Category Archives: marketing

Authentic Souvenirs For Sale

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Australian luge

As we all catch our breath after the highly successful Vancouver Winter Olympics, it is natural to think of ways of remembering those exciting days. One way is to buy a memento that will make a lasting souvenir in the years to come.

Authentic souvenirs can be difficult to verify particularly if you are buying at a distance. Any help you can get is very welcome. You might do worse than check out these tips to insure you’re buying authentic Olympic souvenirs.

Thousands are scrambling to get a piece of Olympic history without going to Vancouver. From mittens to pins the race is on to snatch up a piece of the winter games. More than 1,700 Olympic collectibles are currently on eBay and Craigslist.

These range from the ordinary to the obscure. One Australian Olympian sold her luge suit on eBay to raise money for the family of the athlete from Georgia killed during a luge test run.

It is important to get authentication for such souvenirs often with documentation that carries a signature. You can also use a credit card so you can dispute the charge if you do get a fake.

When buying souvenirs from another country, it is always best to buy from sources that the locals use. That means that to buy Australian souvenir gifts, you will always be more confident if you know that you are dealing direct with an Australian souvenir gift store. Authentic souvenirs are the very best way to acquire gifts that will have lasting value. Buying where discriminating Aussies make their purchases is your very best assurance.

Marketing Right Now For Winners

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marketing right now for winners cover

There is a new book available that every entrepreneur and SoHo (Small office home office) owner should read.    It is called Marketing Right Now.

You should not confuse it with the book featured on the right.  That book may never be on the shelves of your local bookstore, although there is an undoubted need for such a book.  What we are talking about here is an e-book.

The correct title does not include that last For Winners phrase, but be assured that what is included can make your business a winner.  The e-book is available as a free download. 

Although it naturally deals with how to do business on the Internet, the most interesting sections deal with the important steps you should take before you get close to creating a Web page.  If you are to succeed, then you must have a clear strategy.

Some people treat the concept of strategy in a somewhat cavalier fashion. Perhaps without realizing it, you are one of these people.  You can easily check whether you have a clear strategy by answering the following three questions:

  1. What marketing niche will my product or service target?  (What does a typical prospect of look like?)
  2. Who are the strongest competitors going after these same prospects?
  3. How will my product or service offer a superior experience to my target prospects?

Do not feel bad if any of these three questions stump you.  There are a significant number of businesses owners who would be similarly stumped.

Oprah Winfrey Recommends Marketing Right Now

As you may note, the concepts discussed here seem to be getting attention from some very important commentators.  Strategy is challenging because it defines what you will put efforts and resources into and what you will not allow yourself to be diverted by.  This single-minded focus is not easy to achieve and many people almost goof-off in doing whatever comes to mind as they try to grow their business.

This e-book puts the emphasis on this first step of strategy.  That starts with the potential customers you feel your business might serve.  You must be capable of creating a product or service that they will find superior to what the competition is offering.

You can of course sometimes make a reasonable living by having a me-too product or service.  However the Internet is a real threat to such merely adequate suppliers.  Buyers can explore what is available and they will undoubtedly go for the best they can find.

Two important operational details are also emphasized.  If you put Time as Job One, then this can give you an almost instant competitive advantage.  You must also have good communications with your prospects and clients on a continuing basis.  That implies an effective blog.  Without it your business will be hard pressed to grow as it should.

free download of marketing right now

Since the e-book is a free download, it is almost a no-brainer to check it out for yourself.  The e-book itself is a one megabyte PDF file so please be patient when you get to that step.

We welcome feedback on the e-book since this would allow a revision of the contents at some time in the future.  Please add your comments here.  They will be most welcome.

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Silent Auctions Move Online

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The Silent Auction / Pub Night combination like that being run by VTEA can be a most useful contributor to the funding of the charity. Folk get together for an enjoyable evening and at the same time the charity gets a useful influx of cash. Depending on the value of the items being auctioned, the contribution for the charity can be very significant.

Now Jon Carson, CEO of online auction platform cMarket, suggests that, as with so many other events, the Internet is changing the way things get done. He suggests that the time for Silent Auctions is over and that Online Auctions Provide Greater Convenience and Fundraising Potential.

