Let’s Keep The Customers We Have

In today’s Wall Street Journal there is an article about marketers going after loyal/repeat customers.  What a cool coincidence that I wrote about newspaper reader loyalty yesterday and how they should work to keep their current loyal readers.  This is all part of a continued theme that as marketers of brands we need to spend our time and efforts on keeping our customers.  It takes more money, time, and effort to find new customers.  If a company wants to look at cutting costs in marketing then this could be a place.  I am not recommending slowing down on your marketing efforts; I am re-directing your efforts to keep the customers you have.

The article talks about using non-traditional marketing to reach your current customers.  Companies have been collecting data on customers for years but they have not used this data properly.  The technology just wasn’t there to merge all the data together.  But we have it now.  Companies are using this data with very targeted email blast campaigns.  For example, if a customer buys a product on the company website, the company not only captured the email address but what product they purchased.  Now instead of sending out an email blast that goes to everyone, they can send a very pin-pointed message to customers based on previous buying habits.  This is hitting the “bulls-eye” that I am always writing about. 

The article also mentions that eMarketer is predicting that consumers will spend $30.3 billion in November and December on ecommerce.  This represents a growth rate of 4% over last year.  This prediction is changed from the earlier number of a 10.1% increase.  The good news is that with the economy in the toilet there will be growth in online spending.  I bet and so should marketers that a big chunk of those customers will be repeat loyal customers.

I hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Attention Newspapers: Do You Want Loyal Customers?

I know one reason why newspaper circulation is down, the customer experience.  I wrote a few weeks back that newspapers have created some of their own problems.  I experienced one of them yesterday.

I was looking over my monthly credit card bill and saw the charge for my monthly subscription for The Boston Globe was about the same price as the newsstand price.  I called the customer service number.  The woman acknowledged that I was paying just under the full rack rate for being a good loyal customer.  Before I could get another word out, she informed me that they had a better rate for me.  My question was “why wouldn’t I already have it”? No answer from her.  I then asked her how would one know about this better rate?  Her answer was that “some” customers received a letter but I was not one of them. Gee, that makes me feel better. Why wouldn’t you give ALL your loyal full subscription customers the “best” rate possible?  Are you not losing more of them everyday?  Don’t your advertisers want to market to people who read the newspaper on a daily basis? Is this not part of reach and frequency?  Oh, by the way they offered nothing for over charging me for the past several months.

One major issue with newspapers today is the circulation departments in general.  I grew up around a newspaper office.  My dad worked for a newspaper for 18 years.  In those days the circulation department was a major in-house department.  They were part of the newspaper family.  They took pride in keeping their customers happy.  Today, newspapers tend to outsource the department.  The person I spoke to didn’t work here in Boston.  She had no clue about her customers.  She reads from a script.  If a customer complains, give them a better rate.  If they are a loyal, seven day a week subscriber, treat them like an account number. 

I will say it again & again, newspapers are creating their own destiny.  They either adapt to the 21st century reader and advertiser or end up in a museum.

 

Charity Makes Good Marketing

If you are a show, event, or sports team are you always sold out?  Do you have empty seats looking for a butt?  Why not use them to work for you and help a charity at the same time.

I went to a charity fundraiser over the weekend to support my kids youth hockey program.  At this event they had a silent auction, live auction and raffle items available.  What I was most impressed with was the amount of items.  There was tons of stuff to bid on.  There needed to be.  This is how the youth hockey group raises money.  The fundraising committee worked overtime to search out and obtain these items.  My thought as I walked around looking at the items was this is a great marketing opportunity.

In this age of cutting marketing budgets and trying to hit as close to the bulls-eye as possible, exposing your product at a fundraising event is good.  Picking what events you give to is most important.  This was a youth hockey fundraiser so what type of marketing demo attends?  They were parents of kids in hockey.  Chances are, they like hockey, sports, and anything related to their kids.  So in turn the most popular items were these things.  Tickets to the local pro sports teams, in particular the Boston Bruins and New England Patriots were big items.  Summer hockey camps for kids were huge items.  What I did notice was that the tickets for the pro teams did not come from the teams but from season ticket holders.  If I was with a team, I would set aside tickets for these events.  This is your low hanging fruit.  These are your past, current, and future fans.  If you are a hockey team, you don’t get any closer to the bulls-eye.  Think how you could market the brand to your core demo at this event while giving away the tickets.

