Holiday Marketing

Were you the one that was shopping before Christmas? Were you shopping online before Halloween? If you were then their marketing worked! I was ½ done by Halloween, doing 90% of my shopping on the net this year worked for me so that shows you their marketing got ME!

Did you watch for the commercials and start making a list by the ads or do you take a risk on the stores and what they are promising and just show up at the doors of Kohl’s at 4am?

I was one of the crazies out there, I stood in line at 2:30 for the store to open at 4:00am, I ran in like a mad woman and just grabbed things off of the shelves that other people were grabbing, I didn’t even look at what I grabbed until I got in line. Make sure you bring a friend or your husband to be the “line keeper”, if he gets in line almost immediately, then once you’re done with your shopping, you should only have to wait in line for 10 minutes or so.

Waiting in lines on black Friday and trying to get through to the some of the websites on Cyber Monday are the hottest things to do now. Next we’ll all be starting to shop for Christmas in July, you just wait, it WILL happen. And yes, I will probably be shopping in July because I am one of “those” people that the marketing works on.

Consider a Grand Re-opening Event to Generate Positive P.R.

Recently, Beyond Marketing was hired by PostNet in Woodinville to manage a grand re-opening event. We created custom invitations and flyers and worked with the Woodinville Chamber of Commerce to invite local businesses. We created and submitted press releases to the local papers and with the help of PostNet’s new owner, Terry Mead, generated some good word-of-mouth advertising.

But, how do you measure the success of your grand re-opening? Is it the number of people that attend, or should your event’s success be measured by the number of quality connections you make?

For Terry Mead, he feels he generated a buzz and made some valuable, quality connections. He may not know for months the true value of hosting his grand re-opening. However, early reports indicate he achieved success by creating critical awareness within the community. He realized his goal of letting members of the Woodinville community know that his store is under new and improved management—an extremely important message considering the past owners left Terry with some negative perceptions about the store.

For a fairly inexpensive cost, a grand re-opening can be just the shot in the arm you need to get some positive P.R. If you are a new owner of a business, or have remodeled or improved your business, consider hosting a grand re-opening.

Top 5 Customer Service Mistakes

Top 5 Customer Service Mistakes

Knowing how important it is to treat your customers could mean the life and death of your business. If you are aware of common customer service mistakes and avoid them, you may strengthen your position in a competitive market.

1. Untrained staff. If your employees are not trained on how to treat your customers, you may as well count on losing half of your customer base. It doesn’t matter whether you have 2 employees or 50, training every employee is a must in ANY business.

2. Playing the “who’s right” game. It takes 5 times more effort and cost to gain one new customer as it takes to maintain one current customer. If you have to win that one argument then your business will end up being the cost of it.

3. Inaccessibility. Have you ever called to talk to someone about a problem or just to get answers about your account and you have to leave message after message to have someone call you back? It makes the customer feel that they are unimportant and now one really cares about their question or concern. If you want to see repeat business you need to be more accessible to your customers, even for the small things.

4. Unfulfilled promises. If you promise a customer that something would be ready by Thursday, then it should be there by Thursday. When you cannot make this happen, do not make excuses; the only words you need to remember are "We're sorry," backed up by an extra effort to make the customer happy. Offer a discount or a complimentary service then next time they come in.

5. Forgetting the basics. "Please," "thank you," "we're sorry about the inconvenience," and so on are simple phrases that cost nothing, take little effort, and win big points.

A Little Empathy Goes a Long Way

I recently traveled for pleasure on Alaska Airlines. When I arrived at my destination, my son’s car seat did not arrive with the rest of our baggage.

Initially, I was very upset. But after talking to the Alaska Airlines representative, and I was given a loaner car seat, I felt okay about the situation. The person who helped me gave me the feeling that she really cared and understood how the error affected me. She was very apologetic and told me she would be in contact.

And indeed she was. Alaska Airlines was in contact with me throughout my entire trip, even though they had not located my lost luggage. I appreciated this level of communication. Each time I interacted with them, they were very empathetic. Every time we hung up, I felt as though the situation was under control.

On the last day of my trip I got an unexpected call. The car seat had never left my home airport and was waiting for me there. I picked it up upon my return.

