7 Ways To Connect Locally With Your Customers ( A 7 Part Series/ Part I)

Many small businesses rely heavily on the love of local customers, and the Internet continues to make reaching them easier and cheaper than ever.

For entrepreneurs who would rather not shell out--or simply can't afford--as much as $1,000 for an old-fashioned ad in the Yellow Pages, there are now a host of alternatives for wrangling the locals (and even calculating the return on those marketing efforts).

This is the first of a seven part series I will be writing about.

Each day you will receive one, in detail, explanation of how to connect with your customers inexpensively and efficiently.

1-800-FREE411

How it works: Instead if paying $1.50 to a mobile service provider for each directory-assistance call, customers dial 1-800-Free411 (1-800-373-3411) and connect directly to the business of their choice.

Callers can specify the name of a business or just canvass a category in that location (say, "Melanie's Chocolate Shop in Manhattan," or just "candy store, Manhattan").

The catch: Customers must endure a brief advertisement for a 1-800-Free411 advertiser in the chosen category and location.

What it costs: The model--common among the new crop of local ad providers--is performance-based: Businesses join the database free of charge but pay for each call received through the service. Each lead generated by that opening ad costs the participating company between $2 and $7 per call, depending on the type of business.

Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow.w.

An Ardent Reader Responds

One of my ardent readers, Tom Hebbe of Blue River Bowl, sent me a quick response to my blog "What We Can learn About Marketing From A Four Year Old." here it is in its entirety

"Hell yes we are missing something...THE INDUSTRY and the people still remember HOW IT USED TO BE.

I currently have less than fifty sanctioned youth bowlers-(never have had more that 144)...

Locally Soccer Spring and Fall has between 600 and 800 kids participating!!
Babe Ruth Baseball has nearly 300 boys playing summer leagues!
Basketball...EVEN Larger numbers than Soccer.

ALL have defined age groups. All have UNIFORMS! All have COACHES and Practices and SHORT SEASONS 12 weeks or less! All have a STRUCTURE from the top down...an actual WORKABLE plan to get kids into the sport, learning the fundamentals, and graduating to the next level as part of the structure.

Bowling is a great game. Bowling is truly a Lifetime Sport! But the LEADERSHIP needs to get a workable plan to get the sport re-built from the ground up!

It is so frustrating when you know what could be with this industry...and year after year.season after season...people still just come bowl...but they do not get involved! but then again, why would they?

40 YEARS of watching an industry crumble, I am saddened, frustrated, worried and just so tired of it all..."

Sincerely,
Tom Hebbe
Blue River Bowl

A Four Year Old Teaches Us About Marketing

I watched my grand daughter at the playground today.

First, she very carefully watched the other children to see what activities they were involved in before she made her decision as to what activities she should participate in. Interestingly, she chose the activity that other kids were doing.

She made that decision based on the number of kids doing it.

Even at age four, she was aware of what was the "popular activity" and made her "safe" decision based on that fact.

Which got me to thinking.

I probably visit 100 bowling centers a year. Not one of them has ever promoted bowling as the #1 "pay for play activity" in America.

Nor have I seen any signage about " bowling, the sport that over 70 million American's enjoy".

Why is it that we don't tell our customers that they are engaging in a "sport that millions of people enjoy".

Wouldn't that reinforce the buying decision?

Wouldn't that make them feel that they too have made a "safe" decision.

Maybe we are missing something.

Summer Doesn't Have To be A Bummer

Recent industry reports indicate that 3 out of 4 bowling centers in this country spend the lion's share of their marketing budget developing fliers for in center use to be distributed to customers that are coming there anyway!!

As an industry we spend very little on trying to retain and grow existing customers and even less on NEW ones.

Moreover, the over riding objective of our industry model is to grow bowlers from non bowlers to casual open play bowlers to mini league bowlers and hopefully to competitive bowlers.

We all work very hard trying to convince the open play bowler to "Join Up" and get involved in a structured weekly or every other week short season or traditional season program.

No doubt you are doing this right now as you implement your summer league programs.

But should you? Should you really be doing the same old thing even in today's helter skelter economic environment of high gas prices, high food prices, declining home sales and deafening calls to shrink our $14 trillion dollar debt...or raise the debt ceiling limit?

