“He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.”
~Harold Wilson
 

In 1972, a 42 year old man by the name of Maurice was attending a dinner party in Manhattan when he struck up a conversation with another man whose family owned movie theaters.  Maurice, always the curious type, asked the man how the family business was doing.  The man answered rather bluntly: “TV is ruining us.  People just don’t go to the movies the way they used to.”  He said the theater was lucky to have 120 people attending a movie that held 1,200 seats. 

Perhaps this man was merely resigned to the inevitable: that industries come, and industries go, and that larger forces such as new technologies, more competition, lower cost alternatives and changing demographic forces conspire to reduce demand for a the products and services of many industries, and ultimately decimate established businesses over time.

Maurice, on the other hand, was surprised to hear this man’s claims.  It was Manhattan, after all, a dense borough of 1.5 million people.  And so he set out to undertake his own form of guerilla-style market research.  After all, he was always the curious type.

• He visited several movies and counted the house.  It was generally small;
• He observed who was attending movies.  It was mainly younger people in their 20’s and 30’s;
• He began creating storytelling scenarios about these moviegoers to try to understand what motivated them.  He concluded that there would always be a small group of avid moviegoers;
• He then asked if there was a small group of avid moviegoers, what was keeping them away from any given movie?  This was his “a-ha” moment.  He reasoned that thousands of people were attending movies on any given night, but they don’t attend a specific theater because they prefer to see a different movie being shown that night.

If movies are the product a movie theater sells, then another way to frame this problem is that the product assortment is too narrow to attract a broader set of customers.

In his book, Secrets From an Inventor’s Notebook, Maurice Kanbar writes:

Instead of concentrating on increasing the number of customers for one film, why not increase the number of offerings?  Without requiring any more ticket takers, concession-stand workers or projectionists, you could easily multiply your profit.  And instead of complaining about your shrinking audience, you’d be giving that audience more viewing choices and a novel atmosphere.

After some testing of the idea, one of the first multiplex movie theaters was born as Quad Cinema.  Quad Cinema was profitable since opening in October, 1972 and is still operating today.

By framing the problem not in terms of external changes, but rather  in terms of what opportunities the movie theater operator was missing to serve more customers, he found a solution to broaden its appeal, attract more customers and build a growth business in what at the time was a dying industry.

With little or more than an opening question based on an underlying disbelief that the status quo made sense, a deep level of curiosity and the skills of observation and storytelling, Kanbar was able to apply an outside perspective to a single movie theater and reinvent an existing industry.

Have you ever asked for an outside perspective to help transform your business?
 

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”
~George S. Patton

Sometimes all it takes to create a powerful marketing program is to think up new ways to deliver benefits to your customers.   In the event that you don’t have enough time to think this week, I’m offering you 5 new marketing ideas you can implement with just a bit of time, some basic communication efforts and no out-of-pocket spending.  Sure, you may need to offer a discount here and there, but if you learn something from doing any of these 5 ideas, it will be worth it.

My objectives with these ideas are that they help increase foot traffic, increase loyalty, increase word-of-mouth, or some combination of any of the above.  With each idea, I’ll tell you why it will be beneficial to your retail store, give you an example (or two) of how others have done something similar, and a mention few things you need to think about to implement without significant problems springing up.

Create a card asking customers for online reviews

Why?  It will help your search engine performance.  Increasing your online reviews is being increasingly recognized by Google and other search engines as important content that searchers value.  If some information has value to the searcher, then you can bet your bottom dollar that Google will find a way to capture that relevance in its search results.
Example:  I helped one of my clients get established on Google Places, yelp, tripadvisor and other relevant directories.  Now it plans to hand out a variation of this card to customers after completing their transactions.  Easy peasy!

Create a combo product that provides a customer discount over buying items separately

Why?  Increasing your average transaction amount is a great way to increase your overall revenue.  Yes, you will reduce your margin a bit, but if you combine the products into a solution that makes sense for your customer, you will start to train them to spend more in your store each visit.  Then your register will sound sweeter when it goes Ka-Ching!
Example:  The classic example is of a Happy Meal, or any other fast food combo.  When I worked for Clorox, we’d sometimes bundle two different scents of Pine-Sol into a combo pack.  If you have a café, you could create a breakfast special that includes a large coffee and a pastry.  Or if you have a deli, sandwich + chips + a beverage.  If you have a women’s boutique, maybe it’s a handbag and hat ensemble.  Get creative!

