Marketing Done Modern

Extraordinary Everyday Items

Companies make millions of dollars by providing their customer with a product that is used everyday.  In my mind, at times we take these items for granted and forget about the company that produced it.  Other companies have done a good job of marketing themselves that you can look at the product and know the brand name without ever seeing a label.  Some of these companies include Nalgene, Vera Bradley, and Post-Its, just to name a few of the items on my desk which are easily recognizable.  Each of these products I use on a daily basis and love because they are all very useful, handy, and reliable. 

I love small businesses that provide a useful product.  Now, all small businesses probably think that their product is useful, however, not all products are useful to everyone.  For example, a cat owner has no interest in a boutique doggy bakery, and a size 2 woman is probably not interested in a plus sized shop.  But then there are small businesses where the product can be useful to just about everyone.  I figured every now and then I would spotlight a small business where they have a good product and I like their marketing initiatives.  Today I thought I would talk about a company that I have used personally.

Goulet Pens

This year I was looking for a Father's Day gift for my dad.  My dad is the sort of man that has everything and is impossible to shop for.  My friend Andrea suggested that I take a look at her brother's website.  I came upon Goulet Pens.  Brian, Andrea's brother, had a wonderful little website.  His main product is hand-turned wooden pens.  I have seen them in person, they are beautiful.  I mentioned to Andrea that they reminded me of Mont Blancs but made of wood.  Something that caught my eye were his wine bottle stoppers.  I thought it would be great for my dad since him and my mom enjoy wine.  I purchased one and was very pleased.  Not only was the product great, the whole purchase experience was customized and simple.  My dad loves his wine bottle stopper and he mentioned that several of his friends commented on the fine craftsmanship and beauty at a recent party they had.

First of all, Brian has a fantastic product that he is very proud of and it shows.  Second, his products are useful to many people.  A good writing instrument is a staple on most desks, shirt pockets, or even purses.  Third, I believe Brian is doing a good job of marketing himself.  Not only does he have a website offering his goods, he also has a section on how the pens are made showing that he actually does the work.  In addition, you can link to his blog and his facebook group.  Both are good ways to reach younger people.  Not only that, he attends craft shows, symposiums, as well as a number of other things that I am sure that I am unaware of but I know that he is always out and about in the Richmond community.  Plus, he has me telling everyone I know about how great they are, word of mouth sometimes can be the strongest type of advertising.  I'm also a repeat customer.  The wine bottle stoppers are now my choice gift when attending a wedding.  Also, although I've never met Brian, I feel as though I know him based on his dedication and love of wood-turning.

Brian has decided to dedicate his time to his craft and has turned his passion into a full-time career.  I wish him the best of luck, and who knows, maybe in the future, I'll be able to sit down with Brian and interview him for another entry.

Happy Marketing!

Do Whatever it Takes, It Will be Worth it

Sometimes it is necessary to go above and beyond the ordinary.  Not only with a marketing plan but sometimes with your business in order to ensure smooth workings.  There may come a time when you need to do something that isn't appealing, but is necessary for your business to thrive.  This could be offering a sale similar to one that your competitor is running.  Or it could be offering a very unhappy customer a full refund on a product they were unhappy with.  It may be something you don't want to do, but it must be done.  It may win you a new customer or keep one from leaving you. 

I have just returned from a 48 hour stint in Denver, CO.  This was an unexpected trip.  An e-mail was sent around the office around 5:30 on Monday saying that it was urgent and that someone was needed to travel Tuesday to Thursday to oversee a taste test.  I was in the office at the time so I visited the sender of the e-mail to let them know if they couldn't find anyone else, I may be able to go.  At 9 am the next morning I found out I would be taking the 4:45 pm flight. 

The reason for this trip was because the fellow that was supposed to go to the Denver location had a family emergency.  Someone from our company needed to go to make sure that everything went smoothly.

