Yaffe Tidbits

Is the bad economy or big competition killing regional chains?

Another good company, Snyder’s Drug Stores, announced a couple of weeks ago that it is closing. I know because we sent out the press releases. Each press release listed my name, Michael Morin, as the contact for more information. We do crisis management for our clients, but this is one you hope you never have to do – going out of business. It resulted in a grueling couple of days on the phone with radio, TV and newspaper people throughout Minnesota, the US and Canada.

The whole ordeal was physically draining. But, it was more than that; it was sad… really sad. Snyder’s was a vital part of the neighborhoods where they had stores. Some of the calls I got asked me where the local seniors were going to turn to for their prescriptions. Another call talked about how Snyder’s had been delivering prescriptions to a paraplegic veteran. Now, what was he going to do?

In most of the areas, Walgreens bought the prescription lists and will take care of those who were loyal Snyder’s customers. In many markets, Walgreens is even taking over the existing store and will convert it. But, some neighborhoods will be without. And the big national chains won’t deliver the kind of personal service that took care of a local vet who couldn’t make it to the store. Many people won’t have the trusted pharmacist they’ve had for years. It’s a sad story that’s told over and over these days as regional chains fall by the wayside.

So, how did this happen? Was it a product of the recession that has hit small to mid-size companies especially hard this last year? Or was it part of the trend this past decade with larger competitors gobbling up the smaller chains all across the country? We’ve seen this happen to many Yaffe & Company clients the past 10 years. Michigan based Perry Drug Stores, a Yaffe client, was bought out by Rite Aid and then their local competition Arbor Drugs was bought up by CVS.

Snyder’s Drug Stores were founded by Max Snyder in downtown Minneapolis in 1928 and grew to become a formidable player in the drugstore category with over 80 stores in the Twin Cities, plus dozens of franchise stores in many other states. A merger 8 years ago turned out to be a bad move, resulting in bankruptcy. Then, in the past five years, three big competitors (Walgreens, CVS and Target) opened 60 new pharmacies in the Twin Cities. So, the weakened Snyder’s now had to compete against the big national players who opened stores at all the best intersections.

So, if Snyder’s had been able to stay relevant, adapt and remain financially strong, would they have been able to overcome these obstacles? It’s hard to say. If they had been strong enough to weather the economic storm that was 2009, who’s to say they might not have still been bought out by one of the big players like so many regional chains before them. The end result would have been better for the Snyder’s people, but would have been the same for the neighborhoods who believed in their local drug store chain.

Small and mid-size chains are disappearing all over the place. Is it the economy, the homogenization of America, merger mania or some combination of all? I’d be interested in hearing what you think.

Michael Morin, EVP, Client Services

Here's One Way to Find a Social Media Marketing Expert.

There are a lot of self-proclaimed experts and gurus out there,claiming to be able to help you navigate the web 2.0 world. Social media's been around for awhile, but the concept of companies using social media as part of their marketing mix is one that's just now really starting to take off. Most companies, especially small to mid-sized ones, don't know how to use it and are looking for experts. But how can you tell if the expert you're talking to truly knows what he or she is talking about. Are they able to practice what they preach? Finding out who really knows their stuff and is capable of creating measurable ROI was the idea behind Blog Off II - a contest that pitted bloggers against each other for 12 days in December. created by Andrew Ballenthin and the Community Marketing Blog.

I had the pleasure of being on the panel of judges who formed an international"Dream Team" of social media and digital marketing practitioners for the contest. We had 28 contestants from the U.S., Canada, England, Italy, India and the Netherlands who wrote over 110 blog posts. This created over 27,700 page views and generated over 1,260 comments. Those are good, hard number, and pretty amazing for a 12 day period. The entrants were judged on these numbers and then we (the judges) looked at qualitative characteristics such as writing quality, how well they engaged in conversation with their audience and other similar issues.  The top 3 winners split $45,000 in prizes, including a new logo and branding package designed by The Yaffe Group.

