Video Interview: Local marketing with Carmen Sognonvi
Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
Tell us about yourself and your business
Carmen and her husband started a martial arts school in 2008 called Urban Martial Arts based in Brooklyn, New York.
In addition, Carmen blogs at carmensognonvi.com (site no longer active) about local business and local marketing.
How do you currently use social media for your business?
The Urban Martial Arts blog is the central hub where all of their content lives. Carmen posts 2-3 posts per week that are mostly composed of video.
She finds that video works well for them because martial arts is a visual medium.
People get excited about social media, but they forget that it’s just one piece of online marketing. Email is their number one tool in terms of disseminating content online.
How do you capture emails?
Every way that they can!
People can opt-in on the blog to download a special report. They also capture the email of current students and people that sign up for a trial class.
What kind of special reports are you writing?
One of their most successful topics is bully prevention. It’s a topic that a lot of families are concerned about.
Carmen wrote a 7-part series about bullying and bullying prevention.
Their special report about bullying has become the number one download on their blog.
How did you write the special report?
Carmen single-handedly wrote the report, costing her “blood, sweat, and tears.”
What advice can you give business owners that don’t know what content to create?
Content doesn’t have to be text – it can be video. Check out Urban Martial Arts videos.
Writing comes naturally to Carmen, but she’s transitioned to video because her husband is great in front of the camera and because video is a better way for them to distribute content for martial arts.
Carmen and her husband play to their strengths. You can do text, video, or photos. Find something that plays to your strengths and have fun with it.
Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- What is Gamification? Definition, Examples & Framework
- Top 10 Marketing Gamification Cases
- Top 10 eCommerce Gamification Examples
- 90+ Gamification Examples & Cases with ROI Stats
- Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges & Leaderboards
