Yaffe Tidbits

How To Turn Your Worst Projects Into Your Best Products

Ever get handed one of those projects that nobody cares about? Something under the radar that just needs to get done? What do you do? Grumble and just crank something out or rise to the challenge and create something spectacular? In my experience, these kinds of projects are ripe for doing great work. In fact, my most award-winning campaign ever (for both creativity and effectiveness) was one of these projects.

Sometimes the problem with high-profile projects is the layers of approval and all the chefs in the kitchen. I'm not saying you can't do spectacular work on high profile projects. You absolutely can. It's just harder. The beauty of a project that nobody cares about is that you have the opportunity to do something out of the box. People won't try and second guess creativity on a project like that - they are surprised to see it and much more likely to accept it.

That was the case with my most award-winning project. It was a postcard size insert in Advo mailers for a drug store client of ours. The strategy was sound. Boost traffic at under-performing stores by creating a loss-leader coupon (half-gallon of milk for 66-cents, two 2-liter Cokes for a dollar, etc) and inserting in in the Advo mailer in the zip codes around the store. Sounds boring right?

Even thought the strategy was sound and the coupons were incredible values, it wasn't performing. So the assignment was basically, do something to stop people from throwing this away without even looking at it. Do whatever you want; if you can work the logo and the product in, that's great. So, instead of looking at it as a crappy mail coupon insert job, my art director partner and I looked at it as a "go crazy and do something creative" opportunity.

What we ended up doing was a series of single panel cartoons with a "Far Side" type sense of humor. For the milk coupon, if it was a 24-hour store, we showed a cow sneaking out in trench coat disguise to pick up milk so she didn't have to be milked. For the Coke coupon we showed aliens raiding a man's picnic for Cokes and him hoping he had enough to appease them. We found a good illustrator and this just do something assignment became one of the most successful we'd ever done. Not only was the creative good, but the response rates were incredible. In fact we repeating the campaign later for another drug store chain we represented. (to see each postcard bigger, just click on the image)

So, next time you get an assignment nobody seems to care about, look at it as an opportunity to really wow someone. Look at is as an exciting challenge instead of dreaded drudgery. Who knows, you might do something truly out of this world!

Has this happened to you? I'd love to hear some of your hidden opportunity success stories.

Mike McClure, Exec Creative Director & social media guy

4 Reasons Your Company Should Be On Empire Avenue

Running your company is serious business. Empire Avenue is the latest time-wasting game that's the hottest social media darling. So, why would you pay an employee real money to set up your company on Empire Avenue, where it can be sold for play money? Doesn't seem like a good use of someone's time, does it? Yet, I think there are good reasons you might want to consider it.

1. First of all, if you aren't familiar with Empire Avenue, it's part game, part social connecting, part social rating and part content aggregator. You set up your account and people or companies can "buy" stock in you. Your stock price is determined by how many invest in you and what you are doing on all your different social channels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, your blog, etc). Your share price therefore becomes a Klout-like rating of your social worth, but unlike Klout, it's one you have some control over. A good primer on the subject is the "Empire Avenue: The Next Big Thing in Social Media" article on Smideo

1. Connect with Prospects and Potential Partners. Once you set up your company's account, you can buy shares of other companies and individuals you'd like to get on the radar of. Not only will they get a notice that you bought shares of them, but you can then send them "shout out" messages. Just don't be salesy in your shout outs. Like any social media, create a relationship first. Also, once someone buys your stock, your twitter stream will appear on their home page along with those of the other stocks they've bought.

2. Tell Your Brand Story. It's actually a good way to distribute real world info to your play world investors. One of the first stocks I bought was Ford. Shortly after I did, I got a message from them through my Empire account. It was a message from Ford's head of social media, Scott Monty, which started out, "Today, Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) held an actual shareholder meeting. While we have yet to hold a (e)FORD Shareholder meeting for our Empire Avenue shareholders, we thought we might share what happened at the annual meeting in Wilmington, DE today." It went on to talk about some of the positive outcomes from the meeting and even had links to the proposals shareholders had voted on and another link to their sustainability report. I thought it was a brilliant way to engage their social shareholders in their larger message.

3. Create a Promotion. Empire lets you use shout outs and advertising through it's channels to promote your brand (you). If you're a company, you could use these to create incentives to buy your stock. You could even promote trial of your product by giving coupons for free samples to everyone who buys stock. Or you could create additional word of mouth by offering a promotional item or discount for any shout outs about your brand.

