Social Media | Solve the Marketing Mystery

Tweetdivas Behind the Scenes at Krispy Kreme

February 16, 2009 Leave a Comment

Last Tuesday, we had a Tweetdivas gathering to go behind the scenes at a local Krispy Kreme. And I couldn’t help but notice a few takeaway marketing lessons…

Have an urgent call-to-action…as far as prompting impulse purchases–the “Hot Donuts Now” sign pretty much takes the cake. (You can groan.) Here’s a tip though: most locations though do have set hours that hot donuts are available. In this store it’s 6am to 11 am and after 5pm.

Entertain your customers…factory stores typically showcase the production (aka Donut-Making Theater, according to the KK website) behind large glass windows so store visitors can watch the donuts being made…plus it reinforces the company’s commitment to quality and freshness.

Enter the conversation in the customer’s head…by making different shapes of donuts for various holidays and special events. I was surprised to hear that Valentine’s Day is actually a big seller for them. They’re also encouraging repeat purchases by offering free packs of Valentine cards–each one doubling as a coupon for a free donut. And of course, who’s going to come back and get just one donut?!

Focus on your strengths…they sell donuts and coffee. Period. At one point, the company experimented with adding other food to the menu. But like Starbucks’ failed attempts at adding breakfast sandwiches, it didn’t fly.

Customize your offerings to your market…the original glazed donut is by far the best seller in every location, our tour guide said–with chocolate glazed a distant second. But beyond that, it varies by geographic location. In our Raleigh store, the raspberry-filled are the third best selling.

Give the customers what they want…customers wanted donut holes and in 2005 KK began making them–separately. You see, the top-secret donut shaper (which no one is allowed to video or photograph) creates the donuts in the typical donut ring shape, with the hole already there. So the “holes” became just another shape of donut they offered.

Get involved with the community…back in the 1950′s KK began making discounted donuts available to schools and non-profits for fundraising. Last year they helped various groups raise $30 million dollars. This particular store helped a bunch of NC State students raise nearly $40,000 for the Children’s Hospital of NC last weekend with the Krispy Kreme Challenge.

(By the way, the video was taken by @wiggitywack, who works for www.MyNC.com. And it was her first video report ever!)

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Minimize Your Networking to Maximize Your Results

January 6, 2009 Leave a Comment

There’s a saying that your income is the average of the five people you hang around most. Is it time to take a harder look at who you’ve been spending time with?

Networking is a big part of having a business–but it can also be a huge waste of time and money. I know someone who was always off to a meeting of some sort, and then trying to get her work done at 2AM in the morning. Yet she was always complaining about not having enough time or clients.

Instead, you need to use strategic networking–it’s far better to be very involved in two or three groups than to hit 15 each month in a scattershot fashion. After all, time is money too.

3 Questions for More Strategic Networking

If you’re looking to make the most of your networking time and money, ask yourself three questions (and be honest!):

Does it have a room full of your best potential clients?
Does it have a room full of people who would be excellent referral sources for you?
Do you learn things you need to know and don’t already know?

Knowing who your best potential clients are will certainly make the first question easier. (If you don’t know, see Finding Clients that Fit Like a Glove) But it means you have to STOP thinking that everyone can be a great prospect, if you can just educate them about the value of their products and services.

No! A great prospect is one that already understands the value of what you offer and is willing to pay for it–you just have to convince them to choose YOU. Similarly, great referral sources understand what you offer and frequently have clients looking for it.

Either way, if you want to maximize your networking time, THESE are the people you want to be in the room with! The others you can reach out to through broader marketing efforts like speaking gigs, social networking, or your ezine.

Finding the Right Rooms

Once you know who you’re looking for, seek out association meetings or even local Meetups they may attend. Or get creative. A savvy financial planner targeting the newly retired began taking mid-day ballroom dancing classes. Not only was he the only financial planner in the room, regular classes meant his prospects got to know him and like him–making it much easier to trust him with their finances.

And remember–the networking doesn’t have to just be ongoing groups. Obviously there’s social networking, but consider seminars and conferences as well. If your best prospects are hard to find locally, your time and money may be better spent going to events they’ll attend in droves.

As for the third question, sometimes the value of the information you receive from a group is well worth the time and money alone. But if the info is valuable occasionally–and the group is not full of great prospect or referral sources–cut the cord. Most of the time, you can attend an event here or there without being a member.

