In some circles, the notion of a coupon is a wonderful idea, and people can share and share on the deals they have found. In others, a coupon would never find its way in to a conversation. Groupon (Indianapolis) is finding its way in to conversations with the same love/hate tone.
Group is a relatively new web-based marketing tool to reach new clients, and possibly unengaged past clients, to take action on your offer. Think coupon, but with a twist. The offer works simply enough. As a small business owner, you’re able to make an offer or discount for a certain value. This part works like a coupon. The twist is that you also get to determine how many people you want or need to take advantage of that offer before you will actually release it as an offer.
Let’s take an offer from this week as an example. Source Yoga Studio offered three yoga sessions and an hour massage for $35. In order for this offer to become active, Source Yoga Studio determined they needed 35 people to take advantage of this offer. Once the 35th person said yes, I will buy this offer, the other 34 people who already said yes, I will buy this offer, get activated and thus you have your offer. As you can see with this twist, had 35 people not found this offer valuable, one of two things can happen: 1) the people who did find it valuable may want to invite their friends to take advantage of the offer, therefore getting to that 35 number, or 2) the offer would have never activated due to lack of interest.
This video from Groupon is a great visual explanation:
This is definitely a marketing medium to consider for your product or service. It is a trend in the making! This is also a low-budget and low cost way to market your company to get new leads and clients. The learning curve is minimal, especially if you match this up with other social media means you may be considering in your marketing mix, and trial and error is easy to test and adjust.
Stay tuned for more info on this as we are currently working with a client on their Groupon offer. Have you used Groupon? Pleaes share your experience in our comments section.
Who is your customer? You’ve given some thought to this question. How old are they? Male or female? Are they tech-savvy? Where do they spend their free time?
Your customer and how they think should be the driving factor in all of your marketing decisions. You may love reading The New Yorker, but if your customers prefer People, there isn’t any reason to spend your marketing budget on ads in The New Yorker. Nothing shocking here, right? We all understand this.
Here’s where it gets tricky: do you think you are your customer? You’re wrong. Disagree with me? Perhaps you’re thinking, “I’m just like my customer. I am my target market. We’re the same in every way.”
same taste in music
same age
same income level
same hobbies
same politics
we read the same magazines
we watch the same TV shows
we like the same celebrities
we care about the same news
we live in the same kinds of neighborhoods and shop in the same stores
All of these things will help you understand your customer. You are a part of your target demographic. This will give you extremely valuable insights for growing your business, but you still aren’t your customer.
What’s the difference? Your expertise. Your solution. Your business.
Your product or service addresses some pain. Maybe you used to have that pain, but you don’t today. Your customers still have that pain. Every time they decide to hand you their hard-earned money, they are thinking about that pain and deciding you are worth the price you set.
Why am I making such a big deal about such a subtle difference? (And it is subtle.) It doesn’t matter if you like your website. It doesn’t matter if you like your logo. Or your copy. Or your business cards. It doesn’t matter unless they motivate your customers to buy. Sometimes the small difference between you and your customer is why you like one logo when a slightly different one would resonate better with your customers.
Obviously you don’t want to be embarrassed by any of your marketing pieces. (If you grimace when you hand someone your business card, that will ultimately hurt your bottom line.) The opinion that really counts, though, is the one of someone who needs your solution and has money to pay for it.
Sometimes that’s easier to see as a business owner when you don’t have anything in common with your customer. But it doesn’t matter if it’s easy or not. Either way it’s critical to your success.
The last couple of days I have watched as a promotional campaign has gone wrong with Pepsi. They released an iPhone app for helping men ’score’ with the women, but really, it didn’t score anywhere.
You can do your own reading up on all the routes and comments consumers everywhere have posted, but what I would like to point out is Pepsi’s handling of this situation, particularly their use of Twitter in doing so. Most of the buzz on this topic has been passed around on Twitter, so it was only applicable Pepsi release their comments via this medium too, but, we all know corporate brands sometimes miss this mark. Not only have they correctly used the medium to voice their apoloogies and rationale, they have attached the #pepsifail hashtag to their remarks. I give them big, big kudos for realizing their mistake and using the word fail – on their own behalf.
Lots of us find it easy to point out a fail when it comes to someone else. A lot less of us are able to do it when it hits our own stuff. Follow the hastag to see what else develops and write down some lessons learned from Pepsi on this one. I am guessing this will all work in their favor in the end.
This one is going to be short and sweet – but the message is as solid as they come:
Tearing others down is never as helpful to a movement as building your followers up. – Seth Godin in Tribes
We have been working on a book for a client and thinking of an array of subtitles; some good, some really bad, some jabbing fun and some very matter-of-fact. I think I must be more sensitive than I let on, because when I read about bad things, even when they are suppose to be funny or trendy, I just cannot feel good about them. Something in my core says woah, that just isn’t nice and therefore it never sits well.