However, the drama was not over. Upon returning home, my largest suitcase was nowhere to be seen. Normally, I would be very irritated, but the positive experience with the baggage staff during my trip made me confident this situation would be rectified smoothly, too. And it was. My suitcase was located and delivered to my home a few hours later.

Empathy really works in a customer service. If the entire relationship between customer and business is based on putting one’s self in the other’s shoes, as glitches or snags arise, both parties are on the same side. Everyone involved can focus on fixing the problem, rather than spending time and energy on unproductive things, like arguing and damage control.

The smart way to deal with BAD customer service!

In a restaurant, where the meal is not to your liking, DON’T get huffy with your server, don’t blame the server for the bad food and don’t raise your voice to them, you don’t know what they’re doing with your food in the back.

Instead, be polite but firm: For example:

“I’m sorry to bother you but could I get the salad that I ordered? I know how busy you’ve been.” There are some times in life when it is better to be the lesser one in an argument, and have the attitude of seeming to ask for a huge favor, when it’s actually you that is granting the favor to the restaurant with your patronage.

I have had an experience in the past with the Outback restaurant. My husband and I have always loved their food, I have dreams about their bloomin Onion. At our last visit my husband ordered a medium rare steak and got a burnt steak that hardly had any meat on it and mostly fat. He told the waiter that it was burnt and wouldn’t be able to eat it and the waiter said that he’d take it back to the cook. Five minutes later the waiter returned to say that they could cook a new one but it would take another 20 minutes or my husband could just eat the burnt one. Since I was already done with my dinner and my husband scarffed down his baked potato and veggies, we just wanted to get out of there. After the waiter dropped off that burnt steak to my husband again, we couldn’t believe that they didn’t even want to discuss the steak issue. “I” was fed up, asked for the manager, who looked 12, and was apologized to by the manager, got the “stink eye” from the waiter WITH the roll of the eyes. We finally were offered a free bloomin onion the next time we came in! They made us pay full price for a steak that not even my dog would be able to bite into!

I still have that “free bloomin onion” pass in my purse, its been there for about a year now and I don’t think I’ll ever use it!

Toy Recalls part II – Breaking News or Politics

While researching the Fisher Price/Mattel toy recalls that I wrote about in last week’s blog, I stumbled across a few elements of the overall story that made me wonder if there was any sort of political motivation for the recalls.

The largest political element was the name Barack Obama.

Now I may be typical, or I may have just not been paying attention, but I had never heard of Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) until fairly recently when talk of his possibly running for president began. I had also never heard of the Lead Free Toys Act that Senator Obama and Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) introduced to Congress in 2005. This bill stalled in Congress, and toys with dangerous levels of lead continued to be available to consumers.

In May of this year, Senator Barack Obama (now something of a household name) reintroduced this act to Congress. In this year’s September issue, Good Housekeeping Magazine featured an article entitled “Playing with Poison” about the dangerous levels of lead in some toys. This article is where I first learned of the Lead Free Toys Act.

Perhaps I’m cynical, but the first thing that came to my mind was “why now?” According to the US Consumer Product Safety Commission’s website, lead paint was banned from toys in 1977, and recalls happened as needed for the next 30 years. So why are toys with dangerous levels of lead all over the news now? Coincidence? Public awareness and outrage about dangerous products from China (especially after Menu Foods)? Or perfect timing for politics? We’ll probably never know.

And if it is political is that a bad thing? Because it looks like something positive may be getting done. I read a letter written on August 14, 2007 by Barack Obama which stated that nearly 6 million toys (including children’s jewelry) have been recalled in the last 5 months due to high lead content. 6 million! Wow, that’s scary!

A much scarier political element is a small paragraph I found in an article on the CNN website (http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/01/toy.recall.ap/index.html). It stated that “In negotiating details of the recall, Fisher Price and the government sought to withhold details from the public until Thursday to give stores time to get suspect toys off shelves and Fisher Price time to get its recall hot line up and running.” It was not clear to me how far in advance Fisher Price and the government knew about this problem before you and I did. Was it weeks? Days? Or only 24 hours? Again, we’ll probably never know. From a Crisis Marketing standpoint, it’s never a good idea to withhold information from your consumers. Because if or when that information becomes public knowledge, the fact that it was withheld can cause a lack of trust in your company and its products. I wasn’t impressed with Fisher Price’s Crisis Marketing in the first place, and this brought down my opinion even more.