Less Can Be More

I’m not saying you should never join a group that doesn’t fit these three reasons. There are certainly other good reasons to do so. But if you’re looking to minimize your time spent running around to meetings and maximize your bottom-line results, these are the three to focus on. And I’m speaking from experience.

In the past year, I’ve trimmed my memberships down to two local networking groups–one of which doesn’t even have dues. There are a few social networking offshoots I attend as well for personal and business socializing, but only two business groups that I go to every month. Both of which are solid yeses for at least two of questions above. Plus, they surround me with other business owners who “think big” to keep me in the right mindset.

The $1,000 I’ve saved on membership and meeting fees with strategic networking over the past year will certainly make it easier for me to attend more conferences and seminars this year (where my ideal market hangs out). And I’m already busier than ever.

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Is Social Media Just an Internet Marketing Fad?

September 29, 2008 5 Comments

I’ve heard this question several times recently and it reminds me of my graduate school final project, which I wrote about PR and marketing in the microbrew industry. (Yes, it was fun and yes, I did do a lot of on-site visits for my research in addition to an internship at Mass Bay Brewing Company. But it was also a serious look at the grassroots-style marketing that was typical of these companies!) It was 1995 and tons of skeptics were predicting that microbrewing was just a fad.

My response was always, “You’re telling me that the hundreds of thousands of people drinking these better tasting beers are going to just stop one day and switch back to drinking beer-water? No way. You can’t ‘unring’ the decent beer bell.”

And they’re still here, aren’t they? Sure, there was some consolidation and microbrewers with weak business models went out of business. That’s just normal with any trend. But it has changed the face of the American brewing industry.

But this was a trend with a history going back to our founding fathers. Microbrewing wasn’t new to the U.S.—it was the resurgence of a pre-Prohibition tradition of having hundreds of small breweries serving handcrafted beers to local customers. I’ll skip the history lesson as to why they died out for awhile, but it’s highly unlikely we’d face the combination of Prohibition and the Great Depression followed by a World War again.

On the other hand, social media has dramatically changed communication. One-way conversations with companies, politicians, and the rest of the “elite” pushing their message out into the world have become two-way conversations. Hundreds of thousands of people now expect to have a way to respond and make their voice heard. And information, which is a key element of power, is no longer the domain of a few. It’s available to anyone with an internet connection and can be distributed around the world in an instant.

Do you really think people are going to just relinquish all that?

Like the brewing industry, the tools of social media may change and evolve—websites and applications may come and go. But the change being created by social media is here to stay.

It too, has some historical basis. Community was once created by living close to other family members, growing up with your cousins, volunteering for the church bake sale and frequent socializing with your neighbors. Then we started working longer and longer hours and became more mobile, more paranoid and more isolated. In many respects, social media is rebuilding that sense of community by redefining what your community is.

Of course, it may be hard to borrow a cup of sugar when your “community” members live all over the world.

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Days 21-22 Progress and Delays

August 28, 2008 Leave a Comment

Yesterday I had a terrific Marketing Strategy Session with a client (although I spent waaaay too long prepping for it!) and I received yet another project from my biggest client.

I was a little bummed to find out Tuesday though that the potentially big announcement I’ve been waiting to make has been delayed at least until after Labor Day.

I’ve got another JV and at least two other teleseminars in the works–am hoping to finalize some of those details in the next week.

Spent some time on that forum that has brought me a couple of prospects and clients. Also, a little time catching up on Facebook. Still working with one of my VA’s on web changes, hopefully you’ll start seeing some blog changes too soon.

I also had the honor (and the pleasure!) of reviewing the pre-release of the Twitter Handbook, which should be coming out in the next few days. Deb Micek and Warren Whitlock have done a terrific job at conveying what you need to know to use Twitter for business–in a fun, Twitterific way of course. And the tips and applications they’ve uncovered are astounding. I bet even the Twitter developers would learn a few new things by reading it!

Reached 45% of the daily income total yesterday. I’ll have to do an update on the overall total later this week.

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8 Ways to Make More Marketing Time

August 12, 2008 Leave a Comment

You can’t skip eating for a week and then refuel yourself in one day, and you can’t do the same with marketing. It’s hard, but finding the time to promote the business must be a priority if you want to keep growing at a healthy rate. You have to do it every (working) day—for at least two hours a day. So here are some ideas to help you fit it in:

1. Outsource the things you shouldn’t be doing. You knew I was going to say this, so I won’t harp on it. But remember that it’s mathematically impossible to make $100 an hour while you’re doing $15 an hour tasks.