Next time you’re brainstorming a message, copywriting or theme for a project, remember that statement. It will work in your favor and sustain your efforts far beyond a quick-jabbing line.
We have had a lot of conversations of late about helping companies know what they sell. To know your audience and how they buy, you need to know what they are buying. This helps you know how to sell. Ask yourself this question: “What does our company sell?” and gather answers from everyone, even your clients if you can. Any surprising answers? I’ll give you a hint on the direction; it’s probably not a product or service.
Let’s take a company example in Vera Bradley. (I was disappointed in their message on their website but I’ll stay focused to the task for now) They are running a print campaign, in some national publications even a full spread, that says ‘Make life more colorful’ with a very colorful image of a youngish woman in a hot air balloon holding one of their newer fabric backpacks. The name of the pack and the price are small and insignificant to the ad. The ad is selling a lifestyle. It’s selling add some flavor to your life by adding color. Be rich with color and exude the beauty and wonder that this woman and hot air balloon are doing for you right now. It has very little to do with that backpack. Vera Bradley knows their audience has a certain lifestyle and approach to life that makes their product, i.e. handbags and such, part of that life. If they wanted to just move some product they could have lots of thumbnail shots of each new bag with a price under it and their website.
Let’s also talk about that price. The backpack was $92. If the whole ad would have been about the product with the price, in today’s economy, that may give some people sticker shock. We all know a solid backpack can be found for much less than $92. Selling the lifestyle makes the price less glaring and less painful. While some would not like to admit it, there is a price tag for certain lifestyles. Vera Bradley knows this and is banking on knowing which category their audience is in and their appropriate price tag.
Now on to their website. This is where I was disappointed. No mention of color in my world, even, (even!) lack of colorful imagery on their site. The people on the homepage were much younger than the woman in the ad, which can go OK or terribly wrong depending on the audience you’re starting with. They didn’t bring the campaign home and speak to me once I went to their site to make a purchase. This is sad. This would be the part I would suggesting making sure you don’t repeat and tie in the right online message to your offline world.
While attending a networking event for Alpha Chicks last night at Houlihan’s, I was pleasantly surprised and enjoying their new branding. They have purposely set out to reach a younger, hipper crowd due to their updated logo, decor, menu selection and nightly specials.
Flight of martini's from Houlihan's; 3 for $9
Let’s start with the specials – as they WERE special. Half price bottles of wine, flights of martinis and half price ’snackage’ is pretty nice within itself. However, the delivery of these specials made them an extra treat. The flights of martinis were from ANY of the martinis available. Select the fancy chocolate one, get the sugar rim sweet one, they were all part of the deal. They didn’t offer something from a limited menu or trick you in to thinking it all applied. Then, they delivered the flights of martinis in full style. Everyone around our table (and those of us at the table who partook in something other than the martinis) wanted what they had. It’s instant jealousy.
The appetizer delivery was amazing too. Fancy modern plates and extras really made a punch and took your little snackage up a notch on the fun scale. The taste was there too; nothing was missing.
Houlihan's new logo
The new branding made this all come together consistently. The identity itself is clean, fresh and modern. I like how the ‘H’ is a little off skew. The logo launched the theme for the rest of the decor and menu design. It all fit together in a modern fit of functionality and style. The outdoor patio was one of the best I’ve experienced. It is in the Castleton Mall parking lot, but you know what, I rarely noticed this after our crowd showed up, the drinks arrived and the night began. The brilliant red adirondack chairs and bright yellow umbrellas paired with dark black steel and hearty brown woods made you feel like you were on someone’s back porch, not a public restaurant.
Well done Houlihan’s. You have upgraded your brand significantly and you paired all your elements of the entire experience well. This is a great model of how it should be done.
As the programmer here at Silver Square, it fell to me to figure out how to do geo-targeting of ads on the 60 Days To Change web site. What’s geo-targeting you ask? It boils down to making sure that the visitors to a website will see different ads based on where they live. If you want to sell advertising space on your site, geo-targeting makes the deal much more attractive to your advertisers.
In this case Toyota is sponsoring 60 Days To Change. They only want their ads to show up for visitors who live in certain zip codes. So I set it up. Call your friend in California and have them to go to 60daystochange.com. Ask them if they see any Toyota ads. They won’t. The ads are geo-targeted for very specific areas of central Indiana.
That’s a very specific example, but you aren’t restricted to just looking at zip codes when you do geo-targeting. You can show different ads based on your visitor’s city, time zone, or even area code. (Do you feel like Big Brother is watching you surf the web?) Since advertising space on the Internet is usually sold based on the number of eyeballs who see it, a banner on a web site is worth more when all of those eyeballs are in the sponsor’s area of operation.
