keithmonaghan.com » Recession Marketing

Scarcity Sells

Keith Monaghan — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:06:10 +0000

How Failing to Keep Up With Demand Can Be a Good Thing

Knob Creek’s current ad campaign announces something shocking: they may actually run out of bourbon this fall.

The elegantly zen-like piece (above, click for big version) features a precious last drop of bourbon, the tag line “Thanks for nothing”, and some clever copy:

“For the next few months Knob Creek Bourbon is in a unique situation — our product is so popular that we cannot keep up with customer demand. As a result, our supply will be running low over the next few months, and, in some cases, we may experience temporary stock depletion. But, instead of compromising quality to meet demand, we have chosen to let the supply run low. In deference to Booker Noe and his vision for Knob Creek, we will age all our bourbon the full 9 years. The next batch will be ready in November of this year… Again, with all the success we’ve had, we’ve still come up empty. Thanks for helping make it happen.“

This is brilliant old-school marketing and I love it more than a man should love any ad. Here’s why:

It reinforces Knob Creek’s old world, hand-crafted image: You can’t rush excellence.
It proves they are popular. “Hey, we ran out!”.
It spins “Thanks for nothing” into a positive statement.
Most importantly, it combines two powerful marketing strategies in an elegant way: Scarcity and Social Proof.

Scarcity and social what, marketing guy?

I know, it sounds like marketing gobbledygook, but both approaches are real and based on serious research and Knob Creek does a beautiful job of combining them. How so? Read on.

Scarcity

The best way to make a profit is to deal in something scarce. People want what others can’t have. Crowds and lines generate curiosity. Word-of-mouth about great, but hard to attain, products creates demand (see Social Proof below).

Most importantly, Scarcity forces your true fans, those customers who will do most anything to buy your product, who obsess over it, to talk. They talk about the waiting and the searching and the longing an how it’s driving them crazy and they just can’t wait to get their hands on it already!

And people are talking about Knob Creek (Google Blog Search). In fact, the ad has generated so much interest that they are hosting a webcast on September 1st to explain how the shortage came to be and why their 9-year aging process makes Knob Creek bourbon so special, extending interest in the campaign. Nice.

As effective a strategy as Scarcity is, there’s another, even more interesting, aspect to it: Social Proof.

Social Proof

Simply put, Social Proof is the tendency to look to others for ques on how to behave–monkey see, monkey do, if you will. If Knob Creek is sold out we assume it must be great and if everybody likes it they must know something we don’t.

It’s why companies use celebrities to endorse their products, Amazon features customer reviews and TV shows use canned laughter.

Right or wrong, we often assume others must be better informed and they are acting on experience or privileged information. Often it’s just a mob mentality, group think, following the herd.

And it’s why Knob Creek’s is happy to announce they’ve sold out: If it sold out it must be good. It’s that simple.

Could it Be Even Better?

Knob Creek’s “Thanks For Nothing” ad is word-of-mouth marketing at its best. They’ve highlighted their Scarcity problem without any hype and subtly used Social Proof to show that many people think their bourbon is great. And damn if I don’t want to try it because of that.

But how could they extend this great campaign even further? A few ideas:

YouTube videos featuring customers talking about their frustration with The Wait.
A social media campaign that counts down the days until the next batch is available.
A contest in which a lucky winner gets the first new bottle a few days ahead of the official re-release.

What do you think? How could Knob Creek take “Thanks for nothing” even further? Should they? How do you use Scarcity and Social Proof? Leave a comment or email blog at keithmonaghan dot com.

Thanks for reading.See also:

Marketing in Tough Times: Improving Customer Service

Keith Monaghan — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:45:51 +0000

It’s not sexy or trendy but great customer service can produce better results than any PR or marketing initiative, not to mention happy and loyal customers (and you need those more than ever right now).

Join me as I explore the ideas in the e-book Marketing in Tough Times – 20 No-Cost Ideas in a new podcast that’s loaded with insight, case studies and interviews. The Marketing in Tough Times podcast is a quick, irreverent examination of what it takes to successfully market your business in this challenging economy. Tough times never last, but tough (and resourceful) marketers do.

In this episode: How United Airlines blew it big time and what Apple and Weber understand about customer service that many companies don’t.

Listen now:

Download audio file (ImprovingCustomerService.mp3)

Download: “Improving Customer Service” (.mp3/14MB/10 Min.)

Embedded player not working? Listen here.See also:

Social Media Marketing in 30 Minutes a Day

Keith Monaghan — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:20:04 +0000

Listen to this post:
Download audio file (smin30minaday.mp3)
Download: Social Media Marketing in 30 Minutes a Day (.mp3 | 4:59 | 6.9 MB)

Social media is more than just feel good PR, the numbers show that it’s good business and an increasingly important part of a larger communication strategy.

