Postcards: low-tech “social media” marketing.

September 23, 2014

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, Social Media — @ 8:36 am

Dig those crazy postcards, kids.

The postcard is making a comeback…and not as a communication tool, but as a social media marketing tool.

Having postcards available for guests to purchase at your business is one thing. Giving them out for free and offering to mail them – including postage – is quite another. In marketing-speak, that’s the old school version of “encouraging a share.”

I’ve stumbled across two noteworthy examples of this in my travels recently. The first was at P.J. Clarke’s, an institution among NYC bar/restaurants (since 1884). A note at the bottom of the menu informs diners they can ask for a P.J. Clarke’s postcard to write out, and then give to their server to apply the required postage and mail. (Side note…I had planned to do this, but the food coma from the Cast Iron Skillet of Baked Mac & Cheese with Peas & Bacon rendered me incapable of writing.)

The second – and brilliant – example (pictured here) was at Stratton Mountain Resort. Perched in a place of honor on the front desk, a plexiglass cube filled with colorful postcards beckons travelers to drop a note <ahem, marketing piece about Stratton> to good ol’ Aunt Mary back home. You can’t miss it…and you automatically get an itch to do it. While standing there, I got the added joy of hearing the kid next to me ask his dad, “What’s a postcard?”… and then, of course, he had to send one to his friend back home. (The hilarity continued when he had to text his friend to get the address, which is the only fly in this marketing ointment…who knows anyone’s mailing address anymore?)

Why are postcards sent by guests a smart marketing tool? Because they’re…

Highly visual
Different and noticeable
Inexpensive
Fun for the sender & recipient
Turnkey and low maintenance

Postcards never get flagged as spam, they don’t need specific keywords to be found, and they are likely to be tacked up on the recipient’s refrigerator or bulletin board, quietly radiating subliminal marketing messages with every casual glance they receive.

When was the last time you could say that about your OTHER marketing tactics?

“Social media”…indeed.

Failsafe business strategy: let them eat cookies.

April 28, 2014

Filed under: Customer Service, Observations From the Field — @ 8:47 am

Chocolate chip cookies are now on the endangered species list.

Is there a more disappointing sight at a buffet table?

The background: during a week’s stay at an all-inclusive resort, it fascinated me that the plate of chocolate chip cookies was nearly ALWAYS empty on a buffet table filled with more than a dozen different types of desserts. This meant that…

– People congregated around the table waiting for a new batch to come out
– They discussed with each other how annoying it is while they waited
– The arriving cookies were snatched up within one minute of being placed on the table
– And thus…the waiting process began all over again for those not quick on the draw

Seeing the imbalance of so many desserts go to waste, while unhappy customers fought each other for elusive cookies, finally overwhelmed me. So I asked the restaurant manager: why don’t you guys just make more cookies?

Are you sitting down? It’s corporate policy for them to make an equal amount of desserts every night, regardless of how many are consumed. So…even though it’s cheaper to make chocolate chips than, say, strawberry infused profiteroles – and people would rather eat the chocolate chips than said profiteroles – they aren’t allowed to deviate from the plan because it’s “corporate policy.”

When I asked why they don’t just change the policy, I got the answer that makes business strategists and marketers cringe with pain: “we’ve just always done it this way, so corporate won’t want to change it.” And yet…a quick poll of the servers proved that it’s the number one complaint (in most cases, the ONLY complaint) from their diners every single night.

Learn a sweet lesson from these cookies, people. If something is “broken” at your business that causes repeated and longstanding unhappiness among your guests…FIX IT. Don’t make excuses or hide behind habit or corporate policy…JUST FIX IT. Operational and financial challenges may slow you down, but don’t let them stop you from solving it.

Especially if cookies are involved. Never get between people and their cookies, my friends. It doesn’t end well for you.

Branding lessons from the deli counter.

February 26, 2014

Filed under: Observations From the Field, Branding Strategies — @ 11:16 am

An unlikely pair of status symbols?

