Design Solution Inspires Weight Loss

businesscard
A foldable business card that entices the recipient to tear off the excess flab. This a very clever execution for a business card for a personal trainer. Not only does it break the standard business card size mold, it also demonstrates what personal training can do for the body. Not only do I find this card visually appealing, but I also find it to be quite humorous. Not many business cards can appeal to as many senses as this one. Another stunning design solution created by Leo Burnett!

An Ad Campaign Tugging On My Heartstrings

comexI came across this ad campaign on adgoodness for Comex paint company and it immediately made me smile. I can’t say that for most ad campaigns. I think since I was a child in the eighties I might be a little biased in my review of this ad campaign. I won’t go into details on how large my smurf collection was as a child. I believe this is a great execution for a campaign. I find it very clever and to the point. The ad is focused on color, the tagline “We Match Any Color” and the cartoon icons are immediately recognizable. Now if I could only find a store that sells Comex paint where I can buy smurf blue! Do you have an emotional connection to this campaign?

Support The Company Product or Service

The other day a colleague and I stopped at Brueger’s Bagels in downtown Milwaukee to pick up lunch. While my colleague was paying for his sandwich, in walks a pizza delivery man to deliver pizza to the very same counter my colleague was standing at! Talk about a great marketing opportunity for the pizza company!

Let’s be honest, the people that work there probably don’t want to eat a bagel sandwich everyday - I get it. But was it necessary to have the pizza delivered during the peak lunch hour when traffic is highest? Probably not. My hunch is that they probably weren’t getting a break during that peak lunch hour anyway.

So you’re probably asking what’s the big deal, right? Well, let’s translate this to something a bit larger. What if I was at a car dealership (funny at the moment, I know) and ready to purchase a new car when the owner pulls up in a competitor car. That would put some doubt in my mind as to why the owner was driving a competitor car and not the car he sells. It may even keep me from purchasing the car.

Or, let’s say I’m at a clothing store and I notice that the clerk checking me out is wearing a competitor outfit? Why isn’t she wearing an outfit from the store where she works? Are the clothes not made well?

The point is that everyone at the company should make a conscious effort to support the product or service being sold by your company. But if you need to go to a competitor product, first have a very good reason to do so and then do so discreetly. This is an easy task that could help you retain some of your customers and keep any extra doubt out of their minds.

10 Obstacles To Brand Building With Social Media And How To Avoid Them

I find that a lot of companies are intrigued with social media and would like to build their brands online. Social media is a great tool to spread the word about your product or services, and it is also a great tool for retrieving feedback from your target consumers. A lot of companies come across roadblocks along the way while building their brands with social media. I came across an interesting article on the Social Times site “The 10 Obstacles To Brand Building On The Social Web And How To Avoid Them.” I found this to be a great article with a lot of insightful points. I spent some time summarizing the 10 obstacles below:

1. Not Having a Good Product
Unless you have a good product, you simply won’t get very far in online brand building. One central concept for online brand building is taking advantage of the social web. This is where a lot of influential social media users can disseminate information about your product in a way that will get your name out to more people than you would have been able to do on your own.

When it comes to building a brand on the social web, a great deal of your marketing comes down to word-of-mouth. From one user to another, the user-generated content being circulated around your product can make a big difference in getting the word out about your brand.

2. Despair and Laziness
When familiarizing yourself with a new site or service, check out the About page, as well as the FAQs. If there’s a forum for users to discuss features and other site issues, check that out as well. These pages can all be great resources for getting started on a new site. Checking out other forums or blogs can be great resources for learning the ins and outs of a new site. If you don’t see immediate results, just remember to keep the faith. Getting into the swing of any new project can take some getting used to. The more active you are within a social media site, the more your activity will pay off.

3. Knowing Your Audience
Focusing on the wrong crowd, or not targeting at all could lead to you sending out a lot of information to people that might not care. This hit-or-miss approach doesn’t work with any type of advertising, and finding the right audience on the social web is easy enough so that you won’t spend too much time head-scratching.

Twitter is one of the easiest social media sites for finding like-minded individuals. Do a simple Twitter search and you’ll find the people that are talking about your product, similar products, or areas of interest that could related back to your product. These are the people you need to engage. If you build enough of a rapport, you can even push that conversation to other areas of the social web, such as Facebook.