4. Show That You're Social Savvy. As a product, brand or website, you can show where you rank in the social strata by the price you're able to get for your stock. It acts as a sort of Klout score for your brand. In fact, just being on Empire Avenue now as an early adopter shows that you are a forward thinking brand that's aware of social trends.

I'm sure there are other reasons your company should carve out your own piece of Empire Avenue. Not the least of which, is that its just kind of a fun thing to do. Have you tried it yet? What other things have you have seen brands doing there? What other reasons do you see for a company to join in? Or for that matter, why should they stay away? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Mike McClure - For sale at Empire stock symbol mikekmcclure, ECD at The Yaffe Group (eStock symbol TYG)

14 Fascinating Facts from Future Midwest

Besides the inspirations and new ways of looking at things, Future Midwest speakers throw out some very interesting statistics during their presentations. I thought it would be interesting to compile a few of them together. Here's some of the ones I heard at this year's conference.

 

 

1. Smartphone ownership will overtake feature phones by the third quarter this year.

2. 77% of consumers engage with brands online for incentives and ad offers.

3. 28% of consumers will provide an email address or engage with a brand online with promise of incentive.

4. Many online new businesses eliminate the middle man between consumers and the product/services they want.

5. The majority of colleges (85%) look at applicants info posted online (including social sites) before deciding to admit that student to their university.

6. 86% of iPad owners would prefer to put up with ads in order to get free content rather than paying a nominal monthly fee.

7. In Michigan, only 1.01% of the people are on twitter, compared to 47% on Facebook.

8. However, the ones who are on twitter have much larger followings/communities online than those just on Facebook.

9. Teens today send about 300 texts per month, but tend to make only three phone calls during that same time.

10. Over 700 billion minutes per month are spent on Facebook.

11. 70% of connected consumers have participated in a branded sweepstakes or contest.

12. The average consumer is exposed to over 3,000 messages per day

13. Email offers that have specific relevance to those receiving it get five times greater conversion rates than full list email blasts.

14. 47% of consumers consider their mobile devices to be essential to their lives and keep them within arms reach at most times.

There you have it, 14 fun facts I heard from the Future Midwest speakers this year. What other pieces of info did you hear that stuck with you?

Mike McClure, Playing digital trivia and #winning

Printable coupons are the way of the future. Or the right now, at least

An in-depth look at online couponing sites and how they work.

Do you remember gathering stacks of newspaper and a handy pair of scissors to begin your day of coupon clipping? Those days seem to be becoming few and far between as Internet coupons are all the rage now. “Marketers quickly caught on to the Internet as an easy, effective marketing tool and internet coupons have taken root,” says the Association of Coupon Professionals. And this is very much true.

Websites like Living Social, Groupon and Coupon.com offer great deals on not only products but also entertainment and services. Regular coupons usually only get you about half off a bar of soap, but internet-based coupons can offer so much more!

Here is a breakdown of a few top internet coupon distributors:

Ebates:

• The site offers deals from over 1,000 retailers. No points to redeem, no forms to mail and in and no fees.
• Customers can get money back for purchasing coupons. Hence, the catchy name, Ebates. To date, members have earned more than $55,000,000.
• Shoppers can receive money in a check 4 or more times a year, transferred through PayPal or Ebates can send money earned to a shopper’s charity of choice.

Coupons.com:

• The site allows for printable coupons to save money on items in categories including books & mags, health care, household, office supplies, personal care, toys and games, food and more.
• The websites asks that customers install coupon printing software that contains security features needed to provide coupons an actual store can use. By the way, it’s totally free to download.
• Includes coupons like “save $10 with $50 purchase” for well known retailers like Kmart, Ulta and Lowe’s, and even Diapers.com and Leap Frog.
• Also offers special deals based on location. By entering a zip code, deals are granted including up to 80% on restaurant gift certificates.

Living Social:

• Offers one deal per day with discounts up to 90% at local restaurants, bars, spas, theaters and more.
• A deal is sent daily once you sign up.
• Living Social offers one deal per day with discounts up to 90% at local restaurants, bars, spas, theaters and more.