A few weeks ago, I met a “Grey Goose girl” and a “Maker’s guy” at the chic penthouse bar at The Standard in NYC. And while I was skeptical that the claims of these two early-twenty-somethings could withstand a blindfold taste test, I wasn’t surprised. Liquor companies have made an art form out of branding, which means that specifying your liquor to a bartender is like defining who you are to the world around you.

But who knew deli meats held the same power?

This past weekend, I met an “EverRoast® Man” at the deli counter of my local grocery store. He was the third hipster twenty-something to order EverRoast by name while I was standing there waiting for my own (non-branded) order to be fulfilled. This shot my marketing radar up to high alert, so I asked him… why ask specifically for EverRoast and not just a half-pound of chicken breast? Is it better than “regular” chicken breast? His answer: “Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve just always been an EverRoast Man.”

Poor guy. I’m sure he never expected me to investigate this intriguing proclamation. But I did a bit of research later and learned that Boar’s Head EverRoast Oven Roasted Chicken Breast debuted in 2009. And since he certainly looked older than five to me, his claim was in tatters.

So why the fib? Because branding WORKS. People use brands – whether claiming to love them or hate them – to shape their own image. From cars and clothes to liquor, sunglasses, watches, sporting goods, music, coffee, deli meats (!), and more…we gravitate toward brands that we feel accurately portray the image we want projected to our audiences. In short: it’s like co-op marketing. Who needs a personal marketing budget when you can bask in the halo effect created by brands that have already spent billions of dollars defining the image you aspire to have?

Successful branding takes time, consistency, and…yes…money. A brand needs to be clearly defined and have a point of view, and then stand up to scrutiny over and over and over again before it becomes powerful enough for people to identify with it. But when it’s done right…damn, it sure does work.

So, marketing professionals…the next time you get resistance to spending money on branding, send your boss to the local supermarket deli counter. One chat with an EverRoast Man or an Ovengold® Girl and they’ll change their tune faster than you can make a sandwich.

Footnote: For more branding giggles (and perhaps a new lunch suggestion), check out the online Boar’s Head Digicatessen®. For my next career, I think I want to name deli meats. It seems like a fun job.

Brilliant use of a housekeeping tip envelope.

July 9, 2013

Filed under: Customer Service, Observations From the Field, This is Cool — @ 5:54 pm

They are a necessary evil. And yet…it IS kind of weird that so many US hotels leave an envelope in your room, encouraging you (obligating you?) to tip your housekeeper.

I understand the need for it, as it’s easy to forget – or ignore – tipping someone you likely never see (and gratuities are often part of a housekeeper’s overall compensation). But it seems so tacky. No one likes it when a bellman or doorman stands there with his hand out, and the “begging envelope” is equally ungracious.

That’s why I laughed aloud with pleasure when I saw the housekeeping gratuity envelopes in the rooms at The Inn at Manchester in Manchester Village, VT.

Absolutely brilliant. This envelope single-handedly…

Creates a relationship with guests
Makes people feel taken care of by a human being (not a fill-in-the-blank housekeeper du jour)
Showcases the warmth and personality of the brand
Surprises the guests and makes them smile
Softens “the ask” with a bit of humor

What’s the lesson here? With a little bit of love and thought, you can find ways to make ordinary guest touch points create a lasting, positive impression. And you can’t “fake” making something personal…if you put love into it, that’s what will shine through.

Case in point: I saw this envelope when I was visiting the property with another Redpoint staffer just for a site tour. And even though I wasn’t staying in the room, I wanted to give a tip to Alice and Ade…just for being adorable.

Why this tiny little Fiat won my big marketing heart.

January 25, 2013

Filed under: Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field, Branding Strategies — @ 9:32 am

If I could give this car a hug, I would.

