This is very funny if you use Twitter!
Hitler is very P.O.’ed because he wants to tweet about his dog dying, but can’t because Twitter is always down.
Best quote in twitter spoof: "I have 2,000 followers who need to know every minute detail of my life! How else am I supposed to convey my sadness to so many people simultaneously? "
What was your favorite quote from this spoof! Anyone know any other great twitter spoofs?
I was out yesterday purchasing new glasses for myself and my wife and I noticed that the shopping centers where very quite. I asked the owner of the Optician Store,Have you been busy today? " and she replied, "No. It’s very quite ever since the Olympics. "
Has your business been quite since 2008-08-08?
What can you do to keep people coming into your business during the Olympics…?
I have created a list of 9 Promotions that could potentially help you ride off the BUZZ of the 2008 Olympics to help drive traffic to your businesses.
It’s not too late!
Jump on the bang wagon and get involved in the spirit of the Olympics!
Tell us what promotions you are using and what promotions you have seen out there that have been great marketing ideas…?
Everybody seems to be excited (if not a little worn out) by the ongoing drama of the U.S. presidential election these days, especially the historic campaign of Barack Obama. What can the political maneuvers of politicians teach the small business owner trying to find effective marketing strategies?
Well, to state the obvious, political campaigns, especially in America, are mammoth marketing exercises in and of themselves. But what interests me, especially about Obama, is how skillfully he can manipulate negative perceptions about himself and turn them into positives.
Take one example. In Obama’s memoirs, he candidly admits to being a bit of a wayward youth, even experimenting with drugs. One of the chief (and rather depressing) tactics of political strategists is to dredge up all sorts of negative information about an opponent’s past and use it against him. Both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had to deal with allegations of drug use in their younger days, and both took a bit of a hit for it, at least in the press. By admitting and explaining this potentially toxic dirt from his past, Obama neutralized it and removed its power over him. He also appeared, by being honest about something negative, to be willing to tell the truth. For voters, that’s a rare commodity!
Your customers can be just as cynical as voters. If your website is full of nothing but glowing commentary, visitors might be suspicious of your integrity. Why not come clean and admit a flaw-and then "spin" it into something positive. Your prices are higher than a competitor? Make that an actual selling point by explaining that the price is higher because the quality of the product is higher. The lesson is: don’t shy away from real or perceived flaws-make them work for you!
I’m a big fan of celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey . The foul-mouthed British firebrand is a household name in North America because of his nerve-wracking TV show Hell’s Kitchen , in which young chefs compete for a job running one of his restaurants. But it’s his other show, the more low-key Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares , which has got me thinking about the kinds of lessons he can teach the small business owner.
On Kitchen Nightmares, Chef Ramsey visits failing restaurants in desperate need of re-direction and even re-invention. He analyses the menu, watches the front-of-house and kitchen staff in action, critiques the décor and learns about the local people (potential customers) and the other restaurants (competition) in the area. Almost always, the restaurant owners whose business he is trying to save are totally resistant to the changes he suggests—until they see how well the changes work.
Typically, there is a disconnect between what the owner wants his or her restaurant to be and what the marketplace wants. Over and over, we see the sad story of someone who opened their “dream restaurant,” crafting it to suit their interests and tastes, but meeting indifference from the fickle public. They’ve invested huge sums of money and energy in what ultimately turns out to be a vanity project.
As a gifted chef, Ramsey is an artist—but he is also a businessman who realizes that even creative enterprises have to be responsive to their market. Restaurants, like plays, need an “audience.” And unlike a play, a restaurant doesn’t have the option of being “ahead of its time” and being appreciated 100 years from now by a more receptive public. If your food is so “ahead of its time” that people won’t eat it, it’s going into the garbage!
The most striking aspect of Kitchen Nightmares usually occurs near the end. Stubborn owners change their tune when they sees scores of happy customers coming and going for the first time in years. It is humbling for them to realize their idea, their original “dream,” wasn’t really a good one. But success, and the experience of creating customer satisfaction, seems to more than compensate!
The point is this. You must test your idea by learning what your customers want. You must learn very carefully what your target market, whether it is the neighbourhood you set up shop in or the industry you wish to compete in, is looking for—especially if no one else is providing it.
And above all else, don’t be afraid to ask for help! There’s no shame in deferring to a second opinion, especially from an expert with a proven track record. Chef Ramsey has run several massively successful restaurants over the decades. The only thing more shocking than his swearing is how so many of his clients on Kitchen Nightmares let their pride and ego get in the way of accepting his smart, clear-eyed advice.