I wasn't particularly thrilled about the prospect of running home, packing, and getting on a plane.  But I did it because I knew that it was necessary and I was helping out my company.

It ended up being a great experience.  Not only did I get to see how the taste test was done, I got to answer questions and make a couple of executive decisions.  All of the questionnaires were distributed correctly and hopefully, we will get great data and help our end client make a decision about their product. 

So, perfect example of how something I really didn't want to do helped me learn and we were able to cater to our customer.

Happy Marketing!

Making the Band, and Keeping it Alive

Now I normally don't plan  to write every week day, however, I had a thought over the weekend that I couldn't just let sit in my head until I got around to writing it down.

Band Marketing

You may want to take a tip from bands, be it rock, marching, or bluegrass.  How does a band become famous?  It doesn't happen by staying in their mother's garage playing for the local high school kids.  There's a lot of hard work.  There are many ways, currently, that bands that are up and coming become "it" bands. 

First, they get out there and take as many gigs as they can.  My guitar teacher at Guitar Works in Richmond would tell me how one day they would perform at a little hole in the wall bar with only a handful of people, then the next night they would be at a venue where there would be several hundred people.  I also recall him being particularly tired at a lesson because his band had been in the studio recording 13 hours a day for three straight days so they could produce demo tapes.  Some bands even do gigs pro bono just to get their name out there.  I mean, look at all of the bands that are on Myspace.

I think that all businesses, particularly small businesses, can take a note (no pun intended) from how bands get their name out there.  They may have a great product, but they do what they need to do in order to get more listeners.  Maybe providing a sample of your work to local vendors or being involved in a local craft fair or working meticulously to create the perfect cream puff recipe for three straight weekends in a row is what you need to do to do in order to get your name heard.  No one ever said owning a business was easy, a good portion fail within the first couple of years. 

You can either work to promote yourself today or continue to hang out in your mom's garage, hoping that one day you'll be discovered.

Happy Marketing!

A New Wave of Marketing - The Online Experience

So although I have just started, I had another idea that I wanted to mention.  I am very passionate about this and feel that it is imperative to modern day marketing.

Websites

This may seem like an unusual thing to bring up in modern day marketing.  You may be thinking Guerrilla or Stealth marketing, but I am really about the simple ideas.   To me, the one thing that any company can do that is super easy is to create a website.  You don't have to be an HTML genius to create, build, and maintain a website.  You could always pay someone who is an HTML genius, but if you want a simple page, there are plenty of sites that will happily host you for a small fee.  Just to name one that comes to mind, godaddy.com.  Godaddy has plans as low as $4.99 a month and they have all sorts of templates and ideas to help you build your site.   If you don't think it's worth the cost, let me give you a lesson in how a $5 a month website can bring in the big bucks.

Last year I moved to Richmond, VA.  I was looking for a hair salon because I needed a cut and color.  I am relatively picky about where I get my hair done.  This first thing that I did was find nearby salons and look up their websites.  The first two that I looked at sounded nice, but in name only.  They were Bellgrade Hair and the other was Shear Dimensions. There was no way for me to tell what they were like because I couldn't find a website for either of them.  They both may be wonderful salons but I looked past them because they didn't offer a website for me to peruse their services, hours, or pricing information.

The third salon that I looked up was Rituals Salon & Spa.  This is the salon that I went to the entire time that I lived in Virginia.  Not only did I get a chance to see their services and prices, but they also had pictures of the salon so I knew that it would be a nice place to get my hair done.

While you may think, "What does this have to do with the $5 website you've been telling me about that you think is so important?"

Here's what.  Like I said, I'm picky about my hair, I'm also willing to pay a good amount of money for a quality cut and color.  I determined what my value, per year, is to Rituals (I can't remember exactly what the cost was, but this is pretty close).

