Where Have You Been and What Did You Learn?

While fighting some age old back problems this week, and getting PT and Acupuncture treatments, my travels found me in the, Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Southern regions of the country, and speaking to not only my clients, but other proprietors as well (in short 2 to 3 hour seminars), I wanted to report back to you on some of their perceptions and realizations about the current state of their business and how they are marketing it.

1.           Summer league bowling is experiencing its typical “up a little, down a little and even” responses to the question of “how is business?” The "good guys" are experiencing "up" because they began planning their summer in FEBRUARY!!

2.          March open play was strong almost everywhere with weekends being strongest (Yay for cold and wet weather). but yay for some of the proprietors who found double digit increases in some old school cable TV advertising. Incidentally, for those of you who pooh pooh cable TV, US companies spent $61 billion on cable TV advertising last year and $4.1 billion on digital advertising so cable "ain't going away any time soon."

3.          Smart proprietors are feeling more confident about the economy and raising their summer league prices so when their fall league bowlers come back and ask, “when did you raise prices?", they can answer, “in the summer.”

4.          More proprietors are experimenting with and running Saturday night bands, some using the Profit Platform and charging $20 a person, $5 of which goes to the band.

5.          Proprietors who are using "on line reservation systems" for birthdays and corporate parties are showing double digit increases in both categories of bookings vs. the same period last year and even to the periods before they put the systems in place.

6.           More proprietors are using hourly pricing than ever before and finding greater acceptability of the strategy as people come to realize greater values than $4.50 to $5.00 game pricing which many consumers cannot get their heads into.

7.          Proprietors are actively seeking new ways to communicate their message and starting to realize that they have significantly beat up emails and Facebook postings as a communication tool; too many opt outs and too many unopened emails…less than 12% of all email blasts are now being opened.  That’s why you need to segment your offers against the target in order to get more opens. The more relevant the message to the recipient, the more likely it is to get greater opens and greater click throughs.

8.          Using a landing page to rive people from your email to get the information is finally starting to be understood.

9.          Shorter season summer leagues 6 to 10 weeks are being planned for a “2^nd season summer” starting in mid to late June.

10.           Kids Bowl Free centers are experiencing a greater rate of sign ups than last year which was over 2 million kids. 

And here's a bonus tip.

11.           Don’t confuse taking a pain killer pill with an aspirin or you will fall asleep at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike for almost two hours. :)

Have a great weekend.

Customer Service Story # 22

So there I was stuck in traffic in Manhattan in the middle of rush hour when the three cups of coffee and two diet cokes I consumed at the meeting decided that it was time to loosen its grip on me.

With nature calling, I stoically looked around for a bathroom and a place to park. I knew if I could park, put the flashers on and walk into a neighborhood bar and just keep going to the back, I would find a bathroom and all would be well once again.

As the fates would have it, I turned up the next street found a spot, turned on the flashers, ran out of the car, headed into “Un-named Bar” and headed to the back. I found it. Relief at last; pulling at the door, to my chagrin, it didn't open. When I looked up I saw this sign on the men’s bathroom stall.

ARE YOU F&^%$#G kidding me I said to the owner who basically told me to take a hike or pay up.

Running out, I found another place and after some considerable thought about the first place decided that instead of naming it, I would report him to whatever bureaucracy I could find to listen to me.

Nevertheless, I will come back again with a bunch of my friends and buy a few beers and we all will use his bathroom.  Oh yeah, we’ll use it like it has never been used before…if you know what I mean.

Fred's 5 Step Approach to Getting More Customers

If you really want to figure out what to do to motivate someone to buy bowling, read about “Fred’s 5 Step Approach to Getting More Customers.” 

This is a much abbreviated version, since what we do for our clients is a lot more elaborate than this, involves more testing,  reconfiguration and  tweaking copy points and headlines… but it is the essence of what we do.

Step One: Decide Who It Is You Are Talking To and What You Want Them To Do?

1.      Someone who hasn't bowled in 5 years or more

2.      Someone who bowls maybe once or twice a year

3.      Someone who bowls 3 + times a year

4.      Someone who “usta bowl” at your center last year or two years ago in a league

5.      Any other segments you might be able to define?

6.      NOTE: decide on age, gender, when they prefer to bowl and what they have bought in the past and if 

      what you will be offering them is in line with their values and beliefs.

Step Two: Decide What Is Pleasurable About the Bowling Experience (to the person you will be talking to?)