If you believe, as I do, that all marketing is ultimately word-of-mouth, then spending a few minutes a day on social media makes sense.

Yes, you say, I’m aware of that, Mr. Marketing Guy, but I have a real job and a boss and deadlines to meet. Who has the time to friend and tweet?

You do. The secret: start small and stay highly focused.

In just thirty minutes a day you can participate in the communities that want to hear from you, listen for talk about your company or product and work some social media magic.

First Things First

First, get smart. Spend a few minutes reading these thoughts on Social Media and business. Even better, spend a few days searching out and reading a dozen more.

Jeremiah Owyang on Social Media Marketing [SlideShare]
5 Things You Need to Know About Social Media Marketing and PR [Page One PR]
Can Marketing Be Conversational? [Doc Searls]
Intel Social Media Guidelines [Intel]

Then, learn how to track the results. Contrary to the hype, Social Media marketing is not about “Return on Interest” or “Return on Influence”, in the business world it’s “Return on Investment” or die.

You need measurable results, so spend a little time learning how to track and interpret what happens with your Social Media efforts. Here are a few excellent articles to get you started.

Defining Social Media ROI Once and For All [The BrandBuilder Blog]
How to Measure Social Media ROI for Business [Mashable]
Social Media ROI [SlideShare]
Social Media ROI [Scribd]

The Strategy

The secret to Social Media in thirty minutes a day is simple: start small, limit your options, use the tools a few minutes a day. That’s it.

My suggestion is to use only three Social Media tools at a time: a blog, the current hot Social Media site (as of this writing, Twitter), and an online community specific to your industry or product (if it doesn’t exist you have an opportunity to create one).

For example, a corporation might use a company blog>twitter>online community, posting news, updates and resources on their blog and responding to talk about their products on twitter and in the online community.

A retailer or restaurant could use twitter>yelp>brightkite, sending news and coupons via twitter, responding to reviews on yelp and using brightkite to send offers to their customers’ cell phones as they pass by on the street (seriously cool).

A wine shop might try a blog>twitter>corkd, blogging about wine and posting reviews, twittering special offers, recommendations and wine news and discussing wine with fellow oenophiles on corkd.

You’ll notice the retailer/restaurant example does not have a blog. That’s OK, they’re doing what works for them, which is exactly the point.

Now grab a fresh, steaming hot cup of your favorite caffeinated beverage and let’s get started.

The Routine

Blog: 15 Minutes a Day

Your online anchor. All of your Social Media tools point here, where there is more space for fleshing out ideas and communicating. Spend 15 minutes a day posting news, special offers, product updates, tutorials and resources, maybe even what’s happening inside the company. Nothing to post? Spend your time drafting ideas. 15 minutes a day means 1 hour and 15 minutes every work week to write something great. Here are two guides to help you get started with business blogging:

10 Tips for Becoming a Great Corporate Blogger [Scout Blogging]
A Guide to Corporate Blogging [ProBlogger]

Twitter: 5 Minutes a Day

The current Social Media darling is where the hyper-social hang out, but the web interface lacks the features to make it truly powerful. Consider using twitter management software like seesmic, tweetdeck or HootSuite. What to do? Set up and monitor a search for your company, reply to mentions of your product, and frequently retweet relevant ideas, giving credit and props. Reply, interact, build, engage.

If you’re new to Twitter here are several great articles on how to use it for business:

Twitter 101 for Business [Twitter]
50 Ideas on Using Twitter for Business [Chris Brogan]
Newbie’s Guide to Twitter [CNET]

Community: 10 Minutes a Day

There are many out there, Yelp, facebook, beebo, seesmic, jaiku, LinkedIn, MySpace, superfan, etc. The plethora of choices is a good thing, in this case, because more than likely there is an online community for your business, whatever it is. In the travel biz? Try Passportstamp. Game developer? Wakoopa. You get the idea. Here’s a big ol’ list to get you started.

More ideas on business and online communities:

10 Best Practices of Business Networking [About]
Four Ways Social Networking Can Build Business [bnet]

Conclusion

This plan is a starting point, adjust the times and tools as you see fit and use the sites that make the most sense for you. You know your situation best. Measure consistently. Tweak accordingly. Repeat daily.

Remember, Social Media Marketing is about your space, not your product. It’s about how you can empower users, highlight others work and bring something of value to the community and to your customers. Business will follow. Seriously.

One more thing, many of these sites have search functions that allow you to set up and monitor keywords like your product or company. Use them. (Or as Chris Brogan puts it: Grow big ears.)

