For the past few months, I’ve been reviewing our work processes to evaluate why, where and when we’ve hit our mark and missed.
Time and again, I’ve come to the conclusion that our processes would greatly improve with new, improved, and more checklists.
And, strict adherence to them.
We use checklists throughout our marketing engagements such as “Countdown-to-Go” checklists for new store, new product and new campaign launches, but sometimes we move too fast to please our clients and fail to either take the time to create or use a checklist. Simply put – to quote the old adage – “When we fail to plan, we plan to fail.” Simple as that!
We usually deliver high results, but with better processes the question is, “How high is up?”
How much better , faster, cheaper could we have executed a campaign if we flawlessly executed our plan leaving no stone unturned?
Well, today is National Checklist Day (sound the trumpets) and I’ve been preparing for it by reading Dr. Atul Gawande’s, The Checklist Manifesto.
Gawande makes a great case why even experts need checklists – the complexity and speed of things today make simple checklists necessary.
His belief is that the smarter we get, the more we take things for granted. And, checklists can close these gaps in flawless execution.
Throughout his book he offers case after case examples with pilots, surgeons and a myriad of other professions.
We need checklists because we all communicate poorly. For example, the majority of us often make these three serious errors:
- We leave out important information assuming that others know it
- We’re not specific in our directions again assuming that others understand us
- And, sometimes we fail to be clear and concise in our directions because we don’t want to insult others
Checklists can compensate for these failings.
Moreover, if you want to extend your intelligence and train others to do the right thing at the right time, you need checklists for everyone to follow – to keep everyone on the same page.
So, we’ve been working on detailed checklists for Website launches, email campaigns, public relations campaigns, creative briefs and more.
How about you? Do you use checklists in your profession? Are you sold on using them more frequently?
I’m sold once again. Check that!
P.S.: Here’s a checklist for checklists!
We love working on Grand Openings, Grand Re-Openings, New Product Launches and more!
Next to having your own baby, it’s got to be right up there in terms of great days if you love marketing and public relations like we do!
There’s just nothing like holding a special exciting event to kickoff a brand’s ‘NEW NEWS!”
And, it truly comes down to what YOU make of it.
Public Relations is an art that’s not practiced enough in our opinion for lots of reasons.
The biggest reason is because it’s hard work and most people don’t like to “bring it” and put the time in that’s necessary to do an exceptional job.
The second big reason is that the majority of brands are simply boring and adequate and have no interesting stories to tell. What a shame.
We’re honored to work with lots of great brands such as our good friends at the Priory Hospitality Group.
And, when they asked us to help them kick off the grand opening of their new wing we jumped at the opportunity.
In the picture above, we had all of the key people responsible for getting the Priory Hotel’s new wing open for business such as co-owners and operators John and Suzanne Graf, Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, key employees and the architect, builder and interior designer.
The $2.7 million expansion of The Priory added 17 rooms, a 70 percent expansion of the hotel’s capacity. Located in the Deutschtown section of the North Side, the hotel expanded into a building leveled by fire two years earlier.
We kept all of these key figures and media appraised of the opening event far in advance with our custom “Countdown to Go” grand opening list and started months ahead of the event to make sure we didn’t miss a detail and to ensure that our execution was flawless.
The result?
We achieved widespread media coverage in Pittsburgh’s major daily and community newspapers and all television networks.
And, as important, we earned the continued respect, endorsement and marketing partnership from the Priory and the Graf family.
Here’s a link to an online story from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
It appeared on the front page of the Local News Section of the paper and is just one of several pieces of media coverage we earned.
As you prepare for 2012, think about the meaningful stories you can share with your local media and customers.
If you don’t have any, get to work on some. If you do, start planning – well in advance – to show and tell them!
Our world lost a great man yesterday – Steve Jobs.
Jobs impacted my life in numerous ways through not only his great innovations and style, but also in his words.
Here’s my top 10 list of Steve Job quotes that have resonated with me over the years.
God bless you Steve and many thanks. You’ll be missed.
Steve Jobs Top 10 Best Quotes
- “We’re here to put a dent in the universe, otherwise why else even be here?”
- “Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren’t used to an environment where excellence is expected.”
- “Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.”
- “That’s been one of my mantras – focus and simplicity. Simple can be harder than complex. You need to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple, but it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”
- “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
- Remembering that you’re going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.”
- “Stay hungry, stay foolish.”
- “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.”
- “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone elses life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
- We don’t get a chance to do that many things and every one should be really excellent because this is our life.”
…And, one more thing!
10+. “You know a design is good when you want to lick it.” … And, “Design is not what it looks like. Design is how it works.”
Back in December of 2009, Nicorette launched a $15 million integrated marketing campaign complete with a fictitious ‘Suckometer’ around the bold statement that, Nicorette makes quitting smoking suck less. In addition, it was the GlaxoSmithKline brand’s first foray into social media.
