Purolator is the company that was awarded the Vancouver 2010 Olympics contract to deliver tickets purchased to events. A pretty nice sized contract which gets them a huge amount of exposure (not that they needed it) to people in all works of life. Owners, employees, and every other type of person who no doubt will have something shipped at some point in their life. Now, i'm not saying that if every person had a good experience with Purolator they would all only use this company in the future for their shipping needs.
It's more the opposite side of the coin, i'm guessing anyone that has a negative experience with the process will be extremely unlikely to use Purolator in the future if given a choice. And, from what i've heard so far, there is a lot of negativity around the process. Purolator doesn't seem to have nailed the logistical aspect of this major project. The tickets were put in people's names and the majority marked down their home address to have the tickets delivered to - Purolator delivers during the day, when the majority of these people are at work and therefore not at their home address. People then have to make their way to Purolator's shipping centres to pick up the tickets that they missed delivery of, and you have to have something that matches your name to the address on the tickets (many people will have moved). You have a time limit of 6 days before the tickets are shipped back to VANOC at which point you are unable to collect and will no doubt have to undergo the process all over again.
These time limits and Purolator's hours have led to large lineups at their shipping centres and angry customers who have been turned away because their stores stop serving people at exactly their close time. People are also arriving at the stores and finding that they put down a different address than where they currently live and don't have the proper documents to pick up the tickets. They are being turned away.
Here's a couple of ideas Purolator:
1. Extend you hours slightly so people getting off work have more chance to make it to your store. 7pm is too early a closing time.
2. Write on the little note you leave saying "Sorry we missed you" that people need to ensure they have something that proves they live at the address listed on the tickets.
3. Have more people working on weekends so that your customers can get through the lineups in a somewhat reasonable timeframe.
Winning a big contract is one thing but having the foresight to see the exposure you get as a result is another. Make sure you are prepared to do the job when you are going out to thousands and thousands of potential customers.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Boxing Day....Month??? Year?????
I remember the good old days, when Boxing Day in Canada meant companies heavily discounting prices on all the crappy products that they were trying to get rid of all year but just couldn't. Cue the red tag, red pen, or any other type of redness that can be used to demonstrate a slashing of prices. What? You mean our 8-track/vinyl/cd player all in one didn't move? Mark it down 75 percent and call it a doorcrasher. Then shmucks would line up at the door starting early in the morning and make a run for that 8-track/vinyl/cd 3-in-1 combo they had their eyes on for the last 2 days when the flyer was delivered to their home. I had the pleasure of working in a retail environment on a number of boxing days, that is neither here nor there so i'll save those stories for another time.
What unfortunately has happened with boxing day is companies have captured consumers attention and wallets on that specific day and are now trying to bottle it up and unleash it for longer and longer and now are starting earlier and earlier. Therefore they will eventually erode all the hard work that Boxing Day put into building itself up to being the ultimate shopping day of the year. Now maybe this works better for retailers because they get a longer length of increased sales from customers looking for deals during "Boxing Week" but when you start advertising "Pre-Boxing Day Sales", well, your customers will catch on eventually.
People will either start holding back all their major purchases till "Boxing Month" or they will realize that not everything can be discounted all the time and will theorize that maybe your margins are a little too high and future advertising for boxing day sales will be completely lost in the clutter of regular flyers and regular advertising.
Either way it will be interesting to see how far in front of and behind the 26th of December retailers can move. I look forward to when Boxing Day sales outpace the first Christmas commercial of the year which usually comes around about September 1st.
What unfortunately has happened with boxing day is companies have captured consumers attention and wallets on that specific day and are now trying to bottle it up and unleash it for longer and longer and now are starting earlier and earlier. Therefore they will eventually erode all the hard work that Boxing Day put into building itself up to being the ultimate shopping day of the year. Now maybe this works better for retailers because they get a longer length of increased sales from customers looking for deals during "Boxing Week" but when you start advertising "Pre-Boxing Day Sales", well, your customers will catch on eventually.
People will either start holding back all their major purchases till "Boxing Month" or they will realize that not everything can be discounted all the time and will theorize that maybe your margins are a little too high and future advertising for boxing day sales will be completely lost in the clutter of regular flyers and regular advertising.