In order to do well, Blog Off II contestants needed to use all their social marketing skills to drive traffic to their posts. They needed to write good content about things people wanted to know more about. They had to engage them to get them to come to the blog and then engage them further in an on-going conversation once they got there. In the end, the winners were those who had already created a strong enough social network that they could tap into it and drive traffic. They were also those who had the strongest personal brand, so people were interested in what they had to say and trusted them enough to engage with them. In return, each blogger's social network was expanded by the contest and blog readership. And their personal brands were enhanced by being a part of it. That's the kind of results you want for your company's brand. It's also the qualities you want in a social media expert/guru.

Unfortunately, not everyone has been able to be a part of something like this that proves they truly understand how to use social media and leverage their own personal brand for marketing purposes. However, you can look at who excelled in this contest and watch for the upcoming Blog Off III. You can also look at the dream team and the community marketing blog team. Each of us has our own twist to offer and, since we've all built communities of our own, can likely direct you to someone who's the perfect fit for your needs, even if we're not.

The most important thing you can do when looking for someone to guide your company through the new social marketing landscape is to take the same care you would if searching for a new marketing firm, PR company, HR resource, employee trainer or any other professional service. Because, social media has parts of all those functions rolled into one and you need to make sure the person or firm you hire doesn't just talk a good game, they play it well, too.

Mike McClure, Exec Creative Director/Social Media Director

5 Ways to Improve Your Business on a Micro-budget

If you’re an entrepreneur or smaller business looking to get more business on a small to miniscule budget, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that with all the free and low cost tools available in the digital and social media world, you can be quite effective without spending a lot of money. The bad news? To make it work, you do need to invest a lot of time sprinkled with inspiration and innovation. Having a personality helps, too.

More good news: many individuals and companies are finding a lot of productive leads and connections through these channels. More bad news: it’s not a quick fix. It’s something you need to commit to and keep at. That doesn’t mean it will take you a year or two to see any results. But, it does mean you can’t just post a brilliant blog or open a Twitter account and expect the new business to start flooding through your doors.

Here’s 5 ways you can start improving your business without seriously hurting your bottom line:

1. Connect, connect, connect.

Use all the social networking tools available to you. Social networking is a great way to connect with people who may need your product or services. Just make sure you don’t start by broadcasting how great you are or trying to sell something. It’s like a cocktail party. Start with small talk; find out where you have common interests and where you can help them with their needs. It’s a good way to get to know someone you’ve never met before. Once they like and know you, they’ll be much more likely to want to do business with you.

I would suggest starting with LinkedIn if you haven’t gotten into any network. It’s the most business oriented site. Here’s a good post on how one business owner used LinkedIn to get a board of directors seat. From there, it’s a matter of preference and what type of business you’re in. You may want to start a Facebook fan page or personal page next. Or you may find the immediacy of Twitter is more to your liking. Here’s a good post by Lara Galloway on how she uses Twitter as one of her main new business tools.

2. Answer Questions on LinkedIn

One the best features on LinkedIn is the Q&A section. Why? It gives you a chance to meet people out of your network, help them with a problem they have and display your expertise. Just go to the sections where questions are being asked on subjects that fit your business offerings and your area of expertise.

Here’s just one example of how that’s worked for me. I saw a question from a guy writing a book on social media. He was looking for examples of social media success stories. I told him about a campaign we’d done for one of our clients that had worked well. He liked it, we linked together and over the next 6 months had several conversations through LinkedIn messaging. This fall he was looking for judges for a big Blog Off competition his company was having. I volunteered and became part of an international "Dream Team" panel. Besides the publicity of the contest itself, I will be listed in an upcoming book as one of the world’s top social media people, will be talked about on a Blog Talk Radio show that reaches millions and in video shows by one of Europe’s top providers of online content. Not bad for a small business owner in Detroit.

3. Use Blog Talk Radio

This is a free, easy way to create podcasts for your own enterprise. There are two ways you can use Blog Talk Radio to help your business. One is to sign up at blogtalkradio.com and host your own show. This way you can have your own radio talk show. You can invite guests who will speak on subject matters relevant to your audience or you can invite guests who represent companies you want to do business with. Or you can sometimes just speak on subjects you’re knowledgeable about and make those podcasts available to your potential clients. For an example of doing your own show, you can look at the Mom Biz Coach show.