Create a customer photo contest

Why?  It allows your proudest customers to showcase their talents, and if you pick your theme right, your products.  It will also most likely result in you having lots of pictures of happy customers to share and reuse on your website, in marketing materials, or just displayed in your store.  After all, a picture tells a thousand words.
Example:  Pizza Orgasmica, a chain in San Francisco, hangs framed photos of customers and has a gallery on its website of customers who share pictures of them wearing branded t-shirts from around the world.  George’s Music in Berwyn Pennsylvania is running a photo contest though its Facebook page and asking fans and customers to “Post a pic of you and your instrument to our Wall.”

Bypass Groupon and announce your own group offer on your Facebook page

Why?   Your Facebook fans will see the offer, but they will probably have to round up non-Facebook fans to bring in a group to your store.  New customers introduced by current customers is a win-win for everybody.
Example:    Tropisueno, a Mexican restaurant in San Francisco, has a standing group offer of free drinks for the person who brings in 5 additional friends.  If you own or manage a restaurant, my recommendation is to announce a specific day and specific time frame when this offer can be redeemed (such as Happy Hour) so you can fill seats that normally are unoccupied.

Tweet a secret word that customers have to share in order to get a discount or t-shirt (with purchase of course)

Why?  It keeps your customers engaged in your twitter feed, gets them more deeply involved in what you have to say through gaming mechanisms, and if you announce a secret word on random days, does not become a predictable way to get regular freebies (after all, people who only buy for free don’t help you make money).
Example:  Cold Fusion Gelato Store in Newport, RI

What downsides or challenges do you see about implementing any of these ideas?

 

“Beliefs and values that have held sway for thousands of years will be questioned as never before.”
~Carol P. Christ
 

Diageo is a global liquor and spirits giant.

An orthodoxy is a widely held belief about what drives success for a company or for an industry.  For instance, you (or your management) may believe that:

• to grow your business means that you have to do so at the expense of your competition (grow market share);
• to maximize sales, you need to own the major holidays, events, or usage occasions;
• men are the purchase decision makers for your products at retail.

An orthodoxy is just a fancy term for prevailing wisdom, and it’s usually rooted in past experience.   After all, leaders of businesses, be them marketing leaders or not, usually gain their positions of influence through delivering past results.

But what would happen if you turned the words “past experience” into a negative?  Perhaps you’d call it a dogma.  Then what you would have is a “established belief or doctrine…[that] is authoritative and not to be disputed, doubted, or diverged from, by the practitioner or believers.”

What then happens when some heretic within the company (our outside the company) suggests that you challenge the beliefs you and the industry hold so sacredly, or better yet, gains information that refutes them?  What happens when you gain information that suggests that the world is changing, or has changed right before your eyes?

What happens is that you unlock a new world of opportunity and you get to innovate!

Diageo is a $14 billion global company that owns and markets many of the #1 alcohol brands within various segments.  It’s brand lineup is staggeringly impressive:  Smirnoff is the #1 vodka in the world, Johnnie Walker is the #1 whisky, Jose Cuervo the #1 tequilla, Bailey’s the #1 liqueur,  and Guinness the #1 stout.  

Diageo Expects Sales Growth After Focusing on Shoppers

Rather than resting on its laurels as the undisputed industry leader, 3 years ago, Diageo embarked on a mission to better understand who buys these products, why they buy them, and just as importantly, what stops them from buying them.  It created a shopper marketing team that set out to deepen its understanding of consumer shopping behavior.

Generating new consumer insights is not the only way to challenge your orthodoxies, but it’s a foundational marketing practice that often will.

So what did Diageo learn that were assuredly “aha” moments within the company?