Nicorette Makes Quitting Suck Less Campaign
As a quick backgrounder, here are a few select statements from the Nicorette Website.
There’s no way around it, quitting sucks. In fact, it’s one of the hardest things you’ll do in life. That’s why quitting can be a challenge. To be successful, you need to overcome both your physical addiction to nicotine and your psychological addiction — the urge to repeat the same smoking routines every day, like smoking in the car and after meals. …Sure, quitting will always suck, but Nicorette makes quitting suck less.
Does Vulgar Marketing Work?
When the campaign launched, I thought it was a cheap, vulgar marketing effort and still do. The campaign is still running so, I wanted to see if it’s working. In short, I’m not exactly sure how the campaign is doing, but here are a few things I discovered.
There was a HCD Research/Mediacurves survey conducted in 2010 among 300 viewers of a new Nicorette gum ad and showed that nearly half of smokers (49%) were more likely to try to quit smoking after viewing the ad. The majority of viewers (80%) felt the ad was extremely or somewhat effective, and more than one-third of smokers (34%) said that they would be more likely to use Nicorette gum to help them quit their smoking addiction.
The numbers are fine, but we all know that people don’t always do what they say they’re going to do. So, I’m not convinced of the strategy.
Does Nicotine Replacement Gum Work?
I’m not sure if the gum works, but I’d bet that they sold a ton of it. The thing is, even if you sell a ton of product, if it doesn’t work, what does that say about you and your brand long term? Without brand trust and integrity based on a positive experience what does the future hold for your brand?
This eHow article reports that…‘normally, there is only a 5 percent success rate of smokers quitting their habit for a full year (without the use of replacement products), which makes the success rate of Nicorette Gum between 7 and 8 percent. Not the best odds. …Of the top five “quit smoking methods,” not a single nicotine replacement gum made the list, including Nicorette Gum.’
Great Products Lead to Positive Word of Mouth Advertising
After 1.5 years and spending $15 million, Nicorette’s own Website only has one success story! Are you kidding me? If Nicorette Gum is such a great product, why aren’t there a ton of people in TV ads, on YouTube and Facebook raving about the product?
I’m always a bit leery of brands that spend a ton of money on marketing (and vulgar, uncivil advertising to boot) because let’s face it, if the product was so great, people would be spreading the word on their own. My advice would have been to take the $15 million and build a better product or service – one that truly works and adds value – customers will come, rave about you and spread your good word.
P.S.: Full disclosure: I’m in my late 40s, a nonsmoker and far from being a prude, however I am offended, not impressed or motivated to purchase by cheap, vulgar, uncivil and classless marketing. And, I firmly believe that if in fact Nicorette’s product is a super terrific one, they would have sold as much if not more product with raving customers who quit smoking once and for all. Net…they wouldn’t have had to ‘go there.’ Nor should you…ever!
“True nobility is not about being better than anyone else, it’s about being better than you used to be.”
The halfway point of the 2011, was at noon on July 1st, exactly 182 1/2 days left before we ring in 2012.
So how are you doing on your New Year resolutions?
Personally, did you lose the weight you were trying to lose?
Professionally, are you hitting your sales goals?
Have you taken a hard look at your results to date and put a plan in place to finish what you started or are your goals out of whack, meaningless and unimportant?
It’s never too late to late, to improve, to succeed.
You have plenty of time, it’s just that you’re not using it properly and majoring in minor things.
Think (and do) about setting clearer goals for the rest of your year and think about (and do) easier ways to achieve them.
For example, if you’re like me and don’t always have time to go to a gym to workout, do you just give up?
Or, do you find an easier way to accomplish your fitness goals by working out at home using your own body weight, doing pushups, situps, skipping rope etc.?
If you’re not hitting your sales goals, do you know why? Do you know your sales ratios (e.g., how many calls/communiques lead to appointments to contracts)? Is it a simple matter of just making more contacts?
My goals are quite simple and they’re based on improving my own situation and being better than I used to be, not better than someone else.
“IT” should always be about you!
In short, my overarching simple goal is to improve my states of peace, love and happiness and I look at making plans for each many roles as a small business owner, marketing professional, husband, son, brother, uncle, friend, community member and most important ME (spirit, soul, being) and craft simple strategies, objectives and tactics to follow to improve my states of peace, love and happiness.
And, how to I get there?
I work on ‘getting there’ via several ways such as:
- Being in the moment and focusing on being fully engaged
- Delegating to great people
- Working in process improvement (checklists – group similar activities together)
- Waking up early (not watching much TV etc.)
- Saying ‘no’ to things that don’t help me achieve my goals (like lots of meetings when a phone call would do)
And lots more, because this is a journey!
And, hey I don’t always get there, but my batting average has increased over time with practice.