At the company I work for, we get written charity ticket requests everyday.  I try to give to almost all of them if possible.  Because I get so many, I set the rules on who and how many.  At the very least, it exposes the brand and fills the empty seat to someone who wants to enjoy my product.

You don’t have to wait for a charity to come to you.  There are now new opportunities to market your product while doing good.  I mentioned during the summer of one online organization cmarket/BiddingForGood; http://www.cmarket.com/auction/BiddingForGood.action.  EBay also has a charity site. They both host online charity auctions.  On these online charity sites, you reach thousands of potential customers for nothing more then giving away a little product.

 

Make The Holidays Work For You

With the holiday season coming up next week, I thought this might be a good time to discuss how to market in the holiday season. 

I mentioned last week that I don’t see as many holiday show ads in the newspaper.  While I agree that print should not be your number one media expenditure I do think it has a place this time of year.  Consumers are looking now for holiday gift ideas.  If you are going to run print or any form of media this time of the year why not put a tag line in that says “makes a great holiday gift” or something like that.  Now you might be saying “duh, this is a no brainer tell us something we don’t know”.  Yet, as I scan through the morning newspapers I see ads for all kinds of shows and most don’t say that.  For example there is an ad for Stars On Ice in today’s Boston Globe.  The show is coming to the TD Banknorth Garden April 5th.  The show went on sale today.  If you are running an ad today (November 21st) for an April show, would it be so wrong to have a tag in the ad say “Start your holiday shopping here”?  I bet there are lots of skating fans that would like to have tickets for the show sitting in the stocking Christmas morning.  With all the choices out there for holiday spending, you need to remind people tickets make great gifts. 

In the same newspaper section was a full page tab ad for The Hanover Theatre.  I am giving them a shout out because I have been impressed with their marketing campaign over the past few months.  They are a Worcester, MA theater that has decided to market like a big Boston venue.  In today’s ad they have several upcoming shows listed from now through June.  They did use the holiday period to their advantage.  The tag line in their ad reads: “Give the gift of entertainment.  Start your holiday shopping at The Hanover Theatre”.  Perfect! They are even promoting a “holiday open house” the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday).  At the open house they are going to sell gift certificates and  have a one-day 10% off sale on all shows.  They are making an event out of it. Santa is even making an appearance. They are using the holiday to work for them.

If you have a live event during the holiday time period, don’t fight it.  Make it work to your advantage.  Several years ago I had the privilege of promoting Disney On Ice in Toronto.  The show opened at SkyDome the day after Christmas.  In Canada, they celebrate Boxing Day (day after Christmas).  This has turned into the biggest shopping day of the year for Canadians.  The first time we put the show on sale in Toronto, we didn’t know what to expect from Boxing Day.  Would they buy for that day?  Not only did they buy, but we sold out two performances for that day.  Besides, shopping this is the big day to get out of the house and do things.  We did a big campaign around buying tickets for the holidays and it paid off. We became a holiday tradition that first year.  You can make your events a holiday tradition if you market to the holiday and not against it. One word of advice, don’t try to run a performance on Thanksgiving or Christmas.  I was involved once and it failed in a big way!

If I was sports team, I would use this time of the year to push ticket packages.  Besides season ticket packages, teams have all kinds of packages to fit different budgets.  This would be a great time to work those deals.  If you are a team that is currently in season, the holidays should be part of the current campaign.  If you are in your off season, this is a great way to keep your ticket sales office busy.  Even in this bad economy, this is the time of the year that people will spend discretionary dollars on gifts.  Do you want them to spend it on sweaters or on your products?

Have a great weekend!

 

Sometimes We Have To Create The Excitement

As my regular readers know, I love hype.  I think it’s the best form of marketing in this “got to have it” world we live in.  The movie studios are very good at this.  Yes, they sometimes need the right story to start the hype wheel turning.  But a head start with a good product is a good thing.