1.      Can be with friends and family, we can talk – not like a movie

2.      Affordable fun with kids, friends, whom ever -

3.      Good for a weekend date

4.      Something different to do

5.      Music n bowling is cool. Sound system is awesome and they play MY requests

6.      Great for kids birthdays – easy to do and not very expensive; doesn't mess up my house

7.      Company parties – if food is good and service is good and place isn't a throwback to old bowling alley

      stereotype

8.      I like the friendly competition

9.      Like to compete against my best score

10. Would be more fun with more people – a bigger group of like 8 to 10 people

11. Food is better than expected – actually better than a “Friday’s

12. Not weather dependent, can do it rain or shine

13. Makes me smile to see my kids having so much fun

Step Three:  Decide What Is Painful About Bowling (to the person you will be talking to?)

1.      People curse and swear near my kids

2.      People not like me, they’re rednecks and rowdy

3.      Place is always filthy and bathrooms look like a toxic waste dump

4.      Food just sucks and is over priced

5.      Drinks are expensive and watered down

6.      Nobody on the staff seems happy; why would I want to go there?

7.      The whole experience is too expensive and I have other choices than going there

8.      Bowling balls and shoes are old and trashy; I hate wearing someone else’s bowling shoes and if they’re 

      OK  why do they disinfect them?

9.      Music system and light system is a “D.” My Walkman works better than their sound system

10.  Not in a safe part of town anymore

11.  Nobody I know bowls

12.  Can only bowl after 9pm on weekdays and that’s too late; have to get up early

13.  I’ll never get better at this and I don’t want to take lessons and buy a ball, shoes and all that stuff – I’m 

      just not good at it, so why should I do it?

Step Four: Write a Description of the Person You Are Going To Be Talking To

1.      What do they like (see list above). What do they dislike (see list above). How old are they?

      Where do they work? What kind of a car do they drive? Are they married, single, or divorced?  What

      other things do they do in their spare time? What foods do they like to eat? Would you be friends with

      them?  Would you let your kids play with their kids? Would you want to be friends with them?  What

      other activities do they do?

2.      Create an offer that this person could not resist because of WHO they are and what their likes and

      dislikes are and make the offer so strong that even you would take advantage of it.   There’s a lot of

      competition out there so you need to stand out.

3.      Create a sense of urgency within your offer; “only 10 spots left, “going soon”, “limited offer”

4.      Don’t forget that within your offer, you must have a headline that will snap my head around, an offer

      that is irresistible (either it diminishes their pain or enhances their pleasure), a guarantee that you will

      stand behind, a testimonial or two that supports your claim of what a great offer this is and how happy

      other people have been when they bought it.  Make sure that your graphic matches the audience and the

      offer. Or  is the graphic so off the wall that the potential customer will just have to stop and look.                                                                                          

Step Five:  Go Write The Direct Mail, Flyer Or Email Using This Formula. 

1.    If you send me your “homework” I will critique the “homework” for the first 25 people who 

    send me their finished product (Absolutely FREE) and provide you with feedback.

2.      Or you can just do what you have always been doing…I’ll be happy to critique that too! :)

The Hunt For Summer Business Is On

The hunt for summer league bowlers is on. Many of you are well into it. Many of you are partially into it and some of you (I hope its only some) have just started.

No doubt you will get your leagues on the floor, some better than last year and some a little worse. But here's one thing you can all do to get more revenue

You can start now to sell summer parties, day care centers, summer camps and fund raisers.  Please don't tell me that nobody wants a summer bowling party. I have seen some of my clients rack up amazing revenue over the summer just because they really gave it an all out effort.  

So if you're inclined to want to make more money in the summer, here's what you need to do in May:

Create a summer party theme. I like to use "Summer  Bowling Picnic" but you can call it anything you want as long as it gets your target audience's attention.  You can call it "Get Off our Apathy Bowling Summer."  Just call it something that is ridiculously relevant.

Write a really convincing letter to Ms. Human Resource Director as to why she should coordinate a summer bowling picnic/team building event. In the letter, tell her that bowling picnics never get rained out; that everyone can play; that bowling has more participants than golf (68 million to 26 million), that bowling is a lot less expensive than a $50 round of golf.  Put yourself in her shoes and answer the question, "why out of all the summer team building options I have, why should I choose bowling?"

