A Mubarak Marketing Lesson

Groups of protesters charging their phones on the street. Are these the 21st century weapons?

It took 18 days of social media to bring down 32 years of a regime in Egypt.

Read those words again, please. Isn't that an amazing fact. This result, this upheaval is somehow, at least to me, mind boggling. Especially in 18 days.

The Egyptian protests are a new breed of social unrest with communications fueled by social media sites like Google's YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. These social media sites, especially after Mubarak tried to cut them off; instead he galvanized 80 million Egyptians to stage a revolution resulting in a regime change. So much for underestimating the power of social media!!

But the communication - the words that were used- to inspire the people were chosen carefully, passionately and with serious thought. One of Google's Egyptian executives, Wael Ghonim, who was held prisoner for 10 days said, "I said one year ago that the Internet will change the political scene in Egypt and some Friends made fun of me", Mr. Ghonim wrote these words on his personal Facebook profile for friends after two days of swelling protests in Cairo. The next day, Jan. 28, he disappeared.

When released, Mr. Ghonim said, "We must be concerned with the words we use...they can stir passion, fear, trust, hope, greed, and either peace or civil unrest."

This concern for choosing the right words, especially in the social media world cannot be emphasized too strongly; it is crucial to achieving what you want the customer to know about your products.

So in your world of social media marketing for your center, choose your words carefully. Very carefully.

You can say "I am here" or you can say "Here I am." Both phrases indicate that you are at a certain place, but which one announces your presence the best?

If you chose "Here I am", you're getting it.

Point Of Difference

The answer to the question, "what is the difference between your bowling center and the guy down the street, is usually answered with, "...cleaner, better service, more modern, etc."

But what if the other guy says the same thing?

Now, what is your center's real point if difference that you can communicate to the consumer?

Here's some out of the box ideas that we hope will get your creative juices going

Dress your people in real costumes; you know, like those in Disney land or Space Rangers or Bowlers with funky old shirts, or all in black.

Valet park customers' cars.

Hire people who really care and pay them more than minimum wage. "You get what you pay for."

Be known for having the biggest hot dogs, largest pizzas and biggest burgers.

Have magic shows, bring in live bands, do comedy shows. add more entertainment
value to your business.

Develop a mission statement that goes beyond the words; re brand yourself honestly. 

Be who your customer wants you to be. Make your point of difference more than just "having the best special." And you'll win...big time.

What's Your Bucket List?

In the movie of the same title, Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman decide it’s a good thing to make a list of all the things they want to do before they die.

So they put their heads together and come up with their “Top 10 Bucket List.” (As terminal cancer patients, these are the 10 things they want to do before they “kick the bucket).”

In real life we should all have a bucket list. No, not a list about the things we want to do before we die, but a list of accomplishments you would like to achieve in the next 3 months. 90 days out. No more.

It’s that simple. Set up 4 goals. One for your health, One for your business. One for your spirit. And one for your family.

Now if you do this in three (3) month increments, with one goal per month for each category, I promise you will feel more satisfied and more balanced than ever.

I have been doing this now for about 8 months and it is amazing how much I can get done on all fronts and how satisfied I feel at the end of a day.

Now, each of the four “accomplishments” may have a multitude of tasks that need to be implemented, but that’s OK. You will then have a plan for every day you wake up.

So, if you’ve been feeling a little out of balance or less satisfied about you progress than you want, why not try this approach?

Please let me know how you do.

Shooting In The Dark

Lots of talk about "market segmentation", "micro segmentation" and "geo-segmentation" that will assist you to grow your business.

Not to fear. If these words don't make allot of sense, that's OK because the world has a dearth of website gurus who will teach you how to segment your market; determine which variables are more important; variables like: basic demographics; dollar amounts of your purchase; frequency of your purchases; and the last time you made a purchase...and then what will good marketers do with that?

The good marketers then come up with quality plans to get you, the customer to buy again or to spend more money on your next purchase or give you a reason to come back or any combination thereof. So far so good. Good marketers should do this and then add a little creativity to the mix to come up with compelling offers to get you off the dime and make that purchase.

But what frequently happens is the good marketers try to be creative in selling the same old products to the same old people and expect them to get excited and beat a path to our doors...just because we assumed we knew what the customer wanted, spent a few promotional dollars and paid some computer dudes to "work their SEO magic."

Yippee, but it seems like something is missing in this equation.

What's missing is the strategic examination of FINDING OUT WHAT PEOPLE (segments) ARE LOOKING FOR and then give it to them. Forget about all those people who aren't looking.

They'll just give you a headache.

So what ARE your "high growth potential segments" looking for? How do they define their leisure? What do these types of words mean to "them"? Escapism, fun, entertainment, recreation, sports activity, value,family activities, challenges and competition? And so on.

Until you know how the various market segments you cater to define these words, (in your market), you will never completely understand what they want (and WHO THEY are), in their terms and therefore be much less successful and efficient in your marketing efforts.

All you'll be doing is shooting in the dark. And that's no fun.

So if you need a seeing eye dog...

The Real Social Network

New York City was bundled up last night wearing its finest scarf, gloves and coat. It was really cold. Wind chill of minus one degree and getting colder. Newscasters telling people not to go out unless they had something they MUST do. Great for business right?

But yet, as I was walking home from a movie, I noticed that the bars, the restaurants, the clubs...they were pretty crowded. Why was that? Did not these people know that they weren't supposed to go out. And yet they did. Why?

Because their need to be social was greater than their need to avoid the cold. Sociability always wins. Their need to be with friends and families was obviously much greater than the pain of being cold.

So how can your bowling center prove that it is the place to be with friends and families? Think about it. It just may be the key to growing your business.

What Works For You?

Past behavior is usually a pretty good indicator of how well we will perform in the future. That's why we ask for a resume, for a credit history, educational background, past places of residence and even "references."

In our need to be able to analyze data, we establish habits; habits that control HOW we look at information; habits that force us to come to well worn and comfortable conclusions based upon the type of information we receive.

In the early days of consumer research or market research, marketers looked at numbers, stereotyped "housewives" and proceeded to sell their products to this mythical "average American woman." it wasn't until many years later that the concept of "psychographics" (lifestyle research) was introduced into the equation and marketers learned a thing or two about efficiency.

Like early market researchers, many of us are still examining our business and asking old questions such as "how do we drive traffic?"; how do we get more league daytime bowers?"

The the real questions should be "how can I replicate my existing Saturday night customers and get more of them and that requires more SOPHISTICATED research than we have done; so we go to the email and spam out a discount offer for ALL open play bowlers, maybe even to Jimmy who just had his 6th birthday party with us!

And when it comes to researching our customers we still believe that adult league bowlers are as homogeneous as daytime ladies or seniors. And so our marketing ends up being very broad, but not very deep. Think about all the emails you send out to ALL Open play bowlers.

Why wouldn't a 25 year old sophisticated investment banker buy an open play experience differently and have different expectations than a 25 year old construction worker? No judgement here; just noting the fact that these two people will have different expectations of their bowling experience.

Shouldn't we as proprietors begin to understand the importance of these "expectational differences" (among more narrow segments) to our marketing efforts or does the old way still work for you?

Mobile Marketing is Gearing Up

Marketing to consumers’ cellphones has long been viewed as something of a holy grail by businesses – prized but always beyond reach. Recently however, new mobile technologies have gone mainstream, making the elusive goal of an always-on connection with customers firmly within reach of even the smallest business. Consider that:

* There are four times the number of cellphones in the world versus PCs (4Bn vs.
1Bn) and 20% of all U.S. households are now “mobile-only”
* Over 130 Billion texts are sent each month, up from practically nothing in 2000
* Gen Yers (18-29) say their phone is the most
important device they own
* According to multiple analysts, Mobile Marketing and Advertising will explode from just a couple hundred million dollars in revenues in 2008 to $3 – 5 billion by 2012.

Here are a few tips to consider as we move into 2011:

# Think of text message marketing as you do email marketing, except instead of collecting an email address you collect a mobile phone number. Like email marketing, you create campaigns at a website and only send them to customers who have opted-in to receive your message.

# But unlike email, you don’t need fancy graphics, just up to 160 characters of plain ‘ol text. So even the most non-technical and non-marketing savvy small business owner can pick it up in just a couple of minutes. Your customers will instantly read your message 97% of the time.

# Acceptance of mobile coupons – A recession-weary public hungering for discounts is latching on to mobile coupons as the ‘killer mobile app’ due to their convenience. More consumer-packaged goods companies, restaurants, and grocers are launching mobile coupons each month.

# Proven ROI – Texting is proving its chops versus email and social media. On average, texting gets seven times the response rate versus email (7% vs 1%) and reaches twenty five times the number of users as does Twitter.

# Big Box retailers and fast food retailers have built mobile sites and Iphone apps that have allowed consumers to order products, rate services, send gifts, send wake up calls to friends and send a slew of other services once only available on line

Look in 2011 for these pioneers to keep blazing trails with:

# Bar Coded Coupons – 200 7-Eleven stores in San Diego are testing scannable bar codes on consumers’ phones to get up to one free drink per day. Indeed, in the next two years Juniper Research projects three billion mobile coupons will be issued to phones.

# Pay by phone – Starbucks is testing Starbucks Card Mobile, which allows customers to pay for coffee in the shop with their phone. Initial tests saw a 60% redemption rate of the coupon component.

# Integration with real-time data – Ace Hardware is combining weather forecasts with text alerts to hawk more shovels.

As bowling proprietors, shouldn't we be looking to utilize these types of tools as well?

Hey Mr BPAA, can you give us a hand here, please? Thank You