JephMaystruck.com » Branding

Sour Milk and Your Marketing Strategy

Jeph — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 21:28:45 +0000

When you pour sour milk into a glass, it comes out in globs and chunks, not very consistently. When you dabble in one medium and then try a different tactic it is not very consistent, that does not help your brand. People notice consistency.

When your efforts are focused on a certain task over time, by default your competency increases and you create consistency. Your customers or clients have an expectation of your work and you must deliver on that expectation consistently. People notice consistency.

In a world where products and businesses can be developed over night, it can be difficult at times to differentiate the good ones from the bad. Whether you own a small business or are developing your next marketing campaign, keep in mind that consistency over a period of time speaks louder than any chunky one-off sour milk promotion. People don’t like sour milk, but love consistency.

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The Best Marketing in the World is….

Jeph — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:50:48 +0000

Word-of-Mouth of course. If you disagree, please, I’d love to hear why in the comments below. Word-of-mouth is the most authentic and effective because for it to occur successfully, there must be more than a minimum level of trust established. Let me explain.

If I don’t trust you I will never take your advice on anything, let alone a product I will be purchasing. On the contrary, if I trust you a lot (an influencer in my life) I will take your word on what I should buy over any marketing message no matter how clever it is.

Trust = influence.

As fast as we can share our opinions on Twitter, Facebook, blogs etc. I can’t fathom why more businesses haven’t created incentives for customers to share their delightful experiences online for others to see. EXAMPLE: Foursquare is becoming a very useful tool for me, now that people are sharing their opinions openly when checking in.

Your brand isn’t your website, store, logo or your OWN perception of your company. Your brand is what other people say about you and the internet makes it much easier to say anything about your company, positive or negative.

This is your warning, it’s only going to increase, how are you encouraging positive word-of-mouth?

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Marketing Regina

Jeph — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:26:09 +0000

The other day I filled out a survey from the Regina Regional Opportunities Commission (RROC) asking about what they are currently doing and what they could do better, it got me thinking. Now I’m not being critical of RROC, I think they’re doing a great job, especially when you see them picking up talent such as Grant Langford who I worked with on the Saskatchewan Pavilion project. I’m writing this as an idea generator, without knowing the ins and outs of RROC this is how I would go about marketing our beautiful city.

First, I would put packages together making it SO incredibly easy to come to Regina that you would literally need to click your mouse three times on the website, enter a credit card and WHAMMY you have your holiday booked. Why? Because humans are lazy and the easier you make it for people to come here, the better your chances are of actually getting them here. I know there are some offerings through the Stay and Play promotion but I think they could take it a step further.

Second, put packages together that allow tourists to experience Regina in a different light. We don’t have World renown attractions but we do have some of the best people ready to put on a show for whomever is in the audience. There are some very unique things that people would be more than delighted to experience in our fine city.

For example:

Hotel accommodations, a massage, dinner at La Bodega, then off to a Redsox game? Or maybe to the symphony?
A round of golf then off to Globe Theatre for a performance and a catered meal.
How about a ghost tour of old Regina ending at Cold Stone for ice cream?
In the different seasons, put packages together surrounding events which would include hotels, some meals, transportation and various activities.
The “Fire and Ice” or “The New Years Eve” package in the winter.
The “Summer Invasion” or “Patriotic” package in the Summer.

Plan everything out for our lovely out of town visitors so they don’t have to worry about a thing once they arrive.

Third, enable every visitor who has had a great experience in Regina to share their story somewhere online. Be it a blog, a video-blog, a picture story on Flickr or on the RROC Facebook wall, somewhere that will allow RROC to amplify the story. Soon enough that blog, video-blog or Facebook wall will be filled with authentic stories from people who had a wonderful experience in Regina. Those stories will be available to anyone searching for a vacation in Western Canada and soon become the most powerful marketing tool for potential visitors to our city.

Ok, I’ve shared, now it’s your turn. How would you market Regina?

