Category Archives: Marketing

Quick advice to make your customers happier

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I’m going to give you some great advice about how to get more customers and make your customers happy.

  1. Tell them what you’re going to give them. Don’t be bashful. You’ve got something good to offer them so just tell them outright what wonderful things they’ll be getting. I recently had to call Bank of America a few times regarding my credit card and the first thing the service agent said was “How can I provide you with world class service today?” How nice does that sound? It sounds like I’m going to get me some world class service – exciting!
  2. Give it. This only really works if you are going to deliver on the promise. However, with the customer all buttered up, you really only to have to deliver within the ballpark. What does “world class service” even mean? The service was very good, pleasant, and punctual on my BofA phone call and since they said it’s world class, I guess it was!
  3. Remind them. If you’ve already made them this feel good, make them feel even better afterwards. Reinforcement of their positive gains will help them remember the experience for next time or even share the experience with others. Car commercials typically serve dual roles of making people want to buy the car and making existing owners feel good about owning the car…when then leads them to tell others to buy the car.

It’s far too easy to hope that customers recognize the value you’re providing them. We make that mistake all the time. If you’re constantly saying to yourself “Why aren’t customers biting? Don’t they know what they’re missing?” , then the chances are they actually don’t know what they’re missing since you didn’t tell them.

Give my advice a try and you’ll have more customers, happier customers, and hopefully more money.

- Justin

The cheekiest (and most effective) online ad I’ve seen – the Toto Washlet

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“Buttcheeks? Are those really… buttcheeks?”

Like most people who spend any amount of time online, I’ve become desensitized to online advertising. When viewing sites nowadays, my brain subconsciously identifies those IAB-standard graphic ads and blocks them from my attention. And the ones that expand to cover meaningful content just have me hunting for the tiny “x (close this)” link.

So I was surprised to find myself mesmerized by the set of flashing, shifting, smiley-face-wearing buttocks blatantly plastered all over the pages of Salon and other (reputable) sites this morning.

toto

Upon very careful inspection, I saw it was an ad for the Toto Washlet, an all-in-one toilet seat/bidet/dryer. While other expert blogs had mixed opinions about the ads, I think they’re fanny-tastic. They’re eye-catching and simple, and combine sex appeal with humor better than anything I’ve seen in a long time.

It turns out these online ads are part of a larger campaign by ML Rogers in New York, which launched today by unveiling 2-story buttocks in ads overlooking Times Square. Given the placement of the physical and online ads, the message is certainly one of high-end luxury. The Washlet website, www.cleanishappy.com, fleshes it out (har har) – pleasant faces and voices match the pleasant buttocks, and soothing music prepares you to revel in the life-changing abilities of a fancy toilet seat. The um, tongue-in-cheek attitude is obvious on the site as well, with statements like “Washlet’s the bathroom fixture with one fixation… your happiness”. I love it – maybe one day I’ll get one to celebrate Menuism.

Flash and flesh aside, the ultimate measure of an ad campaign is sales and awareness. Time will tell how well this campaign translates into sales of the product – I’ll check back on it in a few months. But as for awareness, I bet this is gonna be successful – you’re reading this, aren’t you?

What other catchy campaigns have you seen?

-john

Business Cards: Vistaprint vs. Overnight Prints

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You may remember our previous business card experience with VistaPrint.com (I won’t even give them a link!). Even after complaining and getting them to ship another order for free, there was no change in quality. The black wasn’t gray and the cutting was off. The oddest thing was that some of the cards were very black and others were very gray…the least they could do is be consistent.

Looking for a new vendor, we got a referral from our friend Hubert for OvernightPrints.com. The ordering process was really simple and they had no blatant upselling like VistaPrint. They were really fast too – ordered it on Wed and they got here in 2 days. My only complaint was that the card packing was really tight so a few got bent. Take a look at the cards and you decide which looks better.

OvernightPrints on the left (free glossy!), VistaPrint on the right.

new biz cards
I love the new cards and can’t wait to give them out at TechCocktail 4 next week – come by our demo area if you want one ;) .

Justin

Winter brings snow and more publicity

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Justin in window sill - winter 2007I’m back in Chicago now and just in time for a fresh coat of snow! It’s beautiful! I used the macbook to take a pic of myself sitting in the window sill with Grant Park in the background. There have already been a few kids out sledding down the tiny hill. Once there’s more snow I’ll get out there to make a Foodha snowman.

The past month we got a couple mentions because of our Yahoo! BBAuth Integration (a way for users to login and join Menuism using their Yahoo username and password). Any news is good news right? Here are the links:

Let’s not forget to mention that a video interview of us at TechCocktail has been posted on Technology Evangelist (Thanks Ed and Benjamin). It’s 5 minutes long and quite entertaining. A few words in our defense: We were one of the last interviews of the night after free booze (excessive cheeriness, nodding, and slightly irregular speech pattern) and talking loudly over the music all night long (voice cracking). Check it out :)

Also, if you haven’t noticed, we’ve posted some Menuism widgets on the sidebar of this blog’s front page (scroll down about 1/2-way). Now you can keep up with our eating patterns while reading the blog. Join Menuism to get your own personalized widget or buy some shirts to spread the word!

Happy Holidays!

- Justin

Moving to NBC primetime…almost

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As a part of our never-ending quest to help people find better food, I’ll be blogging about Chicago life on NBC5 Chicago’s Street Team blog (Thanks for the opporunity Marcus!). I’ll be focusing on restaurants around Chicago as I embark on my personal goal to try every restaurant in the city…budget and lifespan allowing :) . The blog is a team effort of about 30 volunteers:

The Street Team is a diverse group of Chicago-area residents who have at least one thing in common — they love to hang out and stay in-the-know when it comes to the myriad of entertainment choices this metro area has to offer.

So far it’s been pretty exciting to be part of this team. I got to go to the NBC building in Chicago to take a tour of the news room and shoot a video intro in one of the tv studios. They had the professional camera crew and all the lights on and each volunteer was supposed to do a quick couple sentence intro. It was intimidating to watch some of the NBC pros calmly and smoothly give their pitch. If you’re curious, here’s my profile and video intro (requires Windows Media Player).

If you want to know what’s going on in Chicago, check out the Street Team Blog.

-Justin