Clever Marketing Tricks: Car Service Edition
Bear with me if you’ve heard this one, but my attention was captured by a postcard from the Honda dealership service center my wife uses. One side of the large postcard had a generic car-oriented graphic and the words “FREE Front End Alignment for Your Other Car.” In the lower right corner was the dealership and Honda logo.
Flip the card over and in fairly conversational copy you’re offered a free “truly free four-wheel alignment for your non-Honda, never-before-serviced-at-our-facility, ‘other’ vehicle…”
The copy then goes on about how winter potholes play havoc with alignment–this is a good time to get your car checked before it screws up your tires, etc. The copy then answers the question most people have at this point “What’s the catch, why the heck are you doing this?”
“We at XXX simply want to prove to you that our world-class service department takes the best care of you and your car. Regardless of the make or model, we want you to confidently come to us when you need service…It’s as simple as that.”
A phone number and convenient online scheduling URL are given and the reminder that this is a “$150 value” and to “schedule today.”
Okay, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the marketing value of this promotion:
- The dealership probably sent these cards only to active customers–those customers (like my wife) who bring in their Honda for regular oil changes, tune ups, etc. They want to double their business from these presumably satisfied customers; guessing that most customers have two cars (like us)– and that if they don’t have another car on their service roster from that family address there’s a reason. The reason is likely that it’s a different make of car, purchased elsewhere (Yup, that’s us); therefore it’s being serviced elsewhere. Of course, the Honda dealership wants that car in their service bay.
- They find your alignment indeed does need work, and true to their promotional material they do it for free. That makes you happy and predisposed to coming back, right?
- There’s every chance that they may find something else wrong with your car and offer you an incentive to fix it while you’re there–the classic up-sell.
- If they don’t find anything wrong, they’re banking on their service personnel’s professionalism, the shuttle service or the coffee in the waiting lounge to make you think of them when your car does need service. Heck you might even kill time and wander the lot looking at the new Hondas…
- If nothing else, they have touched a regular customer with a generous offer–this increases brand loyalty. As you know, the news media is rife with stories of automobile companies across the board scrambling to retain market share.
Pretty smart. It cost them comparatively very little to print and send the postcard; even if only 2-3% of this cohort responds it’s a success.
And yep…I just scheduled an appointment to have my car alignment looked at. I’ll let you know how it goes.
Until then, what do you think of this promotion? Could it be translated into something your business could try? The comments bay is open–honk first, then drive on in.
AlexanderG’s Shaken Not Stir Fry
or: A Quantum of Stir Fry
I’ll be the first to cop to being a pretty boring cook. Unless it was toast, eggs, spaghetti or something you could put on the grill I was reliably Dr. No. However, one evening in a fit of inspiration I gave my wife a break and created this dish using ingredients we had on hand. It’s now a family favorite (at least I think it is).
The shot of vodka is really the only thing remotely tied to James Bond, but hey, it sounds cool. Tastes alright, too.
Have fun with this—you don’t need all these ingredients (you may not eat meat–hey, whatever works for you) or you may want to add some ingredients of your own. It’s really up to you. After all, you only live twice, 007.
Your License to Kill…The Ingredients:
1 medium-sized red, yellow or white onion, chopped
1 medium-sized red pepper, chopped
1 medium-sized green pepper, chopped
1 medium-sized yellow pepper, chopped
1 clove of fresh garlic, chopped
Optional: Fresh diced tomatoes, chopped
¾ cup of olive oil*
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
* Or 1/4 cup butter
1-2 tsp crushed black pepper
1-2 tsp kosher or sea salt
14 oz. summer “rope” sausage or kielbasa, sliced
Louisiana Hot Sauce
1 shot of vodka
3 cups No Yolks egg noodles
5 cups water
From Q…The Tools:
1 medium-sized skillet
1 medium-sized pot
Strainer
Spatula
Walther PPK (Kidding…)
The Mission
- Heat olive oil and balsamic vinegar (or if you choose, melt REAL butter—if you use margarine I don’t know you) in a medium skillet over low heat. Add onion, pepper(s), garlic (tomatoes if you choose) and sauté all over low heat for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add sliced sausage or kielbasa—they should resemble little coins of flavor amidst a sea of veggies. Move the pieces around in there frequently.
- Season with Louisiana Hot Sauce, black pepper and salt to taste, stir frequently.
- Add 3 cups of egg noodles (or noodles of your choice) to 5 cups boiling water. Cook for 10-12 minutes or until tender.
- Cover skillet and let cook 10 minutes—especially good when sausage starts to blacken at edges. Juice should be red and taste a little spicy. Add more olive oil and vinegar if necessary.
- Drain noodles.
- Try not to let the skillet contents overcook, as vegetables will become too soft.
