Why Social Media May Be Hurting Your Business

I think social media has reached a tipping point and has created some bad habits for marketers. Too often it is viewed as a “quick fix” for a communication strategy. 

Want to form a new league?  Send out an email. Oh yeah, put it up on Facebook too.  Want to get the word out about your Saturday night music and bowling program? Email all the 18 to 34 yr olds out there. Don’t forget to twitter them if you can.

I don’t know about you, but I think this quick reliance on social media has numbed us to really understanding our customers. 

I mean, if you spoke to 20 of your customers and asked them “personally” about the programs you run or how to communicate it better, I think you would get better information and a deeper understanding of your customers’ motivations.

Secondly, Facebook and Twitter, the new kids on the block may not even exist in the near future. Wasn’t too long ago that AOL and My Space were entrenched entities.  I’ll bet they didn’t think they would fall out of favor so quickly. Where are they now?  

And what about more upstarts like Pinterest, Zynga, Yelp, Pandora, Open Table, Groupon and on and on that are competing with Facebook?  Point is if you want your business to last longer than these entities, that come and go, then don’t JUST rely on social media as the ONLY marketing strategy you have  Too many proprietors are ONLY relying on social media. ONLY!

Here’s another problem - according to an AP Poll - over half of Americans think Facebook is a passing fad and one out of three Facebook users NOW spend less time on the site than a year ago.  Further 4 out of 5 Facebook users have NEVER bought a product or service as a result of a Facebook advertisement.

Now I am not saying to drop your social media programs.  But I am saying that social media on its own cannot do the job of other effective platforms like public relations, your website, old media (which is still effective) and one on one personal communications to your customers in your center.

Bottom line: Think synergy. Think leverage. Think multiple streams of communication.

Think about it.

Expiration

With three days to go, I am hearing some positive or quasi positive things from centers about league floorings. Seems that the people who jumped on the old “bring a friend band wagon” are finding out (AGAIN) that league bowlers"

1.     Like to bowl with their friends

2.    Will ask their friends to bowl if you ask them to ask

3.    Appreciate the rewards you give them for bringing a friend

For those who didn't want to give away a free party or free bowling or (GFB), free shoe rentals, you missed an opportunity to get a $300 to $600 customer.

Why did you do that? 

Did you fear you were going to give up some real dollars, especially if it rained? Did you not see the upside to this strategy because it would “cost money?” Did your old school mind set just get in the way of “freemium” marketing?

There are people out there who believe that the “freemiums” are the ONLY way to build relationships with people which in today’s world is the only way to lead to a sale. 

In the prehistoric B.I. days (Before Internet) we called these “free samples.”  You could see people on the street corners handing out sample cigarette packs, shampoos, hand wipes and all sorts of goodies.  This was done in an effort to get the consumer to try a new product so that he or she would switch from the current brand they were using.

Today we do our sampling over the Internet. Almost every website worth its salt will send you a free book or free white paper or free ‘trial” subscription about a subject it wants to sell you in an effort to convince you that they are:

1.     Sincere in their efforts and wants to gain your trust

2.    Only Interested in your well being and growth

3.    Only want to sell you something so you will be successful

4.    Really just want to sell you something that they produce and continue selling you something FOREVER…

5.    These “internet marketing gurus have developed very successful computer programs that will create new and more exciting offers every X# of days depending on what action or inaction you have taken, until you buy. Or until you scream “no mas.”

Yet so many of us on the bowling proprietor side of the world can’t make the switch to this new “freemium marketing.”  These folks say it devalues bowling.

Giving away your product doesn’t devalue it. Getting more people to try bowling (AGAIN) doesn’t devalue the game. Selling it for 99 cents all summer DOES devalue it.

Having less and less new people try your product only does one thing…causes your businesses' expiration date to come up more quickly.

How To Be A Genius

“If I go to one more customer service seminar where they tell me to smile, I’ll just scream”, exclaimed one conventioneer at this year’s Bowl Expo. 

This same refrain, I am sure could be heard from a conventioneer at the American Restaurant Association, The Hardware Retailers Association, The Amusement Park Association  and any other association that has customers…which is just about all of them.