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The Architecture of Lineups

Jeph — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:03:18 +0000

I hate lineups. For anything really. I’m impatient and I usually want things as fast as they can humanly be delivered to my hands. I’m pretty sure no one likes lineups so it is a perplexing issue to me that as humans (lineup haters) we don’t do everything in our power to minimize, shrink, or do what every we can to demolish these horrible things that eat up our time.

I don’t believe it is the general public’s or customers fault that there are lineups, it all has to do with the choice of architecture of the lineup. These companies and organizations that under estimated their own traffic and how long wait times would be now must look to alternate methods of satisfying the demand at a minimal cost.

There is some research being conducted around lineups and how to minimize wait times but this research is mostly for grocery stores and Wal-Mart. I think the research paid off, the “Express Line” at Safeway, the “12 items or less line” at Superstore and the newly adopted number system at Wal-Mart where they herd everyone into a line and a lovely women over the loud speaker tells you which till to go to once you reach the front of the herd. All in an attempt to save their customer’s time.

It is very easy to find the organizations that don’t believe in “line reduction research”. Craven Country Jamboree, Tim Horton’s, and my bank TD Canada Trust.

If I was to conduct my own research within these organizations here is what I would try.

Craven: Offer an express lane for vehicles only, no trailers. As well, have line marshals that insure the line is constantly moving. If it begins to bottleneck somewhere the line marshals must keep the vehicles moving. Seems like a not bad solution to a problem that 25,000 people complain about every year.

Tim Horton’s: Offer an express lane to people who just want coffee. Tim Horton’s could charge a quarter more in the “caffeine line”, I’d pay more for my coffee if I could have it right now. Have a thermos? How about an automatic coffee dispensary for all those who don’t mind serving themselves.

TD Canada Trust: Again, offer an express lane to people who have no questions, that know exactly what they need to do and won’t take any longer than a minute. The line gets bottlenecked when those REALLY friendly people come in and need to strike up a conversation about anything but their bank account. TD knows that they can not compromise customer service so just have two lines, one for questions/conversations and one for banking.

Treating your customers better is a proven strategy to increase customer loyalty. Caring about your customers time is obviously an undiscovered facet of customer service. As our world keeps progressing and we get more busy, our time increases in value. Finding an innovative way to tell your customers you care about their time could have a lasting effect on how they perceive your brand.

What do you think?

Photo Credit: Those funny pictures . com

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The Most Important Person in the World

Jeph — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 18:35:50 +0000

The other day I found myself in a very interesting conversation about strangers.

Her: “I always try to be as nice as possible to strangers”

Me: “Really? Why?”

Her: “Well, you never know who that person is and what if they’re the most important person in the World?”

Me: “So you assume everyone you meet/talk to is the most important person in the World?”

Her: “Precisely”

Me: I didn’t say anything just had a small explosion go off in my head.

My boss has always told me when going to a small town bar, make sure you treat the waitress like gold because she probably owns the place. I think this is a great metaphorical life lesson.

The person who I know who is the best at dealing with people does this all the time. You can see it when he talks to anyone, yes I mean anyone, he gives them the time of day, he truly cares about what they think and he makes them feel like they are the most important person in the world. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in, this strategy works wonders for building your personal and professional relationships.

Where can you start? Remember peoples names more often. To anyone the most important word in the english language is his/her own name, if someone remembers it, it’s a sign of respect. Here’s a few tips on how to remember better.

If you have a story about treating a stranger really well that resulted in something amazingly spectacular I’d love to here about it in the comments below!

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Permission Based Marketing

Jeph — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 18:17:40 +0000

A long, long, time ago advertisers would interrupt people to get their message in front of them. Commercials interrupting your favorite show, coupons in your mailbox, awkwardly placed billboards, branding of anything and everything, commercials interrupting the top 10 countdown on the radio, telemarketers trying to sell you something, sales people showing up at your door, and video billboards promising even more interruptions than static billboards.