Focus on your being better than YOU used to be and your happiness because when you’re happy you’ll find that it’s contagious.
Don’t waste your time.
Learn to let go of – and don’t sweat – the minor things and focus on what’s really important to you, to your business etc., and see your happiness soar!
How high is up? As high as YOU want to make it! It’s always been about YOU and no one else.
Killer short film demonstrating the power of words.
Sure wished we’d done this!
Throughout my days as a professional marketer, I could never understand why doctors write with such poor penmanship when giving prescriptions. In fact, the sloppy practice has always annoyed me.
When I’d get a prescription and attempt to decipher it myself, a flurry of questions would race through my mind such as:
Would the pharmacist get my prescription right?
Doesn’t it slow things down and add to unnecessary increases in human errors.
For a profession in which errors can lead to death, shouldn’t processes be handled with more care?
And, who do these elitist doctors think they are?
Well, after struggling with a bronchitis condition for the past 3 months, I finally decided to see my doctor and was amazed, excited, happy and extremely pleased to get my prescription via a computer printout – WOW!
Such a simple procedure, easily taken to the next level and is now REMARKABLE to me. And, I’m sure it’s remarkable to others too.
‘Remark’able I say because I’ve told over 10 people in 2 days about this seemingly small, but most gratifying experience.
With this simple procedural improvement, I’m more jacked about my doctor than ever before. They’re more professional, state-of-the-art etc.
Are there simple practices that you can review and through a few easy steps surprise and delight your customers?
Can you improve your invoices, meeting minutes and more to make them WOW documents and procedures.
I’ll bet you can. And, if you spruce things up a bit I promise you that your customers will bet on you in the future!
P.S.: Now, I’m sure my doctor isn’t the only one with computerized prescriptions. Which begs the question, “Why didn’t they do this 10 years ago?” Be first, be daring, be different! Why wait for others? Do the right things…right now.
The famous merchant John Wanamaker (b-1839 – d-1922) is credited with saying, “I know half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but I can never find out which half.”
I’m sure he meant what he said over 100 years ago, but I’d bet if he was living today, he’d certainly would not be wasting 50 cents on the dollar with his ad campaigns with the various ways you can prove the impact of marketing investments.
The sad thing about Wanamaker’s quote is that marketers today continue to use it and hide behind it. See my Super Bowl Ad Blog rant from yesterday.
Speaking of quotes, I’d like to quote some troubling facts about the crisis in mass marketing per the book – Connected marketing: the viral buzz and word of mouth revolution edited by Justin Kirby and Paul Marsden — Oxford : Butterworth-Heinemann, 2006.
Here are just a handful…
- 3000 Ads Reach People Daily
- 256% Increase in TV Ad costs (CPM) over 10 Years
- 117 of ‘02 Prime TV Spots = 80% of Adults – 3 in ‘65
- 100% Increase Needed in Ad Spend to Add 1-2% in Sales
- 84% of B2B Ad Campaigns = Negative ROI
- 54 cents = Ave. Return in Sales per $1.00 spent on Ads
- 18% TV Ad Campaigns = Positive ROI
And, here’s a few more…
- 90% – People Who Can Skip TV Ads Do
- 80% – DVRs w/Ad Skipping Tech 2008
- 69% – Interested in Skip/Block Ad Tech
- 95% – Failure Rate for New Product Intros
- 65% – Are Bombarded w/Ads
- 56% – Avoid Brands Who Over Promote
- 14% – Trust Advertising
The book was published in 2006 and most likely researched and written over the prior few years making the data at least six years old.
So, do you think any Super Bowl ad last Sunday returned a profit on its $3 million dollar investment? If so, do you think they can prove it?
Now, can you see why these Super Bowl ads offend me as a marketing professional?
Two things happened to me over the past two days that made me question how easy we all are in conducting our business and how ridiculously absurd retailer practices are at times.
Yesterday, I had dinner with some old friends at a quaint family owned and operated Italian restaurant. The restaurant menu, had seven specials listed with no descriptions – just the entree name – and no prices. However, the rest of the menu had full menu descriptions and prices.
The server simply passed out the menus and offered no detail or prices. I wondered why the owner (and others too) refused to put more detail on the ‘special menu.’ So, when we asked for the pricing and description of some of the entrees, it certainly slowed down our order and sped up our frustration.
There is no benefit to the guest by not including feature prices or menu descriptions. In fact, there are several potential customer negatives such as:
- ‘Sticker Shock’ when you get the bill
- Shame/embarrassment for having to ask
Now, there should be no shame in asking about prices, but you could find it embarrassing to ask if/when you’re on that first date, with important clients, well-to-do friends etc.
Why restaurants follow this practice is way off base to me and has no upside except to trick customers into paying more. It’s a bush league practice and should stop.
