Category: Public Relations

May 11, 2012

Planning an Event

Saturday is National Train Day.

We sell trains… Electric, wooden, and everything in between. We are celebrating in style.

Activities for participants? Check. Along with our usual train displays (and a couple new ones we are bringing out) we are doing face painting, coloring contests, having kids sign our almost life-size train poster, train photo ops, train history, a steam engine experiment, and more.

Incentives to attend? Check. We have free train whistles to give away (thanks to one of our favorite vendors), prizes for two different prize drawings, prizes for the coloring contest and a whole bunch of delicious train-shaped cookies (I know, I tried a sample today.)

Marketing the event? Check. We have made multiple Facebook announcements, sent out emails, put up signs all around the store, sent out press releases to all the media outlets, talked about it live on TV and radio, made posters to advertise it at two other events going on in town before our event, and created fliers to hand out when out and about in public.

Motivating the staff? Check. The staff was involved in the planning process from day one. It wasn’t mandated by me, it was conceived and planned by them, so there is 100% buy-in from the staff. They are fired up and ready to rock.

Anyone see a checklist forming here? Failure to plan is planning to fail, or as my grandfather always says, “Plan for Success”.

Events are a great way to draw traffic and delight customers. But events require planning. Make yourself a checklist and get planning some fun events for your store.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Events also cost money. We have committed about $800 to this event above and beyond our usual expenses (for product giveaways, cookies, fliers, posters, etc). I consider that money to be marketing and advertising money. I am not concerned whether I make that money back on Saturday because my goal for this event – the first thing I put at the top of my checklist – is to draw a crowd and make a lot of people happy. If I do that, the money was well spent. Always write down your goal, then plan your activities around that goal.

PPS The event has been a huge success!

November 30, 2011

Black Friday – Good News or Spin?

The reports in the media for Black Friday have a lot of good things to say.

Sales up 7%
Traffic up 5%
More buyers, more sales, economy must be good.

But as we all know, statistics can be misleading. For instance, Black Friday used to be from 4am to 12pm – eight hours long. Now it starts at midnight or even earlier.

The Mall of America opened at midnight instead of 5am and had a 5% increase in traffic. A 71% increase in hours (from 7 hours to 12 hours) for a 5% increase in traffic. Toys R Us, Wal-Mart and Target are all touting record days, a few percentage points higher than last year. And all three of them were open anywhere from 50% to 114% more hours.

That means at least 50% more payroll, more security, more electricity than usual, all for a 7% increase in low-margin sales. Really?

Yes, really.

What you and I, as independent retailers, fail to realize is that Black Friday for the major retailers is not about traffic, sales or profits. It is all about winning the media.

Think about it.

Is it ever a good strategy to piss off your employees by making them give up a major holiday? Is it ever a good strategy to force your customers to wait in long lines for hours fighting crowds and surly employees only to get shut out because that store only got 12 items and you were number thirteen? Is it ever a good strategy to run an event that makes people pepper spray other people in your store, have fist fights in your aisles, and attract muggers to your parking lot?

No…

…Unless your goal is to get as much FREE publicity as possible.

Go back and look at the newspapers for one week prior to Thanksgiving and see how much press was given to the deals and the hours. Then grab the papers from last weekend and see how much press was given to the events of Black Friday. Who was pictured? Who was talked about? Who got the story?

Those are the winners. And that’s what Black Friday has become. A media grab. Every big retail chain wants to be New Hampshire and Iowa. What they pay in extra payroll, extra security, lost profit margin is more than made up by what they get – national media coverage.

So brace yourself. As far as the big box stores are concerned, Black “Thursday” was a rousing success. The media said so.

At least that is my spin on it:-)

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS What does that mean for independents? Time to start planning for Small Business Saturday. Most of the independent retailers to whom I spoke over the weekend had better Saturdays than Fridays. We were one of those. Only the second time that has happened in the last 42 years. But I believe it will become the new norm for us. And frankly, I am okay with that. Gives me room for one more piece of pie Thursday.

