Something Important To SAY.

This is a story about a man who, when he was 5 years old, found out that he was different from other children. He discovered that every time he tried to talk because his words wouldn’t come out or if they came out at all, they were in the form of a “stutter” or a “stammer”. He became very sad because many other children made fun of him. His parents took him to speech pathologists, hypnotists, and special classes. Nothing helped.

And the bullying only got worse. The little boy became angry and he got into lots of fights, all through elementary school, junior high school, and high school. It seemed that it was an unusual day when he didn’t end up in the principal’s office; even the principal didn’t understand why the boy was fighting because the little boy, then the preteen and then the teenager couldn’t talk well enough to explain it.  Eventually, the boy became very lonely and took to his books, his music, and many sports; (he even became  a junior boxer) where he didn’t have to talk.

There were still one or two friends that liked him and didn’t make fun of him, as so many others did, so he was able to socialize a little, but there was always someone who thought his malady was “funny” and made fun of him.  Some nights, the boy would go to bed and pray to God that he wouldn’t wake up in the morning so he wouldn’t have to endure another day of feeling “different.”

The teenager went to college and graduate school and noticed something wonderful. Not everyone made fun of him, but would give him a chance to get his words out.  Soon the man became more confident and his speech patterns began to change and when he got his first job, his new employer hired him BECAUSE of his speech and how brave he thought he was.

The boy, now a man was able to meet a fine woman, get married, have children and his confidence and career rocketed skyward. The man became a VP of a Fortune 200 company and then, after some years, struck out on his own and formed his own marketing consulting company where he helped many clients to reach their dreams. And he became known as a speechmaker, a seminar giver and an innovative presenter of ideas. "God does have a sense of humor", the boy - now the man - would often SAY.

But that's not the end of the story.

Many years later he became involved with a group called S.A.Y., The Stuttering Asociation for the Young.  And now that same boy, who is all grown up, is asking you to support this organization that does so much to help children who stutter.

That little boy grew up to be me. Fred Kaplowitz.

Over 70 million people stutter on a daily basis, including 5% of all children. Young people who stutter often face unimaginable fear and cruelty from a world that doesn’t understand them. Over time, they may recoil from the world, silencing themselves to hide their stutter, embarrassment and shame. Young people who stutter may also feel incredibly isolated and alone, and many face daily ridicule, teasing and bullying.

The Stuttering Association for the Young is a non-profit 501(c)(3) and since 2001, SAY has offered comprehensive, innovative programs that address the physical, social and emotional impacts of stuttering.

For 14 years, so many incredible children have come to our programs in despair. We have been lifted by their courage and have witnessed the transformation that occurs when children who stutter develop the self-confidence, lasting friendships and support they need to express themselves fully and follow their dream.

We believe that every young person who stutters has a voice that matters and it is a voice that deserves to be heard.

When you support SAY, you make anything possible in the life of a child who stutters. You help us continue to offer Camp SAY Summer Camp, Confident Voices After-School & Weekend programs, Speech Therapy, SAY: Storytellers and more, and help ensure that SAY can provide financial aid to families-in-need, so that all children have access to our innovative programming. This year alone, SAY will award more than $400,000 in financial aid and to date, no child has been turned away due to a family’s inability to pay.

Please help me to raise money for this organization that does so much to help kids who stutter; to make sure that, even if they have to deal with the shame, embarrassment and humility of other kids, they’re not alone…and will not have to do as I did, and pray to God every night to take them because they can’t bear it any longer.

If you go to www.SAY.org and hit the donate button. I know you’ll do the right thing.

No matter the dollar amount you give, thank you so much, in advance, for your contribution.

Fred Kaplowitz, President, Kaploe Marketing Group                                                                                                                     

Will You Fear The Summer?

Lots of us have had pretty good winters, especially since we were going against last year’s snow days and very cold temps that kept people at home. But now we are faced with summer, a time we all know too well.

Many operators will go back to the drawing board and do the same old thing and get about the same number of league bowlers…or less.

Other operators will institute all new programs, rally the troops and put out tons of “sell, sell, and sell” of email and Facebook posts and get about the same number as last year…maybe more.

Yet there will be others that will examine the past and realize that it’s is a great time for exciting open play programs for kids, families, teens, young adults and even some 40+ types and will rally the alley to focus on these programs as well as have the leagues that are coming back.