Coupon Winner:

• Offers coupon codes for popular retailers including Target, Hotwire, Steve Madden and 1-800 Flowers.
• Codes can be used once you purchase items on the actual retailer’s website. (Click redeem/use coupon)
• Offers categories including most used coupons, NEW coupons, expiring coupons, free shipping coupons and exclusive coupons.

Groupon:

• Groupon gives customers the option to customize deals by providing a zip code, gender and age.
• Provides mostly services and food coupons like $35 for $75 worth of seasonal, contemporary cuisine at Spring Restaurant.
• They site is very big on mobile apps and sharing deals through social media – “Print the voucher or bring it up on your mobile device, then present it at the business to get your deal.”
• Refer friends, get $10.

According to Marketing Charts, Internet coupon use is up 83%. And for a marketer, this is heaven. Benefits of Internet coupon clipping includes saving money on both the consumer side and the marketing side, targeting to the “upscale consumer” much easier and quickly gaining a new customer base with the use of social media and posting ads on high traffic sites like Pandora. There is so much to be said about Internet coupons and they have certainly changed the way people shop.

Are you a coupon clipper or a coupon printer?  

 

 

Jessica Mosley- Avid Coupon Printer

Street Corner Advertising: Effective or Annoying?

There are many smart ways to advertise a product and business, but there's one method I come across frequently that I find to be absolutely ineffective. I'm talking about the people who stand at the corner of a busy intersection with a huge sign calling out a sale, deal or clearance. The people tasked with this job are often times dressed in embarrassingly ridiculous get-ups and dancing or waving at passing cars...which is friendly and all, but I can only image what grumbling thoughts are going through their heads.

Of all the times I drove past one of these advertising spectacles, not once have I screeched to a halt and immediately pulled into the business' parking lot. I can't even think of a time when I went back to a business at a later date that employed this type of advertising.

Perhaps I'm not the target demographic because I tend to only impulse buy when I've had a prior successful experience with the product or store being advertised. A good deal is tempting and hard to pass up, but I haven't driven past any so far that have succeeded in sucking me in. My lack of interest could also be because the corner advertising I usually see is either for Little Caesars (my heart belongs to Jet's Pizza) or a jewelry store I've never heard of (I'm particular about where I purchase jewelry).

There is a novel and interesting form of street advertising called sign spinning, but I haven't seen any examples of this on the streets of metro Detroit. AArrow Advertising bills itself as the world's largest guerilla marketing franchise and home of the world famous AArrow Sign Spinners. The company has an impressive list of case studies on its site, but many are examples of what they've done for huge corporations like McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts. When you have a huge advertising budget like these companies do, I can easily see how a company like AArrow could put together a unique and effective street advertising campaign. Reading through some of the examples, I have to admit I might be intrigued enough to pull over.

But what about the mom-and-pop store or franchise that doesn't have a boatload of bucks to spend on advertising? Simple street corner advertising is relatively inexpensive. And according to this mLive article, it's effective. Now, this article is from December 2008, but the writer shares some interesting testimonials from people who claim this type of advertising has worked for their business.

Thinking of this objectively, I can see how street corner advertising would make sense when there is a specific reason to buy something, like when a company is going out of business or it's holding a huge sale. However, I'm still not sold on it as a viable or worthy spend of advertising dollars.

What do you think? Have you bought something from street corner advertising, or do you find it annoying? Has your business benefited from increases sales thanks to this method of advertising? Curious skeptics want to be proven wrong. :)

Guest post by Nikki Stephan, a PR professional and social media strategist at Identity Marketing & Public Relations. She's very active in metro Detroit's social media community, especially with Tweetea and Social Media Club Detroit. Nikki blogs at Essential Elements and id tags and is a contributing writer at Metromix Detroit. 

Marketing Ideas I Learned At My Local 4th of July Parade

It's no secret. Parades today aren't what they used to be. They've turned into marketing venues. My small town 4th of July parade no longer has marching bands, barely has any floats, no more horses, no clowns and the massive Shriners presence left a few years ago. There are plenty of politicians, local pizza places and other businesses passing out candy, cards, coupons and other trinkets.  Plenty of church groups looking for recruits. It's not to say it isn't still fun. And it is educational. For one thing, I learned a few new marketing tricks this year.

