Category: Branding

February 1, 2012

Two Things You Can Correct Right Now

Did 2011 go the way you wanted?

Do you want 2012 to be better?

Here are two things you can work on right now that won’t cost you an arm and a leg, but will make a difference.

BEAT YOUR CUSTOMER’S EXPECTATIONS

Your customer has a set of expectations of how she will be treated when she comes through that door. Either she knows what to expect because she has been there before, or she thinks what to expect based on your reputation or advertising.

And when you meet her expectation, she may smile, she may even say, “Thanks!” But that is as far as it goes.

When you exceed her expectation, however, magical things begin to happen. By the power of reciprocity she feels like she now owes you one.

She may repay that by feeling more loyal to your store and making a return visit.
She may repay that by gushing about you to her friends.
She may repay that by spending more the next time she is in.

One way you can exceed her expectations is Generosity. Is there something you can give away that will pleasantly surprise her? A classic example is the jeweler who changes your watch battery for free. Doesn’t advertise it, just does it. My favorite example is the expensive restaurant with the mouth-watering dessert menu. You and your friends have decided to split a dessert or two when the waiter comes to the table exclaiming how he is in a good mood and would like to buy dessert for everyone at the table. Do you think you’ll be bragging about this restaurant for a while? Of course you will. And you will be going back sooner than you think.

For more ways to exceed your customers’ expectations, download my free eBook Customer Service: From Weak to Wow.

SAY SOMETHING REMARKABLE

Your advertising is blah. How do I know? Because 99.9% of the advertising out there is blah. That is why it does not work. It has nothing to do with reaching the right people. It has nothing to do with the medium you are using. It has everything to do with you not being brave enough to make a bold statement.

Most ads are written not to offend. And they become so beige that they do not move the needle at all. Since about 90% of the population is not shopping with you right now anyway, who are you afraid of offending?

The best phone call I ever received happened last December. A gal called to tell me how much she hated my ads. At first I thought it was a prank. But when she did not break from this message, I asked her why she hated them. She said, “Because you make it sound like all the other stores sell crap.” Good! That is what my ads were supposed to say.

Spice up your advertising by saying something bold. Back it up with evidence. Make it interesting and relevant. Without spending a penny more, the money you are spending on advertising will become far more effective.

Do those two things and you will be praying the Mayans were wrong about 2012.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Not sure what to say in your ads? You should read these three eBooks. Don’t worry. They are short, sweet, and best of all, FREE. Read them in order and email me if you have any questions.
Understanding Your Brand (and the accompanying Worksheet)
How Ads Work Part 1
How Ads Work Part 2

October 2, 2011

Stay the Course

I sailed for the University of Michigan club sailing team. Finished 4th in the nation in the fall of 1986 in a windy National Sloop Regatta on Lake St. Clair outside of Detroit. Winds of 30 knots shifting and changing.

The Naval Academy won that event.

I wasn’t a very good captain. My specialty was boat speed. I knew how to sail fast. With every shift in the wind I would shift to maintain optimum boat speed, regardless of direction. That was our downfall.

The Naval Academy team focused on direction, adjusting the sails to meet the changes in the wind, but always keeping their eyes on the prize.

My boat was faster. They won the race.

Retail can be a lot like sailboat racing. If you go chasing every fad (every wind shift), you might be moving fast, but not necessarily towards your goal. You’ll feel the wind whipping in your face and everything will feel good. But the ultimate destination remains far away.

Understand that to reach your goal you will have to make adjustments, but don’t throw your whole strategy overboard on a whim. You might not be traveling as fast as someone else, but as long as you’re heading in the right direction, you will get there.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS If you don’t have a direction, check out this free eBook on branding: Understanding Your Brand. Once you know your core values, just choose one of those values and be the leader in your industry in that value.

August 2, 2011

The Magnetic Principle

The power of a magnet to attract is in equal proportion to its power to repel.

That is a universal truth about attraction.