4. Engagement
Be sure to remain genuine in your engagement. Keep conversation relevant and don’t participate in spammy behavior. If you’re on a site like Twitter, mix personal information in with the branding information your pushing out through your update stream. On Facebook, merely commenting on a friend’s photo album or shared link will introduce more opportunities for you to engage that user in a conversation that can eventually relate back to your brand. Fan Pages and Public Profiles on Facebook are great for engagement because they’re designed for brands that would like to further engage Facebook users.

5. Maintenance
You need to manage your web presence in order to keep up with the flow you’ve initiated when first setting yourself and your brand up for social media purposes. This maintenance is important because it adds the continuity needed to further engage your users, friends and potential clients. Out of sight means out of mind. So if you’re not constantly talking about you and your brand, you’ll quickly be forgotten.

6. Time Management
Set definite amounts of time for various aspects of your social media maintenance. This will keep you concise and focused on the different functions you need to complete for building your brand online, and keep you from feeling overwhelmed when you glance at your to-do list each morning.

7. Finding the Right Tools
The right tools will help you tremendously with your social media maintenance, and will help you manage your time much more efficiently. There are certain applications for Facebook like SocialCalendar or Plaxo that help you manage your contacts across Facebook and even other applications such as Outlook. This can help you remain personable with those you interact with on Facebook without you having to invest a great deal of time into researching these individuals.

8. Keeping up with Your Blog
Keeping up with your blog is pretty central to building your brand on the social media web. Think of your blog as your web home page, where all the other information about yourself radiates out from. As your web-based personal calling card, your blog can act as the hub for all your social media activity.

9. Tracking Successes and Mistakes
An important aspect in continuing to build your brand online is learning from your mistakes and knowing the areas in which you need to improve. Achieve this by tracking your online social media behavior and taking some time out regularly to correlate this behavior with the ongoing changes you’re making to your social media strategy.

Getting direct feedback from others is one of the easiest ways in which to see where changes in your strategy need to be made. Place a feedback tab on your website and make sure that it’s easy for visitors to find. Respond to queries and leverage different channels of communication for engaging consumers in this manner.

10. Outsource
When the workload of social media gets to become overwhelming, it wouldn’t hurt to pay someone to do some of the work for you. The redundant acts surrounding social media activity are the easiest aspects to outsource, whether you’ve hired a personal assistant, a virtual assistant or an intern.

Why Using Case Studies in Your Marketing Efforts Is a Good Idea

Just finished reading a great article from Target Marketing Magazine titled Everyone Loves a Story. It’s a great article discussing why case studies are excellent tools to use in marketing efforts.

I’ve written about case studies before so I’m obviously a big fan. One of the lines from the article just made me an even bigger fan:

“A survey by Forrester Research shows that 71 percent of buyers base their decisions on trust and believability.”

What a compelling statement - 71%! The beauty of case studies is that they are stories being told from the perspective of a customer. Case studies are believable because it is a user of the product or service explaining their situation - not a company touting their greatness.

Could a strong customer case study help close the sale for a few of your prospects? If you answered yes, consider developing a few customer case studies to use in your marketing efforts. And remember, there are many uses for case studies, which means you will get a lot of bang for your buck.

Customer Survey - From My Dentist?

survey-_customerYep, it’s true. I received a survey from my dentist. A short, one-page survey arrived in the mail the other day asking for my opinions on my visit and as a “thanks” they are going to mail me a $10 Target gift card. I promptly filled it out and mailed it back - heck, I’m not only a big fan of customer feedback but I also love Target.

I applaud this dentist (or at least the person that came up with the idea) for reaching out and securing my feedback. It’s a great, simple way to get information about me - the customer, the target audience - that can help them with their marketing efforts in the future. Okay, this is not rocket science, but when is the last time you asked your customers or prospects for feedback? And not just a phone call asking how things are going, but a real, structured survey? If your answer is, “um never” or “not for a long time,” now is a great time to do this.

The point is not to ask a lot of questions, just a few carefully thought-out questions. Before you begin, sit down and determine what you really want to know from your customers/prospects. Yes, we all want to know everything but remember their time is limited and the more questions you ask the less likely they will respond at all. So, narrow your questions down to four - six.

Now, ask those questions to someone else in the company. Did they respond with the information you were hoping to get? If not, refine your questions. Your survey won’t be worth much if you get responses that are not helpful.

Once your questions are final, deploy your survey. This can be done through email, regular mail (as my dentist did) or even through a phone call. Decide on the best approach for your audience.

This last step is the most important - learn from the results. Take what your customers and prospects are telling you to heart. Are they telling you something needs to change? Or that they would like a new product/service offering? Whatever it is, listen to them. They are after all, your target audience.

Your end result should be valuable information that you can learn from. Customer surveys are great tools that can help a product/service/company succeed. And don’t be afraid of them, they can be fairly simple as long as they are well thought out from the beginning. Happy surveying!

Instructional Video: Chucking Your Golf Club

Golf season is upon us and we thought it was worth sharing this how-to video that demonstrates the proper technique for sending your club to a watery grave for “all the bad things it’s done.” Be sure to use this technique at your next golf outing to really impress your clients.

Primum can help you with funny or serious how-to videos. It’s a great way to make a connection.

Get The Most Out of Your Marketing Dollars

budget_cutsWe all know that times are tough.  And you may be experiencing cuts in your marketing budgets, which probably makes your job even tougher.  Well then it is time to switch things up a bit and work on marketing tactics that are extendable or reusable.  Here are a few ideas:

Develop a few solid customer case studies. Customer case studies are great marketing tools because a customer is touting your praises instead of you.  And, case studies are extremely extendable.  Their content can be used on your website, in press releases, in direct marketing campaigns, as the intro to a sales letters and so much more.  Marketing Profs just releases a great article titled “25 Ways to Build Trust (and Sales!) With Customer Success Stories.  Yes, 25 ways to extend the use of a strong marketing piece that is typically not high on the cost side.  Check it out and be amazed.

Create a video tour or video demonstration. Video is a wonderful way to visually demonstrate your product or service.  And, with many people being visual people (just check out the success of YouTube), video can help bring your product or service to life.  And talk about extendability, you can incorporate your video into a blog post, post it on your website, use it in a pitch to the media, email it to customers/prospects, use it at a trade show and send it as a direct mail piece to prospects.

Design a compelling capabilities brochure. Not necessarily a 20-page brochure, but a simple, concise brochure that touches upon your company’s key capabilities.  Couple that information with a clean, compelling design and you have a great piece that can be used in a number of ways: provide it to current customers, add a PDF to your website, include it in a blog post, send it as a direct mail piece (with a stellar sales letter), give a few to your referral sources to hand out to others and offer it at trade shows.  One bonus opportunity is to find a company that is complimentary to yours and ask them to put your brochure on their front desk or at their trade show, etc.  And offer the same opportunity to them.

You may be working with a smaller budget but that doesn’t mean you can’t get the most out what you are working with.  If you are faced with a budget crunch, try one of the above tactics or think about how you can extend your tactics to get the most out of your dollars.

How To Write Blog Comments

I’m a regular reader of Mack Collier’s blog called The Viral Garden. He recently added a post titled “How to write great blog comments“. If you have ever wondered about adding comments to other blogs or were interested in getting a few tips, this post is quite good. I recommend taking a few minutes to read it.

Never Eat A Philly Cheese Steak Before A Workout…And Other Marketing Tips

Thought I would share a few marketing tips that I keep top of mind throughout the day. Technically, the first tip I have to offer our readers has nothing to do with marketing, but I will tie it together anyway.

1. Never eat a Philly Cheese Steak before a workoutphillycheesecake2

Last week, I had a Philly Cheese Steak for lunch and then worked out with my trainer at night - bad idea! Although delicious, it weighed me down. Marketing tip - Create a marketing plan and stick to it (i.e. plan ahead).

2. Hi, this is Kristen from Primum Marketing Communications calling…

People are stretched to the limits these days and sometimes, your product or service is not top of mind. Don’t let their busy days stop you from communicating your message. Marketing tip - call your customers and prospects to follow-up, or just to check-in. A call from you may be just what they need to bring your product or service back to the important list.

3. If you continue to water grass seeds, they will grow

I’m trying to grow grass in the backyard. Although it is taking some time, I am finally seeing grass blades pop up all over the backyard. Marketing tip - Continue to cultivate your leads, even the leads that are not going to turn into immediate sales. If you continue to cultivate those leads, somewhere down the line they may turn into a hot lead or refer you to another prospect.

4. Continue reading and learning

A former supervisor had me reading one new book each month. At the time I thought she was crazy, but as I look back that was some of the best advice I have ever received. Marketing tip - Read what customers are saying about your company, products/services and employees as well as your competitors and your industry. You just might pick up a key piece of information that could help you win a new sale (or expand a current sale).

My lead in to the marketing tips may be a little odd, but I’ll blame that on the Philly Cheese Steak. In any event, I believe you can find a marketing lesson or life lesson in every situation. Hope you enjoy the tips, more to come soon!

Primum. get a lot.