Seeds of Growth - Be Contagious

Buzz is Better than Ads

Dave Free — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 15:35:58 -0700

Great article in BusinessWeek about Chipotle's success without traditional advertising. If you've never been to one, Chipotle's is a burrito place. They used to be owned by McDonald's but got spun out and went public in 2006. Since then their share price has tripled. They've experienced double-digit growth for nine straight years! Here is the kicker: they don't do traditional advertising.

Actually, they do a little traditional advertising. Some billboards (see image with this post) and radio, but they spend less than 1% of their revenue on advertising compared with 4% or more for McDonald's and Taco Bell.

According to Steven Ellis, the Chipotle founder and CEO, "Advertising is not believable." When he opened his first store in Denver he had no money for advertising so he decided to let his burritos do the talking and started giving them away free. They recently opened a location in midtown Manhattan and gave away 6,000 burritos. People stood in line for two hours. It cost $35,000 (about the cost of an ad in The New York Times) and they got 6,000 promoters plus a mention in BusinessWeek out of it. Not bad.

What are you doing to get your customers talking?

Find your happy customers and put a megaphone in their hand. Learn more

Self-Multiplying Customers!

Dave Free — Mon, 04 Dec 2006 15:53:01 -0700

I received a newsletter today from the folks at Nova Mind. Nova Mind makes a great mindmapping application that I use quite a bit. They also have a project management package for the Mac that looks good. I have yet to give it a try. Anyway, one of the lines in their newsletter caught my attention:

We often find that there is a single license sold in a particular place, and then within a couple of weeks there is a huge cluster of licenses sold within that same area, and we would like to thank all of you who think of your friends and associates now and recommend NovaMind to them.

What a beautiful thing! Isn't that what we all want? Self-multiplying customers! Nova Mind has some great products. They work well and have a significant impact on your productivity. It is hard not to talk about them (ask Joe and Dan how many mindmaps they have seen from me).

As we all know, in today's chaotic marketplace new customers are hard to get. Once you get them, it makes a whole lot of sense to not only keep them, but keep them so happy they multiply.

Need some help? See our sponsor Promoterz

You work hard to make sure your customers are happy. Don't waste happy customers. How easy is it for your customers to share with their friends? Learn more

2,998...2,999...3,000! Sleep at last!

Dave Free — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 11:59:14 -0700

Business Week's question of the week this week asks with ads everywhere "is advertising today creative--or creepy? How far should Mad Ave go?" I found the 3 responses they included interesting:

Joe Gardner, features and business affairs editor at The Onion, notes that if people "don't read all blogs with a discerning eye, they deserve any deception that's heaped upon them."

Kalle Lasn, co-founder of Ad Busters magazine, responds that "3,000 marketing messages a day seep into the average North American brain. That level of advertising is stressing us out."

And Ted Murphy, CEO of PayPerPost.com says that younger generation knows that to get free content they have to put up with product placement. In his estimation "it's a trade off they're willing to make."

As business owners, the real question for all of us is in this kind of environment is how do we effectively let those that would be interested in our product or service know we exist? There are probably many answers to that question, but near the top of the list has to be our customers. Those who have used our product or service should become our greatest and most powerful advocates in spreading the word.

Disclaimer: in an effort to help you avoid any deception being heaped upon you, this blog is sponsored by Promoterz, a great tool to help business owners turn their customers into advocates.

More happy customers. More repeat sales. More referrals. Learn more

76% Think You Are a Liar

Dave Free — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 17:13:45 -0700

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association has some great statistics and presentations available on their site. The title for this post comes from the finding that 76% of consumers think that businesses don't tell the truth in advertising. That fact and other nuggets can be found in this presentation.

The obvious follow on question becomes, who do consumers trust? The answer is also obvious: each other. From the same presentation 92% cite word of mouth as the best source for new product ideas, up from 67% in 1977. The fact is that as the marketplace clutter continues to build, word of mouth becomes more and more of a necessity to grow a business.

