Marketing

How Smart is Your Local Business Marketing?

Every weekend without fail, my local electronics retailer runs a flyer in the local newspaper. It highlights special offers and discounts and proudly displays “This weekend only!” in the header.

The flyer’s nice and bright and there’s a huge collection of images, from large-screen TV’s to computers to video games to smartphones and more.

Great, you might say. Can never have enough advertising or marketing, right?

Wrong.

You see, every weekend the retailer puts out his flyer, it’s always the same. Same products. Same discounts. Same busy flyer with image overkill and small text.

Because it’s the same, customers now wait until the weekend to buy anything. They sit by their breakfast tables waiting for the newspaper to be delivered, grab the flyer, and drive on down to the retailer to maybe buy a new TV, or phone, or games console.

While this is great for weekend traffic, the store’s pretty empty during the week. The busiest it gets is when one of the sales associates gets the vacuum cleaner out and does a round of the store.

Sure, you could say that the retailer must be doing alright, as the weekend business covers the quiet week, right? Possibly. But think how much better it could be.

Mix It Up a Little, Mix It Up a Lot

With very few exceptions, the retailer’s flyer has the same products and offers on sale every weekend. Now, this could be down to the fact that he has less of a relationship with suppliers than the bigger outlets. But he could still make his offers more selective and therefore more effective.

Carry out an audit on what’s the most popular product, and then who the most popular supplier of that product is. Then look at what accessories are available for that product. Contact the supplier in question and show them your information and what that relates to in hard sales figures. Then offer to promote the heck out of their brand for a weekend. Better still, have a manufacturer appreciation day during the week to show off their products, with offers only for that day.

Take the “less is more” approach with the flyer. The human being is primarily a visual person – it’s how we’ve communicated through the ages and it’s still true today. Instead of assaulting the eyeballs, though, highlight one great product per page and then have four or five smaller additions to complement. The litmus test is how your eyes are drawn to the information – if they go where you want the eyes of the customers to go, you’re on the right track.

Stop the regular weekly offers. When something becomes a regular fixture, we know when it’s going to happen. This takes the edge of it, and lessens any impact. Change the advertising up. Compare a weekday ad instead of the usual weekend ones, and tie it into a truly unique offer. The promise of the sexy sale that day will beat the sameness of the weekend flyer – try it.

Take It to the Masses

The beauty with an electronics retailer is that you can pretty much guarantee the audience – male, 18-45, gadget-friendly geeks (and I say this with nothing but love, as I’m one of these geeks).

The great thing about that demographic is that they’re very web-savvy too. They’re hanging out on social networks, online forums and blogs. So take advantage of this.

Do the research to see where your audience is. Then market to that audience accordingly. If you find you have a lot of potential customers on Facebook, consider running an ad on there specifically tailored to your audience. The great thing with Facebook ads is that you can really drill down into your target audience.

Or try banner ads on forums and speak to niche bloggers about special offers that their readers can benefit from (obviously this works better if you offer e-commerce options as well).

I’ve used my local retailer as an example here, but you can swap the ideas for your own business. Yes, social media is international, but so many businesses forget that their local customers are online too – it’s not all down to simple local advertising. And if you’re unsure of how to market effectively online, speak to a company or agency that can help you.

The thing is, local businesses tend to market locally and with the same approach. A flyer in the weekend paper and maybe some radio ads, and with the same offers week in, week out.

This definitely works, and weekend sales might be all you need to get by. But do you really want to continue just getting by at weekends, or do you want to be a business for every day of the week?

image: Kodak Agfa

Kenneth Cole Is Just The Latest in a Long Line of Bad PR Decisions

There?s an old saying that any publicity is good publicity ? but is it?

Kenneth Cole might be questioning it, after the tweet in the image above – that tied his retail chain’s sale into the devastating events currently happening in Egypt – was picked up and discussed on various PR and marketing blogs and news sites.

I’ve also written on here before about examples of bad PR and PR that takes advantage of tragic or upsetting situations, and questioned the sense behind it.

True, a discussion about your company or business means that at least people are talking about you – but is there a limit as to how far this should go and be accepted as a good thing?

A client approached a well-known agency in New York to run a campaign about that client?s new start-up business. The business was technology-led, and the idea behind the campaign was to run a number of press releases and forum posts that implied the current technology on the market was doomed.

This was where the PR agency?s client would step in ? by providing the new technology that would replace the ?outdated? one, they would become the de facto standard for this piece of software.

Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons, this backfired spectacularly.

First, the software wasn?t actually ready ? it was still buggy and users kept having their systems frozen.

Second, the target audience the client was going for were already fiercely loyal to the older technology. They came out fighting when the suggestion was made that they were the equivalent to schoolchildren if they didn?t upgrade to the new software, whose users would be the advanced students of that niche.

Cue forums and tech blogs lighting up with inflammatory statements and posts about this new upstart who was saying all these bad things about the user community. The PR agency swiftly put a damage limitation exercise into place, but it looks like it?s too little, too late.

Now it looks likely that when the software is ready, it?s going to have too much baggage attached to make any headway ? which is a shame, as the technology in question is an excellent idea.

So who?s to blame ? the client or the PR agency? It?s a little bit of both.

For a business that wanted to be the standard in its field, releasing a buggy product and not classifying it as a beta is one of the worst things it could have done.

For the agency?s part, they should have had more balls and advised their client that pissing off your target audience is not good PR. The client hired the agency for their expertise at getting the right media attention ? so they should have enforced that and made the client realize the mistake they were about to make. After all, their reputation would be at stake as well.

