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.
I originally heard of this Twitter tracker on NBC, but today saw the actual video on motion while reading the latest news on Mashable (if you want to keep up with all things cool, techy and typically marketing related, start following Mashable). I enjoy seeing things like this and would love to develop something cool for our clients, but until that happens, enjoy watching how this one works… and go U.S.A.!
You think you know me, but you don’t. We have had a realtionship for many years, and it’s been great until recently. You have consistently delivered some of the best dark chocolate little drops of bliss for years. You have often entertained me with your sayings and fortune cookie-like messages. Your most recent attempts to reach me, though, are killing me.
“Use a heart-shaped craft punch to create Valentine cards.” 0r “Ask your florist to leave out the filler and baby’s breath.” both by Martha Stewart are so missing the mark. Sugar and spice and everything nice are not the ingredients for reaching out to every woman. I’m sure you ran some amazing focus groups and tested this shift extensivly, but I would love to hear how the reponse has been.
We know women, in general, are people-oriented. We tend to be more verbal. We use our verbal skills to bond with people! Your older messages fit this broader umbrella of feel-good sayings that related to a variety of women, and even men. Introducing Martha’s chit chat to your chocolates, though, makes me feel like you think eating choclates and my ability or desire to make choclates are interchangable. No so.
I do see why you would want to share space with Martha. I do! She has a brilliant brand and business – something I admire about her. She has this amazing network of cross-polinated brands that reach much wider than you. I’m sure the added exposure she will bring will potentially boost some short-term sales. Will it last? Will you lose your loyal advocates?
For me, my contribution to your product sales will be down until this marketing project is over. I miss the messages you’re known for. I long to be perked up by a message about going after my dreams. Baby’s breath and homemade Valentine’s day cards just aren’t in my future.
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.
I was excited to read on the Twitter blog yesterday that Twitter is bringing a new feature for businesses – a way to “deepen engagement” with your audience. This new feature also tackles a major question we’re often asked, so you should be excited too…
The new feature will allow businesses to tag their employees, or those using Twitter on their behalf, to send Tweets for the business, but, with their name as the byline so you can see just who, exactly, sent that Tweet from that company. I like this feature because this means multiple people in the company can still use Twitter for that company but each person still has their own byline. This helps you build realtionsihps with those indivdiuals in that business, not just brand in general.
In our Twitter workshops and speaking engagements, we’re often asked “Who should Tweet; the company or the people?” We think everyone should be using Twitter if it makes sense for your business and goals, but now you can have your cake and eat it too once this hits the masses.
While this feature isn’t ready just yet, it’s coming. Stay tuned and keep an eye out for Tweets from Silver Square with bylines from Angela and Clay. Sweet!
Will we print a second run? We’re not planning on it at the moment, but we wouldn’t rule it out. We had a few people order a batch of the guides to send out to their best clients as a way of saying thank you and staying in front of them. In those cases we prepared a wrap for the guide with custom branding and messaging. If more people want to do something like that, I imagine we’ll definitely look into a second run. Interested?
In the meantime, you can still order the downloadable PDF version.
As Facebook’s popularity continues to grow (128+ million unique visitors in October 2009) it is worth your time to consider how you can represent your business on this social network. Facebook offers you two options: fan pages and groups. I sort of tipped my hand with the title of this post. I think fan pages are better in almost every case. Certainly I believe they are better when you are creating a home on Facebook for your business. But let’s start with the one area where groups shine before we move on.
Groups
Groups give you one important feature that a fan page doesn’t: a velvet rope. Just like a fancy night club, you get to decide who is allowed in. While fan pages allow you to set restrictions on the location or age of people who can become a fan, a group gives you total control. You can accept or reject everyone that asks to join. This makes it ideal for reunions, clubs, or other closed groups you are communicating with through Facebook.
If you have a business (or even a typical not-for-profit) you aren’t looking to exclude anyone who wants to support you, though.
Fan Pages
This is where fan pages come in. You create a page that operates in a very similar fashion to your personal Facebook page, but it is for your business instead of you.
Just like your personal page, when you have at least 100 25 fans/friends you can get a shorter, more attractive URL. Isn’t facebook.com/graybox easier to remember than facebook.com/pages/Fishers-IN/Silver-Square/3847892…
Your fan page content is visible to someone before they become a fan. That means you have a chance to make a good impression on a total stranger, but it also means search engines can index your page.
With a fan page you can add custom Facebook applications, so a simple example might be adding a tab that shows the RSS feed from your blog.
The insights section of your fan page lets you see demographic information about your fans like gender, age, and geographic location.
Have you seen any other advantages of fan pages? Or do you think I’m overlooking some benefits of groups? I’d love to hear other people’s experiences in the comments.
One of our favorite things to do at Silver Square is to help a business create a brand and identity for their business or organization. It starts with conversations and research centered around who they are and how they want to present themselves to their clients, vendors, competition, the media, and public in general. Next comes the logo, which is always a lot of fun for us and our clients. Once the logo is finalized we create business cards, envelopes, letterhead – anything that is going to have the client’s name printed on it.
Almost everyone gets this far. The idea that these printed items should all look like they came from the same company is a concept that most people are able to wrap their brains around.
Some people stop here, but many go on and create a website that carries through the same look and tone. So when someone sees your website address on your card and types it into their web browser, they are greeted with a home page that has the same design elements and feel that they saw on your card. Even this rudimentary online branding bears fruit. They had an expectation about what they were going to see on your home page, and that expectation was met. That’s a great impression to give visitors: you are going to meet their expectations.
Many people get this far.
But this is where the herd starts to thin out. Very few businesses have email templates or even email signatures that look like they belong to the brand. Twitter backgrounds and Facebook photos may or may not have any connection to the image the company intends to present. If a representative of the company leaves a comment on a blog, what avatar is showing up next to their comment? That’s not to say that every background and image needs to be the company logo (although that can be a successful approach.) But is it right for you to have images of your employees making wacky faces or should they be in business formal attire with calm, confident expressions?
What’s true for print in this case is also true online. Branding needs to be pervasive and consistent.
I may not ever get a letter or business card from you. I may discover you on my computer monitor, and I’m going to have questions. Who are you? And how do I know unless you tell me?
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.
I always feel old(er) when I think and mention how quickly the time seems to be flying by. Is it me or DOES the time go faster the older you get? Regardless, we’re in Q4 and a few of the conversations I had this past week included thoughts of ending the year strong. Some key ideas were threaded among these conversations, so I’m passing it all along to you for consideration in how you’ll wrap up your year.
Create a Theme. I like this one because, as a marekting professional, I can get behind a theme. I can understand it and develop it and go with it. One review of the 2008 Presidential election and their theme choices and followings is more proof themes work. Create one for your internal team or for your sales process, or both in a complimentary fashion. Try to think of a theme that has legs for taking you in to 2010. You’ll want to build on your momentum.
Be Positive. I know lots of people think this is hokey, but not me. I think you have to believe there is an answer for helping that next prospect. You have to believe in what you’re selling with so much conviction that your prospect knows he must have it. You have to believe you can end the year well in order to actually take steps to doing so. When you catch yourself slipping on the upward slope, create a phrase you’ll say to yourself to pull you back up. Winners aren’t complainers… just remember that.
Go for Excellence. I’m going to hang some dirty laundry here… we can do a better job at going beyond for our clients. It’s something we’re working on and a personal theme I’m using to take me through the end of the year. When we get busy, we tend to do what has to be done for the job to be ‘complete’ rather than a job well done. Go for job well done and then some – every time.
Please share some ideas on how you plan to wrap up Q4. Let’s help each other end strong!
Groups
Fan Pages