We hear with magnets that opposites attract because the positive pole of one magnet attaches to the negative pole of another. But in reality alignment attracts. For two magnets to hook to each other, they both have to be in the same alignment – heading in the same direction.

The same is true with batteries. Put two batteries into your flashlight facing different directions and the flashlight will not work. But put the batteries in alignment with each other and the light comes on.

The same is true with your advertising. When you clearly state your values, those who are aligned with your values will be attracted. Those who are not aligned with your values will be repelled. Just like the magnet, the stronger you state your values, the stronger the attraction and repulsion.

The problem with most advertising, however, is that we focus on the repulsion.

“I don’t want to anger anyone.”
“I don’t want to be controversial.”
“I don’t want anyone to hate me.”

And we write bland ads that will not offend.
And we wonder why we did not attract new customers to our store.
And we think that maybe we are not reaching the right people.
And we change our medium, but not our bland, white-bread, non-offensive, un-attractive message.

And we get the same results.

Focus your advertising message to attract, not to keep from repelling. Say something powerful enough to move the needle for someone. Roy H. Williams, aka The Wizard of Ads says that if your ad does not get complaints, you have not written a strong enough ad.

Say something powerful and meaningful that aligns strongly with your core values. Do not be afraid to make bold statements. In my current radio ad I start with the line…

“Shop here. Your kids will be smarter…”

The ad started yesterday and I had my first complaint by 9:00am that morning. I also had three people praise me for my ad. If they are complaining or praising, then they are listening.

Be the most powerful attractor you can by making bold, powerful statements aligned with your core values. Then you will get the return on your advertising investment you want.

-Phil Wrzesinski
http://www.philsforum.com/

PS The whole radio ad copy reads as follows… Shop here. Your kids will be smarter. Oh sure, that’s a bold statement to make, but I know it’s true. Need proof? Which is a better method for selling a toy? Because it’s tied to a movie or TV ad or because it has incredible play value requiring brain-stretching imagination? My competitors? They use the former method. I use the latter. Brain-stretching toys guaranteed to make your kids smarter and have more fun. Toy House in downtown Jackson. Smart kids, lots of smiles.

PSS If you need help figuring out your Core Values, download my FREE eBook Understanding Your Brand and the accompanying worksheet. Work it through and email me if you have questions.

July 2, 2011

How Many Customers Can You Afford to Anger?

I’ve been following a handful of private conversations in my industries about how to treat customers who really aren’t our customers.

You know these people.

Bleeding You Blind
They find every loophole to get the most out of every transaction with you. They rarely shop at your store unless there is a discount or special going on. They always want more, trying to squeeze every penny out of your turnip. Rarely do you even know their names because they never come in until they need a donation or want to complain. They always want to use a coupon after it has expired, get a discount because the corner of the box is crushed, or complain about how they are a regular shopper at your store (even though no one on the staff has ever seen them) and should get a better deal.

These customers cost you money. They bleed your profit margins, take up your staff’s time, and keep you away from more profitable customers. They frustrate and anger you and bring down the entire store’s morale.

Best Buy took the approach years ago to fire these customers, send them to Circuit City.

What do you do?

Better yet, what should you do? Can you really afford to anger somebody in this economy? Are you big enough to take a PR hit because you wouldn’t put up with an unreasonable customer?

What I Do
I’m not Best Buy. I don’t believe I have the capital to purposefully anger any customers – even the customers I don’t like. Oh, I’ve done it a couple times. We all have. But more often than not I look at it this way… I get to choose whether I am nice to someone or not. And it doesn’t matter whether they are nice to me.

If I let someone use a coupon after it has expired, I am showing generosity.

If I give an extra discount because an item is crushed or the customer makes a fuss, I am being compassionate.

If I allow a customer to return an unopened item 10 months later, I am being helpful.

If I apologize to a customer for our failings even when she made the mistake, I am being understanding.

Generous, Compassionate, Helpful, Understanding. Yeah, I’d like to own those words in my customers’ eyes. Wouldn’t you?

The essence of Branding is simply…

Every single interaction a customer has with your business plus how they feel about it.