2. Start an idea book. Someone sends you a link to check out, or you get a great idea for a new service. In the excitement, you drop what you’re doing to explore further—then suddenly you look up and it’s two hours later. Next time, jot down the link or the idea in a notebook or on a sticky note to go into an idea book. It’ll be there for you later when you have time to look into it, and in the meantime you may realize it’s not a good idea after all.

3. Create a marketing calendar. Spend some time mapping out what you want to do over the next month or so. For those tasks you need to do weekly, assign a day of the week and how much time you want to spend on it. For example, my calendar says I’m going to visit the Linked In website every Tuesday and Thursday for 15 minutes, and I’m going to spend 3 hours on Saturday writing articles. Have certain promotions you want to do? Put them on the calendar as well so you can see when you need to be getting things ready.

4. Time yourself. A kitchen timer is a clear reminder that time is up on a task. If you decide you want to keep working on that item, take a quick break then reset the timer. Otherwise you may fall into “zombie mode” where your brain is getting increasingly less productive but you’re still sitting there trying to finish three hours later.

5. Batching tasks. Schedule client appointments back to back and group any other like tasks together as well. It’s much more efficient to sit down and crank out all the articles you need for the week in one sitting, than to try to work on them piecemeal here and there. Same for phone calls you need to make. You’ll save time plus get bigger chunks of time to concentrate on projects.

6. Automate repetitive tasks. If you type certain emails over and over again, store a copy in your Outlook Drafts folder or use an autoresponder service. I’ve also found free applications that feed my blog posts to Twitter and Facebook. Just Google what you’re looking to do and you’ll probably find suggestions for free or low-cost software that can save you time doing it. (To be safe, I usually look for recommendations from other legit-looking bloggers, not the sites of the applications themselves.)

7. Take advantage of “down” times. For some reason, article outlines often come to me while I’m brushing my teeth at night. Or I’ll use a digital recorder to brainstorm ideas or map out what I want to say while I’m driving. Being away from your desk can actually spark your creativity, so take advantage of that by keeping paper and pens stashed everywhere.

8. Eliminate marketing time wasters. Networking can be a huge time waste. You do NOT need to attend every networking event in town—and it’s really not going to do you much good to do so. Be strategic about the groups you get involved with, and the events you go to. Here’s an article about networking that discusses this a little more. And of course, track your marketing results so you can eliminate tactics that aren’t paying-off in a reasonable amount of time.

I’d love to hear what you have to say, click on Comments and post below!

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Day 1 of 30 Days of Massive Action

August 6, 2008 2 Comments

Ok, I spent way too much time finishing my Compelling Marketing ezine this AM–about 3 hours writing it and I actually worked on it yesterday too. Obviously, that has to change since it’s a weekly. Lately, I’ve been jotting ideas on Sunday night as I get ready for bed but I was distracted this week by gearing up for this initiative. Still, I’m going to try planning a 3 hour block of time on Saturdays to write the ezine and hopefully a blog post or two for the week as well. I’m sure it’ll make my VA happier as well!

Of course, that completely knocked me off my carefully mapped out time blocked schedule. I also had to clear some financial matters off the desk this afternoon which, again, took longer than expected. But it was worth the time to eliminate some big distractions.

However, I did write a letter to the PR guy at Ben & Jerry’s that I’m sending along with a copy of the new book I’m in Conscious Entrepreneurs. In my chapter, I talk about how working at one of their scoop shops during college inspired my interest in social entrepreneurship. Since I know PR people like to keep tabs on company mentions, I figured he’d appreciate seeing it. But of course I wouldn’t mind if anything more comes of it…

Social networking can be an effective way to broaden your network and build your list, but it can easily be a big time suck. So my plan is to visit certain sites each day for a limited amount of time–1 hour total max. I went over time tonight, but I also signed up for two more forums–one for copywriters and one for PR folks. And of course, it takes some time to get caught up. But I will definitely be getting the timer out tomorrow.

As for actual income, one client told me they were referring me to someone else in the company and I got a call from another client today who wants me to do a some additional work for him. But since I’m not counting it until I invoice the client, I reached 0% of my daily income goal today. Good thing there’s 29 days left!

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