When I stepped up to the Alamo car rental counter last week to pick up a car for a weekend trip, I could have won a gold medal if “Multitasking” were an Olympic sport. I was schlepping bags, answering emails, planning what to eat for lunch, remembering things I forgot to pack, and just generally unfocused on the task at hand. I rent cars all the time, and I know the drill, so basically, I put that part of my brain on autopilot – license, credit card, initials in a zillion places, give blood and your first born, and so on.

But when the service agent said these words, all distractions disappeared instantly and I snapped to attention like a guard dog on command: “You’re in that tiny little Fiat outside. Would you like to upgrade to something a bit safer?”

Did I snap to attention because I was worried about my safety? Absolutely not. (Mom, if you’re reading this…sorry.) What happened was…the marketer in me became fiercely indignant on behalf of the Fiat brand. All distractions were banished by these thoughts:

Why would a car rental company want to imply that it rents ANY cars that are unsafe?
Do the Fiat sales and marketing executives – who are probably hopeful that people who rent their car could be hooked into buying one – know that their car is being portrayed as “unsafe” at the car rental counter?
Does Alamo script their service agents with this language to scare people into upgrading to a more expensive car? If so…shame on them. If not…perhaps they need a better training program to educate their team how to “sell up” without “putting down.”

As all these thoughts crowded my brain in the span of 10 seconds, I realized that I was staring at the service agent like she had just committed a heinous crime. And perhaps she did, from a branding perspective. But I know that making a fuss about it would probably cast me as an unbalanced lunatic, so I just looked her squarely in the eye and said, “The Fiat is absolutely perfect. I’ll take it.”

Clearly, nothing wins my allegiance faster than a marketing underdog. Fiat, if you’re ever looking for a PR firm in the US, give Redpoint a call. 🙂

Fun with marketing…no matter how boring the product.

December 5, 2012

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, The Power of Persuasion, Observations From the Field — @ 9:23 am

Recently, while leading a workshop about Effective Presentation Techniques, I shared a secret with the attendees: people like to be entertained. So if you bring fun and joy to whatever you’re selling, you’ll get their attention…and that’s the first step toward ensuring they receive your message.

At the break, one attendee approached me with this lament: “I sell pretty boring products, so making them fun just isn’t an option for me.”

Oh young grasshopper…take heart. With the right perspective, you can make ANYTHING fun. I give you…Jewish food, a Vietnamese restaurant, and men’s razors.

Artful arrangement of Jewish food draws a double-take from passersby on the Upper West Side of NYC.

A Viet-Thai restaurant in Canada draws new patrons with this sassy sign outside their front door.

And seriously…take 1 minute and 30 seconds and watch this commercial for Dollar Shave Club. Who knew selling razors could be so entertaining?

The bottom line is…with the right perspective, you can bring a little bit of humor to any subject – appropriately, of course. Would I recommend adding levity to a speech or ad about child abuse? Absolutely not. But an otherwise dry subject – like razor blades? Heck yes!…it’s a fabulous competitive advantage when you can make people smile.

Want one more smile before you’re done reading this post? Check out our post from last summer to see how this movie theater made their “Don’t Talk or Text During the Movie” warning an absolute riot of hilarity: Alamo Drafthouse Warning. The gang here at Redpoint is STILL chuckling over that one. 🙂

Ooops. You broke the spell.

October 26, 2012

Filed under: Observations From the Field, Branding Strategies — @ 7:30 am

Recently, I had a spectacular dining experience at Talula’s Garden in Philadelphia. And I mean…spectacular. From the thoughtful design details – both in the outdoor garden and the main restaurant/bar areas – to the creativity of the menu, each touchpoint makes you feel as if you’ve been transported to a chic urban farmhouse.

The depth of authenticity was impressive, especially to a marketer like me, who can spot a “staged authentic experience” from a mile away. By the time the second course arrived, I had completely turned off my branding radar and lost myself in the enjoyment of the evening. It was heaven…until I went to the bathroom.

Inside each adorable little stall, on the wall behind the toilet, I found this:

…and POP! went the bubble of authenticity. The farmhouse hand towel is a pleasing design detail. The black plastic Please Do Not Remove label…not so much. I felt a little like Dorothy when she went behind the curtain and discovered that the “Great and Powerful Oz” was just an average little man.