Maybe, there is a large niche out there that is just looking to knock some pins, down, drink some beer on a hot night and hang out with some friends.

And that is all they want. No league; no structure; no averages; just fun.

If you can identify these people, then you can market to them and just maybe they will fill the gaps in your revenue model that a declining league base has created.

Here's a suggestion on "HOW TO identify that niche and get those people to raise their hands."

Start with a face book ad (budget $50 per day for 7 days per offer (two test offers would cost you $750 and three test offers would cost you $1,050) offering a family and friends special; you know, a special hourly fun program; then follow that up with an email to your entire open play data base telling them of the offer AND one special added value offer as well.

Now in both face book and emails, test different "added value"offers such as:

1.bring this coupon in and get $10 off in open play bowling
2.get 1 hour of free bowling with 1 hour of paid bowling
3.get a free pizza with 2 hours of bowling
4.no offer, just your 2 hour specials

Which one pulled better? And that is, (at least until you test other offers against the winner) the offer you should be shouting from the roof tops!!!

The Appetizers

There are two kinds of people in the world that will buy from you. The first group consists of people who like your product and have an appetite for it. They want information; they want to know product offerings and they want to know "what's new"?

Then there is the second group. These are people who don't actively seek information about your product. Oh, they know of your product, might have even have tried it a time or three, but they don't actively seek more information about it.

Now that's not to say that the second group of people, we'll call them "the no appetite people" won't have an interest in your product eventually; they very well might.

But if you want to be successful, then marketing your product to the first group certainly makes more sense. You identify them by how frequently they bought your product. The more frequent the buyer, the more they like your product and the more engaged they are when you send them information.

Try to get to this first group with product information and ask them to bring a friend bowling, maybe even suggest that they bring someone who is not as engaged as they are.

After all, everything old is new again

Gas It Up

Gas in Southern California is $4.89 a gallon, maybe higher today.

In NYC, gas is $4.29. No doubt in your city, town or village is high too.

According to the AAA, gas prices nationwide are up $1.20 a gallon since one year ago.

Last time this happened. our business was affected. People need to eat, pay the rent, buy clothes and fill up their cars to get to work, school and pick up the kids.

Bowling is not going to be high on their list of discretionary spending. Neither are movies or other recreational/entertainment options they don't HAVE to have.

Let's get going and start our digital campaign of "affordable fun is close to home" start sending emails and post on your Facebook page using this as your campaign theme.

Overlay special offers and be sure to say that "Happy Lanes gives you more miles per gallon of fun".

And then cap it all off by offering the opportunity to win $25 to $100 gas cards. Run that sweepstakes on your face book page, "Win up to $100 in gasoline" just for bowling at Happy Lanes" available during School Easter break.

Promote your family bowling specials (Pizza Pins n Pepsi) and your daytime kids specials (Bowl up to two hours for $X.XX and get a FREE Pepsi, or FREE pizza, or FREE fries).

Don't keep your center in idle.

Get out there and gas up your promotions!

Got a better idea?

Let us know and we'll post it on this blog.

Erasers

Before computers, erasers were put on pencils because eventually someone made a mistake and had to redo it.

In the typewriter era, erasable tapes could be inserted under the key and the misspelled word would be removed.

In the computer era, it's even easier, we press the delete key or the backspace key and "poof" the error is gone.

To even double our chances of not making mistakes, computers have spell check and grammar check. No reason to make a mistake now. Right?

Wrong.

Your employees are not computers, nor are they typewriters or even pencils. They are human beings who will eventually make a mistake...just like you.

What do you do when they make a mistake? Do you freak out and yell at them? Do you take away what they do and give it to someone else or do you encourage them to do better next time?

The answer to these questions lies in the type of workplace environment YOU have established.

As the leader, you have choices:

1. Establish a zero tolerance for mistakes. make a mistake and get hollered at or worse, get fired.
2. Establish a three strikes and you are out policy. Screw up three times and get hollered at or, worse, get fired.
3. Establish an environment where mistakes are encouraged, initiatives are celebrated and staff is free to come to you with new ideas.

Bottom line is: If you're employees are not making mistakes, they are not doing their jobs and they certainly are not helping to build your business.

How do you deal with mistakes?