• Women are the primary shoppers for spirits and liquors, not men, as had been assumed;
• People buy spirits and liquor for special occasions, but they define special occasions much more broadly and frequently than holiday and birthday celebrations, as had been assumed.  Informal, spontaneous group events such as dinners, porch parties, or backyard grilling were just as likely to drive purchase occasions;
• Many people are intimidated to buy spirits and liquors because they don’t have a go-to repertoire of cocktail recipes.  They don’t know what complimentary products they would need to be able to serve a cocktail to a friend or guest;
• Beyond the consumer insights, Diageo also learned to better understand its retailer’s needs in selling and marketing its products, that they were willing to partner to sell the category, rather than to assume its dominant position allowed it to assert is clout.

These new insights then led to a wide variety of programs that were tested with its retail partners and validated in market.  They include:

• Supplementing big holiday events where spirits and liquor are traditionally purchased with more year-round marketing;
• Development of programs to educated and take away the intimidation factor, such as “Simply Cocktails” which is a display and merchandising area where consumers are given options in how much complexity they are willing to use in order to create a cocktail;
• Diageo has increased the tools available to retailers to help them succeed in this category.  For instance, they provide food pairing and cocktail suggestion ideas that many consumers seek before they begin a shopping trip and when they visit the retailers’ website.   Additionally, retailers have the option of customizing the displays or using their own nomenclature, and selecting merchandising modules that fit their store size.

So what have been the results?

• Diageo says that it’s seeing double digit growth in its brand sales;
• It also says that it’s growing overall category sales, which its retail partners no doubt care about more;
• Presumably, as reflected in more sales, consumers are realizing the benefits of these programs, and ultimately, when you make your consumers happy, they reward you with sales.

Marketing has been changing rapidly as consumers gain greater control of the messages they are willing to listen to, in their ability find the information that’s important to them, and then to spread ideas and information through social media and word of mouth. 

Are you learning from your target customers how you can connect with them in more valuable ways, and in doing so, being open to challenging your own orthodoxies? 

 

“Strategy is doing the right things. Tactics is doing things right.” ~various attributions, including Peter Drucker and paraphrased from Sun Tzu I recently posted a series of slides from prominent social media thought-leaders as to why social media is not a retail marketing strategy. The point was not to diminish the potential value of social media or inbound marketing, for there are considerable benefits to be realized. Rather, my point was to assert that the use of social media and inbound marketing tactics can benefit tremendously by being used to support general marketing strategies and online content strategies. Starting your marketing efforts with well thought out strategies will help you manage limited resources, help you understand what’s driving success and failure, and accelerate success by unlocking the creativity that exists within your organization.

Goals, strategies and tactics

Before you can speak intelligently about the differences between strategies and tactics, you first need to start with the purpose of having strategies and tactics.  The biggest reason is to help you achieve a goal. A goal is a specific result that your business needs to achieve in order to sustain itself, usually through revenue growth or expense reduction, but also sometimes in terms of market share or cash flow.  A goal is more often than not a financial measure, should be your measure of what success looks like, and it should be S.M.A.R.T.  (Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, Time-bound).  Often, multiple goals are established to reflect the various ways a business can succeed. For example, let’s say you operate a chain of grocery stores.  The following could be goals for you to achieve:

• Grow meat department sales by 20% by Fiscal Year End 2011;
• Increase average purchase value from $75.00 to $85.00 by Fiscal Year End 2011;
• Increase the purchase frequency of shoppers from every 10 days to every 8 days by Fiscal Year End 2011.

I’ve previously written about how you can frame your thinking around ways to grow revenue. Strategies are statements of how you will achieve your goals. They are high level ideas, usually long term in nature, that set the direction and scope of a business to achieve its goals. In military language, “divide and conquer” is a strategy that is likely to be in place over the course of a military campaign. “Paratroopers secure the airport” is a tactic that is likely to happen once as part of the way a force divides and conquers. Great marketing strategies are focused on delivering benefits or in meeting the needs of its customers, and are often based upon information, research, trends, and insights generated through the analysis of markets, customers, non-customers and competitors. How are you going to get your target customer to spend money with you?  What benefits are you going to deliver to them? Just saying that you will use social media or inbound marketing isn't going to be a sufficient reason for you to persuade and succeed. Philip Kotler from Kellogg Business School has recently said that the role of marketing is to C.C.D.V.T.P (Create, communicate and deliver value to a target market at a profit).   Creating value for a target market requires you to understand what the target market values, so in essence, a strategy is a connection between your goals and delivering a value, or a value proposition, to a customer.  A value proposition is defined as “a powerful emotion evoking statement that validates a customer’s unmet need and instills confidence that this unmet need till be totally satisfied (by you and your company).” I always advocate that businesses craft strategy statements using following the formula as it connects a goal to a value delivered to a target: Returning to our grocery chain example, the following could be strategies to achieve one of the previously stated goals:

• Grow meat department sales by creating smaller package sizes to meet the weekly cooking needs of single (unmarried) shoppers [who frequently eat at restaurants]; or
• Grow meat department sales by creating a line of ready-to-cook entrees to address the time constraints of busy moms; or
• Grow meat department sales by offering butchering classes to educate “foodie” customers on unusually found cuts of meat;

Presumably these strategies would have evolved from a deep understanding of various buyer personas, but the point is that now you have some overarching themes around which to build your marketing tactics and this is where your marketing creativity can begin to flourish, where you can start dedicating resources to developing online content around these strategies and themes, and gain the benefits of social media such as establishing authority, credibility and trust. So then what are tactics? Simply stated, a tactic is an action you take to execute a strategy. Examples are TV advertising, newspaper advertising, retail promotions, a website page, a banner ad campaign, a sampling program, etc.  Without the context of a strategy, in and of themselves they lack meaning as to how they will benefit your business. Getting back to our grocery store example, some tactical ways you could support the strategy to grow meat department sales by creating smaller package sizes to meet the weekly cooking needs of single (unmarried) shoppers could be:

• Advertise in weekly advertising circular;
• Put up shelf talkers or signs in the meat department;
• Run a retail promotion;
• Publish a single serve recipe book;
• Sponsor a speed dating event;
• Run a co-promotion with a brand of wine;
• Create an email newsletter;
• Create online content around the shopping and lifestyle needs of the single customer;

I want to highlight this last idea because I believe it brings me full circle to the point about social media not being a strategy, but it does highlight how social media or inbound marketing could be used to deliver a compelling series of messages to a strategically identified customer segment around a well-researched need. Without the context around who you are talking to, what needs, wants, dreams and desires they have, and how you can address those needs, wants, dreams and desires, social media will be underutilized by you and your business and the limited resources you dedicate to it will likely fail to help you achieve the business goals that will sustain you. As Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman say in their book “Content Rules:

That’s precisely the point of creating killer content – to convert browsers into buyers and customers into regulars or (better yet) rabid fans, ambassadors, and advocates. You do that by deepening your relationship with them, over time, by repeatedly and consistently creating content that they care about and want to share freely with their friends or colleagues, and by encouraging them to engage with you and to sign up for things you publish, (like an email newsletter or a webinar) or to download a whitepaper or ebook.

In order to use social media and inbound marketing to accomplish this, you need to start with customer-centric strategies.

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.  Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." ~Sun Tzu Social media is a strategy no more than a telephone is a strategy. Social media facilitates conversation: between you and your customers, you and your prospects, you and your competitors, even you and your employees and you and me.  But conversations don’t pay your rent, don’t pay your employee salaries, don’t pay for your marketing expenses, and don’t make your cash register go Ka-Ching! I’ve been wanting to write about this subject for months, but I always filter myself and suffer from comparison to what I’ve read other smarter, more well established experts write on the subject.  So rather than try to say something different, I’ve decided to compile some of my favorite words of wisdom from others on the subject. Paul Isakson, Founding Partner at Thinkers & Makers, LLC  @paulisakson Jeremiah Owyang, Partner of Customer Strategy at Altimeter Group  @jowyang Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs @chrisbrogan Mike Volpe, VP Marketing Hubspot  @MVOLPE Brian Solis, founder & principal of FutureWorks  @briansolis Adam Broitman, Partner and Ringleader at Circ.us    @adambroitman From Find the Risk vs Reward Balance in Social Media, Gerardo A. Dada & Greg Stahovec

What are you doing to convert your fans and followers into customers?

