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MAKING THE CASH REGISTERS OF DISNEY JINGLE JANGLE: THE INTERNET MARKETING WIZARDRY OF ECOMWORKS

Nearly five years ago, The Disney Store Online knocked on the door of Affiliate Internet marketing guru, Maurice Bretzfield, asking him for a long-term strategy for driving Internet sales. Bretzfield, president of EComWorks, had built a unique and enviable reputation for creating Affiliate Internet marketing networks that made the cash registers ring for numerous national and international powerhouses such as CNet's Buydirect.com, GreenTree Nutrition, Cooking.com, Sony Music, and Home Shopping Network.

“Other marketers had offered Disney a lot of Mickey Mouse tactics and suggestions that would have made Scrooge McDuck apoplectic,” said Bretzfield.

“Can you help us?” the Disney people had asked.

“Yes,” replied Bretzfield.

He had back –to-back meetings with the marketing honchos at Disney and together, they hammered out a marketing campaign, one that was geared to families with an emphasis on the seasons, on Christmas, on Easter, on the beginning of the school year, on summer vacations, and on various other milestones that would affect sales.

Next, Bretzfield and his crew of marketing, Internet, and high tech researchers set to work creating one of the most successful Internet affiliate networks in the history of the web. They began by building branded networks, gateways to branding the client's name and products. Researchers then identified thousands of appropriate websites that could drive sales to Disney's website. Bretzfield's advanced Affiliate Marketing analytics, later to become known as EComTrax, compared Disney's products to those of its competitors, tracking sales volumes and pricing. Based upon exhaustive research, thousands of prospective Web affiliates were invited to participate in the Disney Store Online Affiliate marketing program and would be given promotional tools, such as uniquely branded banners for their sites. Each prospective affiliate had to fill out an in-depth application: there could be no sites that contained or advocated hate, religious beliefs, pornography, or anything that wasn't completely “family friendly” in the Disney tradition ; in other words, there could be no sites that would offend a prospective Disney customer, or that would tarnish the Disney brand. EComTrax would evaluate each affiliate's site at least every six weeks, checking the content. Constant evaluation of sales volume, prices, and product sell-through led to fantastic sales increases. If a site changed its content and was no longer family oriented, it was gone and Disney promotional banners, which EComWorks had created, were pulled...

In addition to banners, EComWorks designed newsletters for affiliates, keeping them pumped up about new promotions and sales opportunities. Working within Disney's parameters, EComWorks not only met its client's sales goals, but it exceeded them, growing Disney's Internet sales by more than 100% per year. In the forth year, Disney's sales were more than $500,000 per month . It was one of the great Internet marketing sales stories, one that the Disney successor, Children's Place, will have the opportunity to continue.