Archive of tag "Sernovitz"
Sick kid. Waiting at the pharmacy. Could be a disaster.
Give kid a coloring book. Kid has fun.
Now kid insists that this is the only pharmacy she’ll go to. Parents switch pharmacy.
Lesson 1: It’s easy and cheap to thrill customers. Do it.
Lesson 2: The person who influences a purchase often isn’t the person paying. Find your real influencer.
Our brains can’t handle a hundred facts. We need one big reason why something is good.
Look at the photo. What do they feature? “Awesome Private Yard.”
I’m sure there are other nice features of the house. But you only need one feature for this sentence: “Honey, let’s check this place out. I hear it has an awesome private yard.”
Much more effective than “the house with a bunch of stuff.” I can’t remember a long list, so I’m much less likely to share a long list.
Lesson: Try removing most of the features from your sales pitch. Give people one great message to repeat.
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When you need help or a little advice, it never hurts to just ask. A few opportunities to do it:
1> For fans
2> For help
3> For savings
4> Check it out: Let them sing it for you
1> For fans
Looking to add more fans to a particular social network or list? Sometimes all you have to do is ask. In an email to their Ambassadors, Maker’s Mark casually invited them to become fans of the brand on Facebook. In just over two hours after the email, they added almost 2,000 fans. In less than a month, Maker’s has added nearly 25,000 to their fan page. And while it doesn’t hurt that they’ve got nearly 500,000 Ambassadors they can email, it didn’t require a fancy campaign or some overblown contest. All they had to do was ask.
The Lesson: Whether you’ve got 500 or 500,000 fans, it never hurts to ask if they’d like to follow you on a different network.
2> For help
Having trouble making a difficult decision? If it’s going to affect your fans and customers, why not ask them? When the folks behind the popular blog Cool Hunting were going through a redesign, they asked the fans to help them pick their font. While Cool Hunting was leaning toward the retro look of Courier, readers expressed it was too much strain on the eyes. After a vote, everyone settled on a more traditional font — and everyone seems pretty happy with it.
The Lesson: When making a big decision, don’t overlook opportunities to get feedback from everyone involved, including your fans.
Learn More: Cool Hunting
3> For savings
Are you offering your customers an extra service that’s both expensive to you and something they don’t consider necessary? The only way to find out is to ask. Starwood Hotels recently began testing this as part of their “Make A Green Choice” program, offering guests the chance to opt-out of housekeeping during multi-night stays. Guests who agree earn a discount on their total stay, and the hotel saves a little money too. Shortly after rolling it out, Starwood said about 8.5% of guests had opted for the program.
The Lesson: If you find an opportunity to save you and your customers some money, why not ask them if they’re interested?
Learn More: The Wall Street Journal
4> Check it out: Let them sing it for you
The next time you need to send a note to a friend, try having Billy Idol, Elton John, and Don McLean do it. A little like a digital singing telegram, “Let them sing it for you” reads what you type and then pulls clips from classic songs.
Check it out: Let them sing it for you
If you work for a man, in Heaven’s name work for him. If he pays wages that supply you your bread and butter, work for him, speak well of him, think well of him, and stand by him, and stand by the institution he represents. I think if I worked for a man, I would work for him. I would not work for him a part of his time, but all of his time. I would give an undivided service or none. If put to the pinch, an ounce of loyalty is worth a pound of cleverness. If you must vilify, condemn, and eternally disparage, why, resign your position, and when you are outside, damn to your heart’s content. But, I pray you, so long as you are a part of an institution, do not condemn it. Not that you will injure the institution – not that – but when you disparage the concern of which you are a part, you disparage yourself.
The Mucky Duck is a great restaurant on the beach in Captiva Island, FL. It has great ocean views — if you get a window seat.
But not everyone can have a window seat …
So the owners created a rolling window they can bring right to your table.
Everyone laughs, everyone’s happy.
Lesson: How can you turn customer disappointment into a fantastic experience?
We’re all flooded by offers from companies we do business with for unrelated products. Like the airline that wants to sell you a credit card.
It’s easy for the company to think they’re making easy money by selling these ads, but I think it’s a mistake:
A particularly bad example from a major airline:
Choose your Easter basket:
A. Candy bunnies
B. Chocolate poop, a gummy rat, and a 36″ candy snake?
One will be appreciated, the other will be remembered and talked about all year.
Lesson: Anything worth doing is worth making remarkable. It’s not harder or more expensive, but it will be remembered, appreciated, and generate long-term word of mouth.
(See what else is in the “Nightmare Before Easter” gift basket from super-wacky Baron Bob.)
You can have amazing word of mouth.
Word of mouth marketing is something you can do very well. My company GasPedal will help you get started quickly, with simple-but-intense training, honest answers, and eye-opening ideas. GasPedal's fast, how-to marketing strategies are affordable, easy to execute, and deliver measurable ROI in 60 days.
Learn more: http://gaspedal.com
Join the Social Media Business Council, a brands-only community that helps large organizations build successful social media programs.
Learn more: http://www.socialmedia.org
Clorox: Using gaming strategies to grow community
BlogWell: How Big Brands Use Social Media