November 2, 2011

Educating the Customer

Most independent retailers fully understand the impact of a customer coming into your store, browsing all the aisles, asking questions, getting information, then walking out and buying the item online.

We know how that action, beyond killing your own business, is also eroding the local workforce, the local tax base, and the local economy. We know how our own communities are struggling to make ends meet, how police & fire departments are being gutted, how budgets for schools and education are being slashed.

We know how tough it is to pay your sales people to be a showroom for some out-of-town, faceless Internet site. It demoralizes the staff to do all that work and not get the sale. And they know that without the sale you won’t be able to pay them for much longer.

We get all that.

The customer doesn’t.

There are only two reasons for this. The customer doesn’t know or the customer doesn’t care.

The Customer Doesn’t Know
One way we have failed our customers is by not letting them know the positive impact they make on our community when they shop with us. We have not educated them that they are supporting jobs in their neighborhood, they are supporting the tax base that pays for their protection and their education and they are making the community stronger when they shop local.

The best way to educate our customers is one at a time. Thank each and every customer who chooses to shop with you for making a positive impact in your community. Engage each customer with a positive message about how together you are making your town a better place to live.

If you choose to post any messages, either on your website, Facebook, in your advertisements, or in the store, make sure they are positive about all you (and they) can do to make the quality of life in your area better.

The Customer Doesn’t Care
But do remember that the message, no matter how positive, will not resonate with everyone. Most of your customers are too absorbed in their own worries and cares to even give a single thought to the impact of their decisions. Don’t lose sleep over them.

Just remember to always keep your message positive. A positive message may not change the mind of these customers, but a negative one will make them feel bad about your store – something you never want to do.

Most retailers get it. Most customers do not. We have a lot of work to do. Just keep it positive.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS One way to make the message positive… “Thank You for Shopping Local. Today you made our city a better place to live.” At its best, it will get customers to engage you in conversation. If nothing else, it will make them feel good about shopping with you. And that is always a good thing.

PPS But if you use that phrase, you better back it up. Pay your staff more than your competitors. Give more to your local non-profits. And get involved in your community. It is a two-way street after all.

October 18, 2011

Community Involvement Pays Off

You have already been asked to sponsor seven walks, three golf outings, two spaghetti dinners, a pancake breakfast, and forty-five silent auctions.

Every non-profit thinks your pockets are lined with gold.

And they all promise the same thing. “We’ll put your logo on our t-shirt. Thousands of people will see you.”

Yeah, right.

The only people who see the logo on a charity event t-shirt are other charity event planners looking for potential suckers, I mean, sponsors. No one has ever made a purchasing decision because of a logo she saw on a t-shirt.

But that does not mean you should not be involved in the community and involved in helping out your local non-profits. You HAVE to get involved. If you do not support your local charities then you cannot call yourself a local store.

Here are two ways you can be involved in your community, support local non-profits, and still remain profitable.

First, give out gift certificates freely. For any local non-profit fundraising event, offer a $20 gift card. You are not out anything unless the card is redeemed and most customers will spend more than the amount of the gift card. Think of it as a customer-acquisition expense. It makes the non-profit feel supported and it gets your name out there in a way that guarantees you some return on your investment.

Second, for those groups who want money, not gift cards, hold a special day just for them. Tell them to pick a day that they can promote to all their followers. On that day you promise to donate to them 5% of whatever sales they bring you. Now the burden is on them to advertise your business for you. Yet look at what you get…

Publicity for doing something good for the non-profit.

A fixed return on your charitable donation.

Exposure to a whole new group of people.

Stature as a community supporter.

We have done this for different groups for a number of years. It is always a feel-good day, which gives an added benefit to your staff. They get fired up about it, too.