Although he acknowledges that live auctions are alive and doing fine, he believes that silent auctions are broken. He cites a number of reasons for this but the biggest killer in his opinion is the lack of “competitive arousal,” a condition that Carson describes as “when things get silly before the auction closes.

Clearly, a live auction still has this last-minute frenzy built in, as bidders pay rapt attention and vie to get their bids in while in direct competition with one another. A silent auction, however, dilutes the frenzy; conversation, entertainment, and food compete for attention with the items up for bid. “The clipboard doesn’t exactly get up and follow you around the room,” Carson says.

The online auction changes this, allowing charities, colleges and universities to tap into their unique resources, target a wide range of bidders, and use tools that eliminate the need to lug items for bidding to and from the event venue.

The Internet removes the barriers of time and geography. This is particularly important for higher education, because alumni are dispersed. With the Internet a fund-raising auction can reach a much larger audience of alumni, including those who could not travel to a silent auction event and those who could not make it because of time constraints and/or scheduling difficulties.

Obviously, the fundraising potential of an event increases dramatically if one can target bidders in several different time zones and walks of life, rather than simply those who can attend an on-site event.

It seems quite clear that as with so many other events and processes, the online version of the auction brings many advantages over silent auctions and even over live auctions and all at a reduced cost. That’s an unbeatable combination.

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VTEA a special needs acronym

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Special needs children are associated with a large number of acronyms, both to describe their condition and to identify the different educational opportunities that are available.

One acronym you may not be familiar with is VTEA. That stands for Valley Therapeutic Equestrian Association.  It provides therapeutic horseback riding or hippotherapy to children with special needs.  Given the cost of such therapy, there is a constant search for additional funding so it is important that this charity be as visible as possible.

Those who are familiar with the work of VETA know well the extreme satisfaction that children with special needs have when involved in the VTEA program.  In publicizing these programs, how can this ‘brand’ be best presented.  Does the acronym work or is it better to spell out the full name, Valley Therapeutic Equestrian Association?

Acronyms As Brands

There are many examples of companies and organizations which have decided to downplay their full name and use an acronym in their marketing efforts.  One of the most venerable is that for IBM, or International Business Machines as it was known even some fifty years ago.  Having made the switch there has been no turning back and the acronym IBM is now the only company identification for many years. 

IBM is not the only company that has ditched a longer name in place of a catchy acronym.  Here are some others to test your acronym skills.

  • 3M
  • CVS
  • ESPN
  • CBS
  • DKNY
  • IKEA
  • fcuk
  • BMW
  • AT&T
  • GEICO
  • QVC
  • MGM

These are taken from a company acronym quiz, where you will find any answers you are not sure about.  Why would so many companies go for acronyms?

Acronyms Are Perfect Brand Hooks

Using an acronym provides much more marketing opportunity than just being a shorter way of identifying the company.  Whereas a company name using words may suggest certain associations, the acronym is often almost a set of gibberish symbols.  It brings with it no particular associations and the company can through time build up the associations that the acronym suggests to the average prospect or customer.. 

The other advantage of an acronym, is that it may well be possible to buy the associated domain.  The traditional company name may present all kinds of problems in choosing which domain would be appropriate.  In many cases the company name is so long that it would produce a very inconvenient domain name for visitors who wish to type in the URL address.

IKEA a great example of a brand hook

An IKEA Store along Alexandra Road in Queensto...
Image via Wikipedia

Perhaps the best example of this acronym approach is IKEA.

What does IKEA stand for?  It is not an acronym derived from some long forgotten complex company name.  In fact it stands for Ingvar Kamprad Elmtaryd Agunnaryd.    Ingvar Kamprad was the IKEA founder and he was brought up on a small farm called Elmtaryd close to the small village of Agunnaryd in Sweden.  As you might imagine, IKEA has the various domains associated with that name and this ensures anyone can find the website in any country very rapidly.

Over the years the company has developed a very clear image so that anyone seeing the acronym knows immediately what is on offer.

VTEA may use the brand hook principle

Valley Therapeutic Equestrian Association could well use the full name in its publicity, but the VTEA acronym is much more powerful since the associated domain, vtea.ca, does belong to the organization.  The full name may not be clear to some people since it does not highlight that the service is designed largely for children with special needs.

