How to Sell Talking E Cards With an Avatar
Traditional greeting cards use pop-outs, unusual sizes, cartoon characters and humor creatively to express the sender's sentiments. E-cards, the digital equivalent of greeting cards, have taken the animation concept to another level. Avatars in e-cards can be used to bring an e-card to life and act out the sentiment humorously, seriously or in any manner that the creator or sender sees fit. Avatars can also be used to sell the e-cards. Many corporations use animated characters, such as talking geckos, talking cats or Looney Tunes characters, to sell products.
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Instructions
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Pick a niche in the card market, such as anniversaries or birthdays. Or choose a style for your cards, such as humorous, quirky, sentimental or inspirational. Check out competitors to get a sense of what is lacking in the market.
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Build a team to make up for your weaknesses. If you are a great graphic designer, hire a writer to write the messages that will be posted inside the talking e-cards and on the covers. If you are a great writer, hire a graphic designer to help create the cards from the sketches you come up with.
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Design the avatar or the team of avatars the will be the animated face of your brand. Choose pictures of people or objects that you want to use. Upload the pictures to an avatar design website like Zwinky (see Resources). If you have graphic design experience, design your avatar on your own.
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Create your e-cards. Write the messages for each card and create the animation. Record the audio for each card in different voices for each of your avatars with recording software like Audacity (see Resources).
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Build a website to showcase your e-card inventory. Create a shopping cart and secure ordering process for customers who want to purchase your cards. Embed your talking avatar representative on the home page. Record the audio for your talking avatar salesman.
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Sign up with third-party services like Clickbank to boost your exposure on the Internet and increase your chances of making sales. Direct traffic to your Web page to meet your avatars.
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Market offline with printed versions of your greeting cards. Create greeting cards with a sales message. Follow your brand model, whether you've chosen inspirational, sentimental, or other theme, and use that to promote your cards by passing out greeting cards instead of fliers or brochures.
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Use your own e-cards as a marketing tool. Purchase a list of potential customers from a reputable list builder. Get recommendations from colleagues on list builders you should work with.
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Create a series of seven to 10 short emails that encourage people to visit your website. Embed your avatar in the email with a short message, 10-to-15-second anecdote or joke to get people to click through. Send the emails to everyone on your list.
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Create a free e-card section on your website for business owners. Allow them to send the generic free cards to their friends and families. Include links back to your website so that their friends and family members will be encouraged to visit your website to send their own cards.
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References
- "Virtual Immersive and 3D Learning Spaces"; Shalin Hai-Jew; 2010
- "Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives"; John Palfrey; 2008
- Thinking Big; Top 5 Benefits of Holiday e-Cards
- Digital Media Wire; Sony BMG Launches Interactive E-card to Promote "DYLAN" Album
Resources
- "101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site"; Susan Sweeney; 2002
- Zwinky
- Clickbank
- Audacity; The Free, Cross-Platform Sound Editor
- Photo Credit pilgrim face image by Roslen Mack from Fotolia.com
