I’ve been thinking a lot about collaborative marketing lately, and how we can turn co-existing businesses more into partners and less about missed opportunities. I think there’s a great untapped market for someone that really wants to grab collaborative marketing and run with it.

For example – imagine you’re going on a trip. You have to fly to get there, so there are a few processes you need to go through before, during and after:

• Buying your ticket.
• Driving to the airport.
• In-flight activities.
• Hotel or accommodation when you land.
• Rental car.

These are just the basics – I’m sure there are a lot more depending on what your individual needs are.

Now.

Instead of doing this all separately, there was some form of collaborative marketing behind it to make your life easier? I don’t know about you, but I know when my own life is made easy, I’m inclined to use the same service or product again. So.

Imagine if, when you buy your ticket (online or offline), the airline has a deal with all the major car hire firms like Hertz, Enterprise, Avis, etc. So, you buy your ticket and you have an option to hire your car at the same time. The rental firm then comes out and drops your car off. Or, better still, the airliner has a deal with airport cab firms to pick you up and take you to your flight.

Now, let’s also say that when you’re buying your ticket, you have the option of logging onto the booking site via Facebook Connect. If you’ve filled out your Movies and Music preferences on Facebook, the airline sees this. They then load this information into the media options available to your flight using something like iTunes. You can then watch your type of movies (if there’s a screen on the back of the seat in front of you), or your favourite music via an iTunes console.

With regards the hotel or accommodation, if you have to look after it and your company isn’t paying for it, again the airline has a partnership with hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts and more, and not just the big ones but of all sizes. You fill out a short cheat sheet when buying your ticket and the three most suitable accommodations pop up.

And the rental firm that started it all off?

They’re there (obviously) at the other end. But what they’ve done when you booked initially is ask what type of trip you’re having, and the kind of things you like to do when relaxing. So, when you pick up your car at the other side, the GPS is loaded with some destinations you might enjoy. And they’re tied in with local businesses that are part of the collaborative marketing approach of all the above.

Now, this is a pretty simple take on basic marketing 101. Yet, as an example of true collaborative marketing, it’s a start.

But it’s got to be better than a non-starter, no?

image: Ranjith Shenoy

Collaborative Marketing and the Natural Progression to Real Customer Satisfaction originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

There’s nothing special about it. It’s a simple piece of video, made with Windows Movie Maker then put up on Youtube for the creator’s friends to see. And yet…

Its simplicity is also its strength. The mood and pace of the video complement the song perfectly, and doesn’t take away from the song itself. There are no garish images, no fast edits, no multiple screen tricks – just a simple video for a simple song.

Creative agencies often try to come up with elaborate advertising, PR or marketing messages. The feeling is the more elaborate the message is, the more mystique (and therefore interest) around the brand. And it can work, if done properly.

But you know what? Sometimes it’s the simplest things that are the most elaborate of all.

The comments below this video on Youtube show that many people thought it was the official Dashboard Confessional video for the song.

That has to tell us something about simplicity, no?

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The Powerful Act of Simplicity originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

People. Want. Things.

That’s it.

It can be anything – good luck charms; medicines; food; drink; news; shoe polish. Anything.

With the exception of air, everything else costs. So there’s a need to be filled.

How you fill that need is where the difference comes into play.

Some folks will go for service; some folks will go for price; some folks will go for nationality; some folks will go for the people behind the product.

That’s where your dividing factor comes into play. Your knowledge. Your smarts.

But the starting point? That’s the same for everyone.

People. Want. Things.

Ready?

The Only Marketing Tip You’ll Ever Need originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

We always want the new; the shiny; the next big thing. And we want it now.

As consumers, we want the latest and greatest to show off to our friends and family. As businesses, we always want to be first to market to get a jump on the competition.

The problem is, being first doesn’t always mean the best or the shiniest.

The business world is littered with examples of companies that were first to market but were superseded by competitors who learned from the path beater’s mistakes.

On the consumer side, homes are filled with gadgets and contraptions that are no longer needed by the buyer, nor supported by the company that made it (HD-DVD, anyone?).

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be first. Just make sure it doesn’t end up being the last thing you’re remembered for.

The Art of Patience originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Every weekend without fail, my local electronics retailer runs a flyer in the local newspaper. It highlights special offers and discounts and proudly displays “This weekend only!” in the header.

The flyer’s nice and bright and there’s a huge collection of images, from large-screen TV’s to computers to video games to smartphones and more.

Great, you might say. Can never have enough advertising or marketing, right?

Wrong.

You see, every weekend the retailer puts out his flyer, it’s always the same. Same products. Same discounts. Same busy flyer with image overkill and small text.

Because it’s the same, customers now wait until the weekend to buy anything. They sit by their breakfast tables waiting for the newspaper to be delivered, grab the flyer, and drive on down to the retailer to maybe buy a new TV, or phone, or games console.

While this is great for weekend traffic, the store’s pretty empty during the week. The busiest it gets is when one of the sales associates gets the vacuum cleaner out and does a round of the store.

Sure, you could say that the retailer must be doing alright, as the weekend business covers the quiet week, right? Possibly. But think how much better it could be.