Take a moment and be honest with yourself and ask yourself: “What am I being stubborn about in my business…that is only serving my ego and not focused on serving what my customers want and need…? ” It’s tough to be honest with yourself, but essential in today’s competitive marketplace. If you are having a difficult time, go out there and find the “Gordon Ramsey ” of your industry and pay them to kick you in your butt!
So you’re ready to jump in and finally set up a blog for your business. How to choose among the range of popular blogging systems? Many will opt for Blogger, TypePad or Blog Harbor, but I would heartily recommend WordPress. Here’s why.
With WordPress, you simply download the free software to create your blog, buy your own domain name and rent your own server space. The installation and set-up process is quite simple. But more importantly, it provides you ownership over your blog. Instead of running your blog through a system like Blogger, where you are subject to their terms and conditions, you have control over your own work. The last thing you want is to have your hard work eliminated from Blogger’s servers because they mistakenly thought your blog was a “spam blog,” created just to generate traffic for other sites rather than to contribute meaningful content.
WordPress also uses Open Source software, which allows participants with programming knowledge to look at the software code and make additions and improvements. This creates a system which constantly adds new enhancements, giving you more options for how you want to set up and style your blog.
It may cost more upfront than the other platforms, but the peace of mind you get with ownership, and the quality and ease of use, makes choosing WordPress worth it.
Have you ever been to a Ribfest ? These traveling barbecue shows have their origins in the American south, but you can find them all over Ontario during the summer weekends. Barbecue teams set up huge rigs equipped with giant smokers that can cook 200 racks of ribs at a time. Once the ribs are finished smoking, they are ready to eat, but before they reach the customer they hit the grill to have the succulent sauce, sweet and tangy or hot and spicy, cooked into them.
Now, before you get too hungry and break for lunch, I do have a point! A friend of mine worked for a rib crew a few summers ago. While the different rib teams travel together and have a friendly camaraderie, at the end of the day they are competing against each other. If customers come to the park and see 10 different rigs lined up, all with colorful banners and trophies on display, how do they choose which ribs to try?
My friend found the makeshift marketing techniques they used intriguing. Some would send people out into the crowd with free samples of pulled pork and sauce. Most would hire pretty girls to run the cash counter or the grill (it sounds sexist, but it worked). The most fascinating technique? They would control the line-ups.
If the line started to thin out, griller’s and servers would actually slow down to make sure they didn’t lose it. “Losing the line” was one of the worst things that could happen. It may sound counter-intuitive, but having a long line-up would actually contribute positively to a customer’s purchasing decision. Along with word of mouth from other attendees and positive experiences at previous years’ ribfests, line-ups were a major way customers assessed the quality of the product. There must be something wrong with a team that has no customers waiting, right?
Never forget that you can market yourself by controlling the supply of your product to stimulate demand. You just have to do it properly. The rib crews would never let the line-ups get too out of hand; they would speed up as much as necessary to keep the line moving. You never want to alienate or irritate your customers!
How can you apply the line-up effect in your business? Let us know below in the comments have you ever applied this strategy before…? Did it work? What were your results? Did people just want your products and services even more…?
I’ve discussed elsewhere the power and value of using testimonials from satisfied customers to help promote your business online. If you have an effective system in place to collect high quality testimonials, they can serve many purposes:
Depending on the size of your business, you may eventually collect large numbers of testimonials. Having a well organized system in place to file reviews by product type, subject, and so on, so information from them is easily accessed as needed. You may also want to incorporate the collection of testimonials into the structure of your business routines. Set aside specific blocks of time to phone or e-mail customers to solicit feedback, and include forms or other ways to acquire feedback at the point of purchase.
Not all your customer feedback will be positive, solicited or otherwise. Negative feedback can be a form of constructive criticism. Whether or not you decide to use customers’ comments in your online copy, you can learn from what they’re telling you. By encouraging feedback you have enlarged the base of useable information and creative ideas for running your business. Taking customer suggestions to heart, with results that they can see, is a surefire way to promote their loyalty.
Your customer feedback process needs a well-thought out way of soliciting information. The way you speak to your customers can encourage positive reactions. Flatter your customers by pointing out how important their opinion is to you, but don’t be over-zealous! Ask them easy-to-answer, more specified questions at first about the product
You get the idea. Then build to more involved general questions about the product’s value to them and their experience with your business overall. Don’t forget to ask them if they are willing to have their comments used for your marketing purposes, including asking them to sign a release.
