10 Holiday Marketing Tips to Get You Focused NOW

It was 4:12 this morning, when I pulled into my local gas station for a quick cup of coffee and a two pack of Entenmanns chocolate donuts.

My friend “Focus” was there. “Focus” is a Jamaican man in his mid 30’s who pulls the 12am to 8am shift six days a week.  We talk about his “happy island,” my travel, the Giant’s game and then I am gone, off to catch another plane to another great client.

Somehow I can’t stop thinking about “Focus” and what he said as I was leaving.  “Yoh mon,” he said, “I got my name because my mother and father wanted a baby boy very much and my father used to say to my Mother, Now, Nan, you focus on what you want and you want dat baby boy, you focus on getting him.  So after all the months, my father was saying to my mother, ‘Focus’ she was pregnant, she decided to call me “Focus.” “And that’s a true story", he said through a broad smile and a quick laugh.

I thought that was pretty cool, but the message about focusing on what you want stuck with me.

In the darkness of the highway, I started to formulate all the things I needed to get my clients to focus on…at least through the end of the year.

So while I don’t compute and drive any more, I can voice record., I created a checklist of marketing and service items, upon which, you might need some additional focus.

1.    Send one more email blast to your company data base, targeting smaller companies with 15 to 50/75 employees within 3 miles of your center, offering them a lane package of $99 to $149 per lane depending on your market. Package is valid for up to 5 people and would include a buffet of appetizers like pizza bites (cut your pizza into squares), chicken wings, mozzarella sticks, jalapeno poppers and some veggies and dips.

2.     Follow up with phone calls to those who hit your website and invite them in to see the center.

3.    Be sure you have two or three league concepts- to start in January - on your site, on fliers and prepared for emailing and face booking.

4.    Retrain the staff, before thanksgiving, about the importance of customer service.  If you want a power point presentation on it, drop me an email to fredkaplowitz@gmail.com and I’ll send it off to you.

5.    Examine your pricing. The weekend before Thanksgiving (like this coming weekend) is the perfect time to raise your prices. Kids back from colleges and families who haven’t been to see you since last year have no idea what the price is and given that the average league bowler bowls about 2.3 times annually, in your center, price increases of fifty cents to $1 should not get much pushback. Please remember FREDQUARTERS MARKETING RULE #121 on Pricing:  If 15% of the people aren’t complaining about your price…it’s too low!

6.    By this time your thanksgiving programs, emails and blog efforts as well as robo calls should be set up to communicate your Wednesday night (TG EVE) special edition cosmic night along with  any programs you have, if you are open on Thanksgiving.

7.    Get names, get names and get names during this holiday weekend. Make a PA announcement that you are giving away a $50 of open play bowling and that you or one of your team members will be coming down to get your entry. Do this every 90 minutes all day and all night. Be sure this sign up card has age and gender questions as well as questions about:
               a. Are you interested in receiving information about  (check all that apply)

                                          i.    Short season bowling? _______

                                        ii.    Company parties?  _________

                                       iii.    Fundraising _____________

                                       iv.    Birthday parties _______

8.    Focus on planning for new years eve NOW and get that communication plan together so you can at least speak to some of the families or seniors who will be coming in over the TG holiday weekend

a.    Family parties.  (When, What, Price, Promotion, ROI, new concept to delight and surprise.)

b.    Adult parties or NOT (When, What, Price, Promotion, ROI, new concept to delight and surprise.)

9.    Become a more visible part of the community.  Become a drop off point for Toys for Tots or collecting food for the homeless people or clothes for the poor.  Not only are these great causes, but you will get some notoriety about your community efforts.  It’s good for the community and good for you.

10.  Be not afraid of doing something different; creating change and pushing the outer limits of the envelope.  (I.e.) Get a live band for the Wednesdys before TG; have a petting zoo in your parking lot for the kids; get a magician for your Saturday night Cosmic.  Get the idea? :)

After all, the holiday season is upon us.

Purposeful Marketing

No its not about cause marketing, environmental marketing or even green marketing; this is a blog about the purpose of your marketing.


A few friends and faithful followers of ye olde blog will say, "Fred, "don't be silly. You know, I know and all your readers know the purpose of all marketing is to ultimately sell something, so whats up?