Mix It Up a Little, Mix It Up a Lot

With very few exceptions, the retailer’s flyer has the same products and offers on sale every weekend. Now, this could be down to the fact that he has less of a relationship with suppliers than the bigger outlets. But he could still make his offers more selective and therefore more effective.

• Carry out an audit on what’s the most popular product, and then who the most popular supplier of that product is. Then look at what accessories are available for that product. Contact the supplier in question and show them your information and what that relates to in hard sales figures. Then offer to promote the heck out of their brand for a weekend. Better still, have a manufacturer appreciation day during the week to show off their products, with offers only for that day.

• Take the “less is more” approach with the flyer. The human being is primarily a visual person – it’s how we’ve communicated through the ages and it’s still true today. Instead of assaulting the eyeballs, though, highlight one great product per page and then have four or five smaller additions to complement. The litmus test is how your eyes are drawn to the information – if they go where you want the eyes of the customers to go, you’re on the right track.

• Stop the regular weekly offers. When something becomes a regular fixture, we know when it’s going to happen. This takes the edge of it, and lessens any impact. Change the advertising up. Compare a weekday ad instead of the usual weekend ones, and tie it into a truly unique offer. The promise of the sexy sale that day will beat the sameness of the weekend flyer – try it.

Take It to the Masses

The beauty with an electronics retailer is that you can pretty much guarantee the audience – male, 18-45, gadget-friendly geeks (and I say this with nothing but love, as I’m one of these geeks).

The great thing about that demographic is that they’re very web-savvy too. They’re hanging out on social networks, online forums and blogs. So take advantage of this.

Do the research to see where your audience is. Then market to that audience accordingly. If you find you have a lot of potential customers on Facebook, consider running an ad on there specifically tailored to your audience. The great thing with Facebook ads is that you can really drill down into your target audience.

Or try banner ads on forums and speak to niche bloggers about special offers that their readers can benefit from (obviously this works better if you offer e-commerce options as well).

I’ve used my local retailer as an example here, but you can swap the ideas for your own business. Yes, social media is international, but so many businesses forget that their local customers are online too – it’s not all down to simple local advertising. And if you’re unsure of how to market effectively online, speak to a company or agency that can help you.

The thing is, local businesses tend to market locally and with the same approach. A flyer in the weekend paper and maybe some radio ads, and with the same offers week in, week out.

This definitely works, and weekend sales might be all you need to get by. But do you really want to continue just getting by at weekends, or do you want to be a business for every day of the week?

image: Kodak Agfa

How Smart is Your Local Business Marketing? originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

To help with this, here’s a short and simplified presentation that offers a new take on an old method (the Four P’s of Marketing) and an overview of what this means for you.

It’s not meant to be an exhaustive look; more an easily digestible social media and marketing biscuit. Hope you enjoy.

This post contains a Slideshare presentation. If you can’t see it displayed properly in your feed, you can view it directly here.

Social Media and the New Marketing originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

There’s an old saying that any publicity is good publicity – but is it?

Kenneth Cole might be questioning it, after the tweet in the image above – that tied his retail chain’s sale into the devastating events currently happening in Egypt – was picked up and discussed on various PR and marketing blogs and news sites.

I’ve also written on here before about examples of bad PR and PR that takes advantage of tragic or upsetting situations, and questioned the sense behind it.

True, a discussion about your company or business means that at least people are talking about you – but is there a limit as to how far this should go and be accepted as a good thing?

A client approached a well-known agency in New York to run a campaign about that client’s new start-up business. The business was technology-led, and the idea behind the campaign was to run a number of press releases and forum posts that implied the current technology on the market was doomed.

This was where the PR agency’s client would step in – by providing the new technology that would replace the “outdated” one, they would become the de facto standard for this piece of software.

Unfortunately, due to a number of reasons, this backfired spectacularly.

• First, the software wasn’t actually ready – it was still buggy and users kept having their systems frozen.

• Second, the target audience the client was going for were already fiercely loyal to the older technology. They came out fighting when the suggestion was made that they were the equivalent to schoolchildren if they didn’t upgrade to the new software, whose users would be the advanced students of that niche.

Cue forums and tech blogs lighting up with inflammatory statements and posts about this new upstart who was saying all these bad things about the user community. The PR agency swiftly put a damage limitation exercise into place, but it looks like it’s too little, too late.

Now it looks likely that when the software is ready, it’s going to have too much baggage attached to make any headway – which is a shame, as the technology in question is an excellent idea.

So who’s to blame – the client or the PR agency? It’s a little bit of both.

For a business that wanted to be the standard in its field, releasing a buggy product and not classifying it as a beta is one of the worst things it could have done.

For the agency’s part, they should have had more balls and advised their client that pissing off your target audience is not good PR. The client hired the agency for their expertise at getting the right media attention – so they should have enforced that and made the client realize the mistake they were about to make. After all, their reputation would be at stake as well.

In fairness to the PR agency in question, it seems that in this case the client wanted to drum up controversy to get people talking about their product. That certainly happened – but was the (potentially) final result worth it?