- Add shot of vodka just prior to serving, stir.
- Serve vegetables, sauce and sausage over noodles in wide bowl. I prefer chopsticks, but it’s a little labor intensive. (Keep in mind, though, the chopsticks are an effective weapon in case Blofeld and his cat shows up uninvited.)
- Serve with wine, beer, Vesper martini or any other beverage.
Enjoy and try not to let it drip on your tuxedo—Moneypenny will notice!
Brand New Day or Fight Another Day?
“I just hate our logo–we’ve had it two years and business is flat.”
“People buy more from fresh, new companies.”
“The news media will cover our name change. No, really, they will.”
Pity the person who has heard any of that from their boss, board or consultant. People get antsy when business flattens or declines, and often instead of examining the product, service or marketing strategy, attention is turned to the brand itself.
Your brand is your company’s or organization’s public face. It’s your identifier, your differentiator and not a plaything for the bored or those grasping for an explanation of declining market share. I’ve worked in several situations where the boss was convinced by branding consultants or “brand alchemists” that the only thing holding them back was their brand identity.
Hold on a second–I should say strongly that changing your brand is not always a bad move–far from it. I work with some branding consultants and firms who are downright kickass at what they do. They just happen to be professional enough to tell a client when they don’t need a rebrand. (Sound crazy? Nah. Just ethical and smart in the long run. What company is going to hate a consultant who saved them from wasting thousands of dollars?)
I’m by no means saying that a lousy logo, tagline or brand message is worth keeping simply because it’s expensive to rebrand. What I’m getting at is that before you make any move towards engaging a brand identity firm you do some research, serious thinking and some long conversations with objective people who have no skin in the game.
It’s all about brand equity. Wikipedia says “Brand equity refers to the marketing effects or outcomes that accrue to a product with its brand name compared with those that would accrue if the same product did not have the brand name.”
If you’ve invested thousands of dollars and years of consistency in your brand and decide that it’s what’s holding you back; then you need to put pen to paper and ask “If I jettison our identity and create a new one, how much will it cost?” Are you prepared to flush your brand equity–essentially zeroing out your name recognition–and pay a consultant or tie up your marketing team for weeks or months? (Not to mention waiting perhaps a year or two to see if it pays off.)
Google “costs of re-branding” and the results may take your breath away. Some claim that research alone for a re-brand lies in the $50K range–that doesn’t include creating a new logo, tagline, website, collateral printed material, etc.
Well worth a second thought, wouldn’t you say?
Is it your marketing strategy, rather than your brand identity? If so, then a complete overhaul of that strategy–not necessarily your logo and brand identity–is in order.
As for the news media caring about your re-brand? In general they will devote time to your re-brand only if it’s really lousy one. It can also be a PR nightmare if you tick off your current customer base (see Coke, New. or more recently Tropicana.)
So before you go for a brand new day, think carefully. It may be that your brand just needs a better marketing strategy under it–and it needs to live to fight another day.
The Science of Getting A ‘Yes’
Just a few simple words might increase your “yes’ rate:
“if operators are busy, please call again…”
via The Science of Getting A ‘Yes’ : NPR.
Check it out!
The Press Release: Is It Worth It?
I almost always write a press release. Why, in this day and age of email, blogs and the insouciant charm of Twitter, do I bother? “Is it,” you may ask, “worth it?”
Yes. The press release is your mothership document. It contains the info that the media is interested in most: Who, What, Why, When and Where. If it’s written well and has a catchy lede yet doesn’t wear the reader out with minutiae or boilerplate, it can serve you well. From this mothership sails the speedboats: SEO messages, Twitter Tweets, media advisories or PSA copy. It’s also handy to send as deeper background for those with peaked interest.
Notice I said it can serve you well and that I always write a press release; that doesn’t mean I always send it. It may end up posted on the client’s website or in a requested e-press kit or nowhere at all but my laptop. I write it not because I’m a little old school, but because it grounds me in the facts and lets me play with what makes the story interesting (or warns me when it’s not). My old newspaper editor “Spidey Sense” usually tells me when it’s not something I should send–that despite my best efforts it will waste a reporter’s, editor’s or blogger’s time. (And yes, bloggers generally don’t want press releases anyway.)
Here’s the deal: you only have so many shots with the news media. Send them a press release on any and everything your client does and you’ll find yourself ignored quite a bit or even worse: relegated to the spam folder.
Do not waste a reporter’s or editor’s or blogger’s time is one of the cardinal rules of public relations. If your client insists, then perhaps you haven’t done enough on the front end to manage expectations. Clients need to understand that in order for you to be effective, you can’t shoot your bow simply because you have the arrows. You have to have something with a reasonable chance of hitting the target.