"Well" says I,  "Me thinks the purpose of marketing is to create change. For example you are planning to do a presentation to the local Chamber of Commerce about your company's party offerings and fund raising abilities and you are struggling with how to get it focused and directed..

First, realize you're not going to get any one to go gaga and throw thousands of dollars at you during that meeting.

Second, at best - and your goal should be this - to change some attitudes about viewing bowling as a corporate event venue or fund raising venue.  

Third, you want this change to open doors for you; to create possibilities.  Ultimately, you want this presentation to lead to action; to making a sale.

But if you're subconscious goal is to get out of this presentation without getting barraged with negative questions, then you will build a presentation that will merely entertain and waste people's time.  And they will recognize that in a heart beat and tune you out equally as fast.

So go back to the drawing board and realize that every presentation, every ad campaign, every flier, every facebook post, and every email you send has one reason for existence: to change someones mind from either apathy to yes or from no to yes (the latter being more difficult and requiring much more thought and planning) and question: is your message  attempting an attitudinal change; is your tone inviting; does your graphics say "come in and spend 30 seconds of your precious time with me"? Do your testimonials seem substantive and verifiable?  Is your guarantee real? Is your offer too good to be true and therefore too easily to be picked apart by the skeptics that lurk in all of us? 

If your marketing doesn't create change; you have failed. Game over.

But if you do create some change and offer some outrageous program that actually gets accepted, two things will happen.  You will be expected to do it all the time., and that's OK because it will push you every time, even though you may not succeed every time.  But at least you went all out!  Or you might shrink back from the outrageous and do the safe and secure. In that case you would fail again.

In the end, it is far easier to do a "mediocre -i-don't-really-care" job then to create change that says "I- really- give- a- damn." But you can't because the change you strive for, just might make a real difference! 

Coloring Outside The Lines

7:45am this morning found Marie and I on a Delta flight to Pittsburgh to visit our daughter, son in law and new grand-dogger, "Mavis," a cute brown and white 4 month old Labradoodle.

Only 17 people boarded the plane and all but one of us sat in first class. 16 empty seats with pillows, blankets and real hot coffee and maybe a sticky bun.

I was looking for rooting for Delta to do something different that wouldn't have cost them very much, but would have made 16 great impression and no doubt hundreds and hundreds of great word of mouth impressions, Facebook posts, twitter tweets and who knows what else.

But when I asked the head flight attendant if we all couldn't sit in first class, she gave me a look as if I had burped her baby backwards. "Oh no, we couldn't possibly do that", she exclaimed.  "And why not, I said, "it would be a great good will gesture and wouldn't cost anything."  She laughed at me and said, "Oh no, I would be fired for that."  "Really", I said, "what a shame," as I walked away shaking my head in despair.

Isn't it crazy in a day and age where we are all fighting for customers and doing everything possible to get and retain customers that a simple act of doing something unexpected and delightful, that would have exceeded expectations, was nipped in the bud because this person just couldn't imagine coloring outside of the lines.

No doubt our employees are often as guilty as the Delta flight attendant described previously.  Maybe we are too. Maybe we just have too many rules; too many policy manuals; and too many penalties too soon for doing something different.  Maybe we are too jaded as well.  (I had one proprietor tell me what a great business this is, if it wasn't for the customers.) Yikes!!

So loosen the reins a bit, give your employees the opportunity to do something great.  Lead them, teach them and  set the example yourself.  Who knows, you may just be talked about all over the Internet as being a business that ACTUALLY exceeded your customers expectations.

And wouldn't that be cool?

"Last Minute Louie" is a Marketing Opportunity for Your Business.

Many of us tend to be “Last Minute Louies.”  We procrastinate, put off and wait until the last minute to do anything.  That mode of operation has worked for us in the past, so why shouldn’t it work now?  Yes, most of the time it does, but every now and then, you come up short and there is no way to fix it.

With the holiday season approaching, there are a lot of corporate “Last Minute Louies” out there that haven’t planned or even thought about their company party…which means a lot of opportunity for you and your center.

Try to craft a story about your “Last Minute Louieness” and communicate that to a prospective corporate decision maker; maybe it goes something like this:

“Dear Executive;

Last year, I had a big problem and I need your help.

You see, my business, Happy Lanes located at ________ was getting ready to host company parties, when on December 10^th  I received not one, but three desperate calls from company executives, requesting time at Happy Lanes to have their company party.  They had heard about what a great time other people had and how affordable it was that they wanted to get in on the fun too.