I posted a few weeks ago about the Hawthorne Effect and the role it can play in helping to develop advocates or promoters for your business. Dr. Paul Marsden of the London School of Economics, has written extensively about the Hawthorne effect and how Consumer Advisory Panels can be a tool to harness the power of the Hawthorne Effect to increase word of mouth.

We like the way Paul thinks and decided to do some testing of our own to see what business owners think of Consumer Advisory Panels, the Hawthorne Effect, and our system Promoterz, which can be used to setup and manage online consumer advisory panels. If you are a business owner and would be willing to take a few minutes to share your thoughts with us, we'd love to know what you think. Click here. You'll be asked to watch a brief video and answer five quick questions.

Promoterz is the hands-free, word-of-mouth marketing service that takes care of the details so you can focus on business. Learn more

The Pumpkin That Sold Me a House

Dave Free — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 10:30:33 -0600

This morning I found this pumpkin on my doorstep--again. The Coen's are the realtors that helped us buy our home nearly three years ago. Every year at this time we get a pumpkin and an invitation to their Christmas party. They did the same for my brother. In fact, when I was preparing to move to Mesa and asked Joe if he knew any realtors, he said "Oh yeah, we just got our pumpkin from the Coen's. Here is their number."

Just a gimmick? For some it could be, but we've been to the Coen's party. We didn't feel like customers. We were friends. My point is the pumpkin is a nice way to get attention (and there are countless other ways to get attention) but if you don't back it up with a genuine relationship it will be nothing but a gimmick.

Looking for a house in the Phoenix area? Contact the Coen's.

(Looking for a remarkable real estate web solution?)

Unhappy customers tell on average 22 other people. If you ticket price is $50 that is $1100 in revenue. How would you like to know before they tell 22 others? Learn more

Your own personal pollster

Joe Free — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 16:31:45 -0600

At this time of year in the United States there is a massive amount of marketing going on. Political marketing. Email in-boxes and physical mail boxes alike are stuffed with glossy literature spinning their own story.

My wife saves all of the mailings in a big pile. Then we take the time to go through them, sort them out and try to decide who to believe. We invariably call a couple of people more involved, that we trust, to tell us how they are going to vote. We put it all together and then head off to the polls.

Recent years have been even more difficult as the number of propositions has grown. You want to make the right decisions on those, but often don't have any reliable information.

There are all kinds of polls out there, except a personal poll of people I trust. It occurred to us we could make a tool people could use to find, assemble and view the opinions of their friends.

So we made just such a tool, we call it Pollstir and it is free for anyone to use. Think of it as your own personal pollster and our little gift to a great country.

Here is how it works. You pick a ballot for your state and invite friends to "vote" and leave comments as well. You view their responses with interactive charts. Clicking on the charts will display the "reasons" behind the votes.

You can also enter PollstirIDs of others to include in your "mixins". So if you want the opinions of candidates, columnists, talk-show hosts, and celebrities you could just type in their PollstirID.

Our hope is that our little tool will help all voters, regardless of party, become more informed and therefore better voters. Just as your customer's comments about your business help their friends to "vote" on visiting your business.

Customers who feel that you are listening to them are more likely to recommend you to a friend. How do your customers know that you are listening? Learn more

Wanna Listen to a Good Story?

Dave Free — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 14:44:50 -0600

We dipped our big toe into the brave new world of "podcasting" this week. For those that don't know exactly what podcasting is, Wikipedia defines it as:

Podcasting is the method of distributing multimedia files, such as audio or video programs, over the Internet using syndication feeds, for playback on mobile devices and personal computers. The term gained wide popularity as a portmanteau of iPod and broadcasting, but was seen before that as an acronym for "portable on demand".

So there you have it. A podcast is an audio file that you can listen to on your iPod (or other MP3 player) or your computer. Most podcasts are serial in nature. So once you sign up, you get a new episode every week or day or whatever the time period defined is.