The most interesting, was for Michigan Gubernatorial candidate, Pete Hoekstra. It seems that he has this thing called the Idea Bus and it was in our parade. It  is part billboard and part crowdsourcing vehicle (literally). All over the RV are stickers that people are invited to fill out with an idea they have for helping Michigan get more jobs and get back on it's feet and stick onto the bus. Apparently his plan is to drive it 1000 miles through the state and then take all those ideas to Lansing (Michigan's capital). He also has a blog tied into it called "100 jobs. 1000 Miles" that chronicles his trip and the ideas it generates. Crowdsoursing, engagement and the appearance of being in touch with the people - good things for someone running for office.  I don't have any feelings for him as my next governor one way or the other yet, but it's an iinteresting marketing concept, whether he actually gets any usable ideas or not.

If you want to get a clearer picture of what the Idea Bus looks like, just click on the picture above. A bigger picture will appear in a pop up so you are able to see the idea stickers more clearly.

Also, apparently a lot of the politicians had the same marketing idea this year - handing out free ice cream at the end of the parade route. There were 5 or 6 ice cream trucks at the end of the parade, each had a different candidates name on the side and each was handing out free ice cream treats. Would have been a good idea if you were the only one, but I doubt many remembered which candidate provided them with free ice cream now.

So there you have it, new marketing ideas are everywhere, just watch and see what works and what doesn't. Have you observed any new marketing ideas in your day to day life? Which of them do you think work and which don't?

Mike McClure, Marketing Observer for The Yaffe Group

10 Things Marketers Can Learn From The NCAA Tournament

The 2010 NCAA basketball tournament has barely started, but already there are some lessons marketers can learn from the tournament and the teams in it. Here's 10 tournament-related winning strategies to keep the marketing for your business on track:

1. Reputation will only get you so far. Yes, reputation is very important for your business. But, you need to deliver on your brand promise consistently. The Big East came into the tournament with the reputation as the country's toughest league, but (at least on the first day) didn't live up to the promise of bringing the toughest teams in. Top teams like Georgetown lost to mid-conference teams like Ohio. Make sure in every interaction with your customers, the public and your peers that your products and services meet or exceed the good reputation you've built.

2. Never underestimate your competition. Everyone comes into the tournament hungry. And as some teams have learned, you can't take these lower seeds lightly or they can hurt you. Same is true in business. Everyone wants their business to succeed. A small competitor who is determined and marketing savvy can cut into your business. They may not have the budget you do, but outstanding creative could get them noticed. Or an innovative media strategy, like dominating a local radio station or tapping into the local community through social media. So, make sure you monitor even the little guys. Or better yet, think like one and don't just plan on winning by sheer media weight, but develop your own out of the box thinking for your marketing.

3. Engage your consumers. The huge popularity of the tournament is due to more than school loyalty and great basketball games. Over the years, a whole industry has sprung up around office pools and filling out your brackets. It's a way to engage the casual viewer. Now every game has meaning and people will watch even if they don't know a thing about the teams. Same thing happened with fantasy football helping make the NFL so popular. So, how can you put that kind of thinking to work for your brand? What can you do to deeply engage even casual users of your product or service? Find the answer and profits will increase as engagement increases.

4. Everybody love a good story. If you want to capture imagination and hearts of the people, make sure you have a good story to tell. In the tournament, that can mean a small team making an extended run, like George Mason did a few years ago. Or it can be a story about one player being a great person trying to win the big one in his last chance as a senior. Or a team or player overcoming adversity. A good story gets people talking and paying attention. What story is your brand telling? Make sure it's a compelling one and you too will get people talking and paying attention to your brand.

5. For some just being there is enough, for others it's all or nothing. When one of these small schools get into the tourney for the first time, they're just happy to be there - even though the chances of moving beyond the first game are close to nil. For a team like number one seed Kansas, anything short of a final four berth would be disappointment. How you look at your business depends on where you're at. We have a client who tells the story of when his business first got on TV. He was on camera and they had a cheesy jingle. It wasn't good, but they were just happy to be on TV and business improved for being there. Now, 20 years later, they're the leaders in their market. Anything short of beating the competition is no longer acceptable. So, wherever you're company is at, be glad to be there and have a strategy that works for where you are at the time.

6. Stay focused. We see it all the time, a team gets up big and loses focus, letting their opponent get back in the game. Just because the marketing plan you put together a few years ago has been doing well, don't let it coast without updating it. Stay focused on what you're trying to accomplish and update your plan as needed. Don't let a competitor sneak up on you. Make sure you're doing everything you can to keep your company moving towards it's goals.

