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Customer Loyalty: Tires and Steak?

Beef PromotionI went to the freezer the other day to find something to cook for dinner and saw a box of steaks I didn’t recognize. – Top Sirloin Steak with a Les Schwab sticker on the box. Huh? Tires and steak? I don’t get it. Why would a tire company give away free beef with a set of tires? I did some digging and here’s what the Les Schwab website says:

“The History of our Free Beef Promotion
It’s that time of year when your Les Schwab Tire Centers offer their own unique way to say thank you to their customers. How? During February it’s Free Beef time. In the early 1960s, Les Schwab was looking for a way to promote his business and to also help support some of his customers. In the early years, the local farmers and ranchers were the backbone of his business. He came up with Free Beef as a way of supporting an important industry and saying thank you to his customers.”

Still not convinced that thinking of tires while chewing my steak is a good idea, I decided to check in with the official tire consumer (and the real steak lover) of my family – my husband Bob.

Was I in for a surprise when I asked my husband questions about the meat! I fully expected him to say “I don’t know. I bought some tires and they gave me some meat. It’s free….what’s the big deal?” A native Northwesterner, my husband knew the full story of Les Schwab and could recite the origins of the annual beef giveaway. He’s a loyal Les Schwab customer, thinks the promotion is catchy and could recite past TV commercials with the founder in his cowboy hat. It seems this promotion has become like country lore in the Northwest area where Les Schwab originated and is highly celebrated for ongoing dedication to the Oregon cattle ranchers who helped him build his business.

My husband is the Les Schwab target customer, not me. Would he have bought tires somewhere else if Les Schwab wasn’t giving away meat? No. Les Schwab had the best deal. Will he only buy from Les Schwab the next time he buys tires? More than likely. Does he have any issues with eating meat he received from a tire store? Heck no – fire up the grill!

What do I like about the February campaign? The program recognizes the foundation of the Les Schwab business and the legacy of its founder while acknowledging the importance of its customers. The campaign recognizes the value of local business networks, how local businesses help one another to grow. It is a memorable promotion, one that cements the vision of the brand and the legacy of the company with the consumer. It is unexpected and unique – not the typical loyalty program with little business cards and point systems. I am not a big beef eater so I am not sure if I will be able to get over my initial reaction to seeing the Les Schwab sticker in my freezer. That being said, will I remember Les Schwab and his story now every time I pass their tire center? You bet!

What do you think? What can you apply to your small business from the Les Schwab story? What could you do to recognize customer loyalty that is unique to your brand and to your target markets?

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Books for Business Inspiration

nullOver the holidays, I caught up on some much needed rest, relaxation, and reading (love my Kindle!) I was looking for inspiration and found it in two books which are now among my personal favorites. I share them with you for encouragement as you begin the New Year and New Decade.

Ignore Everybody: And 39 Other Keys to Creativity by Hugh MacLeod of Gaping Void

Although this book was released a few years ago, I finally got around to reading it and consider the advice timeless. It is worth every bit of positive press it has gotten for MacLeod’s irreverent way of inspiring creativity using his own story of success and art created on the back of business cards. Hugh’s wisdom will kick you in the pants and inspire your imagination. Here are a few gems from the book:

“The idea doesn’t have to be big. It just has to be yours.”

“Good ideas have lonely childhoods.”

“Everybody has their own private Mount Everest they were put on earth to climb.”

“Merit can be bought. Passion can’t.”

“The best way to get approval is not to need it.”

Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change by Jeremy Gutsche of Trend Hunter
Believe everything you have read about this book – it is simply amazing! Some of the 150 points of wisdom were so inspirational; I found myself putting the book down just to absorb the meaning and consider applying the ideas in my business. Best of all, the points were presented with concrete suggestions for spotting trends and applying them with the Trend Hunter Adaptive Innovation Framework. A few of my favorites:

“Don’t become a boiled frog.”

“Exploit crisis to accelerate change.”

“The right questions don’t change as often as the answers do.”

“Make failure a part of every day.”

“Fight the confidence that you know your customer.”

“Convey everything in 7 words or less.”

These two books will stay within handy reach of my desk in 2010 for those moments when I am searching for motivation, inspiration, or renewed enthusiasm. If you’ve read them, let me know your thoughts. What other books do you reach for when searching for business inspiration?

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101+1 Small Business Marketing Questions…With a Sense of Humor

woman at desk laughing uid 1053967 This is the time of year when I encourage entrepreneurs to begin planning for the New Year. Planning can be a positive and reflective process. It can be inspiring to look back over the mountains you have climbed in the past year and look ahead with optimism to the journey ahead.