The second, and easier, way to use Blog Talk Radio is to volunteer your expertise to someone who has a show. Our head of Yaffe Direct, Michael Morin, went on the Chuck Talks Business show and had an hour long interview. It went well and, with Chuck’s permission, we downloaded the podcast and posted it on our Yaffe Tidbits site. We then edited a 2-minute teaser of some of the best parts of the interview. We emailed the two minute version to a list of prospects along with a link to the full podcast. Within a few weeks we got several inquiries from potential clients who we never would have gotten to talk to otherwise.

4. Buy a Flip Camcorder

You can get a really nice Flip Camcorder for around $125; I’d also pop for the small tripod that’s about $20-25. The Flip is an extremely easy way to shoot, edit and post videos to your site, blog, Facebook fan page, YouTube channel or wherever you can add video to your online presence. Video is a way to really put a face on your business. You can simply set it up on the tripod, point it at yourself and record a video blog. You can also record and post client testimonials. It’s also small and portable that you can carry it with you when you go to a conference, meeting, seminar, tweetup or wherever. At these events you can ask people’s opinions on whatever issues you’d like to cover for your clients/potential clients. It takes nothing to plug the Flip into your computer and use the included edit system to string together the comments you like and post that video to one of your sites. All this adds to both your content and your credibility.

5. Blog about potential clients

If you have a blog for your business (if you don’t, start one now), you can meet potential clients simply by asking them if you can interview them for an upcoming blog post. It’s a great way to meet and get to know someone in a non-sales environment (important note: don’t try and sell yourself or company during the interview). Who doesn’t like the idea of someone wanting to interview them for their expert opinion? More often than not, you’ll be able to find someone willing to talk about their business for the free publicity for both their company and themselves.

Even if you don’t get an interview, do research on the company and write a blog post about what they’re doing right as a company. Here’s an example of a post I wrote about Biggby Coffee. After creating it, send the post to them. Even if it doesn’t peak their interest in you, they may link the post to their own site or blog. We still get traffic to our blog from companies that have linked to a post about them from many months ago.

There you have it. Five ideas that should get your business some attention without spending an arm and a leg. I’d say good luck, but it really is just a matter of good hard work.

Originally posted on the Mom Biz Coach Blog as a guest post by Mike McClure, Partner, ECD

Have You Had Your New Year's Freak Out Yet?

It's a condition people who work in business, especially business owners, are prone to: The New Year's Freak Out. You know, that moment when all the festivities are over and you realize that a lot of things have been piling up on your plate while you enjoyed your holiday. Now they need tending to, because business never really stops. It's kind of a "holy crap!" moment.

I had that moment early the morning of January 2nd. I woke up and was lying in bed thinking about all the stuff I need to accomplish over the next few weeks. I have two big presentations in two weeks, regular work staring me in the face and all the social media for the company, including editor/writer of this blog. Plus, a guest blog I'm working on and some stuff with Blog Off II, an international competition I was a judge for. Anyway, you get the picture. After the Christmas holiday, New Year's and my daughter's birthday (she's a New Year baby, now 19) were over, my business person brain clicked back on. And I had a little freak out moment as my brain started doing complex calculations of work divided by hours avialable to me. How about you, have you had your "freak out" moment yet?

I found that making out lists and spending a few hours putting together a plan of attack eased my mind, or at least lulled it into momentary silence. Spending a little time over the weekend just sorting through some of the smaller stuff and getting it off my plate helped to. 2010 is off and running. I look forward to seeing what it brings. But, I can't sit and watch to see what happens. Because, as it happens, I gotta run! How did you handle your New Year's freak out? Or are you still in vacation mode?

Mike McClure, Partner, ECD & Social Media Guy On The Run

"How Do I Monetize My Blogs & Podcasts?"

It's a question asked more and more. Businesses and individuals are putting more time into blogs, podcasts and other digital media. And they want to know how this is going to make them money. You know it's something you should be doing in this digital age, but you wonder just how are you going to monetize it.