If you need help integrating your social media efforts into a strategic plan, schedule a FREE 30 minute consultation with me.

“Eighty percent of success is showing up.” ~ Woody Allen Let’s say you own a café in San Francisco.  What if a prospect showed up at your store and neither you nor your staff was there to greet her, wasn’t there to let her sample your seasonal products such as a peppermint mocha or eggnog muffin, wasn’t there to entice her with 30 minutes of tranquility over a cup of tea and a new magazine?  This prospect showed a specific interest in what you have to sell by showing up at your door and yet you weren’t around to learn of the opportunity let alone capitalize upon it. Now what if that same prospect jumped online and entered the search term ‘San Francisco Chestnut Street Café’ because she planned to do some holiday shopping in the Marina District?  Or even more tellingly, was on Chestnut Street using her mobile phone to search for a nearby café?  Are you showing up in this case? If you haven't claimed your business listing at Google Places, you may not be showing up for the online prospect. Not only are shoppers looking online for where to shop with increasing frequency, but the 800 pound  gorilla in the search world, Google, with its estimated 83% search engine market share has recently made a number of changes to its search results and display (called SERP for search engine results page) by announcing Google Place Search which in many cases places a greater emphasis than before on returning local search results. In order to take advantage of these changes, you need to claim your business listing at Google Places.  For now, this is a great opportunity for locally owned retailers to improve their chances of attracting prospects by being found within relevant search terms and business category descriptions. If you have not yet claimed your Google Places business listing, or if you have but have not tricked it out yet, let’s look at some data to understand why it’s important to do so. Prospects are looking for your services online A recent study about online search behavior sheds compelling data on how most of your prospects are looking for your store’s services. Local Search Usage Study: Bridging The Caps, From Search to Sales was published in September, 2010 and it “attempts to understand how consumers use and value search engines, print and Internet Yellow Pages, local-search sites, emerging media and more.” According to this study, “the majority of local-business searches are conducted online, with 70 percent of consumers citing online sites as their primary sources.  That is up seven percentage points from 2009.”  Furthermore, “search engines comprise more than 60 percent of the online-search market share.” If 70% of consumers are looking for you online, and the majority of these people are using search engines to do so, then it’s critical that you make sure you can be found on Google. Google has made changes to its search results that place greater importance on local listings Google claims that 20% of all searches are for a local business.  Additionally, with the rapid growth of smart mobile phones, some estimate that as many as 20% of all online searches will be from a mobile phone by 2012.  Google is setting itself up to capitalize on this growth.  As a result, it’s launched Google Places search.   Google states: “Place Search results will begin appearing automatically on Google when we predict you’re looking for local information.”  What happens with its results after it shifts into Places search? Some of the key changes in the results pages are now:

• Local results now fill the page and are highlighted and more obvious than general organic search results
• Results for business include links to both reviews and to the business’ Google Places page
• Results for businesses include photos and in some cases, snippets of your customer reviews
• There are a lot more links to click on within each listing to allow for comparison shopping
• A clickable local area map with more shopping options appears to the right of these results
• Paid ads on the top of the page (which some speculate are Google Boost ads) are more prominent than before

With the addition of links to reviews, inclusion of partial reviews and of photos, and to some degree the enhanced placement of paid Boost ads at the top of the page, it appears as if not only has Google made it a prerequisite for you to claim your Places page, but it has created a potentially more competitive landscape in attracting attention from your prospects.   After all, Google wants to deliver the most relevant and helpful information and links to consumers. And I suspect that just as was the case with the differences between organic and paid search, local businesses will have the opportunity to improve its search results through organic methods or through paid methods. After claiming your listing, the next obvious opportunity is to improve your listing in ways that can separate you from the competition.  Whether this is by buying a Boost ad or adding better pictures or adding video to your listing or adding Google Tags to your listing or working to improve your customer reviews. Go claim your listing now.  This simple, free act may provide you with more positive results than anything else you do today.