And finally there will be some that will take what leagues they can, but really focus on company indoor picnics and fundraisers and do more income. And they will do it with an integrated digital footprint that brings synergy to their social media campaign as well as maybe bringing back some old school media as well. 

"Why", you may be saying, "will this strategy work?"                                                          
Because of one simple fact.

There are a lot more companies and fundraising organizations out there than there are summer league bowlers.  And they are looking for new ways to boost morale or do team building or raise money or rally the troops. A larger potential market always equals a bigger opportunity…if you have the right products.  And no doubt you probably do. Or if you do not, you can manufacture new ones just by asking some former corporate and find raising customers what they would want. Call them. It's that easy.

So, what do you want to do this summer?

The Proverbial Fly on the Wall

“I’d love to be the fly on the wall in that office today,” we may find ourselves sometimes saying, especially when we want to know what someone is thinking, but that knowledge is something we are not privy too or it is something that is too impolitic to ask, so we don’t and just fantasize about that fly. 

On the wall. With his ears wide open. Just listening.

We think if we know what someone is talking about that we know what they are thinking. 

Unfortunately, what people say, often, doesn’t equate to what they mean.

Better to watch what they actually do then to sit in the office and surmise what they will do.

Please, go watch a kid’s birthday party unfold, today, and let me know what you saw, please.

Six (6) Actions You Can Take Right Now to Increase Revenue in the Very Near Future

Fall league season still has a few months to go. In some places, there are just six weeks left. With that in mind, what are you planning to do now to increase your business over the next 4 to 6 months?

Here are 6 actions you can take now to enjoy real revenue growth in the future.

1.    You know about summer league planning, so I won’t bore you with the details here, just a quick reminder to make sure that you try a few new concepts that are more fun, exponentially different and entertaining, as well as being attractive to new open play bowlers for no more than 8 weeks.

2.     Build a Spring Fling Company party program. Send out March 21^st to any company or organization that you have done business with over the past 18 months.  Offer a discounted party for just $10 to $15 including bowling, shoe rentals, chips and soft drinks.  Use these parties as a way to get new data names an opportunity to sell a “league of your own” or “EOW leagues.”

3.    In addition to winding up the season, start to think about your digital media schedule including, but not limited to the following: Easter or Spring break, Summer Weekdays after 9pm, Summer Weekend Days, Kids Bowl Free sign ups as well as family pass sales,  Memorial day and 4^th of July BVL Teachers and Students end of year bowling parties, fund-raiser opportunities, Cosmic bowling, New Leagues for Summer, 8 for 8 or 10 for 10 leagues, Summer Birthday party special offers, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day.

4.    When will the emails be delivered? How many emails will you send and when? What will your content be?  Who is responsible for writing this content? How will you augment your email campaign with Facebook posts, Twitter and Instagram?  Will you develop an Excel “marketing Grid with WEEKS across the top and PROGRAMS down the left side

5.    Have you contacted local day camps, day care centers, and church youth groups for field trips, group outings and rainy day programs? What is your 1 game or two game prices? What about food options? What about an incentive for coming to the center multiple times?  How can you get the parent’s names (of the children) for future retargeting relative to adult child programs?

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6.    Continually look for “non-traditional” revenue streams such as “Summer Fundraisers” as well as themed program nights like “Saturday Summer Party Nights,” “Summer Weekday Nights”, etc. For each of these themed nights, you have to create VALUE, FUN, and ENTERTAINMENT that is accompanied by a compelling offer to motivate the target to Taking ACTION.

a.    One example could be “craft beer Fridays.  Every Friday is craft beer night and for $X the customer gets bowling and three “tastes” (2 oz. each or less) of three different craft beers…presented by a local brewery.

b.    Another example might be “Baker Buddy Nights”; bowl as a team and win weekly fun prizes like t-shirts, beads, sunglasses, summer flip flops, ball caps, etc. Of course, you build the cost of these products into the price of “the giveaways.”

Two Options for the 21st Century Small(er) Business

If you own a small(er) business, and most of us do, you have probably managed your business like we all have. Except for managers and mechanics, we hire “industrialized workers”. 

That is we hire cogs in the system; people who want to be told what to do, who are hired and trained to obey. These are jobs that get outsourced or people who work cheap. This team needs a manager, a manager patient enough to instruct, teach and measure.

