What is holistic marketing?

While guest teaching a class with a client at the University of Memphis-Lambuth campus last week I made the following statement:

“As a marketer I am a bit of a control freak.”

I think as marketing continues to develop this statement will become more common. If you handle the marketing for a business, not just providing a service like a logo or some print material, it will serve you well to be a little controlling when it comes to marketing.

As the marketer for a business (or the owner) I think you should start thinking about every point of contact with a customer as an opportunity to make a stark raving fan. I describe this thought process as Holistic Marketing. Holistic marketing means that marketing is more than just a logo and an ad.

Holistic marketing works through all of the pieces of your business to help the customer have a great user experience

(to borrow a term from the web design world). Instead of thinking about something like customer service or returns as an annoying/nonprofitable area think of it as a tool you have to help retain a customer and increase that customer’s lifetime value.

Like social media, websites, and text messaging, customer experience is another tool of the marketer.

If you have a great ad and someone comes to your restaurant, visits your retail location, or calls your phone number and the food is cold or the clerk is rude your ad is going to do more harm than good. Before you spend money on ads think: What pieces do we need to have in place to make sure this ad is as successful as possible? Evaluate the entire process for the customer from walking in the door to completing his purchase to returning something if her experience is bad. Then think about how you can make each step in the process great for the customer.

Questions about holistic marketing? Send me an email and we can set up a consultation.

 

Customer* Spotlight: Madison Co CASA

Customer is not the right word here because all the work for I do for Madison County CASA is done pro bono. (Which I have always used but what does it really mean? I guess it doesn’t have anything to do with Sonny and Cher or that guy from U2 after all)

The mission of Madison County CASA is to advocate for safe permanent nurturing homes for a abused and neglected children by providing specially selected and trained community volunteers.

I was recently elected to the board and will be helping them by providing marketing services. So this post has two purposes: 1. To show some of my work. 2. Let you know about some upcoming events that you could attend to help CASA.

1. Eat Outback for CASA.

On November 7 you can eat lunch at the Outback in Jackson for $20. Almost half of the money from each meal ends up in CASA’s hands. That means you get an amazing lunch put on by the great manger and staff at Jackson’s Outback. By eating lunch you get to help a great cause in CASA. In every sense of the phrase this event is a WIN-WIN! Here is the link to the Facebook event.

Eat Outback for CASA!

2. Breakfast with Santa

Thanks to sponsorships from Leaders Credit Union and the Barn at Snider Farms CASA will be hosting its first ever Breakfast with Santa on December 6. For $5 come and have breakfast and take pictures with Santa. If you have children this would be a great way to avoid the creepy mall Santas and still get your children’s annual picture with Santa.

Breakfast with Santa

 

Keep an eye out for more opportunities to help CASA as they serve children who really need our help.

Instagram gains in popularity with Teens and Facebook drops

Last year someone told me that Facebook was dead because teenagers are not using it anymore. I proceeded to argue with my then boss that Facebook is not dead. My boss at the time was on to something though, Facebook is losing popularity among teens. Look at these stats from Marketing Charts:

 

Teens are leaving Facebook via Marketing Charts

Over the summer Facebook lost 27% of the social media preference among teenagers. If your target market is teenagers look closely at this chart and notice that Instagram is rising in popularity(unlike just about everything else). This rising in popularity has not been missed by Facebook and Twitter as they have been moving to more visually centered design. Really most of the internet is moving to picture focused design. Pictures require less reading than a tweet and they are more quickly consumed. The move to more visual content I see as a trend that will continue for a very long time.

But before you completely write off Facebook: Do note that FACEBOOK OWNS INSTAGRAM. Facebook was trying to hedge its bets when it purchased Instagram for $1 billion. Facebook is positioning itself for long term stability by becoming the universal log-in for apps and services online and this will help cement its place in our lives for years to come. (Also Google is doing the same thing with its Plus/email accounts.)