1. Come up with a great offer that is irresistible:  "Bring 2 people, pay for one;"  "Bring 25 people or more and we'll pay for the first round of beverages;" "Win a vacation to the Caribbean for two when you bring 25 or more people;" Save $200 when you bring 40 or more people."  You get it, right?
2. Note: you can test all of your offers by splitting up the mailing list and sending one offer to everybody whose last name starts with A - M . And the second offer to people whose last name end in N -Z.Send the letter to your corporate list; people you had parties with over the holidays or over the last twelve months.  
3. If you have corporate email use it (3 times in 30 days - means 3 sequential letters). if you have a mailing list use it.
4. If you don't have one, go to www.infousa.com and get one that surrounds a 3 or 5 mile area
5. Put the summer picnic information on your website --- home page - click here for more information should take them to a landing page where they can fill out a form that says what they are looking for in a party and then you will respond
6. Start face book posts on it
7. Place POS information in the center
8. Now start calling back the people you sent letters to asking them if they are interested in a party
9. Revisit big retail stores in your area ) Target, Kmart, WalMart, the usual suspects and ask to speak to the manager about a team building event.
10. Repeat steps 1 thru 9 in June

Please follow these steps and you have a chance at winning the summer. 

Don't follow it, or follow it half assed or just sit back, do nothing, stuck in the same old mindset that "they wont bowl in the summer even if you give it away" and tell me at Bowl Expo 2013 that your business is "so so" and we all know what that means!

"Our Time Theatre" Needs Your Support

Dear Friends,

For those of you who are "American Idol" fans, you no doubt have seen the audition of Lazaro Arbus, a young Cuban man who stutters while he talks, but does not stutter when he speaks.  Speech pathologists around the world aren't sure why this phenomenon occurs other than to attribute it to "its another part of the brain that sings, not talks."  Here  is Lazaro's interview and song; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLdg9FMp7f8&feature=youtu.be

Like Lazaro, Mel Tillis, a famed country singer also stutters while talking but never while singing. And this year, Mr. Tillis will be the honoree of this year's annual Our Time Theatre Award to be presented at our gala event in Manhattan on Monday, April 22nd.

My involvement as a Board member of Our Time Theatre has been very rewarding and very humbling.  I watch these kids perform and sing and dance and act and marvel at their courage to stand up in front of an audience and "share their voice."  The Our Time Kids attend the program for FREE. there is never a charge. To the program we have added a summer camp, various workshops and new initiatives all in the never ending quest to help these young people find their voice.

when I was younger and struggled with my stutter, I never wanted to be in the spotlight; I never wanted to talk in front of others and candidly, never wanted to be exposed to the teasing, the tormenting and the rash conclusions that people made about stutterers; how there was something "mentally wrong" or they were "too nervous", "too skittish" and worse, "were not very smart."  Years later we found out that we were as good as anyone else and that we too had a voice that needed to be heard.

So this year, as I appeal to your philanthropic side, I urge you, beg you and embrace you to send some of your hard earned money to the Our Time Kids; kids who struggle with their speech from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to sleep.  Unlike you, they have the added pressure not just of thinking of what they are going to say , but HOW they will say it. It is continuously emotionally draining and debilitating.

And that's where Our Time comes in, by providing an artistic home for kids who stutter, we can provide them with a renewed sense of confidence, a place where they can feel safe; a place where no one makes fun and a place where people dont complete their sentences.

For more information about this wonderful cause and how you can contribute, please go to http://www.ourtimestutter.org/gala/

Please, whatever you can spare, $10, $20, $100 or more, please support this charity and think of it as doing a "really good deed"...because you will be doing just that!

Many thanks in advance for your support of Our Time Theatre.

Sincerely,
Fred Kaplowitz

p.s.  Please view this short video about last year's Our Time Gala: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&list=UUAkSYbm7y-ge9ZcwUTd2HHg&v=fEX2ELBHQlg (Please copy and paste into your browser)

What's New or What's Working?

Many is the time when I go to see an existing client or a new client and after the coffee and catch up I usually get, “So Fred, in your travels around the country, have you seen anything new? 

Sure, New York, New Jersey, New Mexico, ha, ha!  Mildly amused I still get, “no seriously, anything new?”  

Now, while it’s perfectly natural to ask the question about “what’s new?” (After all, we all want to be on the leading edge of technology and have the latest mouse trap and bait for our customers) we keep looking further and further out for "what's new? and we tend to forget about our existing products and their hunger for communication" 

I always wish that the question was rather: “anything out there that’s working great.” It just seems that what “works” is a lot more important question than “what is new.”

Back in early February,  I started working on a client’s late night weekday bowling product as well as tweaking his weekend family package to add more value to it. 

He had these programs in place and was struggling to keep up with his emailing, faceboooking, SEO, SEM and SMO marketing when I finally said;  “Whoa you’re spending so much time working on the newest technology that you’re forgetting about communicating your existing products!

His head snapped around and he said, “Damn, you’re right, what do we do?”  