Look at the movie Twilight that is releasing this week.  This is a based on the popular tween book.  The studio took the prior excitement the book produced and built it up.  The hype for this movie is even in the middle schools.  I sat in my daughter’s language and literacy (English class for us old folks) class the other day.  The teacher had a count down written on the chalk board for the release of the movie.  Now the movie studio did not ask the teacher to do this, but they could have planted the seed.  What if they sent out “teacher kits” to teachers and librarians prior to the release on how they could include it in the curriculum?  I bet it would work.  Look at the hype of the Harry Potter movies.  These types of movies sell tickets.  This is what it is all about.  With the economy in the toilet, we should look at some of these examples and ideas and think about building excitement.

Yesterday, I wrote about doing promotions.  You can create excitement by creating the right promotions.  Thinking about today’s post reminded me of concerts I promoted several years ago.  The concert industry has a (bad) tradition of just putting a show on sale and seeing how it breaks.  Or their idea of a pre-sale promotion is a “win before they go on sale” radio promotion.  Does this really create excitement?  Maybe it did in the 60′s & 70′s when the fan could never see the artist except when they came to town.  With today’s technology you can see the artist on TV, videos, internet, etc… you get my point.  The mystery of the artist is gone.  Unless you are lucky enough to have an act that sells out right out of the box, you need to have a promotional plan that will create excitement. 

My background is in the live event family show business.  My old company Ringling Bros. (Feld Entertainment) has been the leader in promotions and hype for 150 years.  I was promoting a concert several years ago with a top ticket selling artist.  As usual we put the show on sale and sat back to watch.  For some reason (still not sure why) the show did not sellout right away.  The ex-circus promoter in me said lets create some excitement.  Between the demo radio station and myself, we came up with a promo/stunt that would create hype.  We ran the idea by the bands manager and his quote was “were not an f***in circus”.  I agree, the band is not a circus, but why is doing a promotion that creates hype and excitement acting like a circus? We are in the business of selling tickets right?

Today we have so many better ways of creating excitement.  Besides the traditional media, we have the internet (social networks, email, IM, blogs, etc…), mobile (text messages, vcasts, downloadable music, apps, etc…), and cable (target demo channels, onscreen messages, VOD).  All you have to do is use them.  The question is: are you going to sit and wait for excitement to come or are you going to create excitement?

 

Good Promotions In A Bad Economy

If there was ever a time that you should have your promotional thinking caps on, it is now.  I read the daily papers, watch TV, and check the internet sites everyday. I can see that promotions are on the up-tick.

No matter what your brand or product is you need to look at your promotional plans for the next year and beef them up.  As I have mentioned several times over the past few months, you need to get creative.  We all still have to do business.  If you do the right promotion you will be able to show results in a very short time.  Showing results is important in this “ready to cut” atmosphere we live in. 

I am not talking about just doing a promotion to do a promotion.  Look at the company goals.  Look at your marketing goals.  Come up with a promotion that makes sense.  I read today that Cheesecake Factory and California Pizza Kitchen are bracing for a downturn this 4th quarter.  You see, most of their restaurants are close to or at large shopping malls.  They believe that shopping will be down this holiday season in turn hurting their customer counts. 

Cheesecake Factory gave out coupons to their customers this past October offering either a free piece of cheesecake or $10 off the meal if the customer used it in November or December.  This is a good promotion.  It offers a bounce back with a decent discount that a customer could use. 

CPK is trying to get into the holiday spirit by pushing its gift cards.  For every $100 worth of gift cards you buy, they will give you a $20 gift card.  The problem with this promotion is creating the buzz.  They need to get customers thinking “let’s give CPK gift cards this holiday season”.  They really need to create a fun and exciting campaign around this to make it work.  Here is the other issue.  What is this promotion doing to drive customers to eat in the restaurants during the holiday season?  They said they expect a drop off during the holidays, what are they doing about that?  Remember, most retailers don’t count gift cards until they are used.

Papa John’s Pizza wins my best promotion of the day.  Facebook fans can get free pizza the night before Thanksgiving which is one of the top pizza delivery nights.  If a Facebook user joins Papa John’s Fan Group and orders a pizza with their online ordering service, they get a second pizza free.  This sounds very complicated but it isn’t.  It takes 2 seconds to join any group on Facebook.  The users of these social websites are not afraid to order off the net.  Papa John’s registered 140,000 new members to their group in two days.  Now that’s what I call “spreading the word”.