Either way it will be interesting to see how far in front of and behind the 26th of December retailers can move. I look forward to when Boxing Day sales outpace the first Christmas commercial of the year which usually comes around about September 1st.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Overpromise & Underdeliver
That seems to be the mantra of General Motors. They just don't get it.
I've written in the past multiple times about how frustrating GM is to deal with and how they are clearly one of the worst run car companies in the world. But they just leave themselves so open to criticism with their practices it's embarassing.
How long have they been touting their electric car The Volt for? Years and years. The car looks great and is forward thinking......or at least it was back in 2005 or whenever they first launched it. That was cutting edge and they surprised people with the look of it then. As Andy Nulman constantly writes about on his POW! blog using the art of surprise is a great marketing tactic. Unfortunately GM couldn't back up their surprise anytime soon and now everytime the word Volt is used in conversation it is met with a snear.
....and then you get this from Nissan
I didn't even know Nissan was working on an electric vehicle (one however, would assume most smart car companies are working on an electric vehicle)! So what do they do, they role out a model and show it actually being used in the world. Wow! Surprise and the novel concept of showing the car exists and can-in-fact function in the real world. Not just concepts or dreams or figments of someones imagination. A real live test model.
Thumbs up Nissan, and yet another loss for GM. Your culture of losing is getting well established at this point General Motors.
I've written in the past multiple times about how frustrating GM is to deal with and how they are clearly one of the worst run car companies in the world. But they just leave themselves so open to criticism with their practices it's embarassing.
How long have they been touting their electric car The Volt for? Years and years. The car looks great and is forward thinking......or at least it was back in 2005 or whenever they first launched it. That was cutting edge and they surprised people with the look of it then. As Andy Nulman constantly writes about on his POW! blog using the art of surprise is a great marketing tactic. Unfortunately GM couldn't back up their surprise anytime soon and now everytime the word Volt is used in conversation it is met with a snear.
....and then you get this from Nissan
I didn't even know Nissan was working on an electric vehicle (one however, would assume most smart car companies are working on an electric vehicle)! So what do they do, they role out a model and show it actually being used in the world. Wow! Surprise and the novel concept of showing the car exists and can-in-fact function in the real world. Not just concepts or dreams or figments of someones imagination. A real live test model.
Thumbs up Nissan, and yet another loss for GM. Your culture of losing is getting well established at this point General Motors.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
ABC
Forgot to include this with the last post I made. Amazing monologue by Alec Baldwin that i'm sure most salesman have seen.
What will our generation's Glengarry Glen Ross a-typical salesperson look/act like?
What will our generation's Glengarry Glen Ross a-typical salesperson look/act like?
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Will salesmen Always Be Closing?
I finished reading Chris Anderson's Free a few weeks back and although the book wasn't quite as great a read as I was hoping for it did the job of making my brain whirr away with thoughts and started me thinking on many spinoffs of "Free".
One of the chief thoughts that has been swirling around in my head over the last little while is "What does the future hold for salespeople?"
This thought has been percolating because as is noted in the book, there are so many sources of free information these days and this dearth of info is only getting larger and larger as the internet continues to increase in popularity and more and more people have access to it. You combine that with a younger generation that grows up online reading forums, wikis, and interacting with discussion groups and online friends and you start to see why salesperson could be an interesting occupation to watch the development of down the road. What is a salesperson possibly going to tell people that they haven't already been able to find out on their own or from someone else online?
I, in fact, am a perfect example of this. If i'm looking for something specifically the first thing I will do is go online to try to find it. I'll check out specs, prices, and shop around. One such purchase I made recently was a portable sound dock for an ipod player. I search Future Shop, Best Buy, and London Drugs' websites comparing prices and features, reading the odd review that I could find on products that matched my needs. Once I had finished this part of the purchase cycle, I merely walked into the store, grabbed the product and marched up to the counter. In and out in 2 minutes.