My second experience involves my soon to be ex wireless carrier Sprint. I’ve been a Sprint customer for nearly 10 years when the company first started in the PCS business. In fact, I helped launch the brand in Western PA and Western NY.
Yesterday, I had a contract with Sprint through May (5 more months), but this morning I accidentally dropped my phone into a toilet – yes, but a clean one! Needless to say, Blackberries don’t float and do not work after such a dunking!
So off to the Sprint store to get a replacement. After spending a few unplanned hundreds of dollars on a new phone, I was required to sign 2 year extended contract because it’s a new phone – my service plan did not change! What insanity! I question the legality of such a practice – and you can count on the fact that I’ll pursue a challenge starting tomorrow.
Is it any wonder why Sprint’s stock has been in the toilet like my Blackberry was this morning? Note: I loved my Blackberry – just don’t care for my Sprint service. And, I care less about it a lot more today than I did yesterday.
So the easy lesson to learn today is that you need to work harder on being easier to do business with your colleagues, vendors and clients. When you consider the success of many of today’s superstar brands such as:
- Apple
- L.L. Bean
- McDonald’s
- Starbucks
- Zappos
..being “Nice & EASY” is definitely a key reason for their success – so remember…easy does it!
I’ve been a fan of Groupon since one of our Pittsburgh restaurant clients launched the city’s first promotional campaign. And, I’ve become a bigger fan since other hospitality clients have achieved success and after discovering that Groupon founder Andrew Mason is a Pittsburgh (Mt. Lebanon) native – you go guy!
If you read the marketing trades you’ll find some complaints about the lack of profitability of using Groupon as a marketing tactic, but I’d bet that those complainers were not prepared to take advantage of the popular loss leader strategy.
Here are ten profitable Groupon marketing tips.
1. Say “NO” if you’re below. Below average that is. In short, you do not want to feature your brand in a Groupon campaign if you don’t “bring it.” That is, if you sell lousy food (even marginally or mediocre OK), have poor service etc., you do not want to do Groupon! If you do not “deliver the goods”, Grouponers may simply put you out of business earlier than you would normally through negative reviews online etc.!
2. Get buy-in to prevent crying. Far in advance of your scheduled launch, talk through the campaign pros/cons of Groupon with your staff. Get their buy-in early on and clearly explain why everyone needs to be engaged in this huge loss leader effort and why you’ll need all hands and minds on deck to flawlessly execute the campaign. Tell them, “what’s in it for them!”
3. Map your cap. Cap the total number of deals you provide to Grouponers. This creates urgency and protects margins since the offer deadlines are long. Plus, you need to make sure you can handle the traffic. Sure you want to make short term money – you always do – but your eyes need to be on the prize of repeat business!
4. Don’t wreck your average check. Make sure your deal/offer does not match you average check/purchase to allow for upsell and add-on sales opportunities. And, a lower price tag protects you as well on total customer acquisition costs. Keep in mind that you’re earning around 1/4th of what you’d usually make in an average sale which means you’re losing 3/4ths on virtually every sale.
5. Don’t laugh – add staff. Trust me – make sure you add staff to handle increases in store traffic, phone calls and web hits during and after the sale. You’ll need it!
6. Right your Website. It’s highly likely that your Web site has never seen the kind of traffic it will see on your Groupon day. Make certain your brand’s value proposition is clear, meaningful and relevant throughout your Website and especially on your home page because it’s going to get pounded. And, fix your typos, broken links etc., – net, clean it up! Also, monitor your Groupon comments on your “game day” and answer questions there as well on your social media channels.
7. Up-sell, cross sell and do well. Train your customer facing personnel to up-sell and cross-sell and guide all Grouponers to more profitable add-ons. However, make sure you have lots of exciting ones to offer too.
8. Train to explain. Carefully review (and test their knowledge) your Groupon procedures and rules of the game with all team members so they in turn can explain the campaign to customers, friends and family. You need to do this crucial step to ensure viral communications and no surprised/unhappy customer experiences. Make certain everyone is happy to take Groupon customers and consider putting someone in charge to answer escalated questions and make on the spot decisions to satisfy customer concerns.
9. Retain and gain. Since Groupon does not give up its email database and/or the contact information of customers who take advantage of your offer, it’s critical you have a system (recording system and/or additional incentive for customers/staff) in place to capture valuable new customer contact information (e.g., email addresses, mailing addresses, cell phone numbers, birthdays etc.,). You’ll also want to track your success with regard to add-ons, average check/transaction, redemption rates, repeat business and more to determine your success and key learnings should you do it again – consider a customer survey too!
10. Show how to WOW now. A ton of your Grouponers will be new customers (and might be bringing other new customers in with them) and may be unfamiliar with your unique value proposition, but you have a great – maybe once in a lifetime – opportunity to WOW them, make them repeat customers and spread your good word. Make sure you take advantage of this opportunity. Be a servant leader and SERVE lights out!