What’s the lesson here? If you have to provide instructions for guests in order to maintain your image of authenticity, you’re just breaking the spell. Find another way to achieve your objective that doesn’t undermine the effective branding investment you’ve made elsewhere.

But don’t let this stop you from dining at Talula’s Garden the next time you’re in Philly. You will completely excuse the hand towel label in favor of the absolutely delicious cuisine. And do yourself a favor: order the Dark Chocolate Bacon S’mores. You won’t regret it.

Our motto at Redpoint? Everything is better with bacon. Especially if chocolate is involved too. 🙂

A marketing throwdown: worms, 1…PR professional, 0.

September 20, 2012

Filed under: Observations From the Field, This is Cool — @ 9:30 am

It’s a running joke among my friends and family that I find marketing lessons everywhere I turn. And recently, worms taught me a pretty big one.

I stumbled upon this “Live Bait” vending machine while driving through the Muskoka Lakes region of Ontario, Canada. I wanted a soda. What I got instead was a new perspective.

Worms sold in vending machines? It was like I discovered a new planet. Though I don’t fish, and have absolutely no reason to ever purchase a worm, I thought this idea was the coolest thing ever. Just like the Jetsons! I took pictures, sent them to friends back in NYC (who shared my awe), and enjoyed the rest of my drive with that warm glow marketers get when they feel like they’ve discovered something truly “new.”

Until I got home, and then…Enter: GOOGLE.

Turns out, worms are sold in vending machines all over the world. As are gold bars, live crabs, mashed potatoes with gravy, bicycles, fresh bananas, sneakers, hypodermic needles (scary), eggs, freshly made cupcakes, inflatable inner tubes, and a host of other items that I had never considered vending machine material.

As I perused slide show after slide show of website articles revealing quirky vending machines across the globe, I felt like a dope. I had fallen prey to the cardinal sin of the PR profession: thinking something is NEW when it’s really just NEW TO YOU. How many times have my partner Vickie and I cautioned our clients against this very same PR sin? Shame on me. “A” for enthusiasm… “F” for marketing savvy.

These worms reminded me of two vital rules of marketing:

Google is the greatest tool in a marketer’s toolbox – see if your idea is new, find a unique solution to a problem, discover how other cultures conquer challenges…all in less than 2 seconds and without leaving your desk.
Every new discovery is an opportunity – don’t be surprised if a Redpoint hotel client soon imports an Italian vending machine that prepares pizza from scratch, including freshly kneaded dough.

I’ve been exposed to a lot of quirky stuff in my 20 years as a travel marketer. I know why fish wheels in Alaska are as treasured as Red Sox season tickets in New England, that women in Armenian nightclubs dance with themselves in the mirror to attract the attention of men, and that you can turn a tractor supply store into a bar in rural West Virginia (while still selling tractors) and no one will bat an eye. Each new discovery has fueled my sense of wonder at the world.

But worms sold in vending machines trumps them all. Why? I thought it was so cool, it actually made me want to go fishing…just so I could buy some.

Now THAT’s good marketing. 🙂

How to make an impression on long-time, been-there-done-that customers.

January 24, 2012

Filed under: Customer Service, Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field — @ 10:16 am

Every Tuesday and Friday, an amazing “wartime Paris meets Bourbon Street” band called The Hot Sardines plays at The Top of The Standard in NYC’s meatpacking district. Along with an ever-growing base of adoring fans, I’ve sat through several of their performances and can sing along with most of their songs. I know when they’re about to sing a capella, when the washboard is making an appearance, when Miss Elizabeth is going to sing in French, and when the tap dancer is preparing to do something amazing. So…I love them with passion…but I can enjoy them on autopilot.

Then one day a few weeks ago, when I was expecting the trumpet player to start blowing that horn, this happened instead:

Your eyes are not deceiving you. He is playing a tea kettle. And every single person in the room was captivated…even us veteran fans.

