I wrote last year about “Current Energy” (a company in the Dallas, TX area) using the iPhone’s release to promote their business.  I pointed out their choice to use the launch as something positive to their company.  Rather than looking at the possible downsides they made the event work for them.  Unfortunately most companies take the “low-road” and focus only on the negative (or possible negatives) of a situation.

When Pei Wei and other popular stores opened near Merrill Lynch on Louisiana Blvd in Albuquerque, NM the staff at Merrill Lynch had a choice.  Allow customers of these new stores to share their parking spaces in an already small lot, or put up signs and employ someone to make sure no one parks in their lot, thus leaving the spaces for the other stores in even shorter supply.  They chose the second option.

I understand that parking spaces are a premium, and the fear that your lot is going to be full of people who aren’t your customers is a valid one for certain, but why not try and endear people to you rather than run them off?  Is Merrill Lynch really that busy with people coming in that they need twice the space as other restaurants?

So, since I’m not one to point out a bad idea without offering at least one good idea, here are a two ideas they could do to remedy their situation besides allowing people to park there.

1. Offer people a free consultation if they bring in a Pei Wei receipt (or other store in the center).
2. Instead of using him to run people off, use the employ to hand out free consultation coupons to people who park in the lot.

I was brewing some of my favorite coffee this morning that had came from my favorite coffeehouse, the Mudhouse in Springfield, MO, when I had the thought… “This coffee was actually IN Springfield… on Patton Alley to be exact… and most likely roasted by Kyle Jeffries.” It gave me a warm sort of feeling to know that… but I didn’t stop there.

I then wondered what the day was like when it was roasted, what the weather was like, what Kyle (if it was in fact he who had roasted it) was looking forward to that day, what he was wearing even.

How great would it be to have that information on the coffee package?

“Roasted May 15th, 2008 by Kyle Jeffries in Springfield, MO Rainy and cool outside. Kyle was about to go see a movie.”

It may seem irrelevant to some, but the fact is it would add an emotional element to the coffee that others don’t have. People might stop buying just a certain kind of “roast” (such as espresso or Sumatra) and start buying coffee based on WHO roasted it… or what the weather was like that day… or any number of other factors. It would give people more of a sense of “connectedness” to the coffee that they didn’t have before. You could even have your sells based around such categories.

“I love coffee roasted during cold weather.”

“Mmm… me too!”

What do you think of the new Starbucks logo? If you drink coffee at all you probably have an opinion about it. It’s gone so far as to have some groups (such as the Christian group called “The Resistance”) to boycott Starbucks because of their new, “more revealing” logo. And if you don’t know what I’m talking about, well, that’s okay. I know everyone didn’t even know what Starbucks’ current logo looks liked until they loaded this post. But the fact is Starbucks‘ logo is one of the most recognized logos in popular culture right now. It’s iconic mermaid, green color, and round shape carry a lot of meaning to a whole lot of people. So why, you might wonder, would they change from what they currently have, to this…

Well, first off, as Buzzwatch reports, it’s not a permanent change. It’s all part of a marketing plan. But that doesn’t answer the question… why would they change it at all? Isn’t it dangerous to change your brand identity? Especially on the “whim” of a marketing campaign? I doubt McDonald’s would ever change their golden arch “M” to a brown serif-font M with grainy edges. While it’s true that it’s not a good idea for 99.9% of companies in 99.9% of situations, I believe this was, and is, a great move by Starbucks corporate.

You may or may not know about Starbucks having to close down 100 under performing stores in the US. You may or may not also know of the “buzz” and “rumors” that Starbucks is slipping in quality and sales on a whole. While I won’t voice my own opinion on the quality of Starbucks‘ coffee (suffice it to say I go there a few times a week on average) I will say that McDonald’s and even Dunkin Donuts are giving Starbucks a run for their money. It’s because of all this, rumors and truth, that I think the move to change their logo, even for a short time, is a good one.