So get involved in your community. They need you and you need them. Pat their back. They will pat yours in return.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS You can even have multiple non-profits on the same day. Our DDA is doing that with all the downtown businesses on Saturday, November 19 (National America Unchained Day) with fifty non-profits signed up.

October 6, 2011

A Lesson From Steve Jobs

My son is thirteen. He downloads Apple iPod/iPad/iPhone manuals for “light reading”. His favorite thing at the library is the latest edition of Mac World Magazine. His email address is applenerd@_ _ _. This past summer he taught the teachers in his school district how to use their shiny new iPads. We drove him and his brother to Ann Arbor (40 miles away) four days in one week so that they could attend “Apple Camp” at the Apple Store in Briarwood Mall.

Yesterday’s news was tough in our household.

Many bloggers will be reminiscing about Steve Jobs and what he did at Apple. Here are two things we, as retailers, can take away.

First, the whole concept of Apple Camp is brilliant. Invite a group of people to come to your store multiple times over a one week period and do a continuous activity with them. Imagine having a dozen of your best customers stopping by at 4pm every day to do an activity you planned for them. Your cost would be minimal – some supplies, a little bit of marketing, time from a staff member. Your benefits would be HUGE. Every single attendee would become an instant evangelist singing your praises far and wide.

Give your customers something to talk about and they will talk about it. Apple Camp is what solidified my child as a lifelong fan of Apple.

Second, the Genius Bar is absolute genius. Most of your customers are coming to you because of trust. One way you gain that trust is through information. Apple, by creating the Genius Bar, made it clear that not only did they have people with the information, those people were available purely for the job of passing along that information.

Two great aspects of retail that Apple did right and we all can emulate. Thanks, Steve!

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS Yes, you can hold a camp. You are an expert in your field. You know more about your products than your customers do. Figure out a fun way to share that information. If you are a toy store, have toy demonstrations or game nights or puppet shows or dress-up fashion runways. If you are a jewelry store, have a class on gemstones or precious metals. If you are an auto parts store, teach people how to change their wiper blades or even their oil. If you are a clothing store, have an event around Fashion Week in NY. The ideas are endless.

July 11, 2011

Customers Can Be Frustrating

She loves to tell you how your prices are high, how she can get everything cheaper somewhere else. She does everything but call you a price gouger and cheat to your face.

You feel your blood pressure start to rise. You know she doesn’t know the truth.

She doesn’t know that you check prices at your competitors a couple times a month so you know you are at the right price.
She doesn’t know that 70% of your product mix isn’t even available in any of your local competitors.
She doesn’t know that all those 40% OFF signs she saw in the other store were off some inflated price no one would ever spend on that product.
She doesn’t know that your competitor bullied the vendor into a better deal on that product.
She doesn’t know that you pay more for your staff, pay more for your property, pay more in taxes, and offer more services than your competitor.
She doesn’t know the research you did into finding the best products that make the most sense (unlike your competitors that only research which products make the most dollars).

And frankly, she doesn’t care about most of that.

She is a Transactional Customer who is driven by one fear – paying too much.

She will drive to four or five stores (well, maybe three or four with these gas prices) to find the best deals, oblivious to the costs of time and gas.
She will do all the research she can to find the best deal.
She will only buy from you the stuff that offers her the best savings.
She loves watching Extreme Couponing.

She will not make you profitable in the long run.

Treat her well. You treat everyone well, don’t you? But don’t lose a minute of sleep over her comments or attitude.

For every one of her there is a Relational Customer who wants the expertise you have, who wants the knowledge you share, the services you offer.

As frustrating as the former can be, the latter is why we are independent retailers.

They are the customers who bring us the most joy because they get all that stuff above.
They know we want to steer them into the products that make the most sense.
They know we offer competitive prices, convenient services, and expert advice.
They understand the impact of shopping local.

You can’t win them all. And some customers you’ll never win. So don’t fret the losses. Just celebrate the victories and move on.