1 Haircut = $35 + $7 tip = $42 per haircut

1 Color = $75 + $15 tip = $90 per color

1 Haircut every 6 weeks = approximately 9 haircuts per year

1 Color ever 4-5 months = approximately 3 colors per year

9 Haircuts x $42 + 3 Colors x $90 = $648 per year. 

Forgive my math but I feel that it helps showcase why I am a valuable customer.  The cost of the website that got me in the door could have been 1/10 of what I spent there, just on cuts and colors alone.  If you add in getting my eyebrows waxed, a fancy manicure or pedicure now and then, an updo for a special occasion, or any of the other services that I go in for in one year, I'm probably worth close to $1,000 in revenue to these people.  I know that Bridget, my wonderful hair stylist probably misses me.  But the even better thing, I recommended two of my girlfriends to go to Rituals as well.  Let's say they get their hair cut as often as I do.  Between the two of them, it's close to another $750.  Plus, I kept going back because it was great service.  All of this came from a simple website!!!

So, as you can see, something as simple as a website can really help you out in the long run.  Especially being a Millennial, the first place I turn for information is the web.  Personally, I don't remember the last time I used a physical copy of the Yellow Pages for anything other than a doorstop. 

Happy Marketing!

Greetings and Salutations

Welcome to Marketing Done Modern.   I decided to create this blog for two reasons.

• I believe that everyone should have a marketing plan whether you are a small restaurant, a local hardware store, a giant corporation, or just trying to sell yourself. If you want business, you have to get yourself out there.
• Being a Millennial, I believe some of the marketing tactics out there are a little dated. I'm not saying they are not effective or a best practice. Sometimes I feel like we forget to look outside of the box and use only what the textbook tells us. Even if that textbook is from 1978!!!

My goal is to provide some interesting, creative, maybe non-traditional marketing ideas to help drive business. I'm not talking about new customers only. I'm talking about getting new customers, retaining customers, and making sporadic customers your core business. And maybe along the way, you'll be entertained by one of my unusual stories or analogies. I'm not just here as a resource, I am a real person with thoughts and feelings and emotions. So if something makes you want to laugh, don't feel guilty because this blog is about marketing. We're all still human. And if you're not human and reading this, well, I apologize for stereotyping my readers as human. Remember, these are just a few ideas, if you want to put them into play, you have to decide the best course of action for you. To quote Hortense Calisher:

"This is my answer to the gap between ideas and action - I will write it out."

And that is what I am here to do.  Write down my ideas.  And here is my first idea.

Provide a Simple Service During an Emergency

So this may sound strange but this struck me. I currently live in the Ohio/Northern Kentucky area. We were hit by the remnants of Ike on Sunday and over one million people lost power. Now this is nothing in comparison to what the people on the coast and in Texas felt, and my thoughts and prayers go out to them by the way. As of Tuesday, just under 500,000 people were still without power. Today that number was down to 200,000.  Currently, I am not complaining. While I have had to throw away a copious amount of food, I enjoyed listening to the radio by candlelight while catching up with friends on the phone or playing solitaire. There are worse things that could happen.

Something that stuck with me during this entire outage, however, is that my hot water heater is electric, therefore, a hot shower is out of the question. I thought of all the other people in the area who are in the same predicament as me. Yesterday I heard on the news that a local gym, Urban Active, that has several branches in the area is offering showers to anyone who may need one. Luckily, I belong to this gym and was planning on going anyway. But I thought it was a wonderful way to reach out to the community. Best Buy was allowing people to come into their stores with any electronic they may have and charge it in the store, for free.

I like this idea very much. As much as I hate that an event such as a major blackout required it, I feel that what these companies are doing is a huge public service. And with that, massive amounts of public relations. I have been hearing over and over again, "If you need a shower, Urban Active is opening it's doors to all people." That's a lot of free advertising. Plus, new people are coming in to see the place and may think, "Hmmm, this is a nice gym, I should join." Now I understand that this situation may not happen in a lot of places, but it really made me think of how a simple kindness or a service like providing a shower, something most people do daily, can really put you in the public eye.

Happy Marketing!