Everyone is teaching and training and doing their best to increase the “customer experience”; to give great service; or “over the top” service; or “service that delights”; “service that exceeds expectations” and “service that makes the customer feel appreciated, wanted, needed and loved”.

Problem is everyone is focusing on the wrong thing. 

Service is important, no doubt about it.  But you can’t give great service to someone if you don’t have anyone to give it to and you can’t give service to someone if you or haven’t already sold them something or are not actively trying to sell them anything.

You need sales to service people. You need revenue to train people on “better service.”  You need profits to expand and modernize your center so people will be attracted to come into it so you can sell more.

Without sales, you won’t stand a chance. 

So here’s today’s $64,000 question: Who is teaching your employees to sell? 

Recently a copy of Apple’s training manual got out. It’s called Genius Training- Student Workshop – all hundred pages plus.  

It talks about training the employee to better help and serve the customer, but the reality is it is a very slick psychological training tool to get employees past sales obstacles and to use the famous “feel felt and found” tactic that has been taught for decades; fortunately it still works

Here’s a little excerpt of it. Note that the emphasis is on selling; NOT servicing. After all it is a store, says Apple.

“Before you can don the blue shirt and go to work with the job title of "Genius" every business day of your life, you have to complete a rigorously regimented, intricately scheduled training program. Over 14 days you and will pass through programs like "Using Diagnostic Services," "Component Isolation," and "The Power of Empathy."

 If one of those things doesn't sound like the other, you're right—and welcome to the very core of Apple Genius training: a swirling alloy of technical skills and sentiments straight from a self-help seminar.

The point of this boot camp is to fill you up with Genius Actions and Characteristics, listed conveniently on a "What" and "How" list on page seven of the manual. What does a Genius do? Educates. How? "Gracefully." He also "Takes Ownership" "Empathetically," "Recommends" "Persuasively," and "Gets to 'Yes'" "Respectfully." The basic idea here, despite all the verbiage, is simple: Become strong while appearing compassionate; persuade while seeming passive, and empathize your way to a sale.

No need to mince words: This is psychological training. There's no doubt the typical trip to the Apple store is on another echelon compared to big box retail torture; Apple's staff is bar none the most helpful and knowledgeable of any large retail operation.

A fundamental part of their job—sans sales quotas of any kind—is simply to make you happy. But you're not at a spa. You're at a store, where things are bought and sold. Your happiness is just a means to the cash register, and the manual reminds trainees of that: "Everyone in the Apple Store is in the business of selling." Period.

So your challenge for today is:  start hiring people who have some propensity to sell, who may actually like it and who can succeed at it.  Then go to your local college and see if you can find someone who can help to train your “sales organization.”  

This isn’t about outside sales or inside sales. It’s about sales training; about developing a sales culture; about being in the business of creating business.

If you need help on this, please call us. We have been doing it for years:                   516 359 4874

Definitions

For most of us, we define ourselves by our limitations. 

For the Steve Jobs types of the world, they define themselves by their dreams and aspirations.

Have we fallen into a pattern of limiting ourselves?

Is getting to “even to last year” good enough?  Is having 50 more bowlers a success?  Or is getting to 90% of capacity what you dream about?

Is doing $1900 on a Saturday night and beating last year by $150 a good (limiting) goal or is having 29 out of 32 lanes filled, kicking off $200 per lane per night your dream?

Do we view open play as another "price cut" program or have we positioned it as a "unique experience" that deserves and warrants a better price?

Is it limitations you want? Or dreams?

Recreate or reinvent or reinvigorate or revolutionize and then release the dream you once had.

Start now. With this new league season. 

We Are (NEW) Family

August 21, 2012 CNN News:

“The number of single people in America is growing at more than twice the rate of those who are wed, and if that trend continues, single adults will soon account for a larger share of the U.S. population than married couples for the first time on record, according to CNN.”

The number of new marriages in the United States declined 5% in 2011 alone.