Unfortunately I had to turn them away, because I had no room.  This year I called them in October and reminded them about last year’s problem and they quickly reserved their holiday party with "the friendlies" at Happy Lanes.

So I am asking, if you know anybody who hasn’t made company holiday plans or who hasn’t gotten that task off their desk, would you please, please  tell them that we still have some openings, but I know after this email is read, my phone will start ringing. 

So please, tell a friend today. And remember, “Friends don’t let friends go without a great company holiday party.”

Yours Truly,

Sam Proprietor                                                                                                                     

Happy Lanes

P.S. Oh yes one more thing.  Please tell them if they reserve their party before (date) they’ll get a $100 discount. I just feel so bad for these “Last Minute Louies” that I want to help them out.”  

P.P.S. You know what, tell them that if they dont like their party or if we didn't meet or exceed their expectations, I'll give them back all of their money. If we didn't deliver the goods, they don't have to pay. Thanks for your help...and for your time.

   With that email letter in hand, I would send emails to my entire “company data base.” 

You do have a company data base don’t you. No?  Ok, Google www.Infousa.com  and follow the instructions on how to find out how many companies are within (x) miles of your center.  Then follow the instructions to find out which companies have employees over (Y) number of employees and under (Y) number for employees.

I usually look for companies with over 15 employees to about 75 because these companies are probably privately owned and don’t necessarily have stringent "corporate" deadlines and reporting dictates…and probably haven’t booked their party yet. 

But I would also get a sample of 75+ companies and mail them the letter too, just to test Fred’s theory. (What works in one market doesn’t always work in other markets, right?)

Buy about 2,000 addresses. Even if there are no emails associated with the title you want (smaller companies, the title is President; bigger companies the title is VP of Human Resources). 

But as a marketer who believes in “frequency”, I would email and mail at the same time.  Maybe even a fax!

This may cost you about $500 for the names and if you had to MAIL all of them at 46 cents; it would be an additional $920 in postage and about $100 to print the letter on you stationery.

So your investment is about $1400.  That’s 3 $466 parties or 6 $233 parties.  As a percent of the 2,000 mailings, that would be between .003% to .006%...less than one third of a percent.  

What are you waiting for?

If you like this idea, just go do it. (You already have the start of a story letter above. It just needs your center’s personal touch). 

Otherwise, you’ll be a “Last Minute Louie” too J

Why Not?

I noticed that Sunday night football reached 26.4 million viewers, a 54% increase over last year’s same Sunday’s audience.  Now, of course this was the Denver Broncos with Payton Manning returning to play his old team, the Indy Colts.  The hype built around this event was huge and it worked. Over 26 million people watched the game.

So strong was the appeal of the star, Payton Manning, that some fans wore football jerseys to the game that had half a Denver Bronco side and half a Colts side stitched together.  Some fans cried when he was introduced proclaiming that “he put Indianapolis on the map”).  Gee, I always thought it was there already.  The city of Indy was out in full force. Record numbers of people in bars and restaurants watching the game were reported.  It was shockingly amazing, but not unexpected, especially when the majority of a city rallies around ITS team.

So why doesn’t bowling have city teams from NY to LA and as many points in between as possible.  Isn’t this the next step for the PBA?  Real teams, mascots, naming rights. divisional series, championship series  and of course our very own “Super Bowling Champion Game.” (The photo on this page was from the 1954 Pfeiffer Bowling Team out of Detroit, Photo courtesy of Jimmy Carter)

Franchises could be sold to high net worth individuals; TV rights obtained and players drafted to play on a team with a schedule of X# of “Baker format” games so sponsorships could be sold locally and nationally.  Fan loyalty for their city’s team would grow and people would show up to watch the games. Heck, proprietors could even sell peanuts, popcorn and cracker jacks!

Why not?

Database or Mailing List?

I know that lots of you have moved towards a database where you can send out emails promoting your open play specials, special events and league programs.  But while only 13% or less of your database opens anything you send, you still keep on sending.  Why?