The short answer: you don't. At least not in the traditional media/marketing model. Sure you can add Google Ad Words to your blog and when you get big enough, have sponsors and paid ads on your digital material. But that's not going to get you the value you put into your company's blog or podcasts. The real value is in increasing your company's and your personal standing as an expert - the kind of people that other companies want to do business with.

In his book, Six Pixels of Separation, Mitch Joel says, "Anyone who creates content is creating media. That is the advertising. Everyone keeps searching for the ad model in blogs and podcasts, not realizing that the content and the individual producing it are the media. People see you as an expert and want to work with that expert."

That's the point. How you monetized your digital content is through the business that results from people knowing you, your expertise and wanting to work with you as a result. There are countless examples of companies getting business through this method. We ourselves had two potential clients call us wanting to know more after listening to a recent podcast by the head of Yaffe Direct, Michael Morin.

You don't ignore ROI. To the contrary, you need to think about it - a lot. You just need to look at it differently. In her blog post "10 Crucial Roles of a Social Media Director" Liz Strauss puts "be about ROI" fourth on her list. She goes on to say, "ROI is so important. If we don’t sell things, no one has a job. For years, we’ve known the value of conferences and trade shows, yet no one knows exactly how to measure their return. I’m thinking a certain similarity applies."

The long and short of it is this: you need to be out there in the digital space building your expertise. You just need to look at the value of doing it differently. What do you think? Have a success story of your own? I'd love to hear it.

Mike McClure, Yaffe ECD & Social Media Guy

Is This The New Golden Age of Creativity?

Mad Men, the popular ad agency show on AMC, takes place during the golden age of advertising creativity. TV was a fairly new medium, but people had worked with it enough to start doing some pretty creative things using the new nuances of picture and sound. Ad men with names like Bernett, Ogilvy and Bernbach were changing the world. Those times are long gone, but are we entering a new area of unprecedented creativity? I think so.

This new age of creativity is set in motion by two major factors. Again, we have a new medium that has been around long enough for people to start figuring it out - the Internet. And that new medium has spawned all sorts of new channels, including online video, social media, mobile, search and much more. Now add to that an era where the customer is more in control of things than they've ever been. It's no longer good enough to shout your message to a massive crowd. You have to craft your message into something interesting or engaging or useful. That takes more creative thinking - from more departments than just the one labeled "creative."

To play in this new pool and to engage on a more one-to-one manner requires creativity in all facets of your business plan. Your strategic thinkers need to be creative in their strategies. The media planning and buying needs to be creative. The thinking that goes into how your product interacts with the consumer at all touch points needs to be creative. And, of course, the messaging itself needs to be creative. 

This all requires a lot more thought than before. It's not like there weren't professionals putting a lot of thought into your brand and it's marketing before. But, branding and marketing today requires a lot more innovative thinking. It's why even a smaller firm like us is going to market differently. For instance, the firm that is our Houston office, Yaffe/Deutser, actually does very little traditional advertising and marketing. They do a lot more consulting in areas where they can help companies think differently - in research, company culture analysis, how they deal with employees and their various constituencies, brand management and a whole host of other things that weren't being done by companies like us just 6 or 7 years ago.

For a creative person like myself, it's a great time. In a previous blog post, I already talked about how now is a good time to get back into radio, if you're willing to do something creative. Now, we're looking at all kinds of new possibilities. Instead of just thinking about how the TV ad will drive sales or promote a products USP, we get to think about how to engage people. Our direct marketing division, Yaffe Direct, has found that emails with a video component increase engagement, add over a minute of time spent on our message by the consumer and lift sales by 34%. So, instead of just concentrating on a sale designed to bring in a customer this weekend, we can create more interesting and engaging web videos like this:

 

RoomPlace Cinco de Mayo Web Video

So, what do you think? Are we really entering the next golden age of creativity? And is it one that crosses over many departmental lines? Who's with me?

Mike McClure, Executive Creative Director and Social Media Guy

Email Marketing – A Great Way to Get More Customers

There are many ways to communicate with customers, but email is one of the most effective and yes, even cutting edge, ways available today. Not only can you use it to get people excited about your brand and your products, but it can be used to get more people into your store.

