Signage 101 It's a No-Brainer

Signage 101 - It's a No-Brainer
I get excited when I see job site signs. I am thrilled when I see van with a great logo, slogan and phone number, and website. I am ecstatic when I catch a vanity plate displaying in license code the name of a company (saw today) Assur U. It doesn't get any better than a big corporate logo on a banner sponsoring a fundraising event. Hmmm . . . in the grocery store parking lot, catch the back of a tee shirt stating, Cal Campbell Master Plumber of the Universe -- with solar system graphic to emphasize his claim to fame and contact info. Think of the space these logos and company names are taking up as portable billboards. If you were to pay for ad space on an actual billboard on freeway 5 in San Diego, you'd be looking at thousands of dollars per month--depending on traffic numbers. The sound of a $45 to $60 set of car magnet signs or a couple hundred dollars in tee shirt imprinting is looking really pretty good right now.

Where can you put, place, drop or imprint your logo?

Leaving Your Prospect Out in Left Field

This blog is all about the real world of experential marketing i.e. what sales and marketing opps or miss-opps I run into on a daily basis. The good, bad and the truly ugly. Yesterday comes to mind. Having lost my vehicle to a recent auto accident, my husband and I went car shopping. We had an idea on the vehicle we wanted, but thought -- heh, let's give the US manufacturers a chance. So we headed to a Buick lot in our local area. Being Motown-born I was onboard with checking out the options. It was around 10:45 a.m. and the sun was shining, pavement dry, all systems go for checking out cars. Would you, could you believe that Dave and I literally walked up and down two rows of vehicles. During this 15-20 minutes, no one, as in "no person" came out to talk with us. I briefly caught a glimpse of a man about 75-100 yards away, and he generally looked in our direction, but did not budge. The moral of the story is simple. If you want to do business, you have to make yourself present.

After leaving the "yawn, Buick" dealership without a whisper of attention, we drove two blocks to Toyota Carlsbad dealership and sales professional, Scott Busby, took care of us immediately. He stayed with us from looking at cars through driving our new pre-owned certified car off the lot at 2:30 p.m. the same day.

BTW the words "Pre-owned Certified" is fodder for another blog post.

3 Easy Tips for Generating e-News Content

Content is king when sending out your e-news. Resist the sell, sell, sell copy. You want to give your audience value when they open your email. Think of Pavlov. After so many opens. If you only are selling and not sharing / educating, why should I expect anything different when I see your e-news come into my inbox?

Try on these 3 ideas for creating content for your email marketing communications:
No. 1 Share a success story. Let people know how someone used your product or service and got results. Had fun. Learned something. Made more money. Increased their lead captures.
No. 2 Be a motivator. You're the expert in your field. Help others understand how they can excel. And when they do, be the first to cheer them on! Give credit, where credit is due. Encourage them to do more of the same. Use a case study in your e-news on how someone uses you as a coach or mentor.
No. 3 Give relevant answers. Answers to questions you know they are thinking about. For example, I know many of my e-news readers are lying awake wondering whether they should be spending time on social networking i.e. LinkedIn, Facebook, Plaxo? Why wait for them to ask? Include a valuable answer, and you'll soon be viewed as a resource of information.

Check which e-news you read--and ask yourself "Why?"

Care and Feeding of Emails

How you handle your email says a lot about your experience and your professionalism. People who live and breathe by email have unwritten rules and protocol that they expect to be followed by fellow users. Trust me, you are prejudged by your email etiquette. Before I even begin -- ALL CAPS ARE OUT . . . OKAY? They are tantamount to screaming at someone.

1) Please refer in your subject line what the email pertains to i.e. Ad Spec Information for Yuma Yellow Pages. Yes, this takes a bit of time, but it is a courtesy to the party you are emailing. You have verified the content. They know quickly that your message is not spam or a scam. When they save in their system, they can find it quickly using search terms.

Just today I received an email from a prospective ad rep who I do not know well or could even remember their name. The email came in with "Hi" in the subject line. This is an auto-delete type of subject line. After I gingerly opened it, I recognized the rep and asked for more information. They came back again with "Hi" in the subject line and over 9300KBs of info attached -- which immediately froze my system. After having to reboot my system, I am definitely not impressed--and still have not seen the info. Brings me to #2.

2) If attaching documents send manageable file sizes. Please no 10 megapixel photo at 100%. Or large files. Save docs as PDFs - which usually makes them transeferrable. Use a file upload/download free service - like www.yousendit.com

3) Write in short, direct statements. Email is not letter writing style or journal style. Get to the point. Number items if covering a number of topics. Indicate in your subject line if you need a reply or response.

4) Create a complete email signature. Set up your auto signature with all of the info someone might need about you--definitely phone number! Don't worry that you are giving too much info. Parties know how to not even read a sig line unless they want the information.

As courtesy to you right now. I will stop writing this blog.

Social Media Conundrum

Hmmmmm. I had to look up how to spell "conundrum." Means a puzzling question or problem. I knew it was what I wanted to propose in this blog after I just posted a tweet. Mentioning "I was playing backgammon and relaxing after an ah-mazing week of hearing CEO Mike Conway 2-24 and vision boarding with the six figure moms." My real question is . . . who cares?

Yet in a strange way I'm having fun with the posts on Facebook and Twitter (haven't incorporated LinkedIn and Biznik yet). As a BB (baby boomer) I like to I understand the whole system before I tread into it. With the morphing of these sites, I don't think I'll have that luxury. I hope there will be a cliff note series on the "how to's" and proper protocol of SN soon.

By the way feel free to "follow" me.

Get in! the Water's Freezing Marketing Note

I believe a great way to get new insights is by being alert and just looking around for clues and messages. Last Sunday I went to Carlsbad's Ponto Beach for a walk midmorning. The tide was going out so the sand was smooth, wet and hard. There weren't many people yet -- so when a young boy around 11 years old came mad dashing from his folk's car straight to the waves with his skim board posed to fly on the sand with incoming surf, I had to stop and watch. When he hit the water, he screamed, "It's coooooooooooooold! It's freezing!" He ran from the waves, and I thought well that's that. Instead he spun around and looked to where his parents were and another boy. He yelled at the top of his lungs, "Heh, Aaron let's go! Get in here. This is a blast!" Off he went back into the cold surf.

Here's the insight I got. Picture today's business owner screaming, "OMG It's a recession! It's an awful downturn!" Does that person take the "Well, I'll just get out and spare myself of the discomfort of dealing with it," or do they, like the young boy, yell "Heh, let's get going, there have to be opportunities here! Let's go!" Let's use the adrenaline rush of excitement and fear to create more opporutnities in our businesses while calling out to others to do the same.

Pareto's 80/20 Rule for Your Company's Vision

When I had my ad agency, Almon Associates in Western New York in the 80s, I would get frustrated with getting everything "perfect" on jobs we would do i.e. brochure design, copy, print quality. I was complaining to my Dad who was a retired exec from Chrysler, and he explained the 80/20 rule to me based on his work in the auto industry. In essence the automakers knew what it would cost to make everything right on a car -- on in the long run they could not financially do so or they would lose money. So they chose to do the very best they could (80%) and in most cases the (20%) didn't thwart people from buying the cars.

My Dad has since passed on, yet I know he still advises me because I often have intuitive ideas about business and attribute them to his channelling. (It's great to stay connected.) Getting back to the post -- looking at the position of the auto industry today, maybe, just maybe they should have stretched the 80% in respect to defining their vision for the future of Chrysler.

Let's take this lesson into consideration for our own businesses.