Archive for the ‘Word of mouth publicity’ Category

Sending promotional emails customers can’t wait to get

Wednesday, April 11th, 2007

There’s an email I get from a company two or three times a week that I actively look forward to. It’s from www.petrolprices.com, and tells me where the cheapest petrol is near me. Considering I fill up once or twice a week, it saves me a considerable amount of money trying to find the cheapest petrol.

Two thoughts on this. Firstly, it has driven me to garages I would never normally go to, just to fill up on the cheapest petrol. If your business successfully competes on price, are you listed in the price comparison websites? Are there any kind of price comparison schemes locally, maybe offline?

And secondly, it was only yesterday I realised I looked forward to getting this email. How cool is that? I look forward to getting an email from a business. That makes me incredibly valuable to them, as I would miss their emails. The website is run by a commercial company, which makes its money back referring on motor insurance etc. If you send emails or newsletters to your customers, do they look forward to them as much? They’ll be more interested if you send them free information that’s going to help them, rather than a list of your latest offers.

PS This website has a great press section. Listing all your previous media appearances helps build confidence in the media that you are worth contacting.

Just joking

Monday, April 2nd, 2007

Saw a few April Fools jokes yesterday. T4 on Channel 4 did a good one where a child actor’s father “stormed onto live telly” to complain about inappropriate questions, and ended up punching the presenter Steve. Google seem to have been busy doing a few, including free broadband that uses your plumbing and Gmail Paper, to send your email messages to you in the post.

Haven’t had chance to read yesterday’s paper yet, but I can virtually guarantee each of them will have a good one, especially since the Sundays only get an April 1st every few years.

I’ve said before, it’s worth every business doing an April Fool’s joke on their customers. It helps them feel part of your family. Jamie Harrop emailed me to reveal a website he helps moderate called WebHosting Talk, was planning to make the users think some technical errors had been made. They would be able to see a “private” staff chat area, with posts including a free trip to Las Vegas for the volunteers that moderate, and a clever discussion thread that would look like the usrname of the person viewing the thread was about to be banned.

Clever stuff – and Jamie emailed an update: ” I just wanted to let you know that the April Fools joke at WebHostingTalk went down a treat. Many are saying it was the best April Fools joke they have ever seen, and certainly the best WebHostingTalk has done.”

See one of the threads discussing the stunt here. Think how powerful it would be to get your customers talking about your business in that way.

Ling from Dragons’ Den

Monday, April 2nd, 2007

Just watched the last Dragons’ Den on Sky+. How did I forget to visit Ling’s website??? Lingscars.com is the most unusual website I think I’ve ever seen… it’s brilliant… what do you expect from a woman who uses a Chinese nuclear missle to promote her car leases?

Talking points

Friday, March 30th, 2007

Whatever you think about Steve Wright on Radio 2, he is very good at packing his show with talking points. I often find myself repeating an interesting Factoid to my wife (sad, but true). I’ll always visit the website of the day if I’ve not seen it before. And they even list all the songs played on the show on the website, getting round the “ooh, did you hear that song on the radio, what was it?” thing.

Not only does all of this make me keep buying his product (i.e. listen to his show), but I’m telling other people about it.

Talking points are PR. They can be created by any business every day.

A village newsagents could compile the latest village news onto a sheet of paper and give it away to everyone who buys a newspaper. A used car showroom could put on regular free valeting lessons for people to learn how to make their cars look like new. A double glazing firm could send a window cleaner to keep your new windows clean for the next few months, free of charge.

To be a true talking point, it needs to be something you do day in, day out. Really it needs to be a part of your business, not just a marketing add-on.

When adverts create talkability

Friday, March 9th, 2007

This is a great example of a good advert that also has a lot of talkability. Sony covered a disused council block in Glasgow with 70,000 litres of paint to sell Bravia TVs. And that advert has just won best commercial at the British TV Advertising Awards (Media Guardian, free registration required).

The talkability comes from the fact they actually did use paint and explosives, and not just some clever digital effects. Fascinating to watch, you can see it here.

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