“Work is love made visible.” ~Kahil Gibran Increasingly, mission-inspired businesses are being created by entrepreneurs who see business as an effective way of creating positive social change.  Samovar Tea Lounge, based here in San Francisco, appears to be one of these companies. With a clearly articulated and extremely audacious mission and values statement that claims:

At Samovar, we are in the business of true, deep, positive human connection, aka Love. ..Tea, food, teaware, snacks, sweets, and treats are all just vehicles for connecting us, first to ourselves, and then to those around us.

the company has created a powerful unique selling proposition, that when combined with hard work, product innovation and a shared belief system among its employees and customers sets the foundation for the elements required to create a differentiated, successful and growing retail business. The photo above is from an email newsletter from Samovar.  Instead of the traditional promotional offers, coupons, recipe ideas or free shipping announcements found in most retailer email newsletters, Samovar used the majority of the email to share 6 beliefs that were generated as a result of an employee meeting.  The first belief states:

To live life to the fullest means making the biggest impact we can, with our limited time here on earth.  Creating a momentous impact starts with Love.  First for ourselves, and then for others.  Let it flow.

Before you react that this must be some kind of church run operation or surely just an eclectic group of twenty first century hippies on the fringe of business success, note that Samovar’s founder Jesse Jacobs opened his first store in 2001, and has opened new stores in 2006 and in 2009.  Inc. magazine reported that it has increased revenue from $700,000 in 2005 to $2.3 million in 2008 and had a 230% growth rate.  The company’s customer reviews at Yelp are strong  and it’s seemingly not only innovating products but also in marketing by generating a wide variety of content in the forms of email newsletters, educational podcasts on ITunes and video tea tips.  It even hosted a recent live streaming webinar of Tea & Wine Pairings with Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library, and Kevin Rose of Digg.com. It’s clear that there are many companies that aim to use their businesses to create positive social change. Many do so by helping charitable organizations with dollars or volunteer hours.  Some do it by attempting to reduce its environmental impact by reusing boxes to ship e-commerce orders.  But in this case it’s not so much the specific initiatives the company takes, but rather how bold it is to clearly state that it’s in the business of love and that its primary operation is merely a way to facilitate human connections. If creating and building an enduring brand is about creating an emotional connection with its customers, and if the savviest marketers understand that successful products (and companies) appeal to the heart, not the mind then what stronger way to accomplish that than through love? I can tell you why love doesn’t make it into strategy discussions more often.  It’s because “the word love freaks out businesspeople.” Fortunately there are business leaders such as Mark Sanborn, who recently published a manifesto at changethis.com titled “The Four-Letter Word That Makes Your Work Irresistible,” and who in it provides a framework for how to think about and apply the concept of love to the business world.  And there is Isabel Parlett who teaches entrepreneurs to dig deeper than the Language of Information with its descriptions of mere features and benefits in order to develop a Language of Connection to articulate and integrate “the biggest, deepest message” owners are here to share. It’s got to be hard work and to some degree a leap of faith to say you’re in the business of creating love through deep, heartfelt connections instead of just selling a product or service.

But if you could do it, how many of your competitors could compete effectively against a company of love?

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” ~George Bernard Shaw et's Be Frank is a relatively new retail store in San Francisco's Marina district.  In an increasingly competitive retail hot dog environment in San Francisco, Let's Be Frank differentiates itself from the pack by selling grass-fed beef hot dogs and ingredients from locally produced suppliers, from vegetables to buns to ice cream sandwiches sold as dessert.  And like many forward thinking retailers, it's already established a social media marketing presence with a Twitter profile and a Facebook fan page. Let's Be Frank recently created a promotion to achieve a goal of reaching 1,000 Twitter followers with an announced prize of 2 free 3-day passes to the Outside Lands Music Festival at Golden Gate Park on August 28-30 which has a value of $450. Unfortunately, as of yet, the business has failed to achieve it's goals, and quite frankly, looks in danger of not doing so by the time the festival occurs as it has added only about 100 followers since the promo was announced on August 14. The great thing is, that Let's Be Frank has created a promotion that has significant value.  The bad thing is that it's execution is not accomplishing its objectives. If I were in charge of running the promotion, here are some additional tactics I would use to accelerate the acquisition of Twitter followers.  Almost all of these ideas extend the messaging to additional media at a very low financial cost.  They merely take some planning and some time & effort.