Thanks to Scott Blitstein of eSeMBe, I found 101+1 Small Business Marketing Questions For People Who Don’t Speak Marketing which is a humorous twist on serious marketing questions every small business owner should ask. I agree with Naomi Dunford’s suggestion to choose 25-50 questions and come back to the list periodically. I generally suggest every entrepreneur block off one full day to create a plan for the coming year. If you are unable (or resistant?) to give yourself the gift of a day to reflect and plan for the upcoming year, give yourself the gift of an hour a week for the next 8 weeks as we head into 2010.

Begin with your vision, this list, and a sense of humor…entrepreneurship can be fun!

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The Social Web and Competition: Respect the Game

Traveling home from a soccer game with my son yesterday, we discussed a few incidents from his game. I noticed my son seemed to have a good relationship with the player on the opposing team who was playing mid-field against him. I observed a few occasions when they shook hands or exchanged a few friendly words after one or the other had a particularly good tackle against the other.

I asked my son if he knew the young man. He said he never met him but “that kid had sick skills, Mom. It was fun competing against him today.” We discussed another incident where an opposing player executed a slide tackle from behind one of my son’s teammates causing our player to be removed from the game with an injury and the offending player to be removed with a “red card” foul. When comparing the two incidents, my 16 year old son said, “You have to respect the player. You have to respect the game.”

Recently, I have been working with a few clients who are competing in a very tough market and trying to implement new social media marketing plans. In one case, my client has been the target of another local business that has been using the power of ‘anonymous’ rating services to make disparaging comments about my clients’ products and services on the internet.

In another case, a client became “a friend” with a rival through an online community only to have the competitor use their access to “friend” my clients contact list, misrepresent himself as an affiliate and then begin to market to his “friend’s friends” with competing products.

Colleagues have complained about having “competitors” disguised as “friends” market competing products that looked suspiciously like the same content without attribution (i.e. copied).

The openness of social networking can leave small businesses open and vulnerable to attack by opponents without the creativity to develop their own markets and products and who decide all is fair in business.

I love competition! I agree with the proverb “Competition is the whetstone of talent” and I do believe competition gives all of us as entrepreneurs an opportunity to innovate, to make our products and services even better for our customers. We live in an imperfect world so competition brings out the best spirit of innovation in some entrepreneurs while exacerbating the worst character flaws in others.

Henry Ford said, “The competitor to be feared is the one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time.” I agree with Ford’s statement but never turn a blind eye to my competitors, even while my main focus is on my customers and on my own plan for innovation. Monitoring your competitors prepares you to capitalize on opportunities and weaknesses, maximize your strengths and head off impending threats.

With that being understood, “Respect the player, respect the game.”

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Got Social Media Strategy?

Social Media is no longer optional. Including video, audio, and communities along with interactive and sharable content within your marketing strategy is required if you want to remain competitive in this business climate. A social media strategy is not a plan for collecting 1000’s of friends on Facebook or followers on Twitter. It is a well-defined series of campaigns planned to meet the needs of today’s customers who are ever-connected, ever-social, and ever-engaged. A winning social media strategy leverages the right combination of technology and content to create a unique customer experience with “buzzability”.

It’s not about the technology. It’s all about the customer!

1. They Are Looking for You. 4 out of 5 buyers are using the web to locate business and product information before they make a purchase yet less than half of small businesses can be found on the web. The location options for web real-estate are numerous, including platforms such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and a variety of other directories and communities. Your plan must ensure you can be found by your target market who wants to read and hear testimonials about your offer. Potential buyers are more likely to trust a business with customer generated reviews and ratings than one without endorsements. Your strategy must include a plan for generating fresh content with the purpose of educating the consumer and informing the buying decision.

2. They Want an Experience with You. You have less than a minute. Prospects will abandon your website or business profile within seconds if they are not engaged. Create engaging and informative content with the aim of evoking a response from your customers. Multimedia and interactive content such as pictures, video, podcasts and product reviews is affordable and easily created by businesses with modest budgets and minimal technical expertise. A planned series of campaigns which include a call to action and which integrate with traditional media (newspapers, radio, etc) will create a community of loyal supporters among your customers.

3. They Want to “Buzz” About You. Your customers want to spread the word! A growing number people on the web share content such as video, articles, audio, etc with their friends. Over 90% of people trust the recommendations of friends when making purchase decisions and less than 15% trust advertising so give them something to buzz about! Generate participation and enthusiasm. Create a call to action. When you create a buzzable social media strategy, prospects become customers and customers become loyal evangelists.

Creating a social media marketing plan is like creating a special family recipe. It is not accomplished with “out-of-the-box” solutions. Every social media marketing strategy includes a vision, brand message, web and social platforms, a content strategy, and a buzz plan. Be prepared to actively listen to your customers and allow them to co-create with you. Ultimately, creating a unique social media mix tailored to your customers will keep your evangelists buzzing and your business soaring.

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