Promo - December 2007 - (Page 13)

The players B rian Q uinton Interactive Voice Lessons Internet call service JaJah makes some noise with a viral marketing campaign At first glance, building a word-of-mouth marketing campaign around a low-cost-to-free phone service would seem about as complex as organizing a one-car parade. After all, anyone who tries the service and likes the savings is going to reach for a phone and tell their non-user friends about you. Aren’t they? Well, yes, says Frederik Hermann, director of global marketing for low-cost voice calling service JaJah. But relying on those volunteer customer evangelists isn’t necessarily going to get the most influential people up and calling. And it won’t identify specific user segments that might be especially ripe for more intensive marketing. In a nutshell, JaJah gives callers an easy way to make IP voice calls without downloading software to their computers (a big hurdle for the less technically gifted) or donning a nifty headset (a deal-breaker for those users who aren’t Time-Life operators). Users simply go to the JaJah Web page, open a free account and pre-pay for some calls. To JaJah doubled its conversions with a use the service, they type in their regular phone campaign targeting number and that of the person they want to call and (Aug. 15), JaJah offered calls between India Indians calling to and hit “submit.” After a short wait, their listed phone and the U.S., Canada and the U.K for about from the U.S., the U.K. and Canada. number rings and they hear a recorded message say7 cents a minute. ing their call will be connected. “We have a very international user base, JaJah can do this because it holds agreements with some but India is a huge emerging market,” Hermann says. And an 130 phone companies around the globe and maintains equipunderserved one for its size. “We specifically wanted to create ment in their switching centers that puts calls up onto the awareness in a market where we were still kind of new, and Internet and pulls them down at the other end. So a call from we targeted India as a country where we needed to gain more Albania to Australia is a cheap local call at both ends and travusers and more brand awareness.” els over the free Internet in the middle. JaJah registrants can PopularMedia designed a special Web page for Indian talk to non-users for much less than standard phone fees—as customers, www.JajahIndia.com, and an e-mail promotion little as 2 cents a minute; and they can talk to other registered aimed at current Indian registrants. The page and e-mail users for free. offered registered users 30 free calling minutes if they perIt’s in the company’s interest to grow its member rolls as suaded five friends to join with them, and free calling among large as possible. Last March, the privately held company said those countries until next year for the registrant who signed it had amassed 2 million users in its first year of operation, up the largest number of friends. and that 800,000 of those came on board during the first three The results were impressive. Thirty-three percent months of 2007. “It’s a viral numbers game,” JaJah CEO Trevor of participants signed up for JaJah’s service during the Healy told Reuters at the time. “The more registered users, the campaign. The average participant invited 9.6 friends to Continued on page 14 more calls get made and the more new users become aware.” To turn up the heat under that viral momentum, JaJah turned to viral marketing consultancy PopularMedia. For more articles on interactive marketing, go to W www.promomagazine.com/interactive After some study, Popular identified a few customer segments with more than average potential—most notably, the Newsletter RSS Conference Indian subcontinent and the large Indian population living Web Webinar Podcast abroad. From early July through Indian Independence Day Promo / WWW.PROMOMAGAZINE.COM / December 2007 13 http://www.promomagazine.com/interactive http://www.promomagazine.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Promo - December 2007

Promo - December 2007 Contents Editor's Note Urban Refuge Digital Directive Soft Soap Voice Lessons Jordan's Monster Deal College Bowl Sprawl Good Deeds Commentary Blue Christmas Q&A: Clutter Cutter Widgets? They're Easy The Agency Center Resource Center Secret Weapon Index of Advertisers

Promo - December 2007

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