The other day I got two postcards in the mail. That was unusual in its self, but I had two from the same company …. or was it a company?

They had very catchy photographs on them and on the reverse the saying “It’s worth a Look www.crushme.com.au”. Is this a spam?  Why send postcards out? I checked the web page and that led me to the Crush Me Facebook page where I was able to join a fan club, still without not knowing what Crush Me was about.

This whole marketing campaign started in March and the company will not reveal itself until it has a thriving Face Book fan club. Interesting marketing approach. (more…)

Every retailer needs to advertise and market their business to ensure customers know they exist. Life used to be easy. All you had to do was to place an advertisement in the Yellow Pages and in the local newspaper and customers would flock to your door, well it may not have been that straight forward, but it was a lot simpler than it is today.

Newspaper sales, phone directories and magazines are all losing their impact in society and as a result it is harder to get your message across using these media formats. I am not suggesting you stop doing this form of interruption marketing, but you do need to spread your massage a lot further using different media. (more…)

The fastest growth ever seen in communications is the development of social media communications. If five years ago I’d mentioned MySpace, facebook or YouTube I would have had queried looks from every reader of this article. Today, they are mainstream communication tools in the community. Communication is changing rapidly and as businesses we need to run rapidly just to keep up.

Over the last few months I have been fully aware that social media is a huge marketing opportunity and the way of the future, I needed to understand it and how to adapt it to business. Erik Qualman and his book “Socialnomics, how social media transforms the way we live and do business” (John Wiley & Son Inc) has been a great help to me in understanding how a business can benefit from social media.

(more…)

A recent report, published in January edition of Garden Trade News stated: 8% of consumers hate having to communicate with a business using the business preferred communication systems rather than their preferred communications system (YouGov / RightNow research ).

This indicates how rapidly the world is changing and how quickly garden centers need to change. Can you imagine even two years ago, that one of a consumers hates would be you not communicating with them, using their preferred choice.

Life was so much easier back then. An advert in a newspaper and a monthly or quarterly newsletter and you could sit back feeling you had done your job.  All you needed to do was wait for the customers to walk in the door.  You controlled the marketing journey.

That was in the days when it was a “Selling Cycle” where you were in control.  In 2010 it is a “Buyers Cycle” where the consumer now takes the lead and expects you to communicate with them using their preferred technique not yours. (more…)