Your friendly neighbourhood internet store

The internet makes the whole world a marketplace for your customers if you so choose. But it also allows companies to automate and essentially become lazy on their customer service.

Someone buys something and gets an automated email response with the order summary, shipping info and receipt - it's pretty standard practice for e-commerce.

But what happens when you change things up.

I recently ordered my girlfriend a bouquet of flowers because i'm just such an awesome boyfriend and I was looking online at the various flower shops in Vancouver that delivered. I finally settled on a florist and ordered the bouquet and of course received an automated email confirming all the details.

Then, to my surprise, later that day I received an email from the florist letting me know that he "would be delivering a beautiful bouquet to ------ on March 16th for me. Thanks, Joel"

That simple email that took him 10 seconds to send just earned him a repeat customer. The next time I look to suck up to my girlfriend I will definitely be going to the same place.

It's that easy to turn your standard online store into one that makes your customers feel more important than a standard automated reply.

Does your marketing smell a little funky?

It might not be a bad thing to have an odor as part of your marketing efforts. Every Tuesday while I am driving home from work my nostrils all of a sudden perk up as I pass a certain point in my route, a KFC restaurant. They've got my attention for those few seconds I smell that delicious KFC odor wafting out from their building. I can only imagine how many people get sucked into ordering a quick bucket of chicken for dinner on their way home instead of making something at home. It's great marketing on their part. Attacking people's noses with a delicious smell at a time when they will be craving food.

So why don't more businesses utilize this type of approach to getting people's attention? Sure there are some odor pollution rules in most major cities but if you are a business that relies on people stopping and entering your location to purchase your product wouldn't smell be a great way to grab their attention.

Retail locations that market smelly products use it in malls all the time - The Body Shop, Lush, etc. But what about the other stores. Just because your company doesn't traditional deal with a smelly product doesn't mean you can't use the sense of smell to draw in prospective customers. If you are a surf shop in Vancouver, why not have a beach odor pouring out of your store? What about a shoe store, get the smell of fresh leather or that new shoe smell trapped and have it wafting from your location. You should be able to grab lots of people's attention as they go buy.

Cook something different up for your marketing plans. It'll be so g-double-o-d good.

Viagra-ing your brand

Newfoundland and Labrador don't claim to offer visitors a big city experience, in fact they market themselves as the exact opposite of that - quiet, small, and friendly. Have a look at some of their most recent television ads. The scenery is breathtaking, the music is calming and it makes you want to hop on the next flight to take it all in for yourself.





But they save the best for last, and enhance their brand image at the same time, by offering a personalized telephone number on the last screen. Sure it's a 1-800 number, but you have an actual person's name to speak too. How small town is that? How personal and special do you feel calling a specific person as opposed to a main phone line? Simply brilliant marketing, and no doubt leaves a smile on peoples faces - exactly the way they want people to react.

Socially outsourcing your marketing

As more and more companies start to latch on to social media and look at ways to leverage it, there seems to be one tactic that is used again and again to engage customers - Getting the masses to do your marketing work for you. Offering some sort of incentive (monetary or prize typically) in return for them creating your next brand name, commercial, slogan, etc. Companies are straying from the often expensive creative agency in favour of asking their customers, fans, friends to provide them with ideas, concepts, mock ups, and anything else.

Is it really "engaging your customers" or are you more taking advantage of them by using their creative work for cheap (Some of the prizes can be as small as iPods and iPads)? Individuals won't typically know what this intellectual property can actually be worth and they will have no knowledge of copyrights or trademarks like marketing people that work in the business.

Some of the ideas generated through this social outsourcing could result in the next "google" brand name or the next mac vs. apple commercials that are wildly successful for a company, yet the individual who has poured their time and hours into the project usually is modestly compensated.

Then there is the flipside that sometimes it may not be worth a company's time. If you receive a large number of responses to your social outsourcing you want to go through them all in search of gold. I'm sure more often than not you will be looking at pyrite because these individuals don't have the experience and knowledge of a creative agency. Creativity isn't something that requires an MBA but advertising companies are successful for a reason.

So where do you stand on this idea of social outsourcing? I think the trend will probably fade out but maybe that is just the rantings of someone who's amazing ideas continue to be left in the "pyrite" pile when he submits them.

Marketing that makes you go hmmm

How often do you receive, hear, or see an advertisement that just completely confounds and confuses you? Probably more often than the companies who employ these marketers would like. It makes me go hmmm, but not in a good, thoughtful way, more like a who the hell would approve this kind of way.

For example this afternoon I received this email from a comedy club that I had once submitted my name to in hopes of winning free tickets to a future show.

This was the whole email and the title of it was "Yuk Yuk's special Announcement"

Sooooooo, I can surmise from the local service provider that this is a new television station but other than that it really tells me absolutely nothing. The email was also just one big image which I have now copied to make fun of them for not knowing how to market, and it did not click me anywhere. Not to a page dedicated to the television channel or anything. I watch a decent amount of television and i've never heard anything about this channel, I haven't read anything online about it or seen anything in a newspaper.

As far as I know, this is the first effort they have put into marketing this channel. Fail.

Confusing your customers

To write, direct, and produce a 30 second television commercial is expensive, then you get into placing it on television and the costs continue to rise higher and higher.

So why would you waste your companies advertising dollars on something that doesn't explain a competitive advantage of yours, or even really explain what your offering your customers.

Exhibit A: Ramada worldwide




At least there is an offer in the second ad that may help explain what the advertisement is for. What is their message supposed to be though? "Do your thing"
Do you get a lot of scottish kilt wearing business people that like to ride bulls as guests at your hotel? Is that the niche market your targeting with these ads? Because to me you seem to be advertising to just-graduated frat college people that are starting out in the business world and want somewhere they can crash after a party. If that is the message, well then I guess well done. But to me instead of making a couple of crappy 15 second ads, why not create a full 30 second ad that will actually grab peoples attention and tell them why they should stay at your hotel.

Compare that to the Holiday Inn Express commercials, which use the same sort of angle in their ads of not talking about the hotel but rather the person that would stay in it. However, Holiday Inn Express does a lot better job of getting across the message of why or who would stay at their hotels - Smart people. They are telling their audience that their hotel is a no brainer.



The Holiday Inn Express team obviously spends a lot more money on creating their commercials but they are getting a lot more return on their investment than Ramada is in my opinion.

Crying wolf

How often do you see a car advertisement that doesn't tout "Best Deals of the Year", "Sale on Now" or "Now is the time to buy". In fact, there is even a radio ad playing right now that i've heard multiple times that goes a little something like this:

"Sometimes with all the car ads saying "Now is the time to buy" it can be tough to know when the best time is to buy. But this time we mean it, now is the time to get to your Mazda dealer!"

Really? That's what you came up with?

People are completely numb and dull to these car advertising tactics nowadays - they are old and played out. The car companies have cried wolf one too many times and the consumer is onto their tactics. Maybe these have worked in the past but if a company like GM or Chrysler want to actually start gaining traction in the market place maybe they should take a drastic look at their marketing/promotions ideas and come up with something creative for once instead of the tired, old status quo.

The new age consumer is much more cogniscent of marketing, especially old school tactics that companies have been running out for decades. I can't wait for the follow up commercial that touts "Employee pricing on now".

"But people come to our lots when we say sale"

Well maybe you should start from the bottom up and start creating better cars that people enjoy, don't get frustrated with, and will tell all their friends about. Create a long term sales, marketing and production strategy instead of letting your production/design fully determine the marketing strategy.

Just a thought. But what do I know, i'm only a consumer.