Case Study: I-Comm zooms onto a desk-top near you - December 2005  

Colin Smith reviews a desk-top marketing solution developed by his company Interactive Communication Group (ICG) that he believes is tipped to push the evolution of e-communication effectiveness to quantifiably higher levels when it comes to recruiting and building committed communities of supporters for clubs, organisations and sporting events.

Imagine a direct marketing tool with the pulling power of live sport, the conversational immediacy of a chat in the clubhouse and the measurability of an intelligent turnstile. That’s exactly what ICG has developed – and realised it with the new i-comm rich media desktop marketing solution. No question that today the internet is a vital and cost-effective communications medium and sales outlet in the world of sport. But competition for attention is fierce and while hardcore enthusiasts will take time and trouble to find what they want, it is a much more difficult job to engage the attention and spending power of the passing crowd – or to convert mass interest in a Big Event into paying customers for the rest of the fixture list.
As ICG’s patented rich media desktop marketing solution, i-comm represents a distinctly competitive edge in a very crowded and noisy environment. For a start, it can rapidly turn a casual viewer into a signed-up member of the club. Experience indicates that sports fans are keen to download the i-comm software, given their eagerness to have access to important information and video footage on a ‘first to know’ basis. Moreover, i-comm now makes it possible for end-users to view any quantity or configuration of rich media material irrespective of band-width, without any slowdown or loss of quality. This means that you can create communications with maximum WOW!-factor. With i-comm, even the casually interested will want to join your online club so that they can get more of those great DVD-quality videos, high resolution images and games. All this accessible with a quick download that takes place while the fans are filling in their personal details.

Engaging your customers

And once they have signed up, i-comm overcomes the problem of getting punters to notice and appreciate new information. It also provides rights holders with the perfect channel to deliver their sought-after content.  Right now, the internet is something of a victim of its own success. Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo and Google email systems (indeed, most Outlook setups) all block images to protect against the delivery of computer viruses. This means that when you want to notify your existing community about new events and features, you have two options. Either you have to resort to conventional and expensive advertising and direct mail techniques – which is going to defeat the object of the whole exercise – or you are obliged to send them a largely text message which will land with a dull and ignorable thud into an already overstuffed mailbox.  As a brand owner, you want to be able to engage your customers; to immerse them in the experience of your brand. This is no longer possible with current email marketing techniques which have shown a consistent drop in email open rates over the last year.
That all changes with i-comm, which gives end-users an icon in their system tray (bottom righthand corner of the PC screen) that will blink or bleep seductively when you have something to communicate. The receiver can then pick a convenient moment to enjoy your latest offering in all its media rich glory. One word of warning though, with this ground-breaking new technology there is no longer any excuse for information providers to be boring, dilatory or uninformative. But get it right, and you can look forward to unprecedented open rates and click throughs.

The MotoGP experience

In a recent home page promotion, MotoGP was able to sign up online club members by getting them to download the i-comm software onto their PCs. Their main incentive to join was simply the quality of the content they would be receiving, and the only promotion of the online club was on the website home page. MotoGP rapidly grew its audience by offering great multimedia content on the races delivered directly from the race track, together with privileged photos from the stars and personalities of the MotoGP world. The only thing missing was the smell of hot fuel and burning rubber!
In the opening period, from a site audience of approximately 200,000 users per month, a remarkable 20,000 users subscribed to the service. Hundreds of thousands of messages were delivered, with over 95% open rates, and a massive 22% click through rate. The communications incorporated full-screen rich media material, and were targeted according to the information given at registration.
ICG’s i-comm is a flexible and multi-purpose tool that can be used to meet many marketing objectives. The i-comm application allows providers to deliver whatever is needed for maximum impact, whether that be full-screen video footage (irrespective of bandwidth), soundtracks, interactive games...or whatever. Adopting i-comm will allow you to develop a two-way relationship over time, strengthening the bond between your club, or sport, with fans and participants. And you will no longer have to wait for users to come to your site to view (maybe) what you want them to view. Nor will you have to use uninspiring text-based emails to try and entice them to come and view rich content on the site (which then plays poorly for users with slow connection speeds). The only limiting factor in your communications is going to be your imagination since i-comm gives you full scope for promoting your entertainment value and usefulness together with unparalleled possibilities for tracking and holding your community.
The i-comm technology can be downloaded online or distributed as a CD/DVD (cover mounted, mailshot or hand-out), and can use many advertising media to acquire members including email, website promotion, spot advertising on portal sites, magazines, and in-club promotions.

For more information about i-comm visit www.icginternational.com

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