One of the keys to attracting customers is relevancy. Your email communications should be only be sent if they give people relevant information. If you have a great sale or a special offer that is only available to them, that is relevant and likely to elicit a response.

We send out email campaigns for our clients only when they have something worthwhile to say to their customers. Which is why many emails correspond with the bigger holiday offers, because that's when we really have something of value for the customer. In fact, we usually email the segment that represents the best customers and offer them something above and beyond the public offer. So, with most of our emails, we are giving the customer a reason to come in and buy now. Most customers appreciate it when you let them know there is going to be a great deal, especially if it's on something they want.

Another key is frequency. You have to be careful not to send too many emails. No matter how relevant your message is, if you overload the customer's in-box, they will start to ignore you. So, you need to keep increasing your email list so you can have larger numbers with each email. That's why it's so important for retailers to develop methods of collecting email addresses from their customers.

Email marketing is also very cost-effective. The cost associated with emailing all of these people is low per person, but can add up. However, the revenue generated is proportionally higher, creating very good ROI (return on investment).Over the past year, for one of our retail furniture clients, we sent out just over 4-million emails to their best customers. of the people that were emailed, about 4500 came into the store and purchased. Since this past April, these email customers have spent of $4-million on new furnishings.

Combining media is also very effective. We see dramatically increased response rates when we email people who have already received a direct mail piece for our major sales events. Adding video to the emails, creating an "Advercast" has raised revenues even further, creating at least a 34% lift in sales.

Customers want to know what ways you offer them to save money on the things they want and they want to know that you care about them.

If you address them with respect, give them relevant information and great value - communicated in a format they respond to - you can lock them in as long-time customers.

Lauren Cavanagh, Account Coordinator

What language truly speaks to your Latino target market?

Guest blog by Michelle Martinez, a Detroit-based business writer and editor,

My name is Michelle Martinez, and if you’re an advertiser, you want me.

OK, not me, but my demographic: I’m a young(ish), educated Latina. Like 80 percent of every other Latino in the United States, I was born here; I make many of the buying decisions for my family, as most women do; and I’ll listen to you in either Spanish or English, as long I sense that you know me.

And that’s hardly easy.

It’s not because I’m such an international woman of mystery (although it makes me feel better about my minivan to think so), but because to speak to Latinos, you need to speak to them in the language that occupies their day-to day lives.

But tread carefully. For many of us, language is personal.

For plenty of Latinos, language and how we use it, changes with whether we’re at work or at home, whether we’re talking to our grandmother, our child or our neighborhood friends. For many of us, communicating at home has long involved a mix of English and Spanish.

About 56 percent of Latino households are Spanish dominant; but 26 percent speak English and Spanish equally and 18 percent either speak English only or are English dominant. Collectively, Latinos have about $862 billion of disposable income; more than any other U.S. ethnic group.

Advertisers have caught on to this and dutifully launched "Spanglish" ads, although with mixed results. The most well-known campaigns include those from the U.S. Army, Toyota for its Hybrid Camry, Dr. Pepper and McDonalds. I’ll confess that hearing Spanish on primetime mainstream TV makes my ears perk up, but I’ll also confess that some of the ads I referenced produced plenty of eye rolls and sighs.

Click play to see Toyota Camry Hybrid ad

I admit, I’m no stranger to the "carro," or the "washeteria," or starting a sentence in Spanish and finishing in English. But that’s at home. Hearing Spanglish in the public sphere can range from annoying when used by strangers trying to "connect" with me, to off putting when it comes from a model or actor that probably doesn’t talk that way when they’re not in front of a camera.

And that would be because like many people in the U.S., I’m more interested in authentic voices that reflect natural contexts than in heavy top-down messages produced by the best demographic information available

—could be my Gen X’er status flaring up…but that’s another conversation.