You cannot always control the interactions, but you can control the feelings by how you treat others. And don’t ever believe that your best customers are not watching. Fair or not, they will measure you not at your best, but at your worst.

So make your worst pretty darn good by treating even your worst customers pretty darn good. You might just turn one of them into your best customer.

-Phil Wrzesinski
http://www.philsforum.com/

PS Even if you do have to fire a customer, do it with kindness and respect. At the end of the day the one thing you always have left is your character.

May 23, 2011

The Emperor Has No Clothes

That’s where Roy H. Williams found himself in today’s Monday Morning Memo talking about Facebook & Twitter – as the boy in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale telling the truth nobody wanted to hear.

Facebook and Twitter are not the be-all-end-all fix to your marketing & advertising woes.

They are just the latest dazzling jewels being passed on as our next marketing saviours. But like many jewels that have blinded us before, Facebook and Twitter will not be your knight in shining armor. They will not lead you out of the dark. They will not transform your business into greatness.

Oh they might help a little bit. But alone they are as naked as Andersen’s Emperor. They need to be clothed with the right message.

Remember the message? Your message? The one relevant, salient, memorable point that speaks to the heart of your customer? The message that makes them feel not only a connection with you but a partnership? A loyalty?

If your business isn’t growing there are only two things to blame.

Your market is shrinking. If you sell typewriters, sorry, dude, but the game is up.

Your message isn’t connecting.

And not just the message you give through your advertising, but the message you give through the experience in your store. Do you echo your marketing in your services? In your attitude? Do you show the same heartfelt caring towards your customers in person as you do online (and vice versa?)

Figure out your message. Put all your time and energies into coming up with that one relevant, salient, memorable, heartfelt message. And once you have your message, make it sparkle in every single element of your business from the bathroom floor to the phone message to the way your employee says Hello.

Then it doesn’t matter which jewel you use. With the right message they all shine. Even Facebook & Twitter.

-Phil

Yeah, I like to call this “Branding”. And when you understand your brand, you have all the jewels you need.

May 13, 2011

Seth is Wrong, Brand Exceptionalism is Easy to Innovate

I have to take exception with Seth Godin’s post today. (Go ahead and read it. I’ll wait.)

For those of you who don’t want to read it, his basic message is that once your brand becomes exceptional (whether in your own eyes or in the eyes of the public), you lose ground because you won’t change. Why would you change “perfect”?

He says… “The problem with brand exceptionalism is that once you believe it, it’s almost impossible to innovate.”

Unless your brand is set up on Values.

The truly exceptional brands are those based on a set of core values, not on a particular product or service. Values are timeless. Values remain the same through the ages. How you show those values, however, changes from time to time.

For instance, our core values are Fun, Education, Helpfulness, Nostalgia. The products we sell are constantly changing and improving. The services we offer have to adapt and innovate with the new needs of customers. The way we market our store, the way we merchandise our products, even the way we ring you up at the checkout goes through countless innovations. We are constantly looking for innovations in how you Experience our store.

But Fun, Education, Helpfulness, and Nostalgia will never go out of style. And as long as we stay true to our values while staying current with ways to implement those values, we can have Brand Exceptionalism and Innovation.

They are not mutually exclusive when you set your Brand up on Values.

Wanna learn how?

-Phil

February 4, 2011

What Kind of Store are You?

Last summer LEGO made a decision to stop selling their architectural series of LEGO sets to toy stores. They believed that the product didn’t belong in toy stores like mine, that it was only appropriate for certain stores. Specifically in their words…

…appropriate distribution channels include the categories of gifts, souvenirs, museums, specialty bookstores, collectibles, art, architecture, tourist and visitor centers, hotel gift shops, transportation centers, college/university union centers, science centers, specialty gift and specialty department stores.

Knowing that I fit under a number of those channels, I sent the following to LEGO.

What Kind of Store Are You?
I am a Science Center – I sell science kits and teach science concepts all the time.

I am a Specialty Bookstore – I sell more children’s books than some bookstores in my area sell all their titles combined.

