UNITED STATES PROVISIONAL PATENT APPLICATION FOR ZORBA (MULTI LEVEL VIRAL MARKETING) INVENTOR: GIL DAVID ALLOUCHE

Transcription

1 UNITED STATES PROVISIONAL PATENT APPLICATION FOR ZORBA (MULTI LEVEL VIRAL MARKETING) INVENTOR: GIL DAVID ALLOUCHE Prepared by: Raj Abhyanker, LLP 1580 W. El Camino Real, Suite 8 Mountain View, California Phone: Docket No. 5093

2 ZORBA (MULTI LEVEL VIRAL MARKETING) FIELD OF TECHNOLOGY [0001] This disclosure relates generally to the technical field of Internet or Web 2.0 and in one embodiment, to a method and system of marketing. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE VIEWS OF DRAWINGS [0002] Example embodiments are illustrated by way of example and not limitation in the figures of the accompanying drawings, in which like references indicate similar elements and in which: [0003] Figure 1 is a block diagram illustrating the complete process of subscribing to MVM (both company and advertiser). [0004] Figure 2 illustrates a block diagram of a flow chart which shows the Campaign Management and compensation scheme. [0005] Other features of the present embodiments will be apparent from the accompanying Drawings and from the Detailed Description that follows. 1 Docket No: 5093

3 DISCLOSURE [0006] While conventional marketing channels such as paper ads and commercials generate low conversion rates and are hard to measure, alternative approaches such as Google ads advertising are increasingly more expensive and provide very limited flexibility to the marketer in terms of market segmentation and expense control. [0007] In addition, the recently coined "Social Media Marketing" still generates confusion among marketing specialists and doesn't create top line value. [0008] Current reaction to these challenge include investment in targeted ads (such as Google pay-per-click advertising), or trying to create a creative marketing piece to eventually become viral (hence spread quickly through individuals). [0009] Other more traditional approaches include acquiring endorsement of a thought leader/popular figure (celebrity, analyst etc) or investing a high $ amount in brand awareness. The disadvantage of this approach is that it requires a large capital investment in the case of celebrity/analyst endorsement and brand awareness, or requires great domain expertise and a high end creative firm for a marketing piece to truly become viral while generating business. [0010] To take advantage of the new social trend, marketing professionals hire third-party consultants and specialist from the 'social media' field to create a company-wide 'social media strategy' and spread their investment on different assets such as: company community site, PPC campaigns (Google/Facebook etc), social media applications, iphone application sponsoring etc. [0011] Techniques such as ad words are only for "pull" marketing for consumers who already know they are looking for a product, as well as extremely expensive for general keywords (in which case it is impossible for smaller market players to bid on them). 2 Docket No: 5093

4 [0012] Using Zorba (Multi-level Viral Marketing) - A marketing professional can quickly and easily target a selected 'unit' of already successful social networks influencers (bloggers, twitters, face bookers etc) and deploy them to spread the word of his new product, thus, taking advantage of advanced segmenting flexibility, as well as a broad audience to work with instantly. [0013] For example: INSTANT AWARENESS: Nike(TM) launches a new shoe named 'RunnerX' marathon participants worldwide who are trying to raise funds to their cause will rent their status to advertise this new shoe (with a discount) on a daily basis and get compensated for every pair of shoes being purchased. [0014] The marketing professional pays a small fee directly to the influencer and can create a simple compensation plan based on impressions, clicks and conversations, as well as equip them with promotions. Comprising of; [0015] OPTIMIZE ROI: A marketing professional who is interested in selling his latest perfume for $49.99 can create the following compensation to control his expenses: $0.01i (100 impressions for $1) + $0.50ppc (fifty cents per click) + $5.00conv (five dollars for each conversation). He can also set the limit to $1000 for this campaign and dynamically create "bonuses" for outstanding influencers; [0016] Lastly, Zorba allows the marketing professional to accurately measure his social media campaigns to the individual, hence allowing him to test different promotions, messages, prices and market for a fraction of a comparable market research or marketing campaign. These are comprising of; [0017] MEASUREMENT: A product marketer can try 3 different taglines for his product in the same market by choosing 100 influencers (similar segment)for each tagline and measure the 3 Docket No: 5093

5 success rate of these influencers (removing the standard deviation) over a period of time until he practically discovers the most effective one to use; [0018] TEST: In another case, a marketing professional can choose to run a small marketing test in 10 different demographic/psychographic segments and test the success rate of his product; [0019] Zorba allows you to use the online channel for your 'push' strategy by accessing real-time social communities through their influencers, hence influencing their buying behavior. In addition, Zorba collects demographic and psychographic of its influencers and allows the marketing professional to pin-point his/her exact market segment through these influencers; [0020] Zorba engine includes numerous algorithms that ensure the quality and authenticity of its influencers, a pin-point segmentation to target specific markets/influencers, and a secured platform to control your marketing budget online. [0021] Zorba simplifies online marketing efforts by showing top/bottom line contribution, and by providing the marketing professional with a one platform to test, deploy and measure his campaigns with full budget control; [0022] What is claimed is: [0023] A system for using social media sites such as facebook, twitter, linkedin, blogs and such to systematically advertise products through those mediums, track conversion and compensate the advertisers. Comprising of; [0024] A methodology to analyze social media profiles to automatically generate and tag every social media advertiser with the relevant ongoing campaigns; [0025] A conversation monitoring module to monitor conversations in the social media, where a transaction is tracked back to the initial social media message/blog post/"tweet" that influenced the buyer's behavior to purchase a product; and which has, 4 Docket No: 5093

6 [0026] A conversion module to calculate the compensation to the advertiser by impression; [0027] A conversion module to calculate the compensation to the advertiser by click; also, [0028] A conversion module to calculate the compensation to the advertiser by conversion; and [0029] A conversion module to calculate the compensation to the advertiser by promotions used. [0030] A module to assess whether a social media user is influencing buyer behavior and/or is perceived as a thought leader to potentially lead to conversions, and assess whether the user is eligible to participate in campaigns; [0031] An analysis module to analyze the content associated with converting the buyer and the relationships and structure involved in that process; [0032] A subscription process that allows new high level (i.e. influencing) advertisers to register on the system and start advertising automatically. [0033] A module to analyze 'spam' and low-quality advertising in the system and eliminate/disable/penalize users accordingly; [0034] A module to analyze best practices in the clutter to recommend advertisers and companies on viral social media advertising and recommend companies and advertisers accordingly; [0035] A secured compensation process to automatically transfer funds to advertisers; And [0036] An analytics and statistical module to analyze every transaction to the original social media source and provide ROI and recommendations. [0037] Using the Zorba MVM (Multilevel Viral Marketing) is essentially a network of social media leaders/participants (bloggers, twitters, facebook users etc) and companies (brand managers, consumer product, local mom & pops shops). The MVM engine subscribes social media participants with a certain level of market awareness/influence as its 'advertisers' and 5 Docket No: 5093

7 connects them with campaigns that the companies run (i.e. Snuggie, Holiday package, new shoe by Nike) and connect between the two. [0038] A blogger in the sports/marathon/running interest area who has a certain amount of readers/followers/friends and who updates his status/blog frequently will sign up as a subscriber to MVM and will occasionally be assigned to endorse a campaign. The company will pay an $X per lead and/or % per converted customer to the subscriber - and MVM will take a % of that. [0039] For example: Nike launches a new product named 'Runner' marathon participants worldwide and random facebook users who listed 'running' in their interests will change their status to advertise this new shoe (with a discount) and they will get compensated for every pair of shoes being purchased. 6 Docket No: 5093

8 !"#$# #&!"#$#%& '

9 ( (