As for Senator Barack Obama and his Lead Free Toys Act, maybe he’ll be able to market himself as the man who saved our children from deadly toys.

So, Breaking News or Politics? Probably both.

Toy Recalls

As both a new mother and a Marketing professional with a special interest in Crisis Marketing, I have been following the Fisher Price toy recalls (due to lead and magnets) fairly closely. And from a Marketing perspective I’ve found some very interesting things.

About a week ago, I signed up online to receive a Fisher Price e-newsletter. When the newsletter arrived in my inbox, I was quite surprised that there was absolutely no mention of the toy recalls. There was not even a link to follow for “in the news” or “current events” or anything that could be related. This major news story was quite obvious in its absence. So, of course, I went looking for it.

I started with what I knew from the local news -- Fisher Price toys were being recalled -- and I went to the Fisher Price website. I expected to find a headlining article or a pop up box containing recall information. But there was nothing to be seen. Scanning down the screen to the bottom of the homepage I finally located a small box labeled “Recall Information” written in pale pink letters -- not at all eye-catching. In fact, this box was the 8th of 9 options, and did not stand out in any way. It did not appear to be a recent addition to the website due to the breaking news story, but rather a standard feature. Clicking on this box led me to a new screen which read “Please Note! Fisher-Price® and a number of other well-known brands are subsidiaries of Mattel, Inc. Services for customers of all Mattel brands are offered through one central section on Mattel.com…” What a minute? A subsidiary of Mattel? Did everybody else already know that? I didn’t see it on the Fisher Price homepage.

Regardless of my questions, I was automatically connected to the Mattel Consumer Relations Answer Center. So I resumed my search on Mattel.com. The product recalls page contains good information about which toys are recalled, why, and what to do if you own them. But what about a statement from the company? What about an apology for putting children at risk? Nothing of the kind.

I then took my search to the Mattel.com homepage. Success! I clicked on a bright red box labeled “Voluntary Toy Recall” and was offered my choice of 22 languages. Choosing “English – US. Canada” I finally found what I was looking for: A statement from the company including a video featuring Bob Eckert, Chairman & CEO of Mattel, Inc. Great information even though it took me a long time to find it by going through what seemed to be the most obvious route of the Fisher Price website.

Because of my interest in Crisis Marketing, I decided to pursue my research even though I had finally located the information I needed as a consumer. I choose to do a general internet search starting from Yahoo.com. What a surprise! Mattel had taken out a large advertisement on the front page of Yahoo including Bob Eckert’s video. Typing “Fisher Price Toy Recall” in the search box returned 355,000 hits. Typing “Mattel Toy Recall” returned 502,000 hits. Way too much information to wade through! So I gave Fisher Price a mental score of C- for their Crisis Marketing, and graded Mattel with an A-.

Done with the toy recalls, and onto relaxing with my baby and my September, 2007 issue of Good Housekeeping Magazine. But hold on! An article titled “Playing with Poison” jumped out at me. Could it be a major coincidence since magazine articles are written 1 – 3 months in advance? Skimming the article, there was no mention of Fisher Price or Mattel, but there did seem to be some political motivation for the toy recalls mentioned.

Back to the World Wide Web for more research! But that’s another whole article. Look for Toy Recalls part II – Breaking News or Politics in next week’s blog.

How to Divide Your Marketing Budget - A New Rule

Jay Conrad Levinson is the author of the best-selling marketing series in history, Guerrilla Marketing. He states that “marketing is part art, part science and part business.” Here is his new 10/30/60 rule to help you achieve increased profits with the lowest possible investment.

The 10/30/60 Rule
All guerrillas know they have three markets. The largest of those markets and the one that represents the least profits to you is called your universe -- everybody within your marketing area regardless of whether they match your customer profile. Guerrillas invest 10 percent of their marketing budget talking to their universe, attempting to move them into their second largest market, one that ranks in the middle for generating profits.