Facebook is designed for adults. Adults have the money to spend on products and currently Boomers have the most disposable income of any generation. Facebook is not dying because it is not dependent on teens and tweens. I think it will be interesting in the coming years to see if teens as they age return to Facebook because its what the ‘adult’ world uses.

But always keep in mind that Facebook  is a rented marketing channel.

 

Facebook Local Awareness

Man holding iPhone

Man holding iPhone

Facebook is flexing it’s big data muscles again by introducing Facebook Local Awareness.

Facebook is now using your location to sell ads. Nothing new right? They could already place ads in front of people in your city but now they are taking it to the next level. By using the location system on your phone (that is my assumption, I am not sure of the technology behind the program) they are able to target ads within a distance as mile away from the brick and mortar location of a store/event.

With Facebook Local Awareness you can now target people driving past your store. From a marketing angle this is awesome. A few scenarios: being near a college campus and setting your food discounts to that area. Coffee shop in a business district? Send the ad to all the workers about a special on coffee.  Near the interstate? You can set your ad far enough out from your location to pick up the major gas stations.

There are several ways you can set the goals for the ad. I think the real trick here will be for “Offer”. This will allow retail and restaurants to help drive foot traffic. Other services such as a mechanic could use this to gain likes for the neighborhood they serve.

Local Awareness

As a consumer it might be a little scary.

Check out Facebook Awarenesss here.

I am going to try and do a case study with this new tool soon and will post the results on the blog.

Play along with Shark Tank (game version)

If you are an entrepreneur at heart, or just a red blooded American, you probably like Shark Tank on ABC. If you are unfamiliar, Shark Tank brings entrepreneurs from all across America together and gives them an opportunity to pitch to a group of high powered venture capitalists. Being on the show can take you from a few hundred dollars in sales to a few million in no time flat, even if you do not get an investment.

Why do I love watching this show? Because Shark Tank shows that the American Dream of working hard and succeeding is still possible. I also like watching it to see how entrepreneurs represent themselves and how they market their products.

Last week Renae and I invited several people over to watch the 2 hour premier of Shark Tank. While preparing to host I thought wouldn’t it be fun if we had a game to go along with the show? So we busted out one of our favorite board games: Wits and Wagers. Buy your copy of Wits and Wagers here A wits and wagers board looks like this:

Wits and Wagers Board

So without further ado:

Here is how you play Shark Tank the board game!

Setup:
1. Set up your Wits and Wagers game board(or make your own). Write on the answer cards the name of each shark on the show that night. With the two remaining cards write: ‘2 or more sharks’ and ‘You’re dead to me’. Randomly distribute the cards on the game board slots.
2. Give each person or team two wager chips and five red chips.
3. Designate one person as the announcer(preferably someone who is familiar with the show) and one person as the banker.

Game play:
1. Watch while a prospect pitches a product. When the prospect finishes his/her pitch the announcer must call out ‘That’s the pitch’. After the announcement the players have 10 seconds to place their bets. Timing can be very important as Sharks sometimes back out quickly.
2. Wait till the sharks have made a deal or all have backed out. Then:
A. Multiply the amount bet by the amount listed on the board (ex: Pays 3 to 1).
B. If a shark goes in with one or more sharks the player receives half of the amount that would have been gained normally. For example: Player bets 3 on the Shark who is on the ‘4 to 1’ would normally receive 12 but since the Shark split the deal the Player only receives 6. Player would receive full amount of their bet if they put his/her wager on the ‘2 or more sharks’ card.
C. Distribute chips earned. Players cannot lose wager chips but can lose his/her other chips wagered.
3. After each pitch shuffle all the cards randomly on game board.

4. Winner is player or team with the most chips at the end of the game.

Remember their are only a few rounds for each game so bet big ad bet early!

Let me know if you come up with any variations of the game or make your own board!

Buy your copy of Wits and Wagers here