Good luck and let me know how you adapt this strategy to your situation. I’d love to hear about it in the comments or drop me and email at blog at keithmonaghan dot com.

Thanks for reading.See also:

Recession Marketing Japanese Style: 100 Small Improvements

Keith Monaghan — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 17:48:16 +0000

How an American Idea Adopted by the Japanese Can Help You Market Better Right Now.

Times are tough, budgets are tight and everyone has an opinion about what to do when it comes to recession marketing.

But what can you do if your marketing budget is nonexistent?

I’ve written about no-cost marketing ideas before (see 10 Ideas for Free Marketing in Tough Times and its sequel or download the e-book). But there is another way that requires little or no money and can dramatically improve your odds of success.

It’s so effective that it is practiced by business leaders like Jeff Bezos of Amazon and entire corporations like Toyota.

The Japanese call it Kaizen. It basically means making small, continuous improvements and it works exceptionally well. You may recognize it as a famous quote:

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. — Lao Tzu

Kaizen originated in America as the idea of “continuous improvement”. General MacArthur’s occupation forces took it to Japan after WWII to rebuild the devastated country.

Having been defeated by superior equipment and technology, the Japanese embraced the idea and, in the following years, rocketed their productivity to unheard of levels.

What does this have to do with marketing during a recession? Everything.

You may not have the budget or management buy-in for a new campaign, but by making 10, 20 or 100 easy little changes to existing marketing campaigns & initiatives you can dramatically improve their messaging and response rates. Result: better branding and greater ROI for minimal effort at little or no cost.

A few Ideas:

Edit the copy on your web site so it motivates visitors to take action.
Find better images for that brochure you hand out at conventions at iStockphoto.
Call your best customers and thank them for their business.
Fine tune a presentation into a masterpiece of persuasion.
Make it easier to opt-out. Seriously easy.
Learn how to write better blog posts.
Fix that nagging little product feature. You know the one.

Great change is made through small steps and, in tough times, small steps may be all you have. That’s good news because through constant small changes you can have a very large impact. What improvements can you make right now?

New E-Book: Marketing in Tough Times – 20 No-Cost Ideas

Keith Monaghan — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:40:22 +0000

You know what’s great about the Internet? I mean besides hulu.

For me, it’s putting my work on the Interwebs and hearing from people who find it useful.

I was lucky enough to have that happen with two posts of mine. They’ve been modest hits. Thank you to everyone who read them and responded.

I’ve updated both posts and combined them in a new free e-book about spreading the word without spending any cash: Marketing in Tough Times – 20 No-Cost Ideas. (Direct download here or read it on Scribd).

Give it a read. If you like it, feel free to forward it to someone who could use it, print it out and give it away at a convention or your local coffee shop, or post it on your web site or blog. I’d appreciate it. (And you’ll look like the resourceful and savvy marketer that you are.)

Want more? The new e-books page at KeithMonaghan.com is chock full of great e-books about marketing, courtesy of ChangeThis. All thought provoking. All free to download, read, and share. Check it out.

And thanks for reading.See also:

Don’t Read This, Read That

Keith Monaghan — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 12:29:43 +0000

Marketing news found while I was avoiding busywork this morning. The first one almost made me laugh tea out of my nose. God bless the Interwebs.

GPS makers tomtom announced their new model, the XL 340S, featuring the voices of celebrities, including Monty Python alum John Cleese and the A-Team’s Mr. T. Turn here, fool!
Via the always interesting kottke.org, a fascinating piece from 1960 arguing against roadside billboards. It’s surprisingly thought-provoking. Here’s the background, and the original article, How to Look at Billboards.
Chocolate sales are a sweet spot in the recession.
Finally, something good for the soul: World War I re-enacted by dogs. [via boingboing]

See also:

10 More Ideas for Free Marketing in Tough Times

Keith Monaghan — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 18:33:37 +0000

If you enjoy this article, please check out my free e-book: Marketing In Tough Times – 20 No-Cost Ideas to help you engage customers and spread the word without spending any money.

My post, “10 Ideas for Free Marketing in Tough Times“, received a decent response both here and over at Marketing 2.0. Thank you for reading, I deeply appreciate it.

So, how to follow that modest success? Why, with “10 More Ideas for Free Marketing in Tough Times”, of course.

After ingesting even more tea and thinking about no-cost marketing further, ten additional ideas sprang to mind to help you engage customers even if your budget has been slashed by the current economic chaos. Of course, your mileage may vary.

As with the previous ten, these ideas range from basic tactics to high level strategies, but what they all have in common is that the only cost to implement them is time and effort.