That market is called your prospects, those members of the universe who do fit your customer profile. Your job: Invest 30 percent of your budget in an effort to nudge your prospects into your third market—your customers, easily your most lucrative source of profits.

Guerrillas invest 60 percent of their budgets marketing to their customers, knowing it costs them one-sixth as much to make a sale to an existing customer compared with marketing to a non-customer. By investing the most in the market that produces the most profits, yet costs the least to reach, guerrillas maximize their total marketing investment.

How do you rate customer service?

I know, everyone is talking about good and bad customer service, I know I like to talk about it. Everywhere I go, I will mention to the employee or owner of a company whether they had good or bad customer service. This is annoying to my husband, but he's starting to understand how important it is now. Would you continue with a company that charged you $5.00 a month for a gym membership if the people were rude and gave you dirty looks everytime you came in? OR, would you pay $15.00 a month for a gym that treated you like gold as soon as you walked into their facility? Asking you how you were doing, handing you a sweat towel and flashing a hollywood smile? I know I would pay more, even though both facilities may have the same equipment, it is the attitude and feel of the facility that I am looking for to help me achieve my fitness goals!

The case for hiring a marketing firm

Recently I had the pleasure of sitting down with a company that I am quite familiar with. I am a patron, visiting 4-5 times a month for the past 3 years. Over time the people there and I have become casual friends. Our kids are the same age, and we have other things in common as well.

The owner has known that I own a marketing company but we've only casually talked about it. The owner has recently purchased another location and approached me about helping out with some marketing. Since they have tied up a considerable amount of money in the new location they don't have much left over to spend on marketing, but I told him I would be glad to take a look at what he needs and see if I can help him out.

First, he had already had someone create a new logo. However, he needed it to go on business cards and needed a new layout for business cards and a map placed on the back. He had a brochure but not in electronic form only in paper form. He had gift certificates that had the old business name and logo on them, and had already lined up a printer to print the brochures but not the business cards.

Here is the challenge:

The person who did the logo gave it to him in a 72 dpi, which is not high enough resolution to work with on business cards and brochures
The business cards were easy for us to layout, but since he had a printer for the brochures, without us doing both pieces, we couldn't guarantee that they will match
The brochure was easy enough to retype and make it look professional, but the logo again was not high enough resolution, so we needed to go back to the owner and get the graphics person to resend it in a higher resolution
A nice sticker was fashioned and that was placed over the information on the gift certificates, although it wasn't perfect, the labels were still professional and nice looking

The case for a marketing firm

We work with the graphic designers, printers, matching paper, colors and each detail to make sure that all of it matches
We make sure that the graphic designer sends the logo in all of the right formats to make sure that it can be placed on all types of collaterals

Our client has had to return to the graphics person on more than one occasion to get the logo in another format for us to use. That has put us several days behind schedule on both the cards and brochures
Having the printer lined up for the brochures, but wanting the business cards printed elsewhere puts us further behind as we are waiting on the brochures to match the business cards to as closely as we can

By handling all of the details, we are able to stay on schedule, on track and make sure everything matches and is professional. It also takes our client out of the middle of juggling all of the phone calls, and back and forth of putting it all together

We are helping our client and want to make sure that the best and most professional product is delivered to them and as of now our client has everything on his desk awaiting final approvals. We are pleased that we could help this company, but in the long run it took a tremendous amount of extra back and forth time for us and an extraordinary amount of time spent on our clients part that was unnecessary.

Hallmark gets high marks

Hallmark has done a good deed. Several days before Mother's Day, Hallmark's website was jammed with flower orders and a number of people had problems placing their order. In response, Hallmark sent an email informing people that they were aware of the problem and if they tried again, that shipping would be on them. No proof, no requirements, all on the honor system. Now perhaps they had thought of offering free shipping close to Mother's Day all along. Or, maybe they were doing it as a marketing ploy just to get more orders, but I'd rather think that they wanted their customers to be happy and that offering free shipping was a perfect apology to some very frustrated customers.

Who Twitters Anyway?

Do you know anyone who actually uses Twitter?

Is it just an ongoing conversation to waste more time in your day? Blogging isn’t enough? By phone, email or instant message, has anyone had enough of this yet? Don’t we get enough “junk” in our email or don’t we get enough random text messages into our phone, either from a wrong number or our phone service telling us about a new ring tone special this month. I don’t get it, I had a hard time just blogging, now I am doing it, however reluctantly. I don’t know why twitter is so big, I do know that my daughters friends are doing it now and sending random and immature quotes and questions to everyone in their phone list, just to get back more random answers. Is this taking more time away from our kids and their social skills with “actual” people? Is this also just raising their cell phone bill so that their parents can keep paying for it?

Now, my co-workers may disagree with me about “twitting”, however at this time, I am confused by the whole concept. But then again, I didn’t like blogging at first either, maybe it will suck me in too!

Stanley's Lemonade Stand

The hyacinths are just popping up, and the crocuses are still blowing in the wind, but some marketers are thinking ahead to the long, hot summer.

Six year old Stanley and his Mom were walking their dog past our home last week. Stanley saw me pulling weeds, and came over to shake hands and introduce himself.
"Hello, my name is Stanley. We just moved into the house on the corner. I am going to open my first lemonade stand as soon as school is out. I hope you will be my customer."

The next day, I received a post card from him, reminding me that Stanley's Lemonade Stand would open in exactly three months. He had drawn a map to his home, and a coupon for a free cookie after I bought three lemonades.

Last night, I answered the door. Stanley and his Dad were there with an invitation to a tasting party on Wednesday, at 5:05 P.M. (the official start of Spring!) Stanley explained that there were so many brands of lemonade, and so many recipes for homemade, that he wanted to know what his customers liked best.

No, Stanley's parents aren't marketing geniuses. Stanley decided himself that he wanted a lemonade stand after visiting one at a Farmers Market last summer. He has come up with most of the ideas, and does most of the work himself. His parents see their role as protectors of his safety, and supporters of his dream.

This kid is either going to be a millionaire by the time he's fifteen, or a politician.What makes Stanley special is that he isn't a hustler, just really really excited about what he wants to do. His excitement is so genuine that I want to see him succeed.

He isn't put off by the work involved, having that Lemonade Stand is his reward, and he is willing to do what's necessary to get there.

He has already learned the most important rules of marketing. Enjoy what you do, build up a client base, keep in touch with them, AND give them a reason to come back - the four 'A's of marketing.

Since meeting Stanley and his family, I have been reflecting on my own work. When was the last time a cold call was fun? When was the last time I introduced myself to a stranger and encouraged them to visit my business? When was the last time we had a brainstorming session?

So, let's lift our glasses to the Stanley's of the world, and to their supporters, who remind us that life is short, but there really is no reason that it can't be sweet.

Politically incorrect ads pulled

Volkswagon and GM are both falling into the PC catagory this past week. Both have pulled ads after Suicide Prevention groups have complained. One featured a man about to jump from a building but decides not to after someone on the ground tells him that 3 models of VW's are under 17K. The other one features an assembly line robot who dreams of losing his job and decides to jump off a bridge. Granted good marketing makes ads relatable, but is this taking it too far? Are we too sensitive? Or is there a right to be offended? Where does marketing draw the line between pushing the envelope and crossing the line? Taking risks is part of what makes marketing successful. When you stand out from the crowd and make a statement.

Which do you think these ads are? Did VW and GM push the envelope, or cross the line?

Give us your thoughts.

Valentine's Day

Today is Valentine's Day. We marketers are a synical bunch sometimes because our job is to find a way to make selling (insert product here) easier. In today's case, our job is to make selling romance and love profitable. If you are a florist or make chocolate or in the greeting card business, you probably love this day. However, sometimes, the simplist of things can make the greatest impact. Send a text message to your sweetie, it's cheap, personal, and let's him/her know you are thinking of them. Imedia Connection says that a recent survey showed that 59% of active daters use text messaging to communicate with their dates and that 28% use text messaging to flirt.

The question for today is are you going to have a traditional candy and flowers Valentine's Day or are you taking Valentine's Day into Cyberspace with text messaging or ecards.

We would love to hear your thoughts and will post results on our website.

The Super Bowl Does It Again!!!

Marketing at it's peak!

How many of us out there waited for these commercials? I am not a big football fan, my very favorite part about the Superbowl IS the commercials, this one below was definately one of my favorites!

This was another funny one, it is definately life imitating life! I'm just glad that KFed has a sense of humor about himself!

These are just two of my personal favorites, I'd love to hear about yours! Please let me know if you were completed surprised with the snickers commercial... you know the one... the two guys eating it at both ends and then decide to rip off their chest hair to go back to their manly roots!?

I want to hear your opinions on the worst commercials, who do you think wasted the most money?

When Marketing Backfires

Has Marketing finally gone too far? Ever heard of Aqua Tenn Hunger Force? Me neither until yesterday. Now the whole world is talking about it. So, is the old adage that no publicity bad publicity a good one? Did the marketing backfire only to create a much more potent message? Or did marketing step over the line with this one? First, I think that the placing of anything electronic and small randomly next to hospitals and office buildings, these days is akin to leaving ones backpack unattended at the airport. Someone had to have known that this would be a bad idea. It might have actually worked as a marketing gimick, if it had been part of an overall larger campaign. One where people would know what the symbols meant. Also, any marketing capmaign that actually paralyzes a city shutting down roads, and evacuating buildings is never a good thing. Although the actual marketing did nothing but anger people and get two people in jail, I am sure that the aftermath has acheived exactly what was hoped. Otherwise, you wouldn't be reading this.
Comment on your thoughts and what you think should happen now.

Lynnwood Circuit City ROCKS!

I went to Circuit City a couple of months ago to buy my laptop, let me just say that it was a wonderful experience, it's really hard spending $1200.00 on a laptop and yet, I was happy to do so! Those employees were so nice, so helpful and very fun to chat with, they weren't money hungry, they were actually happy to help me. It was a little to good, so, I went in the next week to return a wireless mouse that I had broke. The receipt I had said that I wouldn't be able to return it, however, they did! What?! Not only that, but they helped me pick out a new one and even though it was a little more money, they just exchanged it! I didn't have to pay extra, they just wanted to make me happy. Hmmm... I was still a little skeptical, 2 weeks later, my son wanted to buy a computer game to play online, he had done his research online to find the best price, it was Circuit City of course. When he got there, the game was $10.00 more then whaat the internet showed, they gave it to him for the "online" price. He bought his game, got it home, unwrapped it, and then realized it was an extended version of a game he thought he bought. Uh oh, I told him to read the back of the receipt to find out about their return policy, "open games cannot be returned", I told my son that we'd go back to see what they could do. They took the game back so that he could buy the one he meant to get. While I was there with my son, the guy that sold me my laptop remembered me and asked me how my new laptop was. The gal that sold my daughter her ipod a week before asked me how my daughter was liking her ipod! The way the employees treated my 11 year old was so incredible, instead of treating him like he was an annoying child, like so many other people do, they were very respectful and genuinely nice to him. I go into Circuit City alot these days, probably not good for my wallet, but I love to buy things there because of the customer service!

Are You Ready For Some Super Bowl Ads?

Well, it is quickly approaching that time of the year again - Super Bowl, possibly one of the few times of the year when the ads are actually (hopefully) better (or at least more hyped) than the show. I admit it, I like watching many of the Super Bowl ads - for me humor is a great motivator to buy. Granted some of the ads border on offensive, but Super Bowl ads have launched companies (Apple Macintosh, many dot coms), products (Xerox, Pepsi, McDonalds, ED medications), and sold more beer than anyone can imagine (who could forget the "Bud-Why-Zer" frogs in the swamp?).

With a 30 second ad spot going for $2.6 million this year, it is out of the question for most marketing budgets to advertise during "the big game". But, one has to wonder if the amount of exposure during the Super Bowl is worth the money spent. However, with more than 130 million people in the U.S. and perhaps a billion worldwide watching the Super Bowl it is hard to find a larger TV audience.

Do commercials make us buy the product they advertise? Nobody really knows. After the game, there is a flurry of opinions from marketing experts and focus groups of what was the most effective Super Bowl ad. The tricky part I suppose would be determining the difference between an ad that gets me to buy the product or service versus just finding the advertising gimmick amusing. For instance, I loved the streaking sheep from last years S.B., but I still won't drink Budweiser, so I guess the commercial really wasn't effective, just memorable.

Do you have a favorite Super Bowl commercial? We'd love to hear from you!!!!

Have a happy and safe Super Bowl! Go Bears!!!

2006 Best and Worst

Imedia just came out with their best and worst of 2006. They had a panel of experts who told what they thought were the best and worst of several catagories, including:

Brands
Campaigns
Agencies
Marketing Tools and Strategies
Other

The article can be accessed at www.imediaconnection.com.

I would love to hear what people thought of the list and why. We will take your responses and rank them and see how close they are to imedia. I'll throw out my best and worst for consideration as well.

How much is too much

OK, I admit it. I am an advertising and marketing junkie. I actually LOVE commercials and watch the Clio awards with great anticipation. I love analyzing why a company would pay good money to design certain ads, or look at some commercials just trying to figure out who they are targeting and how. I know, crazy huh? But that's one of the reasons I am in the field I'm in, I am just simply fascinated by it all.

However, I read an article in the NY Times yesterday that brought up an interesting point. As it is my job to find unique and intersting ways to get my clients' message out, some have taken it to the extreme. How much is too much? In the article a market research firm is quoted as saying that consumers are bombarded with 5,000 messages a day, and in a survey about half of the people felt that advertising was out of control.

So, have we gone too far? Are we turning consumers off with so many ads? Is technology helping or making it worse?

Most of us know that while in your face advertising may get attention, classy and clever advertising and marketing will always get the sale. What the article doesn't address is what to do to keep customers, once they have reached them with all this advertising. Or if advertising truly is "out of control" what do we do now?

It's an interesting article, read it at www.nytimes.com published January 15, 2007 titled Anywhere the eye can see, it's likely to see an ad. The author is Louise Story.

And just in case you are interested, the 2006 Clio winners can be found at www.clioawards.com Click on the 2006 winners in the left hand column.

Why Blog??

Blogging has gone mainstream. According to the the Pew Internet & American Life Project, there are an estimated 12 million blogs online right now (and that number grows everyday).

People are blogging, businesses are blogging, it is the big thing. And, if you have a business, you need a blog. A blog gives you the opportunity to easily share your knowledge with people across the globe or around the block. Want to build your credibility? A blog can help position you as the expert in your field. You already know a great deal about the products you sell or the services you offer so why not share them? Want more reasons to blog?

• Because you have something to say
  
• Further Customer Relationships (make your business more personal)
  
• Enhance Media Relations
• Internal Collaboration
• Knowledge Management
• Recruitment
• Test ideas or products
• Rank high in Search Engines

Does anybody really care about what I have to think or say? The answer is a resounding yes. An estimated 58 million Americans online are reading blogs (maybe not everyday, maybe not widely, but they are reading blogs!) 30% of general U.S. public surveyed in 2005 said that they have read blogs to find information, news, commentary. And the minority (only 39%) felt that a newspaper was a more reliable source of information. It is time to get blogging!!!!!

Do you have a blog? Post a link to yours! Make a comment, we'd love to hear from you!

Better Customer Service

I have been thinking a lot about Customer Service lately and just what it means. We've all had bad experiences with retail stores or online purchases that we've shared with friends. And we've all had great experiences we may or may not have passed along to others. I really believe in customer service as a tangible service companies should be offering to customers and potential customers. It effects the bottom line. And it goes beyond a greeting when you enter the store. It's how employees treat each other. How supervisors treat employees, and how employees treat supervisors. Anybody visiting Seattle has probably gone to the fish market in Pike Place market. It's on my favorites list to take people when they visit. These guys yell, and laugh and throw the fish for each other to catch. Ever tried to catch a fish that weighs 30 pounds? Everyone who works there looks like they are having the time of their life. Whether they are or not. And everyone who leaves there feels just a little better and smiles a little longer. That's customer service.

Above and Beyond...

Today I'm thinking about the single best form of marketing - word of mouth. You can't put a price tag on a happy consumer who leaves your business a satisfied customer. Along that line of thought, here is my great customer service story...