If that doesn’t change the dynamic of society and the landscape for us marketers, I don’t know much else that will.  The changes that this will bring in terms of food, clothing and shelter purchases as well as recreational purchases will be profound.

For example, since single people tend to stay up later, maybe we will need to open later and close later.  Maybe we will need to add more “21 to 34” entertainment options (i.e.) cooler bars, more “grazing” food, more “craft” beers, more party atmosphere. Or more of a Starbucks atmosphere. Or more connectivity during the day time hours,  as a great place to meet people, especially for those who work at home and sometimes want to be around people.

As a bowling proprietor, you will need to really redefine what family entertainment means to a new generation of people who have not yet formed THEIR family, but are still part of their EXISTING family, even if they are older children; perhaps even living at home again like 29% of all 25 to 34 yr olds are doing these days.

It hasn’t been a “Fathers Knows Best" family image out there for a long time, but soon this image will be a vague remembrance of bygone times and old wines.

Maybe we need to examine more closely this "new" family unit and how its members define themselves. "Brothers or sisters or cousins?  There is an old song by Sister Sledge. The lyrics go something like this: ‘”we are family. I got all my sisters with me”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&v=eBpYgpF1bqQ&NR=1

There are other references to family in the movies, “Band of Brothers” and TV shows, “Brothers and Sisters” so it seems that as a culture we value the word family but are redefining it differently than before.

Just ask a single Mom or Dad with one or two kids if they are “family?”  Or ask two single Moms who have moved in together with their children if they are family?  Or ask two Gay or Lesbian people if they are family; some even with children?

The answer will always be a resounding YES.

What programs do you have for these nontraditional Moms or Dads?  Or groups of friends that are so close that they refer to each other as brother or sister?  And it’s just not an ethnic thing.  It’s an American thing.

So the lesson is; we need to learn how to do business with these new demographic “family units” or go home and watch reruns of “Ozzie and Harriet.”

Once Upon A Time...

Late last night, after the dinner, the conversation turned to politics and one of my Republican friends made the claim that under this administration, the number of people living in “poverty” increased from 28 million to 45 million.

My other friend, a Democrat, indicated that this number was erroneous because the government is only counting “cash payments” and not food stamps, housing subsidies and other public assistance programs as part of the income to households. Thus, he exclaimed, the number of people living in “poverty” has really remained the same.

Do you think that either of these two guys, as a result of this conversation, changed their opinions about who should be the next president?

Of course not!!

Analysis and presentation of facts rarely change the opinions of people we are trying to persuade.  What does change people’s minds are stories that the other side MAY be able to relate to and identify with. 

When was the last time you told a story about your bowling center or family entertainment center that influenced people enough to want to bowl?  So few bowling centers tell “marketing stories” on their Facebook page, their website or even in their blog that it is silly.

Here is an opportunity that costs almost nothing and almost all we do is use it these tools as a cheap form of putting out fliers and price specials.  YIKES!!

Look at all the great things we do when it comes to fund raising, teaching kids a lifetime sport, working to support veterans (BVL) as well as being one of the most affordable forms of FAMILY entertainment.

But who knows this?  You, me and the lamppost! 

And last time I checked, lamp posts didn’t have any money.

Stop all the price selling and start telling.

Boom, Here's Your New Customer

Zig Ziglar, the world’s greatest salesman tells the story about traveling on a plane and sitting next to a “good ole boy.” He noticed that the man had his wedding ring on the wrong finger. Zig, always conversational, turned to the man and said, “Excuse me friend, but I noticed that you wear your wedding ring on the wrong finger.  Why do you do that?  The man looked over at Zig and said, “Yeah, I married the wrong woman!!”

This may be funny to some, but it is really sad.

As sad as going after people who have no interest in buying your product.

But there is a segment out there that could have a BIG interest in buying your product.  

For example:

·         They account for 49% of all sales

·         Over 50% are on Facebook

·         There are more of them than the entire population of the UK

Follow this link to get a great picture of who is this customer.

http://marketingzeus.com/infograph/baby-boomers-americas-great-consumer-generation

They could be the right customer you marry.