The closer people are to food,
the more they will eat.
Brian Wansink, author of Mindless Eating,
told CNN why
“every time we see it,
we have to make a decision.
Do we want to eat it or not?”
But this doesn’t only work with food.
It works with every purchase.
That is why Coca-Cola’s mission statement
includes the words “within an arm’s reach of desire.”
Can you move your product
closer to your customers?
Today I was manning an information booth
and was swarmed by a team of student journalists.
I happily did interviews for their class assignments,
easing them over their nervousness, and
treated every… well… rather junior question seriously.
When they left a few hours later happy,
one of the other women at the booth said
“I can’t believe you gave them so much time.”
I can’t believe I didn’t give them more.
You see, student journalists graduate
to become “real” journalists or
go into public relations or…
and they never forget their first few interviews.
I was lucky enough to be one of those interviews.
With services such as TiVO,
TV commercials are increasingly ineffective.
Networks know that so
they are experimenting
with other forms of advertising.
Two of the latest are snipes and bugs.
Bugs are the static logos that
watchers often see on
the bottom left hand corner of the screen
(Why left?
Because that is where the viewers eyes go first).
Snipes are very similar to bugs except animated.
As advertising evolves, so will content.
To leave this space of the screen clear
for bugs and snipes,
I soon expect to see
little to no programming content there.
A local businessman,
in his low budget tv ads,
dresses in tights and calls himself Cashman
(“I give you cash for your old jewellery”).
He is laughed at, ridiculed,
and… adored.
Everyone knows these ads.
Everyone knows his chain of stores.
And by acting crazy,
he makes crazy amounts of money.
It might not work for every business but
it works for his store and for his prospects.
And now, he has imitators
(but no one can beat the original Cashman).
With Halloween fast approaching,
there are opportunities for businesses to
get creative with marketing,
with promotions,
with advertising.
Most won’t for fear of looked crazy.
But a few brave businesses,
as Troy White encourages,
will and
those will break away from their competitors.
During October,
Personal Finance Bloggers are using their sites
to help promote financial literacy in schools.
They are encouraging readers to donate.
This being a cause near and dear to my heart,
I decided to give.
But how much to give?
I wasn’t sure.
Then I saw that the fundraising was
broken down into projects.
I had a choice.
I could give what I usually give to charities or
for a little bit more, I could support an entire project.
I decided on the entire project.
Most customers or donors or…
would do the same.
If you give them an option
between partial and total ownership,
they will choose total ownership.
An easy way to upsell.
In the past,
to help the sales of a less marketable product,
we’d bundle it with a popular product.
Or to increase sales,
we’d offer BOGO (buy one, get one free).
Unfortunately bundling isn’t as successful
as it once was.
I was in a store on Saturday and
there was a BOGO sale.
Customer after customer insisted on
paying the BOGO price for a single purchase.
The clerk would say no and
the customers got irritated.
Some walked away from the sale completely.
Seth Godin explains
why bundling is no longer effective.
I recently consulted at a business
that delayed its launch by a month…
for two years.
At first, the delays meant something.
There was disappointment by
investors, staff, media, prospective patrons,
and then the excitement rebuilt.
It made the papers.
It was talked about.
Two years later… not so much.
Now the deadlines not only meant nothing,
but were expected.
There was no push to meet them
because they “could always be moved.”
Set a deadline and meet it.
Move drop dead dates only when absolutely necessary.
Working on the low budget promotional plan
for my May book launch and
one of the questions I ask myself is…
“How best to keep this item out of the trash?”
As long as the promotional vehicle
is out of the garbage,
it has a shot at being effective.
Accomplishing that could be as simple as
putting a motivational quote on the postcard
or financial ratios on the back of a business card.
It requires a little more money
but a lot more creativity.
I recently attended a writing seminar
where the host offered a
“free thank you” for attending.
It was a dictionary of terms online.
Useful?
Yes.
Did we consider it a thank you?
No.
Why?
Because it was information
available to everyone
and not only that,
but she had us find it ourselves.
Did she give us the URL?
No, she explained,
it is long and complicated.
Google for the key words instead.
It should be the second one listed.
Did we need a password?
Nope.
Was it even her information?
No, again.
This was not a thank you.
This was a resource.
I mailed a letter this week to a loved one.
Since I mailed a similar letter the week before
(and ended up overpaying the postage),
I didn’t go to the fuss of weighing it again.
Simply stuck two stamps instead of one
(over paying the postage, I thought, once again)
and sent it off.
A couple days later it got returned
with a sticker on it,
asking me to add two cents worth of postage
(note to self: pink bracelets are heavier
than the identical ones in blue).
And you read that right.
Two cents!
The sticker attached was worth that much.
Someone was following the policy
to the letter (literally).
Look at your own policies.
Is there any flexibility for borderline cases?
If not, it could cost you…
goodwill, customers, money…