Friday, November 27, 2009

Who is Buying?

In visiting my clients, I often here the lamentable phrases like, " our programs are really good, we offer great stuff, but as hard as we try, people just aren't buying it; its just not selling".

The second lamentable phrase I hear is, "We're a league based house; we only offer 32 week programs, now they want shorter and shorter league seasons, its just not fair!".

To these phrases I often say, "Hey Larry, your center is basing its marketing strategy on what you want to offer, not what the prospective customer wants to buy.

Would you buy something from someone who says you ought to buy this product even though you know there is something out there that's a better product or a cooler product?

Just because you try hard or sell better, doesn't mean that customers are going to go looking for your same old product. You wouldn't either, right?

If a product doesn't meet your needs as a consumer, why would it be good enough for you as a marketer?

Would you really buy into a 32 week program, when NEW consumers (like you) tell us they just want 6 to 8 week sessions?

Change is a good thing.
Try it.

It will make your marketing more productive.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Thanksgving Every Day

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. Many of us will be at home with our families basking in the joy of good food, fun and lively conversation intermingled with a healthy dose of football.

The warmth of the home and hearth; a day off from the daily routine and, perhaps, even seeing some old friends we haven't seen in a while will make a day we can well remember.

Wouldn't it be great if our existing customers and new customers feel that kind of feeling every time they come into our bowling and entertainment center?

Start out with a "Welcome to Happy Lanes" sign in your front entrance.

Train your desk people to at least say "Welcome to Happy Lanes, My name is Fred" and ask "Have you been here before?" to any one who comes in.

Then make sure your person shakes hands, smiles and says "Welcome to Happy Lanes, how may I help you today?" or "Welcome back to Happy Lanes, how may I help you today."

Just start with this small step.
And maybe it will start to feel like Thanksgiving day, every day.

Saturday, November 21, 2009

The New Marketing

It seems that the new marketing is all about "social marketing"; all about electronic and or digital marketing; and all about reaching people individually.

We like this new marketing. It makes our professional lives more precise. We now have measurement. There's no BS about how well you did on line. People either opened, clicked through or bought. "The numbers", as my friend Max says, "is the numbers".

But what has happened to the definition of marketing? It used to be that marketing was "The process of satisfying consumers needs and desires". Or how about this one? "The art and science of developing a product, a price and a promotion and distributing it in order to meet the demands of the market place". I guess these were as good as it got...back then.

Today, the new marketers are defining marketing as a "service". That's right, "a service" that helps people decide; while "sales" helps people buy.

By moving away from the old think of "creating demand, meeting demand or even making people buy things they don't want", we now can view the marketing process as a service that provides information to help people decide.

Skeptics will say, "wait a minute isn't marketing about creating dollars and increasing profits?" Sure it is, but isn't that the job of everyone in the company and not just the marketing person or department?

Wouldn't it be cool if we all saw marketing as a service to help people decide?

How would that change your approach to your business?
What information would you provide that you are not currently providing?

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

REI and Customer Loyalty

In an never ending search to bring you interesting information about world class companies, I wanted to share the story of REI (Recreational Equipment Inc); a chain of sporing goods stores with over $1.4 billion in annual sales employing over 9500 employees. REI has been ranked in the top 100 Companies to work for in the United States by Fortune Magazine since 1998, which earned them a place in the Fortune Magazine's "Hall of Fame". REI ranked as #12 in 2009.[3]

Lloyd and Mary Anderson founded REI in Seattle, Washington in 1938. The Andersons imported an Academ Pickel ice axe from Austria for themselves, and decided to set up a cooperative to help outdoor enthusiasts acquire good quality climbing gear at reasonable prices. However, in the 1980s, with changes to its Board of Directors, the emphasis shifted toward family camping and branched out into kayaking, bicycling, and other outdoor sports. Clothing, particularly "sport casual" clothes, also became a greater part of the company's product line. Although the company is still a cooperative, providing special services to its members, the "co-op" moniker has been dropped from much of its literature and advertising as it solicits business from the general public, even if they are not members.


Now here is the twist and here is how they develop a VERY loyal following


There is a one-time fee of $20 for lifetime membership to the co-op. REI normally pays an annual dividend check to its members equal to 10% of what they spent at REI on regular-priced merchandise in the prior year. The refund, which expires on December 31 two years from the date of issue, can be used as credit for further purchases or taken as cash or check between July 1 and December 31 of the year that the dividend is valid. Summaries of the financial statements are mailed with the member's dividend statement and are posted on the REI website.

Members are able to buy returned/used/damaged goods at significant discounts. Other benefits of REI membership include discounts on rentals and shop services, as well as rock wall access at locations that feature indoor climbing walls.

How can you apply this kind of marketing strategy to you bowling center or entertainment center? A store that gives money back to its customers for future purchases. If you think this is a great concept and you would like to implement something like this for your entertainment center or bowling center go to "www.bowlingrewards.com" and see for yourself what the future of bowling/entertainment marketing looks like.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Is E-mail Dead?

Clara Shih, author of "The Facebook Era," says social networks are slowly replacing email. I know you're saying, "Fred, I just figured this email thing out and now you're saying its dead?" No it's not dead, but it is being replaced by Facebook and Twitter for "social communications". Email will always leave a "paper trail" and will be perfectly acceptable for business, but from a social standpoint, that's another story.

Here's what Clara Shih's take is:

"Over 300 million people on Facebook, up 153% from last year
. But not only are they signing up they are logging in. In fact, people are spending over 8 billion minutes a day on Facebook. That's an incredible amount of time and whatever business we're in whatever role or function we may play we need to be where our audience is.