But electronic retail stores aren't the only example of a possible death of the salesman. On the evening news last night they ran a story on how more and more people are using online stock trading tools to do their trading for them instead of using a stock broker. Will this effect the industry? I should think so. Granted stock traders provide a lot more value than people probably give them credit for as they research deep into potential companies to invest in, talk to the owners, and provide personalized recommendations to match your investing style. But more and more people are going to be doing their own research and using eTrade or another online brokerage to make their trades. Some people may not have much luck using this method and therefore end up back in the arms of an awaiting broker, but those that do have success could greatly influence the movement of the stock market as opposed to the traditional powers of brokerages to provide upward and downward momentum on specific stocks based on what they put their word/clients into. Somewhere down the road instead of seeing "Cannacord Capital forecasts targets of $30.00 per share for so and so corp" you may see "Facebook member ChunkyMonkey53 forecasts an increase of $1 per share by the end of the year according to their status update".
At the same time, if you've ever been on the BullBoards on Stockhouse you will realize how much crap there is out there and how it can be tough to trust the majority of information you read on some of these sites. Hence the role of a broker to de-crapify this information and make sure you get the appropriate facts you need.
Recently I even purchased a pre-sale condominium and to be honest, aside from writing up the contract, I'm not sure what the salesperson did to sell me. I found out all the information online, I looked through their display suite on my own, I talked to the bank on my own. So how much value are they really providing to be getting a major cut of the money that the company is getting off me.
Well now that this is seemingly spinning into a rant i'll close off here. My brother is a salesperson, and i've been a salesperson in the past, but I don't know if I would encourage my children to get into the profession in the future. It could be one of those things a few generations down the road that our great grandchildren miss out on, just like stamps, home phones, and paperback books.
One of the chief thoughts that has been swirling around in my head over the last little while is "What does the future hold for salespeople?"
This thought has been percolating because as is noted in the book, there are so many sources of free information these days and this dearth of info is only getting larger and larger as the internet continues to increase in popularity and more and more people have access to it. You combine that with a younger generation that grows up online reading forums, wikis, and interacting with discussion groups and online friends and you start to see why salesperson could be an interesting occupation to watch the development of down the road. What is a salesperson possibly going to tell people that they haven't already been able to find out on their own or from someone else online?
I, in fact, am a perfect example of this. If i'm looking for something specifically the first thing I will do is go online to try to find it. I'll check out specs, prices, and shop around. One such purchase I made recently was a portable sound dock for an ipod player. I search Future Shop, Best Buy, and London Drugs' websites comparing prices and features, reading the odd review that I could find on products that matched my needs. Once I had finished this part of the purchase cycle, I merely walked into the store, grabbed the product and marched up to the counter. In and out in 2 minutes.
But electronic retail stores aren't the only example of a possible death of the salesman. On the evening news last night they ran a story on how more and more people are using online stock trading tools to do their trading for them instead of using a stock broker. Will this effect the industry? I should think so. Granted stock traders provide a lot more value than people probably give them credit for as they research deep into potential companies to invest in, talk to the owners, and provide personalized recommendations to match your investing style. But more and more people are going to be doing their own research and using eTrade or another online brokerage to make their trades. Some people may not have much luck using this method and therefore end up back in the arms of an awaiting broker, but those that do have success could greatly influence the movement of the stock market as opposed to the traditional powers of brokerages to provide upward and downward momentum on specific stocks based on what they put their word/clients into. Somewhere down the road instead of seeing "Cannacord Capital forecasts targets of $30.00 per share for so and so corp" you may see "Facebook member ChunkyMonkey53 forecasts an increase of $1 per share by the end of the year according to their status update".
At the same time, if you've ever been on the BullBoards on Stockhouse you will realize how much crap there is out there and how it can be tough to trust the majority of information you read on some of these sites. Hence the role of a broker to de-crapify this information and make sure you get the appropriate facts you need.
Recently I even purchased a pre-sale condominium and to be honest, aside from writing up the contract, I'm not sure what the salesperson did to sell me. I found out all the information online, I looked through their display suite on my own, I talked to the bank on my own. So how much value are they really providing to be getting a major cut of the money that the company is getting off me.
