Luke Brown Marketing Blog

Archive for the ‘Marketing’ Category

One of the biggest benefits of the internet is the ability to obtain leads in much larger quantities than ever before. Not only can you get more leads, the quality of the leads is generally very good to excellent.

Recent articles in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes.com, eMarketer and Business Week have mentioned Pontiflex, a company which guarantees returns on online advertising. In this day and age, that’s a bold guarantee.

Pontiflex recently released the industry’s first CPL benchmark report. Their free report give a detailed overview of the CPL market and its benefits.  It also mentions  how advertisers like Kimberly-Clark and Blockbuster use CPL advertising to build community sites, newsletter lists, social networks and Twitter forums.

Building communities and engaging customers is the newest form of customer service. Customers are much more willing to go to a company’s site to be heard when they have a problem or complaint. The smartest and most innovative companies are actively embracing this concept.

For years companies have hidden behind automated telephone mazes to evade customers and their complaints. The recession has hit these companies hard and now they’re scrambling to retain valued customers. For many companies, though, it’s just too late.

Quoting eMarketer.com , “Cost-per-lead advertising brings a new dimension to lead generation. Rather than turning to brokers of generic sales leads, marketers can entice consumers to opt in based on specific ads – and only pay for valid sign-ups.”

Pontiflex has reported surging interest from advertisers who want to run ads on premium publishers like Boston.com, Orbitz.com and Monster.com , while paying only for qualified sign-ups, not for impressions or clicks which might not convert.

Pontiflex seems to be a better fit for B2C companies compared to B2B companies. Download the free report from their website and if you use their services, please report how you felt they performed for your company, good or bad. Two clients are using the service right now and so far are encouraged by their early results.

Business people and the government – oh, especially the government – love to use acronyms, whether as jargon (a bad idea) or simplicity (a good idea).  A client (S.H.) who owns an upscale restaurant uses PIMP as his personal motivational acronym. What does it represent? Glad you asked…

PERFORMANCE: There are multiple definitions for performance in business, almost all of them good. S.H. is concerned with three performance metrics: Number and percentage of repeat customers, staff turnover and Twitter followers! He breaks it down into a system.

The host or hostess politely ask each party if they’ve been to the restaurant before and keep tabs of first-timers and repeat customers. S.H. knows repeat customers spend more, visit more often than average and often bring guests.

All first timers get a business card ‘coupon’ good for a free dessert or other special on their subsequent visit. He works hard to reward repeat customers and encourages the wait staff to give a little extra to these special guests. He allows a little ‘bending of the rules’ and doesn’t micro-manage employees.

S.H. knows training new employees is expensive and wants to retain employees. Repeat customers also like seeing the same employees each time they dine. The restaurant industry has high employee turnover rates, yet S.H.’s turnover rate is less than 5%.

Twitter? Yes! The wait staff passes out another card asking for a Twitter user name when they bring the check. S.H. uses Twitter to let people know the daily specials, changes or additions in his evening entertainment and alternative parking if the lot is full. That’s creative!

INTELLIGENCE

We’re not talking IQ here, but street smarts. S.H. and a sociologist devised a program to educate his entire staff – bar personnel, wait staff and hosts/hostesses – to look for little signs which signal customer pleasure or unhappiness and how to quickly and discretely deal with it.

S.H. knows every comparable restaurant within a 3 mile radius. He has a non-restaurant staff member who performs surveillance on competitor’s health code violations, restaurant reviews, new items and more. Consequently, he outperforms every restaurant in the area because he is always one step ahead of them.

MARKETING

S.H. is a genius at marketing, though he won’t admit it. He truly is humble. He has, however, read Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson 37 times! He owns at least 4 copies and they are in his car, office and anywhere he is.

He found one approach and then mastered it from start to finish. He didn’t try to learn ten different systems or listen to 4 marketing gurus. One. Simple.

He keeps extensive notes about campaigns he has run, results, time, seasons, suppliers and everything associated with it. Over the years he developed forms for himself, so the complete process flows smoothly and any campaign can be implemented quickly. Again, he’s a genius.

PROFITS

S.H. knows he must turn a profit to give so much to his employees, his customers and his community. Because he gives so much, nobody begrudges him his substantial profits.

Though his restaurant has been in business over 20 years and he is a multi-millionaire, you would never know it by how he acts or dresses in the restaurant. He loves to see how people treat him if they think he is staff, manager or owner.

In 2006, the space next door became vacant. He was given an opportunity by the landlord to take over the space, with the potential to increase the size of his restaurant by about 70%. He turned it down without a second thought.

He later explained his decision. He knows the economy runs in cycles. Even though 2006 was a great year, he wanted to make sure he had profits and could keep the restaurant open in the next economic downturn, whenever it might come.

Finally, I asked him why he chose such a less than ‘family-oriented’ acronym. S.H. looked up with a tear running down his cheek. He explained how his younger brother had been murdered at 17 by a pimp and drug dealer. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He wanted to take the tragedy and turn it into something to motivate him. He wanted to be reminded of his brother’s death every day. He never wanted to forget how his brother died. It sure appears to have worked for S.H.