There was no permission established so eventually these were bound to fail once the market was saturated with messages competing for the next chance to interrupt you.

Enter Seth Godin coined term “permission based marketing“.

I need to be friends with you for you to show up in my Facebook newsfeed or to be able to post on my wall.

I need to be following you on Twitter to receive your tweets.

I need to subscribe to your e-mail newsletter to receive it.

I have never been forced to watch a Youtube video, I choose what I want to watch.

I can’t force you to read my blog, it’s your choice.

Notice a trend here? To communicate with people you must have their permission, no matter what medium you use. Marketing hasn’t gone anywhere since “social media” took over, it just got smarter. The winners now will be the ones who understand permission based marketing and come up with the newest innovative way to acquire permission. It’s the next generation of word-out-mouth.

On the other hand, I hate to hear campaigns talking about “mass-text-messaging” services and mass e-mail marketing. Just further attempts at interrupting more people to tell them a message they don’t want to hear.

If you want to delve further into the topic pick up this book:

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Cause marketing: a diamond in the rough

Jeph — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 17:27:35 +0000

Cause marketing is utilizing a non-profit organization as a means of putting a for-profit brand or product in front of someone in return for fundraising and awareness. Anytime you partner with a charity for anything it is a win-win situation. The charity gains funding and exposure to a group of people it may not have been able to touch and the company gets to show people that they actually do care by helping out a charity.

Cause marketing is growing in part because some large players are getting involved such as Pepsi with it’s refresh project. Other companies have the charity aspect as a part of their day to day business like Toms Shoes, their fascinating business strategy is worth a read.

The example I love to tell people about is a local company. Coda Clothing & Shoes (@CodaClothing) throughout the year does not promote the store or sales via any mass media type other than the large billboard on the side of their building shown here:

Instead of telling everyone in Regina to come to Coda, they host Charity fashion shows where a large amount of money is donated to a specific charity and Coda gets to show off their new line of clothing. It’s difficult not to like companies like Coda that are active in the community, that care about your city, and that want to give back.

I love the concept behind cause marketing because in this ever-changing marketing world you can never be certain as to what is the best medium to be broadcasting your message on. Cause marketing works because it’s like putting a huge sign on your company’s building that says, “WE CARE”.

So when you’re thinking about the next big ad campaign to roll out with, why not pair up with a charity and try help them too, you’d be surprised at what you can do.

Pictures courtesy of Coda Clothing & Shoes

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56 uses of social media in Saskatchewan