Advertisers have, for the most part, figured out that Latinos are a diverse community with different histories, cultures and yes, even languages. Some have even figured out that communities in Tejas are quite different from those in Los Angeles, or Chicago, or Miami. But here is the next hurdle; figuring out how to talk to those of us that are as conversant in Seinfeld and Gray’s Anatomy as "Manana es para Siempre."

Figure out a way to speak to the many voices that I use in my life, and I’m more apt to listen, and maybe, buy.

Using our powers of persuasion for good, not evil

Am I evil just because I'm an ad guy? I don't think so. But, much of the world does. I can't tell you how many times I've been someplace and the evils of advertising come up. I've been a youth counselor at my church and taken my youth group to a big rally where a video presentation on a giant screen talks about how advertising pressures you to be this kind of person or look like this or do that - DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THEIR EVIL MANIPULATIONS! I've been at group weight loss sessions (yes, I'm a fat ad guy) where they start talking about how evil advertising portrays the ideal body or makes us eat unhealthy food. Even some of our own (Dove's beauty campaign comes to mind) have turned on us, using advertising to decry the evils of advertising

Inevitably, when these outbursts of anti-advertising occur, the heads of those who know me swivel in my direction. I just give them a grin and move about my day. I'm sure there are evil plumbers and evil short order cooks out there too. They just don't get the publicity evil ad guys do. A few bad apples quietly spoil the bunch. A few bad apples with a camera loudly spoil an industry. Or something like that.

Truth is, most of us believe in our clients and try and put a positive spin on humanity in general. And we usually jump at the chance to use our powers of persuasion for good. It's rare that a good cause can't find some ad folks willing to promote their cause pro bono. We've done it over and over. Many of our corporate officers have been chairs of multiple charities. We've done scores of ads for charity, including this one for Forgotten Harvest.

Most recently, our Detroit office was involved in creating the theme and all the materials for the Capuchin Soup Kitchen's big annual fund raiser. SOCK (Support Our Capuchin Kitchen). The event was a big success, connecting emotionally with those in attendance and helping convince them to give a lot more than they did last year, even in this down economy in Detroit. You can read the full story here and see some samples of what we created for them.

Here's just one of the warm comments we got from SOCK committee member, Cathy Schmitt, "The Yaffe Group exceeded expectations. Never have all the parts of this event looked better. The theme was inspiring, and I felt as though the guests connected intellectually and emotionally with all of the services provided through the Capuchin Soup Kitchen. The video The Yaffe Group prepared truly captured the work of this extraordinary mission. The visible spirit of giving and receiving brought tears to my eyes."

Beats the heck outta being call an evil SOB. What have you done to use your powers for good?

Mike McClure, good guy, ad guy, ECD

Relieve stress, gain ideas in 40 minutes.

If you're like me (and most of the work force today, really) you're wearing a lot more hats at work these days. Seems everyone's taken on extra responsibilities so their companies can do more with less. In addition to my "normal" duties as a partner, writer, producer, executive creative director and department head, I've added social media director duties. This includes leading the team on developing social media plans and ideas for our clients and our own company, running this blog, our Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, podcasts, eNewsletter and a whole host of other things. This is not to say, "poor me." I'm sure you have a lot of extra things you're doing that you didn't do two or three years ago, too.

Whether you realize it or not, having more to do in your limited time builds up a layer of stress over you like plaque on teeth. You don't notice it until there's already a lot there. Today, I forced myself to go outside and take a brisk 40 minute walk at lunch. It's a beautiful, if somewhat cold, day in Detroit. And somehow the random play on my iPod knew just the right songs to play for a sunny day walk in November.

I always hate to take the time away, because I always have so much to do. Even if it's just catching up on online articles I plan to tweet during my lunch hour. But, the break was well worth it. Not only did I come back refreshed and with more energy to face the afternoon, I came back with a lot of ideas. Allowed to float along on song and sunshine, my mind pried loose all sorts of fresh nuggets from the crevasses of my brain. I came up with 6 blog ideas, a new system for tracking our social media programs and several ideas for client creative projects we're working on. And with my Blackberry's voice recorder I made sure I didn't lose any of them.

So, take some time off during the middle of your day. You may be surprised by how much you get done.

Mike McClure, man of many hats