Many of you don't have gender or age variables in your database so if you're one of these folks, know that you're cosmic bowling mailing could be going to a 49 yr old Mom whose kids are out of the house and your offer to her is irrelevant.  Or the offer you sent to her about bringing her kids to your Halloween party; yup also irrelevant.  And then you sent her a "Rocking Thanksgiving Eve" cosmic promotion; equally as irrelevant. and guess what? She finally opts out, because you are, in her mind, sending her spam...and lots of it!!

As a side bar, even if you ONLY send her relevant offers, she will probably opt out any way.  Email cannot and should not be used as a substitute for direct mail.  If you are only using it to sell, sell, sell, you are driving away potential customers.  Go ahead and check it.    How many people have opted out of your email list in the past year. If you don't know how to check this, go to "Google Analytics" and follow the instructions.  You might be surprised...and not in a good way.  Please, use the social media tools you have to be social...not just to "selly, sell"

So the first thing you need to do is get birth dates. why not send out an email asking your audience to complete a small survey and in exchange you will send them a coupon worth $10 of free bowling (if they spend $20 or more. Ask them their gender and birthday month and year.  Then ask them what other activities they do in their spare time.

No, you won't get 100% completion, but you will get a start. NOW if you make this survey a part of every email you send out, you will start to get more and more and pretty soon you will have segments by age and gender to which you can send RELEVANT COMMUNICATIONS that more closely align to their predispositions and preferences.

The secret here is this in order to have a database you need to have data besides an email and an address.  Google has made billions on learning your preferences and selling these to advertisers to send you RELEVANT communications pertaining to what you bought in the past.

While you may not have the software horsepower to be that sophisticated, you can keep asking questions, keep collecting information and over time have a much clearer picture of WHO your customer is for a specific product that you
are selling.

Here are some examples of the kinds of information, over and above gender and birth date, you might want to collect?

1. Are you interested in receiving information about birthday parties?  Yes___
2. Are you interested in receiving information about company parties and group outings? Yes____
3. Are you interested in receiving information about short season bowling programs? Yes______
4. How frequently do you think you would go bowling, over the course of a year, if you knew you could get a 15% discount every time you went?   none___  one ____ two___  three____ four____ five to seven____ 8 to 10___  11 or more_____
5. What is your favorite food you would like to eat while bowling?  ________________
6. What is your favorite beverage to drink while bowling?  ______________________

People love to tell you what they think and if you publish this information back to them, you will be involving them in your business, thus creating some loyalty resulting in more visits and more answers to your questions.

Information is power. Go be powerful.

The Stereotype Lives

I was reviewing a client’s web site and checking some of the reviews on Yahoo and yelp, when I ran into this quote describing the client’s center, which stopped me dead in my tracks: “Pretty much like any other bowling alley. Food drink etc. Just something to do on a rainy day.”

What was so surprising was the fact that this client had just spent about $750,000 renovating his center and bringing it up to and above standard, yet here was a consumer saying that it was like the other centers in the area and bowling was just something to do on a rainy day; in other words, no big deal one way or the other.

Of all the quotes I have read, this one seemed to be more disturbing than others.

One, to this consumer, bowling was pretty much generic with no real differentiating variables between one center and the next, at least not in this statement. 

And second, bowling was an indoor activity that was to be played only when the weather FORCED you inside.

If this quote is an example of what people really think about bowling and the bowling centers in the area, then we have a very serious problem and the problem is called “stereotyping.”

Stereotyping comes about because customers cannot see a difference between us and our competition. That is a direct result of "lack of product differentiation" in the customers' minds.  And they come to their conclusion rightly; we have done a poor job of sharpening our own saw. 

We make no attempt to separate ourselves from other centers.  Other than the price between our center and Jimmy Bob’s bowling alley down the street, well, thats all the customer hears and therefore the only difference he sees is price...and that confuses him even further.  

If its the same product in the consumer's mind, why are there different prices at each place? Why are there different prices at different times and why is it thats where we have come to...a one bullet price strategy.

This is our challenge. To learn how to build our individual center's brand so it stands for something that can't be eroded by a competitor's pricing strategy  so the consumer knows what it means and HOW it benefits her either by solving a problem or making her happier.

Brand building isn't for the faint of heart. You have to know what you are doing.  You have to have a plan and you have to execute flawlessly.

What ever happened to that brand called "My Space?"  Oh its still there, but bad brand promotion has led to this once popular site just about tanking.  

Time to sharpen your saw.