Jeph — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 19:35:39 +0000

Instead of “news” build your own RSS reader
Begin following local bloggers in your RSS reader and keep searching for new ones
Challenge a local blogger, disagree, leave a comment
Offer to write a guest post for a local blogger
Offer to write a guest post for an industry specific blog
Hold a local specific contest (Treasure hunt via Facebook?)
Start a local restaurant review site, make it fun
Ask for feedback of your product/service via Twitter
Offer to take pictures at an event and start a Flickr account for them
Host a picture contest
Host a picture caption contest for other businesses
Encourage patrons to take a picture of their meal and share it online for 25% off the meal
Tell stories about your product on a blog
Host a community blog with many different contributers
Start selling your product on Facebook
Encourage employees to offer reviews of the company via LinkedIn
Start a local trivia blog (written, video, picture)
Offer free products/services to people with lots of friends on Facebook
Put your website on all printed material
Put your Twitter name in places where no one would expect to see it (get creative with this one)
Put your blog and Twitter name on the inside of a box of donuts and deliver them to potential readers
Put your blog, vlog, landing page or video in your e-mail signature
Start a collection of local website on Delicious, sort them in a meaningful way
Host an online garage sale
Host an actual garage sale via Ustream
Add you company to Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp and any other geo-location service
Offer different deals on Foursquare, see what works
Host a city wide treasure hunt via Foursquare
Host a 24 hour Foursquare challenge
Leave an unbelievable “deal” on Yelp and see who takes you up on it
Document the entire Foursquare challenge on YouTube
Do a video production of your safety manual
Record the “Monday morning announcements” on YouTube, make them fun
Set up Google alerts to monitor your company’s name being mentioned
Add you business to Google maps (seems simple but many people overlook this one)
Give me a reason to go to your website daily
Host a local “Tweet-up”
Offer to begin a Twitter account for a large local event
Setup an your automatic e-mail the next time you’re on holidays to say “you’re only responding to requests on Twitter”
Have a video contest, offer a large cash prize
Make a video explaining everything about your organization
Make a video about a different employee every day until you run out of employees
Start a YouTube channel for your company and post a video per week about industry specific topics
UStream your Friday at the office
UStream a different place/person in your office weekly
Have a “submit question” box on your homepage, answer every question that comes in
Submit a fascinating story to Digg and Stumble Upon once a week
Sell T-shirts on your home page for charity, let people vote on the charity
Start a Foodbank challenge with one of your competitors, document everything on a picture blog
Create an interactive fundraising tool on your website
Encourage all of your staff to fill out their entire profile on LinkedIn, make it a company wide activity
Host an appreciation BBQ for the employee of the month, video tape it and post all the pleasant things said on your company blog
Start an e-mail newsletter and fill it with the most helpful information/links in your industry
Recognize employees who go above and beyond on your company blog
Put your Twitter name on a billboard by a busy street
Give free coffee to everyone downtown who becomes a fan of yours on Facebook

This is just the beginning of what you could do, the possibilities are endless. Have anymore you want to share? Please do!

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The No Name Strategy

Jeph — Mon, 31 May 2010 17:34:43 +0000

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 is usually 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.

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13 Reasons Why Letter-Board Advertising Sucks

Jeph — Fri, 14 May 2010 20:47:20 +0000

If you’ve ever driven around Regina you’ve seen these ghastly sites many times. They pull and prod your attention for a split second until you realize what you have found and quickly jerk your neck away, hopefully never laying eyes on one ever again.

Ok, they aren’t that bad but these fluorescent letter board signs are growing in numbers at an alarming rate. Why?

Obviously it is cheap, and businesses are trying to get their message out to a local market but do they ever wonder if this hurts their brand? Besides the signs not being on the “cutting edge” of artistic design, don’t you think you’d want to at least standout a bit? I mean, the thirteen (13) photos posted here were all taken within a three block section of Rochdale Boulevard. In less than one Kilometer you are shown thirteen different messages, what are the chances that you remember one?

They are not all terrible, I don’t mind giving away something free, just too much text on this one:

Subway’s not doing too bad either, that’s a pretty good deal for a sub.

The average driver has less than three seconds to get your message, how easy is this to read?

A personal favorite. I wonder how the conversation went when they decided to go with this master piece;

“Everyone else on Rochdale has a sign”

“We should too, but lets be different.”

The lightbulb goes off.

“I got it! Lets put our sign on a blue background, that’s sure to get attention!” The result:

The ghostly 9 is a little creepy here:

Beginning to notice a trend of yellow, white and fluorescent pink by now.

This one gets the point across, if you’re searching for the most extensive 2 for 1 glasses offer anywhere.

Another good deal, my only complaint is where’s the fluorescent pink? I don’t think a letter sign will ever be visually appealing.

Obviously the Pita Pit owners are in cahoots with the Denture Clinic, again personal favorite, love the blue.

If you do decide one of these signs is right for you, at least offer the correct phone number.

Too much writing and again, where’s the pink?

Short and sweet, good idea, I don’t mind what Arby’s is trying here but it seems as though Arby’s is cutting costs on their advertising by using this type of messaging.

This is troublesome, the BARGAIN! shop has on special right now, spring fashion and fun. What if you enter the store and it isn’t fun? Chuck E’ Cheese could use this, not the BARGAIN! shop.

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