-Phil Wrzesinski
www.PhilsForum.com

PS I learned about Transactional and Relational Customers from Roy H. Williams, aka The Wizard of Ads. Want your socks blown off? Sign up for any one of his programs. Want to know more about Transactional & Relational Customers? Download his free eBook.

December 12, 2010

It’s a Wonderful Life!

Yeah, watched one of my favorite movies last night, It’s a Wonderful Life with Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey. Cried like a baby at the end, just like I always do.

Then it dawned on me…

This is a movie about incredible customer service.

All those people who came to bail out George at the end did so because first he had given them incredible, over-the-top, unexpected, bend-over-backwards customer service.

Unlike Mr. Potter, George put helping others above personal gain. George made a difference in other people’s lives. Let me repeat that.

George made a difference in other people’s lives.

Does your business do that? Does the customer service you offer make a difference in other people’s lives? Or is it simply a nicety that makes the exchange more pleasant?

The latter only gets a thank you at best. The former? It is the stuff angels are made of.

If you want your customers to show you the kind of love George got at the end, you better figure out a way to make a difference in their lives. When you do that, you’ll find that retail IS a Wonderful Life!

-Phil

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.

December 2, 2010

Doing a Charity Event Right

We just hosted a fundraiser with our local radio stations for Toys for Tots in Jackson yesterday morning. We raised over $6500 in donations of money & toys and all that money was quickly turned into sales at our store. For a one-day event in a market like ours, that was a pretty good day.

In fact, it was a win-win-win. Toys for Tots won because of the incredible exposure and the huge outpouring of the community (not to mention $6500 worth of toys). We won because of the incredible exposure and the $6500 in sales. The kids won because we made a major impact on not just the quantity of toys they will receive but also the quality.

Using a charity as a way to draw traffic is a huge marketing tool. Here is a how-to:

Find a Charity
First, you need to find an appropriate charity. We chose Toys for Tots because we sell toys. If you sell coats, line up with a Warm the Kids campaign. If you sell eyewear, contact the local Lion’s Club. Somewhere there is a charitable group that needs what you sell.

Then meet with the coordinator for your local organization. See if he/she has a radio station that is willing to support them. Local AM talk-radio stations are good for this. Their listeners include lots of business people and community-minded people who are more willing to support local causes.

Plan an Event
Next, have the charity contact the radio station to plan a morning event at your store. For our event we had both the AM and FM stations do their morning shows from our store 6am to 9am. They read the news, announced the weather and talked about the charity all morning long while encouraging people to come to our store or make donations by phone.

But be sure to have the charity make this call. Since they are a charity, they are more likely to get the radio station to do the promotion for free on their behalf. You just happen to be the location of the event.

After that, contact your local bakery and local coffee house. They might be willing to donate coffee & donuts for the free plugs on the air. If not, still support them and buy a few dozen donuts and brew a full pot of coffee. Get some OJ for the kids and non-coffee drinkers.

Set up an Account
Then set up a special account for the charity. That way you can take donations all year long. If someone wants to “tip” you, encourage them to instead make a donation to the charity through you. We actually raised over $500 this way in the past year. (Note: make sure your bank will accept checks from you that are made out to the charity.)

When you have your event date, promote the heck out of it through your own channels, too. FB, website, email, etc. The radio station usually talks about events like this on the air for about a week prior. You should spend at least a week or more promoting it too. Send out press releases. Call/email your favorite reporters.

Be Gracious
And finally, when you get the chance to be on the air, remember to make it all about the charity, Thank everyone who makes a donation. Shout-outs are great, especially when they are community leaders. We had half of our city commission come in this year so on the air we challenged the other half to step up – and they did! Our DDA director showed up minutes later to make a donation, afraid that he would be called out next.

Teaming up with charities is always a positive. It also makes your staff feel good. And at the end of the day, not only will you have done something wonderful for the community that benefited you, too, you will have created a perception of your business as the experts in town.

Merry Christmas!

-Phil

PS Email me if you want more details of what we did.