Well now that this is seemingly spinning into a rant i'll close off here. My brother is a salesperson, and i've been a salesperson in the past, but I don't know if I would encourage my children to get into the profession in the future. It could be one of those things a few generations down the road that our great grandchildren miss out on, just like stamps, home phones, and paperback books.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Dear (you),.....
There is something to be said for customization and personalization of marketing pieces these days. Especially for companies that you are currently a customer with who have no excuse to not personalize something.
This rings true for TD Canada Trust. I do most of my banking with them and I have for a while. They are great. They have friendly staff when I go in to a branch and their online banking system hasn't given me any problems so far. I also have a Visa card through them, a rewards card to be more exact....a travel rewards card (TD Infinite Visa Rewards Travel Card I believe is the longwinded title of it). I love it, and they have a pretty good Travel Rewards website that lets you book travel, research flights, etc. All signs point to great. In fact, I just booked a flight and car rental through them recently.
Then this morning I got an email newsletter from them, I hadn't opted in to receive it but no big deal, they are technically my travel agent after all and if they have deals then i'll look at them of course.
Jamaica for $500 + taxes! What a deal!
Oh it's only leaving from Toronto. Next.
Mayan Riviera for $430 + taxes! Wow, another great deal!
Wait, it leaves from Calgary. Useless.
I live in Vancouver, and if anyone knows this it is my bank and my credit card company. They know my address, they know the exact apartment I live in. I know they know this because they send me bills and statements. So why would you waste your time and mine showing off amazing deals that fly out of cities i'm nowhere near???
That just comes down to bad marketing execution and bad use of your database resources. And we had such a good thing going!
This rings true for TD Canada Trust. I do most of my banking with them and I have for a while. They are great. They have friendly staff when I go in to a branch and their online banking system hasn't given me any problems so far. I also have a Visa card through them, a rewards card to be more exact....a travel rewards card (TD Infinite Visa Rewards Travel Card I believe is the longwinded title of it). I love it, and they have a pretty good Travel Rewards website that lets you book travel, research flights, etc. All signs point to great. In fact, I just booked a flight and car rental through them recently.
Then this morning I got an email newsletter from them, I hadn't opted in to receive it but no big deal, they are technically my travel agent after all and if they have deals then i'll look at them of course.
Jamaica for $500 + taxes! What a deal!
Oh it's only leaving from Toronto. Next.
Mayan Riviera for $430 + taxes! Wow, another great deal!
Wait, it leaves from Calgary. Useless.
I live in Vancouver, and if anyone knows this it is my bank and my credit card company. They know my address, they know the exact apartment I live in. I know they know this because they send me bills and statements. So why would you waste your time and mine showing off amazing deals that fly out of cities i'm nowhere near???
That just comes down to bad marketing execution and bad use of your database resources. And we had such a good thing going!
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Beer companies do brilliant marketing
It never ceases to amaze me some of the marketing/advertising strategies that come out of beer companies and their agencies. From the original patriotic inspiring Joe Canadian rant, the now popular Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World, to a simple Kokanee radio commercial I remember from about 12 years ago that made a poke at Molson for always handing out free t-shirts:
Announcer: Everybody loves winning, and now in every 18 bottle case of Kokanee glacier beer you will find a special prize.
Person rattling and opening a box
Male Voice: It's a box.....and there's beer inside!!!! (cheering noises)
Well, I just saw an ad on TV the other day for a brilliant new Molson Canadian campaign that is perfectly timed and i'm guaranteeing it will be adding to their sales numbers for the next while as it runs.
The Give'R campaign offers people a chance to buy specially marked boxes of their beer and on the box is a pin code that you can enter online. Now traditionally companies use the pin code system as a way for people to enter their contest, then the company gets that person's data, etc. This time Molson threw in a wrinkle because everytime you enter one of those codes Molson donates $5 to Canadian olympic and paralympic athletes. Genius. It makes the consumer feel even better about drinking their product and allows them to feel like they have helped contribute to their country's athletes. What a great way to sell a whole bunch of product, portray a patriotic, charitable brand image, AND get valuable information on every consumer to add to your growing database. Pure genius, and the person behind the campaign should be given a serious bonus.
I predict big things as a result of this campaign, way better than just giving away a t-shirt or offering the chance to win something.
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