SIDE NOTE: Resist the temptation to write fake testimonials. Ethics aside, people can usually see through it. The words of real customers are going to be more convincing, even if they’re less smooth, than artificial copy. If your questions can tease enough detail and specificity out of your customers the testimonial will ring so much truer.
What is one thing you can do this week to incorporate a couple easy questions you can begin to ask your clients/customers that will enable you to start a customer rating/review aspect to your business…? Don’t just think online, think offline too!
Several years ago I bought a lamp at a charming house wares store in my neighborhood. The proprietor of the store asked for my address and other contact information, which I gladly gave. Every so often I would receive an attractive flier on thick high-quality paper stock in the mail, inviting me to a special customer appreciation day when I could receive a discount on purchases. And when I did return to her store, she always remembered my name!
These personal touches, showing a genuine interest in your customers and offering them little incentives to continue doing business with you, are well worth the effort. Whatever kind or size of local business you run, retaining customers’ contact information should be incorporated into any sales transaction. Most consumers are accustomed to this and would not refuse. If someone is uncomfortable giving you their e-mail address and other information, make sure they know you are only using it to provide them with updates and special offers, and will not share it with anyone. You could even offer a coupon of some sort in exchange for their contact information.
Another local kitchen and cooking supplies store would sent me a monthly newsletter, proudly describing neat new products they had acquired and offering recipes and information on cooking classes they held. When they wanted to discontinue this and switch to an e-mail only newsletter, they too offered a discount if I agreed to switch over with them. I gladly chose their store whenever I needed something new for my kitchen-even if I could have gotten a similar item for a lower price at a big chain store.
The lesson is: value every customer as a precious resource and make every effort to retain customers by retaining their contact information and using it respectfully and appropriately. You have invested money and effort to get people in the door in the first place. Don’t let them slip away!
Supply and demand : these principles are the cornerstone of the free market. At the most basic level it’s not all that hard to understand, but when you’re a business owner navigating the ups and downs of the marketplace it can be a rough ride. In this piece I want to talk about how understanding how scarcity-that is, high demand coupled with a low supply-can work in your favour, and how not to allow scarcity to harm your business.
Scarcity can happen by accident or by choice.
Have you ever gone to a restaurant the first weekend after a five-star review came out? It can be a stressful experience! Usually the place hasn’t had time to prepare by ordering more stock and putting on extra staff in anticipation of the stampede of eager diners. Menu items run out, waiters get confused and flustered; meanwhile people are waiting in the lobby, giving your table dirty looks to try and intimidate you into eating faster.
Sometimes these things can’t be helped. Wouldn’t all owners love to suffer the consequences of a glowing review? Not always.
On the other hand, businesses will often deliberately make products or services scarce. Why?
So, you can use scarcity, carefully limiting the supply of your product to generate interest and raising your product’s profile in the public. In many instances, if done ‘right’ you can also raise your prices. However, I do advise that you always over deliver on any product or service you design with creating "scarcity marketing campaign" which will produce long lasting results and only increase the value of what it is you do even more.
The key to doing this successfully is to appropriately manage the way your limited resource is distributed to your customers. It is crucial that you don’t alienate existing, loyal, repeat customers by making them wait in line with the rest of the masses! Not all customers are created equal, and your high-value customers should not miss out on acquiring your new product just because everyone else wants it. Be sure you award your biggest fans and early adopters with tons of extras that the masses just will not get. This in itself will only make your ‘mavericks’ spread the word even more about your business.
You can use the internet to allow VIP customers to pre-order and bypass the queue.
You have their contact information, right? If not you need to re-design your marketing and database collecting. You MUST always have all your best clients contact info on file at all times and constantly have a on-going communication with them.
Sending a notice to your VIPs offering them this opportunity will enhance their loyalty to you, while the demand created by scarcity will attract new customers. It’s the same way a successful nightclub operates: reward the regulars by allowing them to bypass the line, while making sure there’s always a line-up there so that the passers-by know that this is the hot place to be.
Artfully controlling the supply of your product to generate demand is difficult. If you try it, taking care of the people who matter most, your repeat and higher-spending customers, should be your number one priority.
Adding social proof to your blog, website, and/or marketing materials can substantially increase conversions and sales. Here is a quick little list of ideas that you can do to improve on your social proof to your business.
The above methods have been known to work time after time. Providing social proof in any business is essential to maximizing sales. What can you do this week in your business to add more "social proof " to your blog, website, and marketing materials.
