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.

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?

When you purchase a generic, grocery store brand product that is all you’re buying, no fancy name, no advertising campaign, just the product.  No Name isusually the cheapest compared to other brands, but there are exceptions.  Here are some conclusions I’ve come to on No Name products:

• They have found the most inexpensive way to make and distribute their own products.

• They compete on price and price alone.
• People don’t buy No Name products because of the amazing quality
• The perception is that the quality is below average.
• Because of the lower expectations, it is much more difficult to under-deliver
• Quality to consumers is a flashy label that catches your eye and a more expensive price point
• When your product doesn’t need a large advertising campaign, you can price it lower.
• When no extra effort goes into making the packaging of the product “pop” whatsoever, you can price it lower.

If there is no expectation of the standard of quality of a No Name product, you are rarely dissatisfied with it because the value (benefits/price) is quite high.  Why is the value high?  Because the benefits remain close to the same but the price is less, thus increasing the value of the product.

In whatever industry you are in you can attempt to compete on price but always know there is someone out there that can make your product cheaper and ship it cheaper.  Instead, ad some value, tell a story, create an added benefit in your customers mind, then you can begin charging more.

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.

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.

Yet another example of why I use Twitter and not news sites such as the Leaderpost and CBC (though I do follow @Leaderpost & @CBCSask).  On April 29th  1:18 pm the D.C. Sports Bog, of the Washington Post published this article on Saskatchewan’s Brooks Laich of the Washington Capitols.  Just forty eight minutes after the story was posted I found it on Twitter and Tweeted this, which was retweeted several times as well as a few comments on the story.

A heart warming story of a professional athlete’s humility and a Saskatchewan boy to boot!  You’d think the local news sites would be all over this but it doesn’t seem as though they are. And people still ask me why I’m on Twitter.

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?

Social media isn’t just about Facebook and Twitter, though they both have proven to be among some of the best tools to carry out your internet networking fantasies. Opportunities will pass you by if you are not monitoring what others are saying about you and your organization and engaging them in a conversation.  Communication on the internet is only increasing in speed, if you choose to ignore it, you may lose.

Could you imagine if the next time you took your car in for an oil change, they told you about their customer comments section on their website; where if you leave a comment about how the service was, you get 10% off your next oil change?  Would you leave a comment?  Would you read what others have said? Please let me know below

What if we could hold companies accountable when they provide an unsatisfactory product or service?  What if you could look up what others are saying about the restaurant you’re going to tonight?  What if you looked up a new hair salon and this came up: (click on the picture to make it larger, this is what actually came up in a Google search for this hair studio)

People are going to talk about your company whether you like it or not, it’s up to you to decide what you’re going to ignore or engage them.

“They are sexist, tasteless and old-fashioned. They will attract the wrong sort of people who think this sort of thing is okay.”

“has anyone ever heard of this popular slogan: SEX SELLS”

“I don’t know about the rest of you… but I’m not wasting any of my 25 year old scotch on a 25 year old Blonde.”

“The ads don’t appeal to me. But you have to be pretty uptight to let these harmless ads bother you.  Wil Knoll says he wouldn’t want to be in a room with people who thought it was a great ad. I don’t think I’d want to be in a room with Wil Knoll.”

From Twitter:

@Jaynauta: I bet the goal of that condo ad was to cause I huge uproar. I’m a guy in Regina not looking for a condo and I saw the ad.”

Yes it may have been a bit sexist but people are going to complain regardless of what you do.  Remember, advertising that’s targeted at everyone is effective on no one.  Timothy Ferris once said “Belief’s, belongings and behaviors, threaten these and you will get a response.”  You don’t have to believe me, just look at the statistics so far on this ad:

275 Diggs on Digg.com

367 Comments

203 Recommends

It’s all over Twitter just search “Sexist Calgary”

Finally this is the comment that summed it up for me, I say smart advertising.

TimPaper wrote:

“Oh, lighten up, everyone. The ads were targeted to men – and they appeared in men’s washrooms at nightclubs. They didn’t target children. And they didn’t target women.
All they did was put in an ad in a place where only adult men could see the ads the very thoughts that go through the minds of 99 per cent of men when they’ve got a few drinks in them at a bar.
This is really a tempest in a teapot. You don’t like the ads? Fine, don’t buy a condo. But, please, get a life.  All the overly-sensitive new men who complained about this ad managed to do is get a heckuva lot more publicity for the condo developer.
In fact, the cynic in me wonders if the complaint about sexism wasn’t orchestrated by the developer or the marketers of the project specifically to create a media fury and get a lot of free exposure. If they didn’t do it on purpose, well, they were born under a lucky star because I’m sure this nonsense really helped their sales.”

Read the full article at: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/calgary/story/2010/03/24/calgary-ads-sexist-condo-midtown-withdrawn.html#socialcomments#ixzz0jWtcGHAb