We need to communicate through the channels preferred by those audiences whether it's internal audiences with our employees or external audiences with our customers. Twitter and IPhone show similar spectacular growth. 58 million users on Twitter today and nearly the same amount on the IPhone and so the question is is email dead?

I spoke with a lot of younger people in college and high school in researching while I was writing the Facebook Era and I was astonished to learn that many university students say just don't use email. They'll use email occasionally to communicate with their parents, or professor, prospective employer, other so called adults but with each other they're using Facebook, Facebook wall posts, Facebook messages and they're using SMS and that has real profound implications for how we as business leaders communicate.

Young people between the ages of 18 and 25 still comprise the largest group - 29% - but you'll see that the group 26 and 34 isn't far behind and the fastest growing group is actually people between the ages of 35 and 49 and surprisingly the second fastest growing group are women over the age of 55".

In a time when we are being cautious about the economic recovery and slow to expand our budgets again, the one area that is growing for people is social media and that's where the big boys are spending their money. Check out Disney or MGM or any major Theme Park on Facebook and you will see what Clara is talking about.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Everybody is Nobody

How much time do you and your staff spend on trying to get everyone to come bowling? After the flier is made, what happens next? Do you speak to everyone who comes into the center? Do you go to businesses in the area and distribute fliers?

If you are trying to go after everybody, you are going after NOBODY and unfortunately that's who usually responds to your offer. With open play being soft this fall, you have to be more precise in your marketing effort and go after specific segments; groups of people who have a greater possibility to buy your product.

Here is an example. Suppose you are trying to build a weekday 9pm open play program. The prime candidates for that product would be the 18 to 34 audience with a core group of 21 to 25. To reach this group, we hope you have a data base of emails of former customers with birthdays. This should be your first line of attack. Second, put the offer up on your web site. Third, send a 4 color postcard to a mailing list of 18 to 34 yr olds; send it 2 or 3 times.

Fourth, listen to various radio stations or cable TV and see where the local bars are advertising; then buy radio or cable on those networks or radio station (call the local "bar who is advertising" and ask them if their advertising is pulling results. then contact the media people and get their input. make them prove who their audience is. Make them show you results from other advertisers and do NOT ever buy a schedule that gives you the whole day (ROS schedule). It is not a targeted campaign and you will be wasting dollars...big time.

You need to find the right person to spread the word, to carry your message, to love your program and willing to tell other people. If you don't discipline your business to target the right "someone", you might end up with no one...and that will be expensive.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Zappos for Bowling

THE ZAPPOS PHILOSOPHY

Finding the right people is difficult. Keeping them is even more challenging.
But, would you pay someone to leave your company?

This is exactly what Zappos.com does. Haven't heard of Zappos? They are an Internet retailer that sells shoes (even bowling shoes). They are known for their customer service. Internally they have a saying: "We are a service company that happens to sell shoes. And apparel. And handbags. And accessories. And eventually anything and everything."

Zappos offers $1,500 to anyone who wants to quit. The firm actually offers to buy their new employees out of their jobs. (Between 2-3% of the people accept the offer.)

You see, Zappos only wants people working there who want to be there. They have an incredibly successful company, and realize that it is not about selling "stuff," but creating an experience that people love. No matter how great their website is, or how great their products are, their people back up the entire customer experience.

According to Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, "...in addition to trying to WOW our customers, we also try to WOW our employees, and the vendors and business partners..." And, they do.

Zappos has created a culture that has employees saying, "I love working here." How do they do it? First, everyone knows the "mantra." Second, Zappos trains well. Third, there are really cool perks that WOW the employees. No, not the usual corporate perks. They have pot-luck lunches, bowling parties, haunted houses at Halloween, holiday decorating, karaoke, picnics, go-carting and much more. The culture is fun. Most important, they have an environment where people can just be themselves.

All of this is a lesson on taking care of your internal customers so you can better serve your outside customers.


ZAPPOS' CORE PHILOSOPHY IS:
1. Deliver WOW through service.
2. Embrace and drive change.
3. Create fun and a little weirdness.
4. Be adventurous, creative, and open-minded.
5. Pursue growth and learning.
6. Build open and honest relationships with communication.
7. Build a positive team and family spirit.
8. Do more with less.
9. Be passionate and determined.
10.Be humble.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

We Have Been Down This Road Before

We have been down this road before. Its early November and we are hoping the weather will turn and our open play business will pick up. So we send out a bevy of emails, direct mail, facebook and twitter communiques and maybe even use some traditional advertising and "hope for the best."

What if it doesn't pick up? What will you do now?

The answer is not simple but rather it involves the word "better". Better is relative. Are you better than your competition, better than you were yesterday or better than you expected?

The real better is to get "better customers, better prospects and find better people who believe in your product" and will buzz 25 other people about your product and how much fun they had at your center.

Customers who see the value of your product; customers who understand that it doesn't have to be cheap to be a good experience (In fact, it doesn't have to be cheap at all) are customers who are better. Simply because they are different. So stop treating all customers the same. Is there a gold level of service and appreciation for your most gold level customers?

Some of your league bowlers are better customers because they come to your center so often, and in their way, appreciate your facility and the fact that you are providing a quality recreation experience for them. The trick is to find those league bowlers that really love your product and cater to them; hug them if you have to! Just treat them differently.

League bowlers are hardly ever spoken to outside of a quick "how you doing?" When was the last time any of them spread the word for you? When was the last time they really invited some other person to bowl with them in another league or in their existing league? And if they did, did you know about it and thank them, reward them or show your appreciation for their effort? Do you know who they are?

There may also be some open play bowlers out there as well that are loyal and happy about your product. Find these people and find them now; treat them differently because they are better. Cater to them. Appreciate them. Love them

And stop worrying about the weather turning.