The advantage of the acronym is that with a little effort it can become the simplest way that people refer to this therapeutic riding service. It can also appear relatively quickly as the top ranking in a search for its name.  For that reason, you can expect to be seeing a lot more of the acronym VTEA in the months to come.

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PutPockets Give Money Back To Create A Buzz

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talktalk money

Helping hands putting money in British pockets is a somewhat novel publicity scheme devised by a UK Internet provider, TalkTalk.

Apparently it is sending 20 former pickpockets out to ‘putpocket’ money in jeans and handbags at tourist sites. Each note is attached to a small card that contains a message about TalkTalk and its services.

Anything from £5 ($8) to £20 notes is being surreptitiously deposited in unguarded pockets or open handbags in Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden and other busy spots. It is now going to be rolled out across the UK’s major cities.

London’s police have been briefed about the plan, which will see at least £100,000 given away. That signifies a very big thirst for publicity.

Whether the story is sufficiently off-beat to create a buzz is the big question mark. It might be seen to have links with that Robin Hood character who stole from the rich to give to the poor. On the other hand, it could be taken the wrong way as a sign of a guilty corporate conscience that has encouraged an act of contrition. Only time will tell how the public reacts to these well-intentioned putpockets.

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Email Marketing Requires Good Prospect Lists

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Given the always increasing amounts of spam, email marketing has many challenges.  Nevertheless when a prospect receives on her/his screen a missive they have requested from you, you have the very best chance of engaging their interest and hopefully securing their order. It therefore is worth putting in the effort to take the necessary steps to get it right.

Throughout you must ensure your actions are in conformance with the CAN-SPAM Act (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act). This sets out the requirements for those who send commercial email including penalties for spammers and companies whose products are advertised in spam.

Your program must include a good Email List Management process.  This may well start with one of the high-quality lists of opt-in addresses, which are available for rent. Most of the better ones are not cheap but they can be very targeted, and have already been cleaned of bad addresses.

One source of these is the List Company with one of the largest databases including over 14 million US businesses and 300 million US consumers.  Their data is more accurate than other commercially available marketing data and is continuously updated with NCOA software (National Change of Address), CASS Certification, and other standard accuracy processes.  They go so far as to guarantee the deliverability and contact rate of the data in writing.

They have a variety of lists such as consumer lists, business lists, telemarketing lists, mortgage mailing lists, and other specialty response lists.  All of these can be highly targeted by appropriate marketing and socio-economic factors.  It is not surprising that many top companies have come to rely on their compilations.

By continually working with and managing these lists and sending out email messages from IPs that have a good reputation in Junk Email terms, companies should see their messages getting through to prospects and a good return from their email marketing efforts.

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If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

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It suddenly struck me today how much the phrase, If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, is customer-centric. Your current customers, particularly if they are repeat buyers, are a valuable asset. Handled right, they can represent significant future potential profits.

The incident that triggered the thought was that my news feed aggregator service, Bloglines, added a new look and functionality. To each news feed item, it now adds at the right-hand end a column of possible related search terms you might wish to explore with Ask. The problem it creates is that I wish to see as many news items on the screen line-by-line as I can. This allows me to scan many more items and I rely on the Titles to determine whether they need to be perused. Now with each item taking up a space five times as high I have only one fifth of the productivity. You might assume that there would be a button that would allow me to switch off this unwanted extra service. Not so. It seems impossible to return to the classic simple look.

I tried to get some information on a way to correct the situation via Twitter. Someone with the username Bloglines did suggest I use a Firefox Addon to change the style. It was partially successful but I never managed to get back to the original simplicity. Reluctantly I have now switched to Google Reader, which with a little manipulation gives me close to what I want. I have been a long time Bloglines user and it is only with the greatest reluctance that I made the switch.

The counter view on these matters was one that Tom Peters suggested, and there is even a book about it now. If it Ain’t Broke…Break It!: And Other Unconventional Wisdom for a Changing Business World (Paperback) by Robert J. Kriegel and Louis Patler.

Being product directed is often said to be the reverse of being customer centric and this really sums it up. Microsoft is an extreme example of this ‘Break It’ approach with its constant upgrades. Overall they may make more money this way, but they leave behind them a trail of disgruntled customers. When something does exactly what the customer wants, it takes a lot to have them accept that they need the product or service to be changed. If it ain’t broke, please don’t fix it.