Even back in 1999 Starbucks had the pop-culture reputation of being a corporate giant. Something that their clean, crisp, sanitized logo only helped promote. Whether you like it or not you have to agree that this “new logo” changes your sensory perception of the company. They have essentially (and successfully I believe) taken their “monster corporation” status back down to a neighborhood coffee shop. They’ve put the focus not only back on the coffee and the roasting of the coffee, but on you as a customer. Embracing you again with warmth and comfort.

We’ll see how long the change lasts, and what all becomes of it. I doubt any group’s boycotts will make much of a dent in their sales. And I don’t think even those who just don’t like it because of “change” will stop buying their coffee. But I do think that they will gather those back who were beginning to be on the “fringe”. Those who were starting to slowly seep away are going to have a reinforcement of the Starbucks brand in their minds… all from a new brand image that isn’t new.

I’m sure, if you watch cable or satellite TV at all, you’ve seen one of the public service announcements informing parents that it’s possible for them to block certain channels. The commercials are really well done and quite funny, but they’re also missing a huge segment of the population.

Obviously parents who don’t want their children to be able to watch Tony “whack” Guido, or sultry Sandra do whatever she does in Seattle, are the biggest part of the people that would use this service… and these ads focus perfectly in on them. But why only focus on people who want to block “bad” shows? What about people who may not have children and yet could use this feature to block out annoying shopping channels, PPV channels, or other things that you simply hate having to “scroll through” as you’re looking for what’s on?

The Ad Council has come up with a fun way to show what is possible for parents… but they’re missing out on using the same tool to target a wider market. Would it damage the message for parents? I don’t think it would. Would it increase the importance of the message for non-parents? Possibly.

Sometimes we get so focused in on our target market we miss out on all the potential that lay just outside it.

Seems like every insurance company out there is advertising that if you switch to them they’ll save you money. It was a good enough idea when insurance company #1 did it… but now companies 2, 3, 4 and on are in on the game. All of them use the same “formula” for their ads too. Show examples of people who switched to them from the “other guy” and how much money they saved by doing so. But I was wondering, if I were an insurance company, why would I want to say exactly what the all the others are saying?

Why not take the chance to say something different? Why not advertise that while you may not save people money, you will always give them more for their money?

I don’t doubt that many of these companies can save many people money by switching to them. But often people will choose the company who, while they may cost more, gives you more. Apple and the iPhone are a great example of this. They didn’t try to sell people on the iPhone because it would save them money… they just offered a superior product and charged accordingly. What would the iPhone’s marketing have been like had they tried to jump on the same advertising campaigns that had worked for other phone companies?

We recently moved many of our websites to Network Solutions. The move went great, but suddenly we couldn’t FTP anymore, which, being a web design company, is a problem. I had some friends in New Jersey and Texas try uploading via FTP to our new servers, and neither of them had any problems doing so. We contacted customer support at Network Solutions and they were very helpful indeed. They had us try a number of things both on our computers and with our router and modem. We determined that it wasn’t Network Solutions fault, and I was satisfied with that fact, however, we still couldn’t upload to our FTP servers.

Frustrated we went to our local coffee house to relax. While we were there, and just out of curiosity, I tried uploading on their free WiFi network. It worked! I could upload! So that meant it had something to do with our network at the office.

When I got back I tried hooking up directly to the modem, bypassing the router. That worked. I could upload then as well. So I now knew it was our router.

We were using a Netgear WPN824 router, so I decided I’d contact Netgear. That was easier said than done. After a few hours of searching I found a help ticket system on their website. So I opened a ticket with a technician telling them everything I’d tried and what the problem was. I waited a day, and finally got a response that began with a long paragraph telling me how “my problem was important to them,” which was followed by copied and pasted troubleshooting steps from the user manual… all of which were things I had just listed I’d tried. After replying 3 times, and talking to 3 different techs I gave up… sort of…

It seems their “help ticket” system included a handy feature that caused the ticket to expire on its own after 3 days if you didn’t respond again. Handy for the Netgear people, but not for me… their customer. This was obviously an instance of the “Thanks for calling, now go away” syndrome that Seth Godin has talked about.