1. Give good content: To date, most of the tweets and Facebook posts have been very narrow in scope, falling into approximately three content buckets: a) product descriptions; b) "help us to 1000 flwrs;" and c) "Twofer Tuesday" promos.  Why not also provide much more of the wonderful story-telling that makes this company different from the other dozen or more hot dog retailers in San Francisco?  I'd start by reposting the great content found at the bottom of its homepage which includes stories about the farms it buys from, press  coverage and video features, and then work to develop additional stories about its founders, its employees, its customers and any and everything that make this company unique.  Favorable customer reviews and tweets are also good ideas.  These are all of the assets that make this company different and worth following, and as a person who is passionate about local and sustainable foods, I KNOW there is a ton of material to share;
2. Follow new people: One of the most simple tactics to increase your Twitter following is to start following others.  So far, Let's Be Frank is following only 68 friends and has added only about 30 since the promotion started.  Social media marketing works best when there is an open dialogue with your customers (for good and for bad).  Let's Be Frank could increase its relationship building by asking its 368 Facebook fans to share their Twitter handles.  Then it could seek out new followers by following people who live within 5 miles of its zipcode.  To accomplish this, it could use any of the many services that help you identify Twitter users within a geographic area such as Twellohood, LocalTweeps, or TwitterLocal (this article identifies 9 potential services to use);
3. Send a press release to SF food blogs about the promotion:  Grub Street San Francisco, Eater SF, Bay Area Bites, and SFoodie are all blogs that report on the San Francisco Bay Area food scene.  Even with the demise of printed newspapers, bloggers still have the same needs as news reporters, and that is to find newsworthy stories to publish.  A press release is the way you can help them do their jobs with greater ease and thereby increase the odds that you will be mentioned;
4. Put a huge ad about the promotion on its website:  If you have news to share, why wouldn't you share it on your homepage? Not only is it a way to keep your site content fresh and to give your visitors something to look forward to, but it's another missed opportunity to communicate your offer in a channel that you control.  Check out how Peet's Coffee is currently promoting its latest limited availability product offering;
5. Add its web url to its Facebook fan page: [this is the .5 idea] Let's Be Frank could facilitate visiting the corporate website by adding a link within its Facebook fan page, as it does in its Twitter profile.  This could be a little more important than normal, given that its Twitter name is @letsbefranksf and its home page is www.letsbefrankdogs.com (not exacly the same);
6. Send out an email newsletter announcing the promotion: When I first visited the Let's Be Frank website, I signed up to receive its newsletter.  To date, I've not received one.  An opt-in email list can be one of the greatest assets a retailer owns, if only it uses it wisely and to communicate its authentic story, news and increase value propositions (such as a chance to win $450 in concert tickets);
7. Pass out a slip of paper to every retail customer announcing the promotion:  I ate at the store yesterday, and while the store does have a whiteboard that said "follow us on twitter," I was never informed of the promotion or chance to win $450 in concert tickets either verbally, or in any active way.  Handing a simple sheet of paper (also called a bag stuffer) announcing the promotion with my change could help spread the word among walk-in customers;
8. Have a easel backed display near the cash register announcing the promotion:  A counter sign, usually placed near the cash register, can also draw in the attention of walk in customers;
9. Partner with the Outside Lands Facebook Fan page to announce the promotion:  I don't know whether this is feasible, but the festival has a Facebook fan page as well, with 13,654 fans!.  A request to share the promotion on the site could easily be accomplished with a quick email, or a guerrilla campaign where Let's Be Frank posts a note to the Outside Lands fan page without permission could expose thousands of interested people to a way it could potentially receive free tickets to the event.

With just some more planning, a few more hours of work and the foresight to create an integrated campaign across media, I believe that Let's Be Frank could have hit a home run with this promotion and easily achieved its goal of reaching 1,000 Twitter followers before August 28. In the meantime, I'm going to go do my part to increase my chances of winning by retweeting "help us to 1000 flwrs @letsbefranksf! Once there, we'll pick a random flwr for 2, 3-DAY PASSES to OUTSIDE LANDS-$450 value! Hurry!" What other tactics would you recommend to help Let's Be Frank achieve it's Twitter follower goals?