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Tough Times Demand Better Customer Service

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If there are fewer customers with less money to spend, it might seem obvious that your customer service needs to be top-notch to get more than your share of whatever demand there is.

That obvious lesson seems to be lost on the usual cast of characters according to the MSN Money’s third annual Customer Service Hall of Shame. It found that AOL LLC ranks as consumers’ top pick for the worst customer service — the second year in a row AOL has ranked worst.

The survey found that AOL received a “poor” rating for its customer service experience from nearly 45 percent of respondents. Philadelphia-based Comcast Corp. ranked second with 41 percent of consumers rating their customer service experience as “poor.”

Banks also scored low for customer service. Bank of America, Capital One and HSBC all made repeat appearances on the Hall of Shame list, joined by Citibank, the only new company on the 2009 list.

Here is MSN Money’s 2009 Hall of Shame:

  1. AOL
  2. Comcast
  3. Sprint
  4. Capital One
  5. Time Warner Cable
  6. HSBC
  7. Qwest
  8. Abercrombie & Fitch
  9. Bank of America
  10. Citigroup

MSN Money also puts together an annual Hall of Fame list, with companies that score the highest for customer service. Military banking, insurance and investment giant USAA ranked No. 1 for best customer service. Here is the list:

  1. USAA
  2. Trader Joe’s
  3. Netflix
  4. Amazon
  5. Nordstrom
  6. Publix
  7. Whole Foods
  8. Apple
  9. Costco
  10. Southwest Airlines

What may be surprising is not that the Hall of Shame companies continue to do poorly but that their raw scores remain low at the very time other businesses are improving customer service in response to market uncertainty.

It probably is a good indicator of the quality of management that these companies have.  They may well be consoled by the mantra, we’re no worse than our competitors.  How much better they would do, if instead they were looking for ways of improving results.  Customer service is a powerful lever in such endeavors.

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Being Asked Beats Asking

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Seth Godin, the famed marketing expert, titles a recent post, “It doesn’t hurt to ask”.

He then quickly back-pedals and announces that actually, it does hurt. It does hurt to ask the wrong way, to ask without preparation, to ask without permission. It hurts because you never get another chance to ask right.

He then offers the following sage advice: invest some time and earn the right to ask. Do your homework. Build connections. Make a reasonable request, something easy and mutually beneficial. Yes leads to yes which just maybe leads to the engagement you were actually seeking.

Of course any red-blooded sales person may feel that they must ask for the order. In some cases it is the only way. However if you have prepared the ground well, there is a better way.

In a way it is almost an outcome of the Internet. Now consumers are in the driving seat. They can search and find the possible choices and do research on the features and benefits. If your company can be visible on the Internet and stand out from the competition (that old Unique Selling Proposition), then it may well be that the prospect comes calling on your company.

In such cases, they are the ones doing the asking. That’s a very much better scenario. You avoid all those risks that Seth Godin was warning against. This situation is certainly something that is worth striving to create. It is exactly the same approach that was suggested for overcoming cold calling resistance.

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Consumers Rock On The Web

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Or Doing digital right as the Vancouver Sun headlined the item.

Big brands need not be afraid of the power that social media places in the hands of consumers, says Bonin Bough, global director of digital and social media of PepsiCo Inc.  Advertisers must realize that digital marketing cannot simply extend the creative work of a traditional media campaign.

The clout of social media is no longer in question. Positive and negative buzz from vocal online commenters can galvanize into a marketing success or a snafu very quickly,

That is why PepsiCo sponsored South by Southwest 2009 interactive and musical festival in Austin, Texas.  It was lauded as a savvy example of linking the Pepsi brand to “content” in the form of user-generated media, live music and creative events rather than using traditional advertising.

Mr.. Bough said. “If Coca-Cola is Frank Sinatra, then we are Madonna, constantly evolving,” he added, paraphrasing new media wunderkind David Armano. “The culture of PepsiCo is an evolutionary culture.” Striving to stay ahead of its rivals in the area of innovation helped Pepsi decide to launch the new Pepsi logo through social media before images were released through traditional media. “We knew we were going to get a lot of real conversation and thoughts in social media and that was what we wanted.”

Apparently PepsiCo will still have traditional agencies of record for brands, but for social and digital programs they will be looking for all the non-traditional people who can help think about these very different digital media and how best to develop communication programs.

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