In fairness to the PR agency in question, it seems that in this case the client wanted to drum up controversy to get people talking about their product. That certainly happened ? but was the (potentially) final result worth it?

Maybe Kenneth Cole and the tech company can tell us in a few months time…

Sorry, Social Media, But Marketing Is Still Cool

As social media continues its assault onto the mainstream audience, one of the side-effects has been the emergence of the view that marketing isn’t allowed in the space.

Conversations on blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and elsewhere are vocal in the opinion that marketing is dead; we choose who we buy from and whose reputation we ruin; what gets our eyeballs and what doesn’t.

Simply put, old school is dead; long live the King (of new media school). And, to a degree, it’s correct – old school is dead.

But let’s not get too carried away by our new best friend social media, either.

Any time a new marketing platform comes out means that the “old school” is dead as it was; but now you use it in conjunction with the new. The view that we (as consumers) have all the power and that brands now need to listen to us is nothing new, either.

Sure, we have a soapbox on which we can stand now that allows us to share our likes, dislikes and outright hatred of a brand, product or service. Not only that, but we can share it with a worldwide audience looking for the next fix of brand assassination on YouTube.

But at the same time, is this really new? Haven’t we always had the power over brands?

It doesn’t matter how great advertising, marketing or PR messages are – if we don’t like something, we vote with our wallets. This has been happening since the dawn of the first trade agreement. Just because Coca-Cola runs a great Christmas advertising campaign doesn’t mean I’m going to suddenly buy Coca-Cola. I don’t like the stuff, so their marketing and advertising is lost on me.

The view that social media has allowed us to force marketers to think differently isn’t completely true either.

Good marketers have always planned with their audience in mind – it’s one of the key tenets to marketing in the first place. We don’t just come up with an idea and hope it works – like a duck on water, there’s a lot more going on that you can’t see, while the pretty stuff on public view looks effortless.

Additionally, good marketers have always known when a message is right, if the timing is there, and reacted as a campaign has progressed, using analytics and feedback. Kind of like social media does – the main difference is now you have instantaneous feedback to work from, as opposed to waiting on figures coming in from print or TV/radio media.

There’s no doubt that social media is one of the biggest changes in the marketing landscape (and the business one in general). When it comes to tracking, measurement and engagement prior to, during and after the launch of a product or service, social media offers a great range of options.

To say that it means marketing is no longer needed, though, is missing the boat slightly. Like any sound business, the good marketing tactics will work and the lesser ones won’t, especially when they’re integrated as opposed to segragated.

But isn’t that how it’s always been?

image: MIgracionTOtal

What I’d Like to See From Location Based Marketing Services

Location based (or geo-located) marketing is getting a huge amount of buzz at the minute, as?Twitter apps connect location tweets to its service,?Foursquare is credited with Domino?s Pizza?s UK success and?smartphone users get ready for augmented reality to guide their leisure time.

And then there’s Facebook’s continued assault on world domination with its new Places app.

All good stuff. And yet?

For the most part, we?re still being safe and boring when it comes to how we, as marketers, use these geo-location services such as Foursquare and?Gowalla to drive traffic and sales to our clients and own business.

And there are some great opportunities to set yourself apart.

Cross-Platform Marketing

One of the cool things about Foursquare is the ability to offer specials to folks who check in at your place. Yet even this is being underused, and generally stops at offering mayorships.

Why not tie it into other social media platforms you use?

For example, let?s say you have a?Facebook page for your brand. When you set up a reward for your Foursquare users, why not show the message, ?Thanks for checking in! Why not friend us on Facebook too, and download your exclusive code for?Facebook-only offers??

Not only does this strengthen the relationship with you, you?re offering a great call-to-action to grow your Facebook page while giving your customer even easier ways to make a purchase with you.

Mayorship Shmayorship

Check out any of the offers that businesses using Foursquare promote, and it?s usually rewarding the mayor of that location only.

Great for the mayor, but let?s face it, that can be gamed ? I can check in at the coffee house across the street from my office without even entering the premises, so no sale there!

So why not offer a Happy Hour promo instead? An alert goes out to your followers, something along the likes of, ?Hey guys, between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. today, all purchases are 2-for-1 on everything up to $50 when you stop by and check in.?

Not only are you opening up the offer to everyone, you?re offering it with urgency ? something that?s hugely effective at getting buy-in from customers.

Cross Promotion Retailing

When we shop, we don?t always go for the cheapest offer. More often than not, we go for the one that best suits our needs. That could mean mix-and-match purchasing ? we get jeans from one store, a top from another, and shoes somewhere else.

So why aren?t we offering that more often via geo-location marketing?

For example, let?s say I go to the movies to see the new Batman movie. Obviously I check in there and maybe even write a note to say what I?m there to watch.

Now, imagine if that movie theatre was partnering with the local comic book store or chicken wings diner. As soon as I come out of the theatre, there?s a Foursquare alert from the comic book store that tells me I can get 10% off all Batman purchases that day.

Or if I go to the wings place, I can get 2-for-1 on special Bat wings (not real bats, obviously!) for that day only. Or good for a limited time from the update ? say, 72 hours.

Again, it?s tying into something I already like so I?m more than likely to check it out. And if I like Batman, there?s a pretty good chance I?m going to like comic books, too.

Like I said at the start, there are a ton of options available for smart marketers to use when it comes to geo-location.

All they need to do is find them. Do that and they might just find more customers, too.

This post first appeared on Spin Sucks, the business blog of Arment Dietrich, a non-traditional marketing agency headed up by Gini Dietrich. Spin Sucks looks to dismantle industry buzz and hype with thought-provoking insights and discussions.

image: mhartford