And if you have any ideas of your own to share, please leave them in the comments, I’ll gather them into a future mega-post of free marketing ideas. (Be sure to provide a site link so I can give you proper credit).

Even better: start a list on your own blog. Let’s grow this list to 50 or 100 no-cost marketing ideas. This could be fun.

On to the ideas:

1. Follow Up After the First Purchase – Number 10 in the previous list was “Let Customers Know You Appreciate Them“. Good advice, but it was focused on existing customers. I’d like to amend that: It’s important to let new customers know you appreciate them too. And because they’re new, you have a unique opportunity to ask them how they discovered you, what they thought of the sales/set-up process, and how you can help them further while it’s fresh in their mind. Oh, yeah, make sure they know you’re glad to have them aboard.

2. Set up a Company Blog – Many companies are making great use of blogs. Amazon uses a variety of blogs to cross market products. The CEO of Zappos keeps investors and customers up to date via his blog. Even Fortune 500 companies understand the value of engaging customers through blogs. Start by having the free, open source, and highly popular WordPress installed on your site, then do your homework. Here are two guides to help you find the right tone and strategy: 10 Tips for Becoming a Great Corporate Blogger, and Problogger’s Guide to Corporate Blogging.

3. Give Away e-books – You probably have enough blog posts, white papers, interviews, and collateral lying around to create a great e-book to give away to customers and prospects. The trick: make it relevant and valuable. Maybe a simple How-To guide or analysis of your market. Maybe something more in-depth. You know what your customers need. Just make it interesting enough to drive them to the next step: contacting you directly. Create the e-book in PDF format freely with Google Docs, Zoho Writer, or OpenOffice. Then put it on your site and upload it to Scribd, a popular document sharing site. Similarly, upload PowerPoint presentations to slideshare.

4. Create a Widget - What’s a widget? It’s a piece of code that can easily be installed on a web page or blog without the need for geek-like talent. People like you and me use them on many of the social networking sites to customize our pages with video, pictures, music, and more. Papa John’s Pizza lets customers order online with a variety of widgets for computer desktops, start pages, and social networks. Coke has CokeTags, a link sharing widget for Facebook. It’s easy (and free) to create them on sites like Widgetbox. Then, like everything else, make sure visitors to your web site know they’re available.

5. Get on TV – It sounds like a stretch, but according to Tim Ferris, author of the best-selling The 4-Hour Work Week, it’s easier than it sounds. He explains his strategy for getting on TV: “Find statistics that indicate a new trend, tie yourself into the trend, add experts, case studies, PhDs, and other guests to help fill 30 entertaining and credible minutes about this topic. Give it a good headline and pitch it to producers at the top shows. It’s a simple concept and it works.” Who knew? I may have to try this one myself.

6. Search For Yourself - People are talking about you online. Find them with Google Blog Search, twitter search, Technorati, and whatever other tools you like. Once you find them, make contact. Respond to their comment. Address a complaint. Right a wrong. Say thank you. Start a conversation. Just let them know you appreciate the comment. Most of them will be happy to hear from you. See also: “Help Your Fans Spread the Love”.

7. Make it Easy to Email Your Pages - Ever notice how web sites like Time Magazine and Amazon have a little “email this” button next to the printing and sharing options? That’s because some visitors just want to skip the social media stuff and go old school. I email myself pages all the time as a way to archive them. Sometimes I even use it as intended: to share a web page with friends. Just remember, people are submitting their email address for a one-time use, not opting-in to your marketing. Respect their trust in you and you’ll be rewarded.

8. Know Your Numbers – Peter F. Drucker, the father of modern business management said “What’s measured improves“. Are you measuring your web site traffic? Google Analytics is free, includes enterprise level tools, and features Conversion University, where you can learn how to make sense of the numbers and improve traffic to your site. Now there is no excuse.

9. Go Back to Old Customers – We’ve all heard the old adage that it’s easier to keep an existing customer than win a new one. But it may also be worth going through your list of older inactive customers and trying to reactivate a few of the better ones. Give them a call, tell them you value them, ask what it will take to get them back. You might be surprised at how simple or low-cost it is. If they say no thanks, consider it a learning opportunity and wish them the best. Then call them back in a year and ask again.

10. Put Great Review Front and Center – In the book “Yes! 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to be Persuasive“, author Robert Cialdini asks, “How can we show off without being labeled a show-off?”. The answer is get someone to speak about your awesomeness for you. Studies show that social proof–the tendency to look to others for ques on how to behave–plays a critical role in how others evaluate you. If one person says your widget is great, many others will think it must be. Seriously, it’s that simple, and it’s why many web sites prominently display quotes and reviews.