Mr. Tea Kettle just proved a very important marketing point: you don’t need to spend a lot of money to break through the comfort zone that develops when long-time customers become “used to you.” You CAN spend money to do it, but sometimes, a little creativity is all that’s needed to keep it fresh.

Some examples from the field:

Last year, MAC Cosmetics launched a “Wonder Woman” collection, and the inside of every Mac store paid highly visible homage to the stunning superhero with larger-than-life cutouts, comic books, promotional displays and more. But how to lure people in there to see all the goodies? The Soho store on Spring Street in NYC did something unusual: they painted the outside of the store a bright fire engine red. Think about it…I’m not sure it made a difference to the tourists (who don’t know what the exterior of the store usually looks like) but for all those “sheep” that walk up and down Spring Street each day without giving a thought to their surroundings…that red building was brightly colored lure that drew the eye like a magnet.

In another example – and a little more expensive than a coat of paint, but worth it – a clever marketing tactic was used to promote the premiere of last season’s episodes of Boardwalk Empire. Set in Atlantic City, the show chronicles the life of a political gangster during the 1920’s and 30’s Prohibition era. So…while they could have just done a traditional subway “wrap” (where all the ads in a single subway car focus on the same business…eye catching, but becoming so common that us regular subway riders are even becoming desensitized to THOSE), instead, they used authentic Prohibition-era vintage subway cars to make their point. Imagine standing at your usual subway station with your iPod on or reading your book or juggling your bags…and then THIS pulls up…

For those readers not from NYC…I assure you…today’s subway cars look NOTHING like this.

But just like the tea-kettle-turned-musical-instrument, you don’t need to pay a hefty price to “borrow” vintage transportation equipment from a city transit system in order to get attention. Saltscapes, a yummy restaurant in Nova Scotia, makes an impression every time a customer goes to open the entryway door:

I’m reminded of the childhood game Duck, Duck, Goose. Think about the mindset of a customer walking in the door. They just spent the whole day (week…month…year…) opening doors with “normal” doorknobs. So…normal, normal, normal…small wrought iron Adirondack chair? Definitely noticeable.

It’s actually quite easy – and often inexpensive – to do tasteful things that will impress your loyal customers. You just have to put a little love into your thought process and remember that if you don’t continue to woo them…they may be wooed elsewhere. A sad but true fact in the marketing world.

And in that random way that concepts sometimes collide unexpectedly…what do you get when you cross The Hot Sardines with the vintage subway cars used to promote Boardwalk Empire? You get a KILLER concert. Check out the 1 minute and 30 second clip by clicking here.

Hmmmm. Attention Boardwalk Empire marketing people…when you’re ready to promote the next season, give the Hot Sardines and their tea kettle a call. They’ll take your subway car to the next level…because even though you only did it once, that sucker is already in the been-there-done-that bucket.

Redpoint is a marketing PR firm based in NYC that helps clients make strong positive impressions on even the most desensitized of journalists. And…we LOVE The Hot Sardines.

Choose promotions wisely…they may last for 20 years.

November 9, 2011

Filed under: Marketing Strategies, Observations From the Field — @ 11:37 am

Tell me you wouldn’t wait on line for this. Mmmm.

When Redpoint was hired recently by Nova Scotia Tourism to lead a series of Marketing Boot Camps throughout the province for hospitality professionals, I shamelessly admit that my first thought was: mmmmm, fried pepperoni.

Popular in Atlantic Canada, but shockingly elusive in my hometown of NYC, I had heard about this deliciously indulgent snack (which should probably come with a side of cholesterol medication instead of the traditional honey mustard sauce) and couldn’t wait to try it.

So at 2:30pm on the Saturday afternoon of my stay in Halifax, I finally scored a table at The Maxwell’s Plum (where I saw the coveted item on the menu posted outside)…only to survey my surroundings and wonder if I was going to regret it. Every single empty table was littered with the remains of food & drink, beverage menus were scattered about the floor, and servers were nowhere to be found. Was anyone ever going to clean these tables…or mine, which was free of clutter but so sticky I could actually SEE the residue on the surface?

Suddenly, a waitress appeared out of nowhere and all she said was: “So, are ya havin’ the breakfast then?”

After a quick second thinking how much I adore the “Nova Scotian accent,” which often comes mingled with a crisp Scottish lilt, I realized something: there is “a” breakfast, and I had no idea what it was.

I said no (surely, fried pepperoni can’t be on the breakfast menu, can it?), and asked to see a lunch menu…and man, did that stop her in her tracks! After gaping at me for a moment (and looking pointedly at her watch), she walked away and then came back smiling, with a lunch menu, a glass of water, flatware, a napkin, and a cloth to clean the table. Hooray! I was officially acknowledged as a “real customer!” But what the heck was going on?

Here’s the deal. A few years ago, the pub tried a promotion called the $2 Breakfast: from 11am to 3pm on Saturdays, you get 3 eggs, 5 strips of bacon, toast, and homefries…all for 2 bucks with the purchase of a drink. No one at the pub – not even the manager – could tell me if they ever officially advertised or promoted it…it may have just been word of mouth. But almost from the very first Saturday, the pub was mobbed from exactly 10:59am to 2:59pm, every week, like clockwork. And it’s been that way ever since.

If the goal was to fill tables on previously-slow Saturday afternoons, it was achieved with gusto. I passed the pub several times on my stroll around Halifax before being able to get anywhere near the door, let alone get through the crowds to get a table. But can they really make money on this promotion? The manager’s response:

“Well, a while back, we tried to raise the price to $2.99, and customers had a fit. They kind of stopped coming. So we went back to 2 bucks and the next week, we were packed again.”

Consumer behavior (or “behaviour” since this was Canada, after all) is fascinating. If The Maxwell’s Plum had started their promotion with a $2.99 Breakfast, they would probably still have been packed every Saturday (did you really grasp how much food was on that platter?) and they’d be getting a buck more per person. But they STARTED with the 2 buck price and instantly, that became the “right” of the people. (Footnote: the restaurant was spotless by 3:10pm, which shows that the staff is precisely attuned to the rhythms of these insane Saturday mob scenes.)

I thought about this unreasonable rebellion over 99 cents at 4:30 that same afternoon, when I walked into Your Father’s Moustache, another packed-house pub in Halifax (doesn’t Halifax sound fun?)…but it was packed for different reasons. A fun, funky, groovy blues band – Joe Murphy and the Water Street Blues Band – plays there every Saturday afternoon from 4pm to 8pm, and the crowd of regulars is huge. More than a dozen couples were actually dancing (I’m pretty sure that wasn’t a dance floor, but what the heck, eh?), and drinks and food – at full price – were being consumed like crazy. This has been the routine there for the past 20+ years, and a discount has never been part of the equation. And yet…a packed house.

Did The Maxwell’s Plum or Your Father’s Moustache have any clue when they started those Saturday afternoon promotions that the public was going to latch on to them so tightly, and for so long? Probably not. We all hope that when we try cool promotions, people are going to respond favorably to them…but before you discount too deeply, or lock yourself into something with no end date, just consider how it will impact your financials long term. Just remember, even if you launch something for a “limited time,” you can always extend it if it works. But if you launch it indefinitely and then try to take it away…oh the drama!

There are a few happy endings to this story. 1) Maxwell’s Plum has more than 60 beers on tap, so don’t feel badly for them…they do just fine. 2) The dancers (who welcomed me as a local) at Your Father’s Moustache proved to me that Canadians really are some of the nicest people – and best dance partners – in the world.

And 3)…damn…fried pepperoni is AMAZING.

Want a break at your desk? Check out a tune by Joe Murphy and the Water Street Blues Band by clicking here. Love that killer harmonica, baby.