve their higher education goals.

As Wes Millar, senior vice president for CUNA Strategic Services explains it, “Fynanz provides the powerful combination of helping credit unions grow their loan portfolios and increase their reach into the high school and college demographic. The youth market is critical to credit unions’ growth.”

This is certainly an exciting alliance for Fynanz, Inc, where Brad Powers is on the Board, and CUNA Strategic Services.

Clark University Unique and Exciting

Clark University, where Brad Powers received his B.A. in psychology and his MBA from Clark’s Graduate School of Marketing, is located in Worcester, Massachusetts. Clark is a private research university as well as a liberal arts college, which was founded in 1887; it is the oldest educational institution in the United States founded as an all-graduate university. Today Clark University also has an undergraduate program, and along with Harvard and Yale Clark is one out of only three New England universities to be a founding member of the Association of American Universities.

One interesting fact about Clark University is that it is the second educational institution in the United States offering a Ph.D program. Another little known tidbit is that Clark’s geography department is the only North American geography program to actually have a mountain range named in its honor. Paul Siple the famous meteorologist, explorer and the inventor of the “wind chill factor”, and graduate of Clark’s geography program named the Clark Mountains of Antarctica and its peaks after his faculty instructors. Thus, within the Clark Mountains are the peaks Jones, Atwood, Burnham, Walter Elmer Ekblaw and Van Valkenburg.

Hair Care, Wanakee and Brad Powers

High-end hair-care and cosmetic products are the specialty of Wanakee Design, where Brad Powers was the Chief Marketing Officer. For an entertaining tour of what can be done with some of Wanakee’s specialty products, check-out this fun, informative and interesting YouTube video about how to look your best and get the best out of Wanakee hair-care products.

Giving Back to Clark University

Brad Powers received both his B.A. in psychology and his MBA at Clark University. Today, to give back to the educational community, he sits on the GSOM Board at Clark University. Clark University is proud to be at the forefront of so much research and innovation. Here are a few examples of recent undertakings they’ve been part of:

• They led the project management unit when the United Nations sought a location for its investigation into the world’s response to AIDS and for its strategy planning for battling the disease.

• Two Clark Graduate of Geography faculty members, Colin Polsky and R. Gil Pontius, were awarded a $1.5 million grant by the National Science Foundation for their work while studying 26 towns in Ipswich and Parker River watersheds.

• Clark University was one of the 43 institutions nationwide that launched the Difficult Dialogues program started by the Ford Foundation to promote academic freedom and religious, cultural and political pluralism on college and university campuses.

Fynanz Scores with Funding

Fynanz, a peer to peer lending platform for student loans where Brad Powers is on the board, has recently raised $6.5 million in Series A funding. This funding comes from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, DFJ Gotham Ventures, The Brazos Group, Zelkova Ventures and JBR Media Ventures.

This funding will help Fynanz, with a total funding of over $8 million, to expand its credit union and student lending marketplace while developing additional lending programs. Launched in 2008, Fynanz guarantees each student loan and enables students to apply for loans while participants can help fund those loans. To reduce their own risk, Fynanz evaluates not only the student borrower’s credit scores, but also their GPA and the school they plan to attend.

Loans are offered to students with very low interest rates, usually .60% to 1.0% lower than what students would find at a bank.