Have your own ideas about no-cost marketing? Share them in the comments or, better yet, start a list on your own blog. I’d love to see what you come up with.–Keith

Photo: caitlinburkeSee also:

10 Ideas for Free Marketing in Tough Times

Keith Monaghan — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:05:31 +0000

If you enjoy this article, please check out my free e-book: Marketing In Tough Times – 20 No-Cost Ideas to help you engage customers and spread the word without spending any money.

Tough times call for tough marketers or something like that. Unless you’ve been ignoring all media (smart move, by the way) you’re probably painfully aware that pundits and experts alike are forecasting turbulence in the financial markets through 2009 and likely beyond.

But it’s no time to panic. Marketing and advertising are more important than ever. Mark-Hans Richer, chief marketing officer for Harley Davidson, put it this way:

“Our belief is that spending through a market downturn creates a competitive advantage for the market upturn, and an extra dollar spent today has extra dividends for tomorrow.”

And he’s not the only one preaching the value of marketing during a downturn, just Google it for more examples.

But they’re talking about spending money, money you don’t have because of vanishing customers and budget cuts by clueless management. I feel your pain, struggling marketer, and I’m here for you.

After downing several cups of tea and thinking about no-cost marketing for a few minutes, here are ten ideas from the depths of my caffeine-soaked mind. Gauge accordingly.

These ideas range from basic tactics to high level strategies, but what they all have in common is that the only cost to implement them is time and effort.

And remember, tough times never last, but tough (and resourceful) marketers do.

1. Stir up fan interest on twitter – The SciFi channel discovered its show, Eureka, was generating a lot of talk on twitter, so they created a twitter site where writers posing as characters talked back to fans. Result: the producers of the show now directly communicate to over 3,000 rabid viewers. They are not alone. Companies like Apple, Southwest Airlines, and Amazon use it too.

2. Host a get together – Use Meetup, Upcoming, or Google Groups to organize a casual get together with your customers. It doesn’t have to be fancy, you can even skip the coffee and donuts, just stick to one of the most overlooked secrets in marketing: listen to your customers. Get a bunch of them together in a room, ask them what they want from you and stand back. I guarantee you’ll learn something.

3. Create a Facebook Fan Page – Buying ad space on Facebook is ineffective because people just aren’t clicking. But building a Facebook Fan Page for your product is a free and, arguably, better way to reach your fans by giving them a badge to show off their loyalty on Facebook. Then tell them about it, starting with a link to the fan page on your web site.

4. Create a Podcast – An audio or video podcast is a great way to generate interest and attention, just be sure the content is compelling enough to get people to download it by creating a show around what your customers are interested in. Here’s a good tutorial for Windows. If you use Mac OS X you have what you need. For ideas check out how Amazon and Barnes & Noble do podcasting.

5. Host a Webinar – I love Webinars. A good webinar informs participants and motivates them to to purchase too. I recently listened to a webinar by Modern Postcard that featured a 20% off coupon. Nice! I plan on using mine for an upcoming campaign. Use free webinar hosting sites like Dimdim, Yugma, and Vyew to show customers how your product solves their problem.

6. Stream a Live Event – It is easy and free to stream video via Ustream. It’s great for tutorials, interviews, Q & A sessions and whatever else you can think up. Here’s a nice post on creating a professional uStream show by Ian Lurie (who’s site you should read regularly, by the way, because he knows his stuff and he’s funny, need I say more?).

7. Hold a Contest – Events like contests generate media exposure and get customers talking about the experience to friends and family. Drumming up word-of-mouth with a contest can be as simple as asking them in what interesting ways they use your product. Be sure to post all entries to your site and shout as loud as you can about the runners up and winner.

8. Take Care of Your Employees – Believe it or not, everyone in your organization is a marketer, everyone is an ambassador of your brand and, to the customer they’re dealing with, your employees are the face of the company. Make sure your people know you value them during tough times and consider empowering them to make the decisions that matter most to customers.

9. Improve Customer Service – The difference between good and great is in the details. Can your customer service experience be improved with a few tweaks or an easy policy change? Do it. Make it as seamless and enjoyable as you can (yes, enjoyable). In short: make it rock, because happy customers are loyal customers and you need those more than ever right now.

10. Let Customers Know You Appreciate Them – When was the last time you said “thank you” to a customer? Just as with any relationship in your life, it pays to express gratitude on a regular basis. Sound corny? Think of it this way: Customers who feel appreciated are going to give the love right back in the form of loyalty. Send them and email, make a call, interact with them any way you see fit. Just let them know they are important. It works.

Have an idea for marketing on the cheap during tough times? Share it in the comments.See also: