A December To Remember

With reports of black Friday sales reaching over $11.2 billion and same store sales for big retailers reporting a 6% to 7% increase over the same period last year, it would seem that American consumers have woken up from their "no spend" funk and attacked the malls with vigor.  No doubt deep discounts and longer opening hours combined with a barrage of TV and Internet marketing helped.

But what happened to bowling?

In the northeast and mid Atlantic proprietors reported a drop in Thanksgiving weekend open play. The cause? 65 degree, sunny skies and to may football games..  In the Midwest, proprietors fared the same and in the northwest, numbers were slightly up.

Maybe we should declare our own black Friday or christen December a "Bowling Holiday season" complete with fundraising deals, local bowler appreciation days and special pricing on specific day parts.  Judging by black Friday, consumers seem to respond to big sales backed by advertising and Internet communications

So what kind of  exciting offers can you put together that would get more people to come into your center?

Here are some examples:

1. Be a kid with your kid. adults pay $X.XX per two hours and kids 12 and under pay $Y.YY per two hours
2. Bowl for 2 hours from December 22 to December 31 at 4pm any time lanes are available and we will donate X5 to local charity Y
3. Get a free pizza and 4 complimentary soft drinks when 4 or more people bowl for 2 hours for X$$
4. Get $5 back toward future bowling anytime you and your party spend $50 or more

What else can you think of?

How will you promote it outside of the center?

Who will take responsibility for it?

A Different Kind of Black Friday

In light of the global economic news, American retailers have taken to opening their stores earlier than the "traditional" 6am Friday morning openings.  many retailers opened at midnight or 1am or 2am. Whatever time they opened, stores were jammed with shoppers looking for that 55" HD flat screen TV which normally sells at $1200 for $229. Some got it. Others did not.

The one thing these retailers had in common was their old school newspaper ads combined with TV and Internet sites. There was even a  free app on smart phones for Black Friday deals.  Obviously, they all promoted big discounts on their merchandise.

All of them except one retailer.   Patagonia

Patagonia Advertisement NY Times, November 25, 2011

Taking a completely different marketing approach, Patagonia,  a retailer of outdoor gear, decided to tell people NOT to buy their jacket (as advertised) pointing out the environmental costs to make the jacket and cautioning shoppers to buy only what they need as this will help reduce environmental costs.

Why would they do this?  Obviously, Patagonia's key market is people who enjoy the outdoors, whether it be for hiking, camping, jogging, para sailing, hang gliding, rock climbing, or just staying warm.  No doubt their research indicated that these folks are probably more sensitive about environmental issues than other types of buyers and would respond more positively to this type of appeal.  Not only does this type of advertising make sense FOR Patagonia, but also breaks through the clutter of  all the other retailers claims of "sale, sale, sale".

Kind of like bowling isn't it?  While every proprietor has his product on sale, in one form or another, maybe its time to take a different approach and attract customers in a different way.

Some examples might include:                                                                                                                                 * "Bowl at happy Lanes and we will contribute X$ to a "feed the homeless" project in Anytown, USA".
* "We'll contribute X$ of every bowling purchase to "Local Charity X from now through New Years".
* "When you bowl at Happy Lanes and spend X$ we will contribute X$ in food to a food bank. Or contribute towards a winter coat for poor people or Ta toy for Tots, etc".

Would some of these positions set you apart from other forms of recreation and entertainment options and generate new revenue?

I think so.

What do you think?

New Book Recommendation

Just finished this great book. Please read it.  Have a very Happy Thanksgiving.   Please consider WEIRD

Seth's latest book, We Are All Weird, came out 8 weeks ago, to very strong reviews and gratifying feedback.
It's likely you haven't had a chance to read it yet. I hope you'll give it a shot. (The Kindle edition runs on all computers and tablets and you can read it for free if you're an Amazon Prime member).

Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the book:
The mass market redefines normal

The mass market—which made average products for average people—was invented by organizations that needed to keep their factories and systems running efficiently.

Stop for a second and think about the backwards nature of that sentence.

The factory came first. It led to the mass market. Not the other way around.

Governments went first, because it’s easier to dominate and to maintain order if you can legislate and control conformity. Marketers, though, took this concept and ran with it.

The typical institution (an insurance company, a record label, a bed factory) just couldn’t afford mass customization, couldn’t afford to make a different product for every user. The mindset was: This is the Eagles’ next record. We need to make it a record that the masses will buy, because otherwise it won’t be a hit and the masses will buy something else.

This assumption seems obvious—so obvious that you probably never realized that it is built into everything we do. The mass market is efficient and profitable, and we live in it. It determines not just what we buy, but what we want, how we measure others, how we vote, how we have kids, and how we go to war. It’s all built on this idea that everyone is the same, at least when it comes to marketing (and marketing is everywhere, isn’t it?).

Marketers concluded that the more the market conformed to the tight definition of mass, the more money they would make. Why bother making products for left-handed people if you can figure out how to get left-handed people to buy what you’re already making? Why offer respectful choice when you can make more money from forced compliance and social pressure?

Mass wasn’t always here. In 1918, there were two thousand car companies active in the United States. In 1925, the most popular saddle maker in this country probably had .0001% market share. The idea of mass was hardly even a dream for the producer of just about any object.

At its heyday, on the other hand, Heinz could expect that more than 70 percent of the households in the U.S. had a bottle of their ketchup in the fridge, and Microsoft knew that every single company in the Fortune 500 was using their software, usually on every single personal computer and server in the company.

Is it any wonder that market-leading organizations fear the weird?

The End of Mass

This is a manifesto about the mass market. About mass politics, mass production, mass retailing, and even mass education.

The defining idea of the twentieth century, more than any other, was mass.

Mass gave us efficiency and productivity, making us (some people) rich. Mass gave us huge nations, giving us (some people) power. Mass allowed powerful people to influence millions, giving us (some people) control.

And now mass is dying.

We see it fighting back, clawing to control conversations and commerce and politics. But it will fail; it must. The tide has turned, and mass as the engine of our culture is gone forever.

That idea may make you uncomfortable. If your work revolves around finding the masses, creating for the masses, or selling to the masses, this change is very threatening. Some of us, though, view it as the opportunity of a lifetime. The end of mass is not the end of the world, but it is a massive change, and this manifesto will help you think through the opportunity it represents.

What Pigeons Can Teach Us About The Internet

The other day I had some errands to run so I finished them and then finding myself near a park, I decided to get a roll and some coffee, take 10 minutes and sit in a park, maybe even feed the pigeons.

And it was there that I learned something about social media marketing.  In fact, I think the Pigeons invented social media.

As I started on my roll, I realized that it wasn't all that hungry and decided to eat just one half, the top half with the seeds in it, of course).

It was after the coffee and the roll were deliciously consumed that I noticed that there were no birds in the park and no pigeons.  About then I broke off a piece of the bottom half of the roll and tossed it into the walking path.  No more than 5 seconds passed when a small bird flew down and landed next to the piece of roll. As it began pecking at it, another few birds landed, then a pigeon or two also landed.  By the time I tore the roll up and distributed these pieces across the walking path, no less than 50 to 75 birds and pigeons had found it. The whole process took less than five (5) minutes.

So here is what I learned. I put some information out on the “bird network” (ONE piece of bread) and this “post” was picked up by the leader who swooped in and checked it out. The leader in turn "retweeted" this information to his buddies and they in turn sent information out to their individual “Bird networks.”

And just like that, the transaction that I started (sending valuable information to my target audience) was picked up by other birds in the network and retransmitted to more and more birds.  And so my inventory was sold. 

Before the computer, before the internet, before Facebook, birds and pigeons communicated in this way, so did people.  In the birds’ case, it was word of beak.  In our case it was word of mouth.

So how will you be communicating your inventory availability (tweet, tweet)!

A Reader Writes About My Blog "Ah, Whats One More Lost Sale"

Last week, I wrote a post about losing one more sale because the customer service people did not know how to respond to an inquiry generated by a proprietor's social media initiatives.I commented that "maybe the proprietor should have spent as much time on training his staff to answer customers' questions a she did on social media". One comment that came back to me is as follows and i wanted to share it with you.

I guess everything old is new again :-) 

Comment by Rob McNaughton 16 hours ago

Delete Comment

Being the "longtimer" that I am, I remember a BPAA Convention in 1981 or 82 in San Diego I think that was themed "Back To Basics". I'm not sure we ever learned the basics properly as an industry. We must learn to plan and communicate first to our entire staff, plan and coordinate with our entire staff, solicit input from our entire staff and make the entire staff be a part of the promotion and a part of the center itself.

Implementation and execution of the plan involves everyone in the center. A novel idea? I think not but one we seem to "misremember". Here we are talking about getting back to the basics thirty years later.  Good post Fred!!

A Client Speaks:

I don't usually post this kind of stuff, but wanted to share this with you.  Wood Foss and his family are wonderful clients, but more importantly have become, dear friends. 

     "I do not attend many Bowling business events.  My wife and I were planning on a major upgrade to our facility.  24 lane center, $500K type money.  We attended a Brunswick presentation in Wichita, KA. and were sitting on a bus next to this little quirky guy.  He was talking bowling in terms I really identified with.  The guy couldn’t just shut up…  But, I am a little taller quirky guy, who also loves to talk about bowling.  And it went on and on.  Fred offered me some very specific ideas and introduced me to some very helpful people on the Brunswick Staff.

        In another month I attended the East Coast Bowl Expo.  Guess who I ran into???  We wanted to truly change our center.  We are a traditional style location with a  healthy restaurant venue.  Bowling was stagnant.  We attended all the presentations about bowling and Fred Kaplowitz was truly on top of the issues that needed to be discussed.

        I engaged Fred in a monthly marketing contract in October of 2008.  He has provided me with help and insight in every department.  We transformed our tired traditional center into an upscale traditional center of which we are very proud. 

If you notice the dates 2008 to 2011.  We have blown through the recession.  Our results have been very satisfactory.  We are growing our league play!  Fred kept nurturing our league business and thank God, we did not fall into the open play boutique trap.

        Fred has been our partner or perhaps mentor is a better word.  He feeds us, but more importantly, listens to us and adjusts to our market.  He has the contacts, knowledge and ideas from all over the bowling universe.  He runs his own center and knows the business inside and out. 

 Hire this man, you will benefit from his ideas and enjoy his company."

Kindly,

D. Wood Foss

Alley Katz, Inc.

116 Granite St.

Westerly, RI 02891

401-741-4503 Cell

401-596-7474 Office

401-596-3655 Fax

dwf1@alleykatz.necoxmail.com

www.alleykatzri.com

What To Do When No One is Buying?

Today, “flat” is the new “up.”  As the economy continues to drag, that new reality is banging into an old reality.

When times are tough, owners and operators take a  cost-cutting knife to Marketing.  However, intuitive these actions might seem, it’s time to spend.  Companies that continued to invest in sales, innovation and marketing during the past 18 years have a  book-to-market value 25% greater than those that “battened down the hatches” (“The Importance of the Customer Experience in a Down Economy – International Thought Leader Report, First Edition,” Customer Futures, 2008).
 
When no one is buying, chasing new business not only demoralizes everyone, it’s a waste of time.  Instead, divert new business development resources to customer retention and concentrate your efforts on meeting the needs of the customers you already have.
 
Perceptive marketing people look “closer to home” will find that they already own the single most effective asset needed to jump start sales.  Buried in your customer list are those new business opportunities you need.  Discovering and closing those opportunities, however, requires a new way of thinking.
 
Customers are in the driver’s seat when it comes to buying decisions.  Customers do more to compel sales than marketers do.  If you doubt that, consider the power of social media, word-of-mouth and referrals in these real world behaviors:
· 87% will stop doing business with a company after a negative experience–up from 80% in 2007 and 68% in 2006
· 84% of those who had suffered a negative experience would tell someone else–up from 74% in 2007 and 67% in 2006 (2008 Customer Experience Report, Harris Interactive)

Don’t throw in the towel just yet.  This same report contained some good news for companies with outstanding service:
· 58% would pay more for a better experience – even now
· 58% credited outstanding service as the number one reason to recommend, outstripping low prices (44%) and product/service quality (43%)

The secret is building loyalty. And to do that you need some information. So how do you do that?

Ask just three simple questions:

1. What do you need/want/desire that we aren't  providing?
2. Will you buy from us again?

3. Will you recommend us to your colleagues? 

(The goal in this question #3) is to register a 9 or 10 on a 10 point scale. Anything that is 8 and under is a “fail”)

Use this free R&D to expand your footprint in existing markets, uncover new business opportunities and find ways to improve your products, services and communications.


When you make those improvements and communicate them back to the customer, not only will you let him know that he was heard, but you will make him part of your success!