Boosting Sales with Packaging

I attended the LinkedIn Long Beach networking function last week, and as usual, had a great time meeting new people and renewing relationships (more about LinkedIn Long Beach).

This month, Yasemin Altuner of Maya Trade Corporation was on hand selling olive oil and spice imports. She had a nice display, but ordinarily, I wouldn't have bought anything from her. I buy olive oil and spices at the grocery store.

But Yasemin didn't actually sell me olive oil. She sold me a solution for Valentine's day.

Thanks to Yasemin, I found a reasonably priced, beautiful gift. She wrapped the gift bag using special Valentine's day paper (click the photo to see more of the wrapping accouterments).

My wife loved it. I can only hope next year Valentine's day goes as well as it did this year!

Now, back to you: can you repackage what you're selling and solve a problem? If you can, maybe you'll end up with a little extra revenue, just like Yasemin!

And that's practical marketing.

Learning from the Movie Biz

Like every other business, the movie business is being reshaped by a new economy and new marketing.

In the not too distant past, studio executives would spend big advertising bucks to generate “boffo” box office. Now, with the reactions and reviews of other movie-goers at their fingertips, prospective audiences can’t be swayed by big ad budgets.

As John Horm of the Los Angeles Times writes:

Marketability (can you sell it?) no longer trumps playability (will audiences like it?)

The declining power of advertising isn’t unique to the movie business, nor is it news that “hot” products and services can get a big bang from social media. If you don’t have a product or service people really want, you might as well close up shop.

But there is good news: now you can use social media to get the information you need to make your product or service so great it’s worthy not just of purchase – but of conversation.

Your company moves forward on great ideas. Leverage the conversations you find in social media to come up with a product or service so great you’ll be the buzz of the blogosphere, the toast of twitter, and the prince of Plaxo!

And that’s practical marketing.

Study: Women & Social Media

Most forward thinking organizations are already active in social media. Unfortunately, many of their social media efforts are suffering from mixed results.

This was proven recently in a study by ad:tech Chicago and Q Interactive. The study focused on women's participation in social media, but in my view the study's findings are absolutely gender-neutral.

Here's what they found: even though over 50% of women surveyed said they'd "friended" a brand, only 17% said their online experience with the brand was positive!

The survey concluded:

Brand marketers still have a fundamental misunderstanding of what a social environment actually means-people are communicating on their own terms.

[Marketers] need to find a way to disassociate the brand from product and associate the brand with lifestyle or something that has more meaning on a personal level.

I know, I know: it's corporate marketing-speak. Translated into practical marketing terms, the study concluded that the majority of social media marketing isn't very interesting to its target audience.

The reason: marketers want to talk about features and benefits, and ummm... not to put too fine a point on it, but nobody cares.

To get people interested and involved, make your social media efforts about lifestyles, or something else with personal meaning. Leave the hyping of features and benefits to those who aren't reading this blog.

And that's practical marketing.

Can You Wiki Your Brand?

Branding has changed through the years.

In its first form, it was nothing but a trademark. Businesses put it on their products so their customers would know who they were buying from.

As branding evolved, it went from something you buy to something you trust to something you want to something you prefer to something you love (please forgive the run-on sentence, I just covered over 200 years of branding history!)

Now, we're moving to the next generation of branding: Wiki Branding.

What's that, you ask?

It's a brand that's driven by its community, much as Wikipedia's 14 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world.

In order to have a Wiki Brand, you'll need a community to nurture it, to advocate for it, and ultimately to help shape its direction. If you're not sure how to build your brand's community, you're in luck: we wrote about how to do it in our most recent newsletter.

And that's practical marketing.

Pizza Hut's New Logo

Pizza Hut has rebranded, including a new name and logo.

In an attempt to resonate with those pesky "leetspeaking" Millennial/Gen Y folks, and to expand the menu to include such delivery delights as hot wings and pasta, they've shortened the name of the company from "Pizza Hut" to "The Hut."

I'm going to do you the favor of skipping right over all my snark-filled references to Jabba the Hutt, or wondering if the Long John Silver's chain will rebrand itself as "The John."

Instead, I'm going straight to why it's wrong.

First thing, I know what Pizza Hut sells. It sells pizza. What does a hut sell? I'm thinking fruity drinks on a remote beach...

And, given that a hut is "a small or humble dwelling of simple construction, esp. one made of natural materials, as of logs or grass", why would I want to buy pizza, wings, or pasta from one?

I get it that it's a nickname. Lots of companies have successfully dropped the formal name in favor of a nick:

• Federal Express --> FedEx
• General Motors --> GM
• Kentucky Fried Chicken --> KFC

But there's a difference! In each of those cases, the public was referring to the company by its nick before the change was officially made.

Trying to force a nick onto a public won't work, even if the new roof on the new logo looks like a nipple. Just sayin'.

And that's practical marketing.

Next Generation Networking

Last night, I attended a networking mixer for a group called "Linked !n Long Beach" at Kavikas Grill & Bar.

The group brings together the powerful online networking facilities of LinkedIn with old-school "f2f" networking. The combination of new-school and old-school delivers a surer, faster way to make deeper connections with the people you need to know.

It was a great mixer at a great location, and the the restaurant provided excellent service and an astoundingly affordable happy hour.

I was surprised, however, by the number of people who could not, quickly and simply, explain the nature of their business and what made them unique.

With f2f networking, the question "So, what do you do?" comes up pretty fast.

It's best to have a solid, well-rehearsed answer before you're asked; one that makes immediate, obvious sense to someone who knows nothing of you or your industry.

If you'd like some help creating a solid answer, give me a call (562) 595-0555. We'll get together for coffee (or a happy hour beer at Kavikas!) and come up with something Fresh!

And that's practical marketing.

Social Media Strategy

In a prior post, I confessed that I think of social media as a tactic rather than as a strategy. Because I say such things publicly, some folks think of me as a social media curmudgeon.

So be it.

That being said, social media can consume an enormous amount of your time, energy and money. Of course you should have a social media strategy.

The question is, where to begin?

First thing, take a few breaths, and a few steps back. If you’re in the tweeting trenches without a clear idea of how you're going to funnel your missives, social media's array of features can swallow days of your time before you even know they're missing.

From a distance far enough to give you a strategic perspective, think about the things that make you different; think about the passion that drives your organization forward.

Now, think about what makes social media different: more than any other kind of outreach or advertising, it demands authenticity.

Put those together and you can visualize a social media strategy driven by your core values, not the available technology. You'll be more likely to hit your target, and much more likely to make a real connection when you do.

And that's practical marketing.