Maybe Kenneth Cole and the tech company can tell us in a few months time…

Kenneth Cole Is Just The Latest in a Long Line of Bad PR Decisions originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

As social media continues its assault onto the mainstream audience, one of the side-effects has been the emergence of the view that marketing isn’t allowed in the space.

Sorry, Social Media, But Marketing Is Still Cool originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Location based (or geo-located) marketing is getting a huge amount of buzz at the minute, as Twitter apps connect location tweets to its service, Foursquare is credited with Domino’s Pizza’s UK success and smartphone users get ready for augmented reality to guide their leisure time.

And then there’s Facebook’s continued assault on world domination with its new Places app.

All good stuff. And yet…

For the most part, we’re still being safe and boring when it comes to how we, as marketers, use these geo-location services such as Foursquare and Gowalla to drive traffic and sales to our clients and own business.

And there are some great opportunities to set yourself apart.

Cross-Platform Marketing

One of the cool things about Foursquare is the ability to offer specials to folks who check in at your place. Yet even this is being underused, and generally stops at offering mayorships.

Why not tie it into other social media platforms you use?

For example, let’s say you have a Facebook page for your brand. When you set up a reward for your Foursquare users, why not show the message, “Thanks for checking in! Why not friend us on Facebook too, and download your exclusive code for Facebook-only offers?”

Not only does this strengthen the relationship with you, you’re offering a great call-to-action to grow your Facebook page while giving your customer even easier ways to make a purchase with you.

Mayorship Shmayorship

Check out any of the offers that businesses using Foursquare promote, and it’s usually rewarding the mayor of that location only.

Great for the mayor, but let’s face it, that can be gamed – I can check in at the coffee house across the street from my office without even entering the premises, so no sale there!

So why not offer a Happy Hour promo instead? An alert goes out to your followers, something along the likes of, “Hey guys, between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m. today, all purchases are 2-for-1 on everything up to $50 when you stop by and check in.”

Not only are you opening up the offer to everyone, you’re offering it with urgency – something that’s hugely effective at getting buy-in from customers.

Cross Promotion Retailing

When we shop, we don’t always go for the cheapest offer. More often than not, we go for the one that best suits our needs. That could mean mix-and-match purchasing – we get jeans from one store, a top from another, and shoes somewhere else.

So why aren’t we offering that more often via geo-location marketing?

For example, let’s say I go to the movies to see the new Batman movie. Obviously I check in there and maybe even write a note to say what I’m there to watch.

Now, imagine if that movie theatre was partnering with the local comic book store or chicken wings diner. As soon as I come out of the theatre, there’s a Foursquare alert from the comic book store that tells me I can get 10% off all Batman purchases that day.

Or if I go to the wings place, I can get 2-for-1 on special Bat wings (not real bats, obviously!) for that day only. Or good for a limited time from the update – say, 72 hours.

Again, it’s tying into something I already like so I’m more than likely to check it out. And if I like Batman, there’s a pretty good chance I’m going to like comic books, too.

Like I said at the start, there are a ton of options available for smart marketers to use when it comes to geo-location.

All they need to do is find them. Do that and they might just find more customers, too.

This post first appeared on Spin Sucks, the business blog of Arment Dietrich, a non-traditional marketing agency headed up by Gini Dietrich. Spin Sucks looks to dismantle industry buzz and hype with thought-provoking insights and discussions.

image: mhartford

What I’d Like to See From Location Based Marketing Services originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.

Consumers love simplicity.

We don’t want to be confused with multiple messages and options. We just want to buy the product or service that we need at that time and have it work, or improve our lives. Make our lives simpler.

Simple works. Simple means we can concentrate on other things. So when I’m shopping with you, why not make my experience the same whether I’m buying from you online or offline?

Direct the Traffic

I’ve been on some fantastic e-commerce websites that make shopping a cinch. Clean, well laid out and simple breadcrumb directions to the deals I’m interested in. I’ve then gone to other retailers that would make excellent poster boys for double servings of spaghetti – they’re just all over the place and falling out the bowl.

Do customers really like this scattergun approach?

I’m not a huge fan of IKEA – I think a lot of their stuff is chintzy, and just wouldn’t look right in my home.

BUT… I am a huge fan of the layouts in their retail stores. You go in the front entrance, and you simply follow a path until you reach the checkouts. You never feel lost, or cluttered – everything is relaxing.

The Psychology of Being Memorable

It’s not surprising – IKEA have mastered the psychology of shopping. They theme areas and direct you to where you’re most likely to purchase at a given time, all by simple layout structure.

Their websites follow this simplicity, with each country following the same design, and this has turned the Swedish furniture giant into one of the most successful retailers around. You have to respect that whether you like them or not.

It’s not just retail where IKEA’s mindset can be used. Think about everywhere you offer something to your visitors; customers; potential clients; new and existing employees; media enquiries; blog readers. Think about how you’re guiding them to where you want to be and how you can help them return.

You don’t need the psychology of shopping to help make you memorable; but you do want to be remembered, especially for the right reason.

Right?

image: taking leave

The Psychology of Being Memorable originally appeared on Danny Brown - under a Creative Commons license.