About a day or two later I got back to him with a multi media plan that included a series of direct mails, emails, couponing and sweepstakes offers as well as some very targeted “freemiums” to major corporations and businesses in the area.

“But, but”, he sputtered, that’s not NEW!!  "You are right, 100% right,"  I answered, but it WORKS. 

After an hour of this, he finally agreed to go ahead with it.  The results and I’m not trying to brag here, but we moved his average monthly open play from $35,000 to $51,000.

If there was anything new at all, it was in the creative presentation of the delivery of the offer, backed by a guarantee and a sweepstakes for an I pad (which generated lots of new emails  and about a dozen summer league sign ups  too).  It was cool.

So the next time you are looking for “what’s new”; maybe you should rephrase the question into “what’s working?”

Get Ready. Now Its Gen Z

Born  in the mid 1990’s through 2010, about 45 million people make up this generation which is growing up in, has grown up in, the age of technology. 

Marketers fondly refer to them as "Digital Natives" because they  prefer communicating through social networks and instant messaging, and considers email “so yesterday."  

However, they are not happy to receive text messages from companies unless they have given those companies specific permission to text them with information THEY want.

To these folks, the internet has always been there, WiFi is not a new phenomenon; neither is multi tasking.

They are the first generation to “eat” more media online than offline; 4 out of 5 of them multitask with an internet device while watching TV, actually with 1.5 internet devices according to the research. 

Oh yes and if you think TV is dead to these folks, 73% of them watch TV daily.

Thus, they expect to connect anytime, anywhere to anyone.  If you don’t offer these services in your establishment, they just won’t come as frequently…or maybe not at all.

To reach them and persuade then to buy your product all you need to do is be authentic and live up to their high expectations; sounds like what you have to do with EVERY customer, doesn't it?)

Most importantly because they grew up with two way conversations, a one way sell job just won’t work.  You need to engage them and get them to participate with your business whether it be via sweepstakes, contests, dancing contests or karaoke.

One thing to remember, these Generation Z’ers make very little distinction between the real world and the virtual world.  For them they are one and the same.  

With their fragmented attention span and multi tasked communication applications, you as a marketer, must be consistently honest and remarkable.

What ways can you think of engaging (probably) your best night time open play customer?

Check out this chart. The communications they trust the most are those communications that are written on line reviews as well as natural search engine results (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Etc.) 

"Most Motivated Person With No Skills is Most Dangerous"...Tony Robbins

Its great to be motivated, isn't it? 

To get up every day, raring to go and I have seen plenty of small business owners with that mindset. They even have the skills to get it done. 

Unfortunately; many of these folks have no system to put those skills in play and thus, can do more harm than good in a very short period of time. 

What would a football team be without a great system? Certainly not a super bowl team. Just look at the NY Jets. They just didn't have a viable system and probably never will under present ownership!

if you don't have a system, but are motivated and have skills,  we can help you with a proven, rock solid system that's worked for over 450 proprietors around the world.

Give us a holler. We'll be happy to analyze your situation with our FREE Ultimate Bowling Marketing and Sales Guide Marketing and Sales Guide. Email us at fredkaplowitz@gmail.com or phone us at516 359 4874 to get your free copy

Beyond Free

In the days of brick and mortar stores, people went into book stores to browse, look at books, magazines and esoteric periodicals from all over the world. Then the E reader happened. Kindle happened and people were able to download books on their new reading devices.

As the Kindle became more sophisticated and added features, other competitors, most notably Apple, jumped into the fray and offered up their version of an E reader with many more features.  It was called the “I Pad” and sales of this product skyrocketed into the millions.

Now Kindle (a product of Amazon) has gone to the ultimate marketing route by introducing its “Kindle Zero.”  The cost for this product? ZERO, Nada, It is Free.

Why would they do this?  Simply because you need to buy books and the only books you can buy, you must get through Amazon.  I guess they figure that over the life of the product’s cost, the consumer will buy enough books not only to pay for the product but to provide a handsome profit to the company.

But Kindle has also moved beyond FREE. Those books that you could get for free, as a kindle subscriber, some 10% of their inventory will now be offered to the Kindle Zero buyer as will a monetary stipend to read the book.

 In other words, “get a free Kindle Zero, read this book and get paid!”  The idea is to sell advertising that would pop up on these readers’ devices as a way to generate income.

Pretty cool marketing. Pretty innovative. 

Now I am contemplating whether to offer my consulting services for free, sell advertising on my electronic marketing system that you have to read and offer you a FIAT 500 when you complete the course.

Is this the wave of marketing in the future? 

What does it mean for your bowling center?

Or for any other business selling products to consumers?