 

The Power Of Social Media

What happened to Johnson & Johnson’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare division over the weekend is a perfect example of the power that social networks have. 

J&J’s Motrin brand was running a spot showing how mothers have back pain because they carry babies in slings.  See it for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mztymu72l7c.  Are you kidding me?  Who is their agency?  I know that advertising today is all about creating buzz (which this spot has done) but didn’t someone say “don’t f*** with mom’s and babies”?

Anyway, the point of this post is to show the power of the new online “media”.  As soon as the spot started airing, the protests started in a big way.  But unlike the old way of holding up signs and marching outside J&J’s corporate office, it was protesting on the web.  Blogs started complaining.  Social network members in Facebook and Twitter started spreading the “boycott” word.  YouTube was spreading the video (see above) to get viewers fired up.  It was a very quick “spreading the word” response.  So quick that J&J pulled the spot right away and tried to apologize using typical corporate wording.  As a marketer, imagine what you can do with this new online power if you harness it correctly. 

Social Networks Are Media

In yesterday’s online version of Ad Age there was an article about a speech that Ted McConnell (General Manager of Interactive Marketing at P&G) gave to an ad club group.  In his speech he questions the use of marketing products on the social websites.  He wanted to know who called social networks media?  He claims that media has inventory, it has blank spots.  He said these are sites for people to talk to each other.  Who am I to argue with a top marketing guy at P&G, but I disagree.   Webster’s defines “media” as “a channel or system of communication, information, or entertainment”.  Don’t social networks and other online channels do this?  This is a great opportunity for us marketer’s to not only reach are target market but “really” reach our target.  He gave an example where one of his colleagues did a FaceBook search for someone who was a mid-20′s, female, worked at P&G, lived in Cincinnati, who liked sex and Coco-Puffs.  He was able to find such a person.  Now that is pin-point marketing.  McConnell has a problem with this.  He feels it is invading.  Why is it ok to see P&G commercials in a movie theater?  I paid for the movie. I go to the movies to escape.  As the line in the movie Spiderman says; “With great power comes great responsibility”.  I know this is hard to do for some marketers but we need to try.  Being able to market to the bulls-eye of the target is what we all strive to do. 

 

Marketing Thoughts From The Weekend

Times Are Tough For Print

I looked through my Sunday newspaper in the entertainment section this past weekend.  This is usually the time of the year when all the shows and events are running ads to gear up for the holiday season.  I noticed right away how few ads there were.  I only found two of the traditional holiday events.  A smaller ad for the Nutcracker Ballet and a small ad for the Regal Player’s Christmas show.  Where was the Holiday Pops?  Where was the Grinch live show?  This is not a good sign for print. 

I did see a nice color 1/2 page ad for the Triceratops exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science.  It made me want to go see it.  Nice job!

A Good Billboard is Hard to Find

But, I did find a decent one that holds up to what a billboard is supposed to do.  I was driving along the highway this weekend and saw a billboard for the Boston Bruins.  The board had the yellow & black colors of the team (also good for billboards).  It had a picture of its most popular (current) player Chara.  It had the tag line: “We want it as much as you”, referencing the Stanley Cup.  This is a good billboard.  This works because it gives you just enough info to make you think and remember the brand.  Remember, the average view of a billboard is about three seconds.   Too many words and it will just be a blur.

Goodbye Yellow Book Road (sorry, could not help myself)

I read about how the end may be coming very soon for the yellow pages.  Before the internet, we used the phone book and yellow pages almost everyday.  Do you know when the last time you used it was?  About four months ago I got a call from a yellow pages sales rep trying to sell me a listing. I felt bad for this guy.  In the grand world of ad sales, this cannot not be very close to the top in overall ad revenue.  The yellow pages people started moving to the internet.  This was the right idea but it never really caught on.  Two reasons for this: 1) Google is as easy as typing in the search word. 2) Have you ever used the yellow or white web pages?  Way to hard to search (again see first reason).  Without the easy use of the internet, their extinction is near.