I am a Specialty Gift Store – Most every single sale in my store is a gift for someone

I am a Specialty Department Store – Furniture, baby products, clothing, crafts, science, sporting goods, construction, role play, education are just some of the departments in my store

I am a Tourist Center – Families who come to Jackson, Michigan typically make sure to visit two places – our store and the local ice cream parlor. Over half of our mailing list are people who reside outside of our metro area’s zip codes.

I am a Museum – The store has been around for 61 years. We carry many items considered to be “classics” or “historical”. Even our building and signs are considered “historical”.

I am a Collectibles Store – Hot Wheels, Barbies, Madame Alexander Dolls, Star Wars, GI Joe’s, Webkins, Beanie Babies – have there been any hotter collectibles in the past 3 decades?

I am a Transportation Center – I sell wagons, strollers, bikes, trikes, scooters, skateboards and other forms of transportation. I have a river, a railroad, a street, and a walkway adjacent to my property, and many people use my parking lot to access all four.

I am a Souvenir Store – Many of the items I sell are held onto purely for nostalgic reasons.

I am an Architecture Store – I sell many items including books and kits for learning about construction techniques and for building architectural structures from bridges to houses to castles to historical buildings.

I am an Art Store – I sell art supplies. I sell art and decorations.

I am an Education Center – I sell items to teachers and students alike to assist in education such as project kits for school projects (including the exact same items found in science centers), teaching aides, and modeling kits (including clay, wood, metal and plastic materials used for building whatever the teacher requests). I work with preschools, elementary schools, secondary schools and colleges.

I am a Hobby Store – I cater to hobbyists who build models of classic structures such as cars, planes, boats and even buildings.

I am a Toy Store – I sell toys that encourage creativity, toys that spur on the imagination, toys that teach, inspire and help people to grow – yes, people. My toys are for ages 1 to 101. I sell toys for tots, teenagers and twenty-somethings. I sell toys for infants, adolescents, and adults.

I am a LEGO Store – I sell virtually everything LEGO that I can get my hands on because my customers expect me to have those items. They expect me to be able to get them anything from LEGO they want. They expect me to have new and unique LEGO items. They expect me to have off-the-beaten-path LEGO items. They expect me to be current with everything LEGO. They don’t care about categories of distribution. They just want to find their LEGO at a store that is convenient, friendly and takes good care of them.

Redefining Your Greatness
Yeah, I probably could have added another dozen definitions – Smile Store, Psychology Center, Daycare, Meeting Center, Problem Solver… What about you? What kind of store are you? Might you be defining your business (your box) too small?

Do this exercise. Using criteria similar to what I did with LEGO, see how many ways you can define your store. You just might find a niche you haven’t been using to your advantage.

-Phil

PS Still waiting to hear their decision – hopefully at Toy Fair next week.

December 7, 2010

Measuring ROI (or in other words… Did it Work?)

John Wanamaker of Wanamaker’s Department Stores in Philadelphia is credited with the famous quote decades ago,

“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is I don’t know which half.”

Since that quote marketers have spent billions of dollars trying to measure the ROI (return on investment) of their marketing and advertising efforts. Do not follow in their footsteps.

I repeat, Do Not Follow In Their Footsteps!

Trying to calculate the ROI on your advertising is like trying to decide which butterfly in Mexico caused the tornado in Texas. The variables would make a meteorologist’s head spin.

Oh, but the experts say measuring ROI for an event or coupon is easy. Oh yeah?

Cause of Success
Was the success of your last event because you posted it on Facebook?
Or was it because you posted on FB at the optimal time; two hours earlier or two hours later and no one of any influence would have seen it.
Or was it because you ran into a friend at the gas station and mentioned the event to her while she was heading to lunch with her very influential girlfriends?
Or was it because you put up the in-store signs just in time for the newspaper reporter who happened to be out shopping on her lunch hour to see them?
Or was it because the road two blocks over was closed for temporary repair and all the traffic came down your street all three days the tent-sign was out on your sidewalk?
Or was it… you get the idea.