The Downside: Sometimes you, the boss, are also busy getting new business, inventing new products and generally working outside the organization. As a result, you’re hoping that you have built the kind of organization where people will do as they are told, do it on time and do it in a professional, courteous and kindly manner. 

Because if you’re not the leader of this type of organization and haven’t built it in such a manner (you inherited it and never bothered to change it), you will be disappointed, over and over.

But there are a couple of other ways to run a “small business.”

One Other Way Is to Look at Employees as “Being Equals”. That is an organization staffed   with people who have particular skills, marketing and digital marketing, finance, personnel/training and operations. Now I’m not saying that you need four people for this, but I am saying you have four different functions that need to be covered, perhaps by 3 existing people. 

You could say that the Beatles were organized as "Being Equals". To make this happen, each person who takes on the function has to be really talented in that field, gifted and unique; he or she has to feel that his/her function are essential to the ongoing success of the business

The Downside: Sometimes this team of equals may forget that their job is ALSO coordination and communication with other team members and just because each of them have unique skills, becoming a prima donna is a trap that is far too easy for one or some of them to fall into.

The Second Way To Look At Employees Is “Your Merry Band of Men and Women.” This is a group of people with similar goals, perceptions and approaches to business. As a result, you can say to them, “use your best judgement" and they go off and do the right thing. 99% of the time

As a quick sidebar, Nordstrom’s, has this one line in their employee policy manual, “Use Your Best Judgement".  They can do that because they hire people who have been screened to match the organization’s goals, approaches and perceptions.

The Downside: This isn’t cheap or easy. You literally have to re-evaluate your whole staff and decide what your goals, approach and perceptions are and who matches or doesn’t match with what you want.  If you don’t spend the money to recruit, hire and train, then you will be disappointed when they “use their best judgement.”

The point is:  You do have options to organize and manage your business in the 21st century to meet a new set of employee and consumer criteria.  

In fact, there are many options. 
These are just two of them. 

What would you do or want to do?  
Let me know, please, and I’ll publish it!

7 Tips for Creating a Functional Email Experience

Chad White is one of the all-time gurus of email marketing Chad is the Research Director at Litmus and the author of Email Marketing Rules and thousands of articles and posts about email marketing.

His research and commentary have appeared in more than 100 publications, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Advertising Age, Adweek, Fortune, and MarketWatch.  

He recently wrote an article entitled called 7 Tips for creating a Functional Email and I wanted to pass on some of his insights as well as a few “KaploeKomments” interwoven in the mix.

Expectations are steadily rising in the inbox, and everyone agrees that sending more relevant messages is the key to staying in subscribers’ good graces. However, “relevance” is often talked about in vague, mystical terms or discussed within the narrow context of company-specific examples.

While relevance is indeed in the eye of the beholder, that doesn’t mean it’s indescribable or immeasurable. Relevance is about fulfilling all four levels of the Hierarchy of Subscriber Needs—that is, creating a subscriber experience that is:

1.             Respectful - the bottom tier used to email permission, activate accounts or customers and to set expectations, measured by open rate

2.             Functional - can be viewed acriss multiple platforms, measured by number of clicks to site

3.             Valuable - for testing, for segmenting, personalization and communicating live content (podcats, webinars, etc.) measured by number of conversions to a sale or a customer

4.             Remarkable - for exceptional deals, captivating content, measured by the number of forwards and social shares

 Whether you’re meeting each of these needs can be gauged by measuring common email activities: opens, clicks, conversions, and forwards.

Delivering relevant messages is a key to email marketing success. While relevance is typically talked about in terms of targeting and personalization, relevance is much bigger than content and targeting.

The Hierarchy of Subscriber Needs (above), provides a big picture view of relevance and illustrates the need for marketers to create a subscriber experience that is Respectful, Functional, Valuable, and Remarkable.

While marketers must respect their subscribers’ wishes by only emailing to those that have opted-in to receive communications, your emails can’t be valuable or remarkable if they are not first functional.

Functional email experiences are key for your subscribers to easily read and interact with your campaigns. If your emails aren’t functional, you run the serious risk becoming irrelevant to your subscribers.

CREATING A FUNCTIONAL EMAIL EXPERIENCE

Functionality is all about quality assurance. Or put another way, it’s about eliminating friction that can degrade the effectiveness of your messaging, erode the subscriber experience, and ultimately damage your brand image.

To create functional email experiences, ensure that:

1.    Your emails display appropriately across mobile, web, and desktop applications that your subscribers primarily use. You can use Litmus’ Email Analytics.  to determine where your subscribers are most frequently opening your emails. Then, use Email Previews to verify that your emails are displaying as intended in those email clients.

 2. Text is legible, particularly in the uncontrolled lighting environments where mobile rendering often takes place. For example, if you don’t use at least 13 pt. font sizes, Apple will auto-adjust anything under that size, often breaking navigation bars.

  

3.  Links are spaced far enough apart so they can be accurately clicked with a mouse or, more importantly, tapped with a finger.

4.  The content is clear and free of errors. Read—and re-read—your emails before sending. Also, it never hurts to have a second or third set of eyes look over it, as it’s more difficult for you to catch errors if you wrote the text.

5.  Any special email functionality has a good fallback for when that functionality isn’t supported by a particular email client. Using advanced techniques, like HTML5 or CSS3, should have proper fallbacks in place.

6.  The links in your emails take subscribers to the intended destination. You can use Link Check to ensure your links are working, being tracked, and going where you intended.

7.  Email landing pages greet subscribers with wording and images from the email so they know they’ve arrived at the right place to continue the interaction.

Creating a functional email experience requires a sustained effort because of the patchwork and non-standardized environment that is today's email inboxes. So what works in Apple Mail may not work in Outlook 365 or Gmail.

The email environment is further complicated by the number of devices that can now read emails—which currently include desktops, laptops, tablets, ebook readers, phablets, smartphones, and the Apple Watch, which recognizes a new version of HTML, watch for a new version ofHTML.

And thanks to the Internet of Things, email reading devices may eventually include your car, refrigerator, toothbrush, and light bulbs. (I’m exaggerating, of course, but time will tell just how much I’m exaggerating.)

You may not understand some of the technical stuff in this article, just understand the concept of functional emails and the need to measure how they are doing.  After all, emails are still the choice of communication among 72% of the population. So if you want more information on this or just want to get it done, hand it off to some of your “twentysomethings” or “thirtysomethings”.  They get it…and you will too.

Patience. Patience. Patience.

The Essential Elements of "Content" That Effectively Sells Your Product

1.   “Content” is King. Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and engaging information to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined audience with the objective of driving a profitable customer transaction.”  That’s the long version.

2.   The short version is, “all of the ways we communicate online…Website, Blurbs, Email, Newsletters, and Social."

3.   60% of consumers feel more positive about a company after reading their custom content.

4.   70% of consumers prefer to know a company via their articles rather than their advertisements.

5.   Google reads your content and based on its findings ranks you higher on its search engine.

6.   Your content doesn’t have to mimic William Shakespeare; a paragraph coupled with a picture is enough to get results.

7.   You should distribute and communicate information whenever:

a.   You have a special event and after the event as well.

b.   Launch a coupon special offer (accompanies the lead information article and comes at the middle or end of the information.

c.    Volunteer or contribute something to the community.

d.   Launch a new “product.”

e.   There are many other industry specific or local content ideas that will work as well.

8.   Now that you have all that "content", what are you going to do with it?  We’re going to address only One Method in this blog. There are at least 5 other ways that we will address in future blogs.

9.   Emails. 145 billion emails are sent every day. And email is required for all online activities. Bottom line: email works.

10.  Emails let you market to existing customers which is 8X more effective than trying to acquire new ones.

11.  88% of people used an email coupon or discount in the past year.

12.  Email still rules direct marketing. When you absolutely need it to be read,(by people who have given you permission to send them information and not by someone whose email you just “happened” to get!) email is the most effective method. It blends the best of direct marketing with the speed and power of online marketing. One click and your message is sent to everyone on your list.

13.  When sending an email, the key points are:

a.  The subject line The should convince viewers to read the message.

b.   Your logo is prominently displayed so everyone who reads it knows it is from your company.

c.    A specific call to action (CTA) that asks the person to do something, even if it is to like you on Facebook or follow you on Twitter or add you to their Google+ circles or print out the coupon.

d.   Beautiful imagery placed at the top of the email. Left, right or center or taking the whole page, it doesn’t matter. Just be sure to have a “professional” image. Please no cartoons, unless you own Disneyland!

Datasource: On-Line Report, Localvox, April 2014, DMA