Over deliver.
Seth Godin recently came out with a book titled Linchpin. If you don’t know the story of how Seth came out with the book it’s worth a read. To make a long blog short, he offered a free copy of his book in exchange for a minimum donation of $30 towards the Acumen Fund. Within 48 hours this offer raised $108,000.
There was one slip up, for the people who took advantage of this offer living in Canada, the book wasn’t delivered on time. Roughly two weeks late, my copy arrived. I’m sure some people weren’t happy about the late delivery but it was the next event that really took me by surprise and made up for the late delivery. Just last week I receive a similar package in the mail, it’s another copy of the book. Inside the front cover lies a note from Mr. Godin that offers this second book as a reward for my generosity and that I must now give it away as a present.
I was smiling from ear to ear for the remainder of the day. Sure it must have cost Seth double the money to send two books, but I think to him having me tell this story is worth it.
If you want guaranteed results from your next marketing strategy, determine what your customer’s expectations of your product or service are, then surpass them. The proof will be in the story they tell.
June 17, 2010 Comments Off
I drove by Sobey’s today and a large magnetic sign out front said “Chicken legs, $1.19 /lb”. It struck me as odd because I would assume that sign should entice me to come in. I know what you’re thinking, that some people did go to Sobey’s because the sale on chicken legs, you’re probably right. But couldn’t they come up with something better than chicken legs?
This got me thinking and led me to look up the four big grocer’s in Regina, those being Sobey’s, Safeway, Superstore, and Co-op. Click on any of these stores and it will take you to their flyer page. All four have a sound online presence except Co-op, their flyer is in PDF form and is 5.8 Mb in size, but I guess if you’re looking up the Co-op flyer you have ten minutes to wait for it to download. Safeway is the only one on Twitter and all they tweet is feel good sayings and nothing that’s going to convince me to shop there*.
In the past people were loyal to a grocer, my Mom was a devout Superstore customer, she’d never set foot in a Safeway. Our generation is different, we like convenience and a good deal. I prefer Superstore over the rest because I think it is cheaper but the fact of the matter is I will go to where is most convenient.
A useful site would be a real time comparison of the deals offered by the big four, break it down, give me a reason to shop at your store. Get on Twitter and tweet your unbelievable sale items (by unbelievable I mean the ones that will entice me to come in because you know I’m not only buying Chicken legs when I shop). I would love to check UberTwitter on my phone for deals at Sobey’s if I’m near by.
I feel this industry is behind technology wise because they have to cater to the baby-boomers who do the majority of shopping. When the purchasing power shifts from baby-boomer to generation Y prepare for a change. We will not only expect change to occur, we will demand it.
Have you recently thought about how your customer is/will be changing? Or are you just putting up magnetic signs telling everyone about your chicken legs on sale?
June 12, 2010 Comments Off
Martin Lindstrom is a fascinating individual, he did a seven million dollar marketing study on the brain and wrote a bookabout it; Buy-ology: The Truth and Lies About Why We Buy. I encourage you to read it but what got me thinking was a recent podcast put on by Duct Tape Marketing’s John Jantsch. Talking with Mr. Lindstrom, they simplified it down to semantic markers. Lindstrom says, “Semantic markers are like a slap on the chin” in a negative or positive way. Our subconscious makes most of the decisions for us so brands should be trying to create these subtle markers in our minds. Lindstrom goes on to say that small companies should be taking advantage of semantic markers to get a lot of value out of the marketing effort with very little effort.
So how do you create a semantic marker in someone’s mind? By going to extreme’s and doing something completely unexpected but so memorable it is embedded in our minds. Remember how good Burger Baron’s billboards were? They were different and were actually funny that they stuck out in our minds, you’d chuckle to yourself when you thought of Burger Baron.
How about the Roughrider’s Watermelon heads? Difficult not to talk about those. It allowed Roughriders fans to show the league how dedicated they really were. It was different and definitely not for everyone.
Just recently the apparel company 22 Fresh came out with a new outlet store on Facebook.
The only way you can buy anything in the store is if you have “Scrilla”, and you can buy Scrilla or earn it.
This store isn’t for the average person, then again, regular people don’t wear 22 Fresh, it’s cool, it’s new, and you have to have the Scrilla to afford it.
What’s different is memorable.
Lindstrom also discusses why we don’t see more of this ingenious advertising regularly and he attributes it to organizations being too conservative and trying to please the masses. When you set out to tell everyone a message, no one hears. Most of the advertising messages we see are targeted at a large number of people and the result isn’t surprising. The more conservative, politically correct, respectful, polite the message is, the easier it is for us to ignore it.
So the next time you want to tell everyone about your product don’t, come up with a different message, a different medium, cross the line, offend someone, do something that has never been done in your industry, evoke emotion. Otherwise you are just making noise.
June 9, 2010 Comments Off
If you’re on Twitter just to promote your business like a traditional advertising campaign you missed the boat. It’s not about telling everyone your latest deal or special, we’re human, we want interaction, we want to know someone is on the other end of the conversation.
I don’t claim be be a Twitter expert but Scott is and so is Michael. Read what they have to say about it, there are so many more things local companies can be doing on Twitter besides telling me how great YOUR company is. Get creative! Yes it may take a little time but I bet if you sat down and actually made a plan for Twitter you’d be surprised with the results you could attain.
So please stop the constant self-promotion and engage a follower or two.
Location based social networking is on the rise. Though you may not have heard of Foursquare or Gowalla their growth has exploded across the US and some of Canada. Combining gaming elements and using the location provided by the GPS in your smart phones, these applications allow you to “checkin” to places to earn points. Just recently Foursquare exceeded 40 million checkins.
Why should you care?
When visiting a new city or wanting to eat at a different restaurant, you can see where people have been checking in to and what they have recommended to eat. Venues have a feature where you can add a tip for others to see when they checkin.Example: On Foursquare, if you checkin at Wasabi in the Normanview Crossing (in Regina), you will see my “tips” which notify you that the Bonnie and Rose roll is my favorite roll and the Roll-Bento is my favorite Bento box.
Now anywhere I go that I experience something amazing (like the Bonnie and Rose Roll at Wasabi) I can leave a note for the next person who checks in.
For business:
It doesn’t take a business strategy jedi to see how a business could benefit from location based applications. Many businesses have already begun offering discounts for those who checkin at their establishment.
In a World where word of mouth is still the most powerful medium, applications that allow us to voice our opinion more readily will increase in value. The more messages that are thrown at us via advertising efforts the more trust we will put in authentic messages from people we trust.
Are you on Foursquare or Gowalla? What is your opinion of location based applications?
