Marketing for Solopreneurs

The Little Things: A Customer Service Story

I’m a fan of John Cleese and his old sitcom Fawlty Towers. It is the story of a crazy English innkeeper, his sarcastic wife and their bumbling staff. Basil Fawlty was always kissing up to his guests but, due to hilarious mishaps, could never quite live up to the superior customer service he wanted desperately to be known for.

Keeping customers happy in a service industry can be challenging But last weekend I had an amazing experience at a tiny, don’t-blink-or-you’ll-miss-it restaurant on the Pacific coast of Washington. It was my in-laws’ favorite restaurant and it was the first time back there since my wife’s mom passed away.

I don’t know. It might have had something to do with the server being new. But I like to think that she just cared about her customers. Not long after she delivered our plates of food, we became quiet and a little sad, remembering all the other, happier, times we had been there. Seeing our unhappy faces—particularly my father-in-law’s— and hearing us whisper, she must have thought that something was wrong with the food.

She asked my father-in-law, “Is something wrong with your steak?” He frowned and said, “No, it’s good.” She asked, “Are you sure?” He said, “Why, yes. It’s nice and rare, just the way I ordered it.”

Five minutes later, the owner was at our table. “I’m hearing that maybe your steak was overcooked?” he said. “ I’d like to fix that for you.”

My father-in-law looked confused, but insisted again that his steak was fine.

It was looking more and more like a Fawlty Towers episode. Finally, my wife stepped in and explained that it was the loss of her mother we were all feeling and it had nothing to do with the food, which was, as always, wonderful. The owner must have wondered what to say. He could say he was glad we were happy with our food, but then we might think he didn’t care about the death in the family.

After an awkward pause, he found just the right words to say, then stuck around to chat a few minutes. Do I have a point here? Yes. That one small business owner went out of his way to make sure his customers were completely satisfied. It paid off. We ended up talking about the experience all the way home.

Thoughts on Giving

Yesterday I was working away at my computer, juggling two design jobs: a logo and a chamber of commerce directory cover. And it occurred to me: I was spending a good part of a day on pro bono jobs. The free services we provide for nonprofits can add up. Seems at any one time we are doing at least one pro bono project. Someone told me once I should stand in front of a mirror, pucker my lips, and practice saying "no". But there are just too many good causes out there.

The one thing I do feel strongly about is that if I offer to do something at no cost, I should treat it like any other project. That means scheduling rough and final draft deadlines—and meeting them. While it’s tempting to put those projects on the back burner, I have made a commitment and that organization, as appreciative they may be, needs their stuff on time, too.

Do I always practice what I preach? Most of the times, yes. But if I am swamped with huge projects, I occasionally find myself letting the "freebies" slide a little. Shame on me!

Don't Assume Anything

Whatever business we happen to be in, we all use terms and acronyms, assuming that everyone understands what we are talking about.

Recently I caught myself saying to a server at one of my favorite restaurants, “I just got out of a Chamber meeting.” Well, I know I mean chamber of commerce, but he smiled and then screwed up his face. He must have been wondering, “Chamber? Court chamber? Chamber of horrors?”

And a few days ago, I e-mailed a mockup of a marketing piece to a client. Since we didn’t have the copy yet, I filled it with the standard "junk text" called "Loren Ipsum". Which goes like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Morbi commodo, ipsum sed pharetra gravida, orci magna rhoncus neque, id pulvinar odio lorem non turpis. Nullam sit amet enim. Suspendisse id velit vitae ligula volutpat condimentum. Aliquam erat volutpat. Sed quis velit. Nulla facilisi. Nulla libero.

When I heard back from the client, her response was, "I love the layout, but why is that foreign language in there?" Okay, that gave me a chuckle, but back to my original thought: don't assume.

It’s About Respect: Thoughts on Customer Service

I tend to be one of those people who like to recognize outstanding customer service when I happen to be on the receiving end. I feel that it’s good for the employee and it’s helpful for managers to know. When it happens, I send a short e-mail, or write a letter, or pick up the phone.

When I am treated poorly, I also feel that is helpful information for a manager or owner.
At the end of November ’07, I purchased at set of Internet marketing-related DVDs from a very large, well-known information publishing firm. It was not my first purchase; I had also attended one of their copywriting conferences and taken a year-long marketing course from them.

The DVDs were priced at $149.95 and I was told that I had locked in “the very lowest price” by making my purchase when I did. I received my package in early December. Just ten days later, I opened an e-mail from this company’s internet marketing director, who offered me the exact same set of DVDs for $79.95. They were having a “Customer Appreciation” sale.

I wrote a letter mostly out of curiosity: why would someone pitch a “lowest price” offer and then send the same customer a second offer for the same product she just purchased, but this time at half the price? (It seemed to me that if it really wasn’t a “locked in-lowest price” deal, they would want to at least segment their lists so the $149.95 customers did not receive the second, lower-priced offer.)

In my letter, I asked for a $70 refund, just to see what they would say. I waited a month and got no response , so I visited the help desk on their website and copied and pasted in the same letter I had sent by U.S. mail. A week later I received an e-mail reply:

Dear Valued Customer, [not!]

Reviewing your account we see that you purchased the tapes on November 26, 2007.
We are not able to refund you the difference of the product as it was for a December end of the year special.

I hope that I have addressed all of your questions and concerns. If you should have any further questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact us for assistance.

Respectfully,

Company XYZ Customer Service

Now, mind you, this was a company I had already purchased more than $3,000 of products and services from. But the e-mail response was robotic in tone and did not address any of my concerns.

I think there are several marketing lessons here:

1. Keep your lists separate. A firm has every right to discount their product as much as they want, but at least segment your lists and don’t pitch a product to a customer who has just paid twice that amount for it.