Luckily during this time I also happened to visit another wireless site that I knew had the exact same router, a Netgear WPN824, and again I couldn’t upload. So now, knowing it was the router, we went out and bought a Linksys brand router and everything has worked great since.

The point of this story? It’s just as important to keep a customer as it is to get a customer. Had any one of the Netgear people even suggested that their router itself might be at fault I would probably have simply purchased another Netgear router. But because of their verbal instance “my problem was important” followed by their demonstration that it was indeed not at all important, their loss was Linksys’ gain.

How is that you can keep the customers you’ve worked so hard to get in the first place? Sometimes it may be as easy as admitting possible fault, or it may be showing you care instead of only saying you care.

Seth Godin has this post about gift cards being worse than giving cash for a number of reasons and, overall, I agree with him, but what about when a gift card really is the best gift for someone?

For me, an iTunes, Barnes and Noble or Starbucks gift card is going to be anything but wasted. But the only people (until now) that might have known that are people that really know me. So sure, giving me a gift card to Wal-Mart (no link on purpose) is as good as throwing money away because I won’t use it. But giving me a card to something I frequent shows me that you’re not only thinking of me, but that you know me too.

It’s the reason we get to know our clients and their business before we start a design. Often this doesn’t have to be more than a phone call. Hearing their voice, what they’re excited about, getting to know what they expect (in more ways than colors and fonts) is very important in being able to give people what they want… and need. Otherwise no matter our intentions their website might not be usable and become as wasted as so many unused gift cards.

Why is it that so many sales people try to impress you with their knowledge of “the world” in general to win you over to their product?

While working out of our local coffee shop today we overheard a group of people engaged in a 3+ hour meeting. There was a man and woman couple, and a man talking at them. The man, it seems, was trying to sell the couple a website. During the 3 hours they sat there he talked about local politics, news events from neighboring cities, and of course his view on global warming. Only a few times did they even mention the website or why they were meeting.

Admittedly the people he was talking to seemed to enjoy his company. They laughed at his jokes, agreed with his observations, and generally seemed to be having a good time. But my question is how does all “that” translate into getting a good website; or a website that is useful to you?

Just like the baby photo place who has a framed glossy print all ready for you when show up to view your proofs, I think that often we are pulled into agreements simply because of a perceived investment. So they will most likely talk about how much they liked the guy, how nice the coffee was, and then they’ll end up signing with him. Will they get a good / usable website?  I hope so.

If there’s one question that’s been asked by numerous businesses through the years, in numerous campaigns, and in numerous ways, it would have to be the question of “why pay more?” Today we saw this very question on a U-Haul store sign and it reminded me of how we had recently chosen to use PODS for our moving needs instead of U-Haul.

For those of you who don’t know, PODS are “Portable On Demand Storage“… and for a fee they will deliver a “POD” to your location, allow you to keep it as long as you like, come and pick it up when you’re done with it, and either store it in one of their warehouses until you need it, or ship it to wherever you’re moving. Does it cost more than renting a U-Haul? Yes it does. Not a whole, whole lot more, but more never-the-less. So “why pay more?”

Well for us the question answered itself before we had even started our move. With a U-Haul truck you have to pick it up, drive it to wherever you are, load it (all up a ramp), drive it to wherever you’re going, and unload it (all down a ramp). You also have to do all of this within one or two days time if you’re wanting to keep the “why pay more” from being “more.”

So for us, in this specific instance, the question “why pay more” didn’t hold any sway to change our minds. Was money an issue? Certainly! But there were so many other factors that played into the choice.

Now take this idea and apply it to design, and / or web design. “Why pay more” for something you can probably get for less? Well, if the only concern you have is money, that’s a very valid question. But, as with anything, I’m willing to guess there’s more to it than just money.

Factors such as your business’s reputation, your client’s experience with your business in the extended realm of the internet, longevity of the design / product, ease of use, find-ability, and so on and so on. All things that, in the long run, make saving a little up front only mean you spend more in the end. Whether that’s money, time, resources, or simply aggravation and thought in something you could’ve done right in the first place.

So “why pay more?”
Simple… because it’s worth more!