Benefits of podcasting? From a marketing perspective, they are one more way to create a more personal connection with your audience and tell a story that you just can't do any other way. Think of it as getting the opportunity to sit down personally with each prospective customer and tell them personally why your product is so great. It is also a great way to establish the fact that you are an "expert" in your industry. From the listener's perspective, podcasts offer convenience. Podcasts can be downloaded at the office or at home and listened to while commuting, exercising, or doing any other activity.

How popular are podcasts? Depends on who you ask. According to this CNET article, some researchers are predicting that the U.S. podcast audience will climb from 840,000 last year to 56 million by 2010.

Not wanting 56 million potential customers to live their lives in ignorance of Promoterz, Joe, Dan and I gathered around one of our computers last week and recorded our story. Why the picture of the 3 Stooges with this post? Well, you see there were three of us...

Listen now.

Promoterz is the hands-free, word-of-mouth marketing service that takes care of the details so you can focus on business. Learn more

Hey, look what I discovered: Animal Style!

Dave Free — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 14:02:41 -0600

Did a little substitute teaching this morning at a local high school ( Go Toros! ) Think you are a good presenter? Go volunteer at your local high school. If they're not interested, they don't even pretend to be.

As part of the lesson I played a game with the kids. I made some motions with a stick, tapped it on the ground a few times and asked the kids to guess the word I was thinking. Of course, none of them could (the word was hat). I then gave one student in the class the "decoding ring" to make sense of my stick motions and senseless babbling and sent her out of the room while the rest of the class picked a new word. The student with the secret was now easily able to "guess" the word. The really interesting thing that occured was that after a few rounds other students began to figure out the code. Their reaction was always the same, they shouted "Oh I got it!" and immediately wanted to tell the world. The first student that was given the code never had the same reaction.

Here is the principle (based on purely non-scientific data): people are more excited to share that which they "discover." In fact, you have to work hard to keep them from sharing. It was all I could do to get the "discoverers" to sit still and keep it secret. After all, what fun is discovering something if you have no one to share it with?

Do you let your customers discover anything?

What? Are you saying I shouldn't shout everything I have to offer to my potential customers?

Exactly. In-N-Out Burger is a master of this. They have an entire "secret menu" that you cannot find anywhere in any In-N-Out store nor on their website , but it is part of their process. The items are in their point of sale system and print out on the receipt.

What good is a secret menu? Have any third parties ever created web pages dedicated to your menu? You can read about In-N-Out's here , here , and here and several hundred other places. Oh, and you can download a pdf version of it (complete with pictures) here. Ever met somebody that loves In-N-Out? They've got the secret menu memorized and will describe every option for you. They've discovered something and can't wait to share.

So, what are your customers going to discover today?

If you are not regularly staying in touch with your customers someone else will. How do you stay in touch? Learn more

Great Coffee--and I don't even drink the stuff!

Dave Free — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 15:35:29 -0600

So this morning I was scheduled to give a presentation on how to create word-of-mouth using Promoterz to new Entrees Made Easy franchise owners. While the participants were on break and I was getting my laptop set up a discussion about coffee got started. I think it started with a person asking if there was more coffee. There was. She wanted hers dark. Another person overheard and said, "Oh, you've got to try my coffee!"

"Your coffee?"

"Yeah, it's just down the street. The guy is a chemist and has traveled the world to find the best beans. You know how there is a burnt after-taste with some roasted coffee?"

Everyone nods in unison. By now there were seven people listening intently (yes, I counted them.) I was listening too, and I don't even drink coffee.

"Well this guy figured out a way to roast it so that it has no after taste."

"Oh, where is this place? We're going there tomorrow."

What a perfect lead in to a presentation about the power of word of mouth! Notice how the happy customer started the conversation by referring to it as "my coffee." There is a customer that feels like she is a part of something great and is not only willing, but excited to share.

