Recently, over the Phone…
Me: Yes, I’m looking for one of these things

Home Depot: No, we don’t sell those. Sorry.

Me: Oh. Okay, thanks.

. . . . . .

Me: Yes, I’m looking for one of these things

Lowe’s: No, we don’t sell those.

Me: Oh. Okay, th—

Lowe’s: Hang on just a second… there is someone nearby who does sell those, I just can’t remember… hang on, let me go ask my manager. (talking in background) Okay, try this store. They should have what you need.

Me: Great! Thank you so much.

. . . . . . . . .

Home Depot went about as far as I expected them to. They met my expectations; the associate was perfectly polite and when I hung up the phone, I was perfectly ambivalent… not upset… they didn’t have what I needed and that was that.

But Lowe’s changed the game by solving my problem instead of just answering my question. When I hung up with Lowe’s, I was not only thankful and elated that their associate had helped solve my problem, but I was a little disappointed in Home Depot. Because, simply by comparison (and perhaps unfairly), it appears that Lowe’s focus is helping the customer where Home Depot’s is on simply trying to make the sale.

Lowe’s wins. How about you?

I’m hearing a lot of chatter about how people can’t drive sales through social media. But, for the most part, the people saying this aren’t even trying. They are using this as a mantra to sheild them from having to actually DO anything.

I actually understand this. It’s hard to accept that things are changing. That a business will have to either evolve or die. There is a great deal of comfort in repeating someone someone said three or four years ago which happens to align with your worldview.

The problem is… it’s not true.

If you are a small, location-driven business, there are three things you can do right now, inexpensively, all on your own to ensure that you have all the business you could ever want. There is a little bit of a learning curve… but the results will make the effort well worth it.

1. Postcards
Let’s say you’re a restaruant. It’s this easy: Go to Click2Mail.com. Design a 3 x 5 black-and-white postcard offering a free appetizer to anyone who brings the card in on your slowest night. You’re looking at about a $10 set-up fee and 17 to 15 cents per card… printed and mailed.

Now, still at Click2Mail.com, get yourself a mailing list of every household within 15-25 miles of your establishment. Depending on the size of your list, you’re probably looking at about $100 or less. If the cost is too high… narrow it down by income rage, kids or no kids, etc.

So, at a liberal estimate of 25 cents postage and a mailing list of 1000 households… you’ve reached 1000 local households with an enticing offer to join you for dinner, for just $350. If only 4% of people take you up on it (a perfectly reasonable response rate), you’ve just filled 40 tables on your slow night. at an average bill of $35 per table, you’ve just made an extra $1400.

2. Email
Imagine if you could do the postcard thing… and send as many as you want…for free.

Email, with a combination of good communication and occasional offers, can do amazing things for your business. If you approach it with the purpose of establishing a relationship with your customers over time… of putting a human face on what you offer instead of simple extracting money from potential customers… then you will build a following that will have your competition pulling their hair out in frustration.

3. Mobile
Bet you weren’t expecting that. Here’s a stat for you: last month more than 62% of search queries on Google’s search engieg came from mobile devices. If you wait for them to get back to their computer, there’s a good chance you’ve already lost them.

From local services like Gowalla that let you automatically send an offer to anyone who drives within a specified distance of your establishment (“3 tables open right now, no waiting. Get here before 6:30 and dessert is on us!”) to an SMS platform that lets you send a text message to anyone who has opted into your message list to interacting with sites like Facebook and twitter from your phone, mobile technology is the direction almost all data consumption is currently trending.

Mail, Email and Mobile. Neither cost very much once you know how to do it, and the returns on that investment will have you steamed that no one talk you about it sooner (sorry about that). You can fill seats, move product and build a loyal customer base that loves to spend money with you.

Need help with the learning curve? Drop me a line. I’d be happy to help.

It isn’t as evident as one might think. It is not that there is no ROI… It’s that the ROI isn’t monetary. Not directly, anyway.

Stay with me here. I’m not going to go all “relationship-over-profit” on you.

When you place an ad, essentially what you’re doing is paying that medium for access to the crowd they’ve amassed. Then you’re interrupting what that crowd is doing in order to tell them about you.

 
Social media allows you to build your own following… Your own crowd.

If you’re on Facebook and Twitter and you’re only talking about yourself… Well that’s not much incentive for the crowd to gather is it?

The real return on social media is the crowd you gather, giving you direct access. A crowd you can talk to without having to pay a middle-man to let you yell at them.

(The trick is giving them good incentive to gather in the first place.)

So, I’m writing this post as I’m taking a break from work. I’m working on a Strategic Marketing Plan for 2011.

I need this, because I’ve spent the last 6 months on… call it a vacation. Maybe a sabbatical.

I took a break and spent that time diving into the deep end of the social media pool. (During that time, I used this space as more of a personal blog… posts which I’ve moved to a different venue as I re-launch.

I’ve met some really cool people who taught me lots of really cool things. Things I wanted to test out on my own dime, rather than gamble my clients’ hard-won money on them.

So, now here we go, back at the races and getting ready to open the doors to clients once again.

My biggest push for clients is to convince them to do a Strategic Marketing Plan… that is, a plan addressing:

• the various groups that can impact their business
• how to ensure that impact is as massively positive as possible
• for at least the next three to six months (preferably, for the next 1-5 years)

With a solid plan, you have a clear outline to follow, but enough flexibility to pick and choose which initiatives you want to pursue. Without it, you’re just sort of grasping at straws, or worse you’re left to the whim and whimsy of the media sales folks who come to call, or the last article you read on your favorite marketer’s blog.

Without it, there is little reason (not to mention methodology) for accurately tracking the results of your efforts.

So, yes, I do practice what I preach. In a few days, I’ll show you exactly how I do it.

But first, I need to finish what I started… so for now, back to work.