2. Be honest. Don’t sell a “lowest price, locked in” offer that is blatantly untrue.

3. If you receive a “snail mail” letter of complaint, answer it. Anyone who has taken the time to compose a letter, address an envelope, lick a stamp and find a mail drop is very unhappy and deserves a reply.

4. It is in your best interests to keep your most loyal customers happy. I had already spent $3,000 and likely would have down the road been worth thousands more through additional “back end” sales. But I will never do business with this company again. Was it worth it to them just to save the $70 refund I requested?

As a manager, how would you have responded? Do you look at the long-term value of the customer when you make refund decisions?

Will A Special Color Sell Your Product?

Recently Pantone, the color standards mega-company, announced its Fall ’08 Color Forecast, presumably the Bible for graphic designers, interior decorators and all the other artist types whose creations will suffer unless they know and use the trendy “it” colors. According to Pantone, Fall ’08 is defined by “rich, elegant hues that offer vibrant selections. ” (”Rich and elegant?” What were last fall’s colors—washed out and tacky?). Blue Iris is one of the “in” colors this year, described as "combining the stable and calming aspects of blue and the mystical and spiritual qualities of purple". Boy, that’s expecting a lot from a color.

Pantone has much to gain from their “color forecasts.” In fact, though the predictions are available to the public a few months in advance of the season, the designers, decorators and marketing companies must pony up $750 per book if they want it earlier. (The Fall ’09 book is on sale now.) It is in Pantone’s best interest to create a color trend frenzy.

Every year, the trendy colors show up in fashion, home décor, retail products and sales and marketing pieces. Large corporations spend thousands of dollars redesigning their logos and reception areas and hiring the best agencies to tell them what those colors will do for them, how they will make their customers feel, what emotions they will evoke.

Will using the newest, most popular colors bring more customers in the door? I honestly doubt it. We small businesses are very aware that our USP—Unique Selling Proposition—our sales messages, our personal brand are the way we attract new customers and retain the ones we have.

15 years ago, when we created the logo for Cat’s Eye Group, our small biz marketing company, we chose the color teal. I think sometime in the 90's it was "in," but just as quickly it became passé, yesterday’s color. Yet strangely enough, we still get comments on how much people like our logo and how immediately recognizable it is. They never seem to say, "Oh, ick. Teal. Come on Bob, get with the times!"

Do you personally feel that colors evoke emotions? And does that affect your decision when you are creating your marketing materials?

A Small Business Gets Self-Promotion Right

It is perhaps the most ignored on one hand and the most misused on the other: free publicity. While most businesses recognize the value of exposure in print and on TV, many do not understand that, in order to interest a reporter or editor, they must have a “news hook,” something that ties into what is going on in the world or your community right now. Nobody in the media wants to give you a free ad. But if you offer them a real story, connected to a timely issue, they will be interested, because it’s news.

The news and editorial calendars revolve around the seasons and the holidays. These are great opportunities for savvy marketers because the newspapers and television stations are always looking for tie-in stories.

I saw a great example just yesterday. It was Valentine’s Day and a Seattle coffee shop had a “Meet Someone Special” event. In their store was a bulletin board with numbered photos of participating customers. Colorful Valentine bags with red hearts hung on the wall. The numbers on the bags corresponded with the photos. Customers checked out the photos and put their own number in a bag if they were interested in meeting that particular person.

This story took me right back to the third grade, when the week of Valentine’s Day brought equal measures of excitement and fear. (Who will give me a card? What if nobody likes me?) On the day after Valentine’s Day, the coffee shop hosted an event so customers could open their bags and meet each other.

This was a clever idea. A new twist on Valentine’s Day at a coffee shop. And it paid off. This small biz owner got it right, understood the concept of self-promotion with free publicity. And it paid off. I saw the story on the local news of two different TV stations on Valentine’s Day. The reporter interviewed the shop owner and several customers. It was like a 30-second commercial for the store—at no charge.

This special event benefited the shop in other ways, too. It created more interactions between customers. It made it more likely that they would recognize another customer when they stopped by for their morning coffee. So it became a place to meet friends, rather than a shop filled with strangers.

How about you? Might your business lend itself to a story tied to a holiday theme? Have you had success getting free publicity with a seasonal- or holiday-themed story?

Networking: Do Early Birds Do It Better?

In my experience, there are two major kinds of networking events: the crack-of-dawn breakfast and the 5pm cocktail mixer. And I have noticed that generally, the two types of networkers who show up for each of these events can be quite different.

An interesting question occurred to me. From your perspective—if you have attended both kinds of events)—have the members of one group proven to be more valuable networking contacts than those in the other? Do you see differences in the types of people who show up at each of these events? For instance, do you think that the “morning people” are more organized, more committed, more serious business networkers? Or have you found better networking opportunities and more useful contacts at the informal evening events?

Getting Results with E-Mail Marketing

According to a January 2008 JupiterResearch report, spending on e-mail marketing is expected to top $2 billion by 2012. That’s almost double the 2007 total of $1.2 billion. While spending on traditional direct mail (“snail mail”) campaigns is still much greater, e-mail marketing has exploded in the past five years, partly because it’s cheaper and quicker—that is if your message isn’t caught by the spam filters.

What I’m not sure all businesses understand is, in order for their Internet marketing to be effective, they need to follow the same principles that successful marketers in any campaign use. Some of the most important, in my opinion: pinpointing your target market (in the case of direct mail and e-mail marketing, securing a good, up-to-date list); making an irresistible offer; paying close attention to the timing of the offer; and communicating your brand promise clearly.

What’s been your experience with e-mail marketing? Are you starting to spend more of your marketing budget on it? Is it working for you?