You can't buy better advertising. Are your customers that excited about your business?

Full disclosure: I'm not being paid to write this and I wouldn't know what a good cup of coffee tastes like. But, here are the details: It is called The Village Coffee Roastery and is located in Scottsdale, AZ. Here is a review from a local paper and here is their website . Looks like you can order online! Tell them Lisa sent you...

Promoterz is the hands-free, word-of-mouth marketing service that takes care of the details so you can focus on business. Learn more

Promoterz Gets Some Word of Mouth

Dave Free — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 10:28:10 -0600

A couple of great blogs highlighted Promoterz this week (and yes, we thought they were great before they mentioned us--now we think they are even greater).

Steve Rucinski at Small Business CEO , picked up on the Promoterz multiplying effect that enables a business owner to develop relationships with a lot more customers than they could on their own. You can read it here . Steve's blog does a great job of providing resources and knowledge to help the Small Business CEO.

Organizations that want to increase sales and visibility by creating buzz and word of mouth use Buzzoodle Buzz Marketing . Buzzoodle helps them energize and focus their advocates while measuring and improving upon the buzz created. Ron McDaniel, also known as Buzzoodle Ron, is the force behind Buzzoodle and has a blog dedicated to better understanding buzz and word of mouth. Here is Ron's post about Promoterz.

Do you remember your customers on their birthday? On their anniversary? Do you give special notice to recently acquired customers? Promoterz does. Learn more

Is Your Marketing Self-Perpetuating?

Dave Free — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:59:05 -0600

As I've thought more about guerilla advertising and how it differs from quality customer engagement that turns customers into promoters, it occurs to me that the key difference is self-perpetuation, or the lack thereof.

The goal of both efforts is to get people talking to their friends or colleagues about your business--to create buzz. But guerilla advertising is based on a staged event or gimmick that may not even be related to the business. Yes, it creates buzz, but that buzz will wear off and then all you are left with is the headache of trying to come up with the next gimmick.

Turning your customers into promoters through quality customer engagement is different. It may not get as big of an initial buzz, but it grows naturally and is self-perpetuating. People end up talking not about your gimmick, but about how remarkable your product or service is. They plant seeds in the minds of their friends that produce additional seeds as those friends give your business a try and spread the seeds to their friends and so on and so on and so on.

Self-perpetuating word of mouth--start planting the seeds.

Find your happy customers and put a megaphone in their hand. Learn more

Guerrilla Advertising is Not the Answer

Dave Free — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 17:17:04 -0600

Reena Jana of Business Week writes about Guerilla advertising-- a "catch-all phrase for nontraditional advertising campaigns that take the form of theatrically staged public scenes or events, often carried out without city permits or advance public hype"--and notes that as more and more companies attempt them, the effectiveness of the ads may be decreasing.

Just more evidence of the chaotic marketplace in which we live and consumers' increasing ability to ignore all types of advertising. Adam Salacuse, CEO of a Boston ad agency gets it right:

The focus needs to be on quality of consumer engagement.

The best way to cut through the chaos is to take care of your customers and turn them into promoters.

Do you remember your customers on their birthday? On their anniversary? Do you give special notice to recently acquired customers? Promoterz does. Learn more

The Power of the Talking Bubble

Dave Free — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 15:29:41 -0600

Remember the talking bubble from the cartoons? It occurs to me that there is a lot of power in that bubble. In fact, the whole intent of word-of-mouth efforts is to get your business in your customer's bubble.

How much money do we as business owners spend getting our ads up in lights, in a magazine, on TV, or online? Fact is, consumers are more jaded than ever and better at ignoring all that expensive advertising.

The real power is not up on the billboards or on the airwaves. The real power is in the bubble.