In a day and age when getting overcharged at the check out stand has become common place it is refreshing to have an experience with a company that defies that. Last week, I was accidentally overcharged for a pair of ballet shoes I'd purchased from Dancewear Center of Kirkland, WA. Not being any the wiser I left the store with my purchases happy with my buying experience. A couple of hours later, I received a phone call from the small stores owner alerting me that I had been overcharged. She immediately apologized and then sent me a refund the very next day. I am in awe with the Dancewear Center's level of customer service. The time Patrice Heston, the owner, spent researching receipts, tracking down my telephone number, and then calling me was certainly extensive. I really, really appreciate it!

Have you got a rave review for a local business? I'd love to hear it.

We always choose Dancewear Center of Kirkland, WA http://www.danceonin.com/ because of the phenomenal level of expertise, selection, and price they offer when choosing dance shoes.

Verizon: A Customer Service Nightmare!

After receiving a collections notice from Verizon for a bill of $112.84, for a set up fee for my dsl line, that I had already paid 9 months earlier, I called Verizon to discuss the notice and to clear it up right away. The customer service agent was very nice and helpful and told me that she had reversed the charge to my account and to ignore the collections notice. Boy was I happy to have someone hear me for once and take care of this small issue right away! Well, 3 weeks later I received another notice from a collections agency for a $112.84 bill. I called the 800 number on the notice to clear this up right away. Once I reached a collections agent I explained what had happened 3 weeks earlier and that the charge should have been reversed, the agent told me that Verizon had to contact them to close the collections matter. I was told to call Verizon back and to give them the information. So… I called Verizon and talked to a Customer Service Representative, I again had to repeat not only the conversation with the first Verizon rep but also the conversation with the collections agency and then asked them to call the agency to close the collections account. The agent then told me that they don’t do that, instead the collections agency has to call Verizon to get the updated information. After 2 hours on the phone already I decided to call back the next day and relay the last message that I got.

The next day, I called early in the morning, because I had to get out of the house by 11:00 for a doctors appointment. I called at 8:00am, talked to the collections customer service agent and had to, once again, explain my story. After feeling like she didn’t care what I was saying, she then replied back with, “so Dawn, tell me why you don’t think you owe this bill?” WHAT! Are you kidding me? Did she not just hear my 5 minute speech on this whole stupid mess? I finally told her that if she would just listen to me for a moment she’d understand my problem. Once again, I repeated myself, she referred me to someone else that would be able to assist me better. Yes, I had to tell my story again… but I did it, and with a smile on my face because by now this was kind of humorous. The agent told me that they don’t call Verizon for these things, Verizon can either call them or email them the information so that they could take me off of their collections list. I called Verizon back… after being on hold for 45 minutes I hung up because I had to go to my doctors appointment. Yes, I was on the phone for 2 ½ hours, but I could try this again in a couple of days, its not like it was going anywhere.

A new day, I was rested up and ready to make that last phone call, I was finally assured by Verizon that they’d contact the collections agency and take care of the account. Thank GOD!

I’ve gotta giggle now, I received another collections notice 3 weeks later. I not only had to call the collections agency again that day, but I had to call back every month for 6 months. After the 6th month, I finally called Verizon again and actually started crying with all the built up aggravation. I actually talked to someone that wanted to help me, she actually listened to my whole story and she actually felt bad. With me on the line, she called the collection agency and cancelled the collections account and apologized for all of my aggravation! After adding up all the time I was on the phone to clear up an accounting error on Verizon’s part, I spent 11 hours on the phone! I cringe every time I have to call Verizon, if my phone service is down or if I have a question on my account, because every time I hear that “hold” music, it brings back all the lonely memories of waiting on hold for hours and hours. Verizon customer service definitely needs help, out of the 20 people I actually talked to, only 2 were nice and only 1 listened to my drawn out story and actually took care of it. I think Verizon will give me nightmares for years to come. Good luck to anyone out there that needs to clear up an accounting error with Verizon, I hope you have a lot of time on your hands.

The Best and Worst.... Customer Service

This has got to be one of the funniest sites customer service, please click through and check it out. If any of the things listed strikes you as familiar, please come back and post your experience here.

Enjoy!

http://www.crmlowdown.com/2007/01/the_10_best_and.html