There are plenty of people who will tell you the press release is dead. To a large degree they are correct. But I still believe a targeted, smart piece serves a purpose when you use it correctly and pay attention to the needs of the media. A savvy practitioner knows his media list and doesn’t send a lengthy press release to a blogger who regularly scorns this approach or the TV news assignment editor who barely has time to go to the bathroom let alone read your two-pager on the new widget from BigCorp Industries.
Remember, PR pros: you know your client, media market and media counterparts better than anyone else (or you should, lest you wish to go out of business quickly). The press release as a mothership document is useful. Just make sure you don’t sink the whole enterprise by using it incorrectly.
The Starbucks Subconscious
Mike Brown of Brainzooming.com interviewed me this week about the impact on creativity of working in public, particularly as I was writing my ebook, “Pilate’s Cross.” I refer to it as my “Starbucks Subconscious.” It was fun. Thanks Mike!
What about you? Does your work environment have a strong effect on your creativity?
Toyota Accelerates Discussion of Social Media and PR
The PR car is idling at the intersection of social media and Toyota’s response to their disastrous debacle. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) Toyota, through a series of missteps, has virtually destroyed their market growth and given their public image a flat tire. However, they’re earning points for being more forthright (even though it’s pretty late in the roadtrip) for their unvarnished use of social media in the form of “Toyota Conversations,” a site that aggregates Toyota news as well as Toyota’s Twitter updates and recall information.
Catharine P. Taylor hits the nail on the head with this simple statement:
…”given the rise of social media, jumping into a conversation when it’s most against you is perhaps the only way that a major company can appropriately handle PR these days.”
She’s right. There’s only so much good–and frankly much more damage–that a one-way conversation (read: “traditional PR”) about an event this catastrophic can do. Taylor said she has “quibbles” with the site in that it doesn’t offer Twitter comments from the public. I agree, but have to say that with a corporate culture like Toyota’s, “Toyota Conversations” is a huge step. 
In my career I’ve managed or worked on teams that handled some pretty sticky crisis com situations. Hands down the worst was when I was part of a hospital crisis communication team during the terrorist attack in Oklahoma City in 1995. The team did an incredible job under excruciatingly tough circumstances. Though not by any means the “bad guy” in that horrific event, we were still absolutely inundated with media requests and visits from agencies spanning the globe and a daily deluge of calls from victim families, their friends and concerned citizens. A large amount of our time was spent responding to misinformation and rumors.
Despite our best efforts, much of the information that made it out was incorrect, embroidered or unnecessarily dramatized (as if any drama needed to be added to that horror). Looking back, I can only imagine the positives of having the social media tools we have now to get information out, quash rumors and more effectively manage a chaotic communications event. Certainly social media would also have provided millions of “channels” for misinformation, but we would have had the ability–like the better-late-than-never-Toyota–to inform the public more effectively and perhaps alleviate much of the panic and misinformation.
New Public Relations Firm Takes Versatile, Collaborative Approach
March 8, 2010
For Immediate Release
Contact: Alex Greenwood 913.907.4426 * Alex@AlexGPR.com
New Public Relations Firm Takes Versatile, Collaborative Approach
KANSAS CITY, MO– A need for a versatile, collaborative approach to business communications inspired AlexanderG Public Relations, LLC.
“Getting the message out–whether it’s a small business or Fortune 500 company–isn’t the same as it was twenty years ago. It’s not even the same as it was two years ago,” owner and principal Alex Greenwood said.
“Besides the evolving news media, the rise of social media tools like blogs, Twitter and Facebook have changed the rules of the game; the competition for attention has risen exponentially as the channels for information access have mushroomed,” he said. “We work with clients to evaluate their goals and get their message out through the best channel.”
Launched in February, Greenwood’s firm has formed strategic partnerships with nationally recognized leaders in social media, visual image production, advertising and marketing. “The integration of these disciplines is the best strategy for success,” he said. “The days of public relations being a profession isolated from marketing, advertising and new media are over. We believe in a collaborative approach.”
AlexanderG Public Relations also offers media training, speechwriting, crisis communications and a variety of issues management services. The firm serves companies of all sizes, non-profits, individuals and public initiatives.
Alex Greenwood has earned a reputation for success and ingenuity from his more than twenty years experience in public relations, journalism, marketing and broadcasting. His career has spanned several industries including broadcasting, healthcare, non-profit organizations and higher education.
His work in the news media includes positions as an editor, journalist, radio talk show host and vice president of Kansas City Public Television. Alex left the television industry to form a communications division for EventPros, Inc., one of Kansas City’s leading special events firms. Since 2008 Alex has served on the EventPros Inc. production team as director of marketing and public relations for KCRiverFest, one of Kansas City’s largest community festivals. He will continue in that role in 2010.
For more information, visit the website at http://www.AlexGPR.com or call 913.907.4426.