(Look, you can come up with a list of excuses twice that long for why you failed, why are you so willing to credit your success to one thing?)

(Note: I didn’t address coupons because I don’t believe in them, but a similar list of variables can come into play making one coupon offer work while a similar offer fails.)

Marketing doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Nor should it.

Cover Your Bases
If you are hosting an event at your store, you need to be plying every avenue you can muster to draw your crowd. Facebook, Twitter, email, in-store signs, and press releases at a minimum (because they are basically free). Radio, TV, newsprint, direct mail as the budget allows. And networking, networking, networking. Get your butt out in public and talk. The more you do, the more success you’ll see. And the harder it will be to determine which method made the most difference.

So don’t worry about figuring out which method worked best.

First, you never really know. I have on my sign-up-to-win forms a question, “How did you hear about this event?” At one event 30% circled newsprint – even though there wasn’t a single mention in any newspaper!

Second, it doesn’t really matter, because you can’t fully factor all those variables listed above. So anything you learn above and beyond the simple lessons that have already smacked you in your face is no guarantee to move the needle the next time.

Third, you don’t have the budget to properly test your ROI.

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
Let the MBA’s falsify their stats to prove whether one form of marketing works better than another. The reality is that if you use your chosen media right, they all work. And if you use them wrong, they all fail. And the best laid plans can be derailed by a snowstorm, an orange cone, a bad news day, or a butterfly in Mexico.

Don’t waste too much time trying to calculate ROI. If you’re hosting an event, pick the marketing where you feel most comfortable. Put your energies there with all your conviction and the results will follow.

Then get out there and sell the dickens out of the crowd you draw!

Merry Christmas!

-Phil

PS Some of you might think this runs counter to my discussion of mixed media. That discussion was geared towards long-term branding. This is about short-term event marketing. Different beasts requiring different methods.

October 8, 2010

Would You Attend This Workshop?

The Jackson Retail Success Academy is now signing up retailers for our 2011 class that starts in January. This 8-week program has been a huge help for new retailers to get the foundation they need to be successful.

Some have asked if we could run this academy in their community so I put together a 2-Day Workshop format.

Would you sign up for this workshop if it was offered in your town?

Retail Success Academy 2-Day Format

Day 1:
8:00am Meet & Greet – goal setting, expectations
8:30am Understanding Your Brand – definition of branding, character diamond workshop

9:30am (break)

10:00am Character Diamonds Revealed
10:45am Traditional Advertising – Creating an ad budget, How Ads Work, Advertising ROI, Ads with Impact

12:00pm (lunch)

1:00pm Marketing on a Shoestring Budget – Word of Mouth, Social Media, Cause Marketing, Networking, Public Relations

2:30pm (break)

3:00pm Understanding Your Financials – Balance Sheets, Income Statements, Ratios & other important numbers
4:00pm Cash Flow Sheet

5:00pm (break for evening)

6:00pm Dinner/Drinks someplace fun in your town

Day 2:
8:00am Resources Breakfast – meet the local Chamber, DDA, Buy Local groups
8:45am Inventory Management – GMROI, Pricing for Profit, Turn Ratios, Open-to-Buy, Cash Flow

10:45am (break)

11:00am Customer Service – The Basics, The Best Practices, The Wow! Service

12:00pm (lunch)

1:00pm Hiring & Training – Identifying the Perfect Employee, interview questions that work, developing a training program

2:15pm (break)

2:30pm Staff Meetings/Training Sessions – hands-on workshop to learn how to plan and run successful meetings & training sessions
4:15pm Final Q&A
4:45pm Evaluations

5:00pm Go be successful!!

Tell me whether you think it would be worth two days to you to attend a business-altering event like this and how much you would expect to pay. (You’ll be surprised when I reveal what it would actually cost.)

-Phil

PS All those links take you to free eBooks I’ve already written on those topics. The eBooks are extremely helpful but not nearly as much fun and motivating as the live presentation.