 

My Fan Experience

I went to the New England Patriots game last night.  As usual I look at venues and events differently then the average fan.  All of us in the business do.  We know what happens behind the scenes.  We know what goes into putting on an event for 80,000 people.  I have written on several occasions about how the experience may be one of the most important factors in marketing.  So, let’s talk about my experience at the game.

The guys I went with have season tickets.  They go to every game and have a system in place that serves them well.  We were going to leave for the game really early and tailgate, but the weather was threatening and none of us were in the mood to stay cold & wet the whole night (not a good experience).  So we out for a bite to eat before the game.  I asked if we were going to be able to park since we were getting to the game so close to kick off.  They use one of the many private lots that every business along Route 1 sets up.  They explained that if you are a regular customer you can pre-purchase parking for the entire season.  This gives you the same reserved spot every game.  For a private, off-site lot that is pretty cool.  The reason they park in this lot is ease of the in and out.  If you park in one of the stadium lots it can be a pain in the ass to get out.  We saw two accidents leaving the stadium.  Also, the stadium lots are a lot stricter on tailgating.

The Kraft family, owners of the Patriots have really done it right.  Not just by putting a first class team on the field but with the stadium and property around it.  As we entered the stadium grounds we walked past the new Patriots Place.  This is a shopping and entertainment complex with big brand name stores, restaurants, and a live entertainment venue. 

As we entered the stadium we were hit right away with concessions.  They have plenty.  You really don’t have to stand in line long or at all to get a beer.  If you are blind and cannot see the beer stands, no worry the beer will come to you.  We stopped to buy some before we went to our seats.  Three beers was $22.50. If you are going to charge $7.50 for a bottle of Bud, can I at least get a bottle with a ”born on” date from October or November?  All of ours were from July. I thought Bud was supposed to be fresh?  With amount of money being spent at this complex I say recession, what recession?  They have no problem selling tickets either.  They announced at the game that it was the 157th consecutive sell-out. 

The stadium experience is very good for the fan.  Loud, pumping music that keeps the crowd hyper.  They use lots of pyro and of course they have the musket firing militia in the end zones.

They take good care of their sponsor/partners.  They provide them with opportunities to interact with the fans.  They have booths set up through the concourse, they do promotions in the seats and on the jumbo-tron.  They even did a mobile marketing promotion with the fans in the seats.  My only complaint is they only mentioned it once and I didn’t get all the info to try it.  I wonder what they do with all the mobile data they collect?

The Pats lost the game in overtime which we were not happy about but we had a great time.  The overall experience was good.  This is what it is all about.  As marketers, we cannot control the result of the sports team but if the experience is a good one, the fan will come back.

Have a great weekend everyone!

 

Someone Is Listening

I woke up this morning to the TV news telling me that two of the Boston sports teams are adjusting to the economy.

The front page of The Boston Globe reads “Sox step in, freeze ticket prices”.  The Red Sox held a press briefing yesterday just to announce this for the 2009 season.  This is the first price freeze in 14 years.  The initial reaction from the fans is “great” but can they afford the 2008 prices?  The Sox have one of the highest ticket prices in Major League Baseball.  I don’t think management has a lot to worry about unless we go into a depression.  Sox fans are among the most loyal out there.  They sell out every game win or lose.  The Sox management did send out the right signal.  They do care about the fans.  Actually, the current ownership of the Boston Red Sox has proved several times they care about the fans.

While the Patriots at this point cannot really change anything for rest of the regular season (every game is a sell-out), the NFL did announce they would be lowering the price of playoff tickets by as much as 10%. 

My understanding is that the other two Boston sports teams the Bruins and Celtics have not addressed the economy yet.  The Celtics will most likely be fine.  They have a huge season ticket base and they are coming off the NBA Championship.  The Bruins should really consider doing something.  At the moment they are in first place and selling well but hockey season is a long one.  Last year they were close to the bottom in league attendance and this is in a hockey town.

The NBA New Jersey Nets is doing a very cool promotion around the economy.  If you are unemployed you can get free tickets to some games, resume placement with team sponsors, and a career fair. Check it out for yourself:

 http://www.nba.com/nets/news/Offer_Unemployed_Fans_Free_Tickets.html.