7. Everyone needs to pull towards the same goal. Some teams play over their talent level to win games simply because everyone on the team has bought into the same plan and are all working perfectly together to achieve their goal. The best marketing plans can fall apart if you don't get everyone in your organization on board, marching in the same direction. First, you have to make sure everyone understands what it is you're trying to do. Then, you need to inspire them that it will be for everyone's good if the goals are achieved. No matter how good your marketing is, if the people on the front lines of interaction with your customers don't understand and buy into your plan, it's more likely to fail.

8. It makes a difference what region you're in. In the tournament, it can greatly affect how you play whether you're playing near the home crowd or are shipped to the other side of the country. Also, some regions provide easier paths than others. In business, it makes a different what region you're in, too. The competition is going to be different from area to area. Also, how you go to market will vary regionally. We've worked with furniture retailers all across the country. You need to be aware of the subtle market differences in how you advertise in Detroit or Chicago and how you go to market in Virginia or Houston. Knowing those differences and playing to them has created success for each regional client.

9. What you've done in the past does matter. How you're preformed over the course of the year and past tournament experience makes a difference in what seeding you get as a basketball team. Your past marketing efforts make a difference in how your current efforts will be received, too. If you've always been a company that does quirky marketing with a personality and you suddenly start an aggressive campaign to move products, it's probably going to lose you some customers if you don't take into account what you've done before. The reverse is true too. If you've been an aggressive marketer and want to put a kinder, gentler face on your brand, it will take more work to convince people that the new face reflects who you are.

10. Give it all you've got, because you could be out of the picture tomorrow. The NCAA tournament is a one and done proposition. If you don't put everything you can into your effort, you could lose and be gone. In today's economic climate, the same could be true for your company. Put your heart and soul into your marketing efforts. Make sure you have the smartest advisers you can and that you spend what is needed on your marketing without overspending. If not, you may lose relevancy or share of mind or simply go off in the wrong direction. Today that could lead to something worse than loss of share. Make sure you keep your eye on the ball. Good advice for both basketball and business.

.

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

Marketing Musings on a Thanksgiving Morning

Sitting at home watching the Thanksgiving parades on TV, I'm struck by how much marketing has changed in recent history. Sure, that's something I've known for some time, but watching the parade has crystallized how different things are, all in one little microcosm. I've worked with large retailers here in Detroit before, planning their Thanksgiving marketing. It mostly consisted of running their image and customer service type ads during the family ordinated parade and then hitting the rest of the day hard to with their ad to drive sales on Black Friday. It's much more complex today. Here's some of the trends I've seen:

Product Placement. The first thing that struck me this morning was the more integrated use of product placement. Corporate sponsorship has always been part of the parade experience. But today, I think Hoover took it to another level. They had a dance team featured in the parade. One of the professional dancers from Dancing With The Stars lead local dancers in a routine where they each were dancing with the newest high tech Hoover vacuum cleaner, much like the Fred Astaire spots they did a few years ago. The parade announcers spoke about the dancers and Hoover for at least 3 minutes. They talked about the features of the vacuum and how everyone wanted one. One announcer talked about how he had just gotten one at home and it was amazing. That's a lot of good value for Hoover - and no one was flipping away during a commercial break, because it wasn't one.

Multi-Media Rules. It's no longer sufficient to just run TV spots. You need to operate in multiple mediums at the same time. Honeybaked Hams had a good example of that working today. They had a promotion with the local TV station that was running during the parade. It involves TV, web, customer generated content, a contest, engaging their customers - all the things you need to do these days. They ran an ad that said, "When families get together for holiday hams, fun things happen." and then invited people to take fun or funny pictures of their families at the holidays and post them on their site.

Mobile Tie-Ins. Detroit's most upscale mall, The Somerset Collection, had an on-going text contest along with running their regular TV spots during the parade. it was also tied into the local TV coverage. The announcers encouraged people to text in to win gift cards to the mall. Then, throughout the parade they would put up people's names and the Somerset name as they gave away each gift card. Again, it got their name out there in a positive way over and over again, without being in a commercial break.

What did you see this Thanksgiving that illustrated the way marketing is changing? I'd be interested to know.

Mike McClure, waiting for turkey.

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