Do you remember your customers on their birthday? On their anniversary? Do you give special notice to recently acquired customers? Promoterz does. Learn more

Carnival of Business - #14

Dan Crites — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 09:07:24 -0600

Welcome to the July 24, 2006 edition of carnival of business. Come on in! This edition has got something for everybody! Before we jump into the submissions, we're going to drop by the games booth and announce the winner of 12 free months of PromoterZ. Drum roll please!

And the winner is James Chandler, owner of Data Doctors in Salt Lake City. Congratulations James! For the rest of you, don't give up hope. We'll be hosting the Carnival of Marketing on August 6th and 13th and giving away more prizes. Enter here. Now on to the submissions.

Like any Carnival or State Fair worth it's peanuts, we've got a little something for everybody. From baseball, to employee fraud, to why it is important to have fun, we've got it all.

Benjamin Yoskovitz starts us off with some good reminders for keeping our ever-present to-do lists focused. Get Organized and More Productive! No More Bloated To-Do Lists.

Amy Rogers follows that up with the first item to put on our to-do list: when is the right time to hire? New Hire Gut Check.

David Lorenzo then presents Common Workplace Woes and Their Solutions. Which is sure to put a few more items on that to-do list.

Though we'd all like to believe it would never happen to us, Tracy L. Coenen, reminds us that employee theft happens and provides some good counsel for detecting it (don't worry, the fun stuff is coming!) How to catch employees stealing.

Jeannie Bauer then restores our hope with some great pointers on being better leaders: The Magic of a Great Business Leader.

Tim King follows Jeannie with some great questions to ask yourself about your market. Before Your Idea Can Take Off.

David Maister then lays out the role technology and IT should play in your drive to improvement with The High Priest's Catechism.

Can't talk about technology without 2.0 coming up. Daniel Scocco cuts through some of the 2.0 buzz and lays out in clear terms what it means for your marketing. Marketing Under the Information Age - Top 5 Trends .

Greg Swann sticks with the 2.0 theme but focuses specifically on what that means for realtors. Great stuff here for any professional. Apprehending Realtor 2.0: Seven essential skills of the 21st century real estate agent... .

Baseball, finally! David Daniels uses the New York Yankees as a great example of an organization that has created an upward spiral. Creating an Upward Spiral .

Marcus Markou then reminds that Happy People Are The Key .

And last, but not least Kathy Sierra gives us a solid business case for having fun with Usability through fun. Need more proof? Check out Playing For Water.

Well that's it folks! Thanks for joining us for this edition of the carnival of business. Don't forget to enter to win at the Carnival of Marketing--here on Seeds on August 6th.

You can submit your blog article to the next edition of Carnival of Business using the carnival submission form.

Past posts and future hosts can be found on the blog carnival index page.

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carnival of business, blog carnival.

Blog Carnival index: Carnival of Business - #14

from Blog Carnival on Wed, 07/26/2006 - 7:51pm

CARNIVAL OF BUSINESS is now up at Seeds of Growth!

Customers who feel that you are listening to them are more likely to recommend you to a friend. How do your customers know that you are listening? Learn more

Consumer A.D.D. -- Is There a Cure?

Dave Free — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 19:00:02 -0600

After describing modern consumers and their desire to watch or read what they want, when they want, the current issue of Business Week concludes:

The result: a serious case of attention deficit for every business that depends on traditional mass media to reach customers.

So the question is, what is the cure? Here is an additional question that I think leads to the answer: if consumers aren't paying attention to traditional advertising, who are they paying attention to?

The answer: their friends, their colleagues, their neighbor, their obnoxious brother-in-law--frankly, anybody but an advertiser. So what is the solution for a business? Turn your customers into promoters. Your customers are somebody's friend, colleague, neighbor and yes, even obnoxious brother-in-law. Make your customers so happy they can't wait to tell somebody--that is the cure.

Your success will be determined more by what your customers say about your business than what you say about it--no matter how much you pay to say it!

Unhappy customers tell on average 22 other people. If you ticket price is $50 that is $1100 in revenue. How would you like to know before they tell 22 others? Learn more