"All progress occurs because people dare to be different.” ~Harry Millner I bet that a dentist who created a themed environment in his or her office, one that gave its customers a greater semblance of comfort or familiarity, would do a lot better than your me-too, copy cat dentist who promotes the same benefits as other dentists (e.g., a beautiful smile, convenience, personalized attention and a comfortable experience).  The theme would tap into the passions of like-minded clients and offer them enough attraction (and distraction) to help alleviate any of the commonly held fears that visiting a dentist creates in the minds of clients. It could be a rock-and-roll theme (the Hard Rock Cafe of dentists?);  it could be a sports theme (the Sports Clips of dentists?); it could be a comedy theme (the icanhazcheezburger of dentists?);  it could be a garden theme, or a movie theme (select the video of your choice).  The point being is that if  "5-8% of Americans avoid the dentist out of fear," and as many as "20% experience enough anxiety that they will go to the dentist only when absolutely necessary,"  a dentist who created an office theme where its customers were in an environment of their choosing and that gave them a greater sense of control and of comfort, THAT, I bet, would create customer loyalty and word-of-mouth referrals. two dentists located 2 blocks apart – how would you choose? Unfortunately, most dentists make it virtually impossible for prospective clients to differentiate between their options, and I'd go so far as to suggest that they are competing on so-called benefits that are either not believable or important.  Aside from visiting a dentist for a teeth whitening treatment, do people really expect to improve a smile, or rather are they trying to minimize the risk of future pain and suffering (or in case of an emergency, alleviate current pain and suffering)? Convenience?  Even with a dentist who offers the rare weekend or evening appointments, my experience has been that you need to book months in advance to secure one of those coveted times. Personalized attention?  As opposed to what?  Working on somebody else's teeth?  A comfortable experience?  Prove it! and a big chair isn't proof enough. When I first moved to San Francisco, a co-worker recommended a dentist who she called the Rock-and-Roll dentist.  Leon Feldbrill adorned his walls with posters from concerts at the famous Fillmore Auditorium, he had an extensive collection of rock industry magazines in the waiting room, he played concert videos on TVs within eye sight of the patients, he advertised on the most popular rock radio station in town, and if asked, he was always willing to talk about concerts and bands that he liked.  He could have easily extended the idea to give away concert tickets to his clients, or if social media marketing were around back then, create a radio station to share at blip.fm. He was a truly memorable dentist that created a differentiated dental environment. Unfortunately, Dr. Feldbrill sold his practice about 8 years ago.  I don't remember the name of the dentist who bought it, but he has since sold to another dentist who has owned the practice for the last 3 years.  I don't remember his name either.  Both of the subsequent owners bought some equipment and a list of customer names, but haven't done anything of note that would lead me to recommend the practice to a friend or neighbor. But if I could find a dentist who displayed sports memorabilia and let me watch Sports Center on ESPN, or who created a fantasy sports league among his or her clients, or who let me play sports trivia on a television while working on me,  now that sounds like a dentist I might get excited about.

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” ~G.K. Chesterton Once again, at least a half dozen retailers that I visited yesterday passed up the opportunity to completely surprise and delight me by offering me a discount, or even free item as a reward for my voting in a special California election yesterday. In California, after exercising my voting rights, I’m always given the above sticker to wear as an expression of my civic pride, and I almost always wear it on my shirt the rest of the day.  Had I walked into a retail store wearing this sticker, and been told “may I give you a complimentary cup of coffee for voting today (or free slice of pizza, or $2 off any purchase)” not only would I have been surprised and delighted and probably mentioned this act to a friend or two, but I would have begun to think that this company, this brand, cared about my activities in some real life and positive way. How is your business and brand demonstrating to your customers that you care about them more than just how often and how much they hand you money?  Caring is a powerful connecting attribute that you should consider showing far more often.  And it's pretty easy to do.