Subway

Subway has paired up with Brian Baumgartner of The Office to produce “Golf Therapy: Life, Lessons and the Pursuit of Par.”  The series will launch today on NBC  before the final round of the “U.S. Senior Open” golf tournament, and will spin-off as a web series.  The marketers at Subway will re-purpose the web series for a library of shows that Subway will air on screens the chain is installing in its 23,000 stores across the U.S.

“Golf Therapy: Life, Lessons and the Pursuit of Par” revolves around Baumgartner  telling his therapist about of his nightmares surrounding an appearance at a celebrity golf tournament.   The actor’s anxiety about his annual appearance at the Lake Tahoe celebrity golf tournament, the American Century Championship is our gain because the series is educational, funny and very smart marketing for Subway AND Kansas City based American Century.

In the series, Baumgartner visits athletes for tips to improve his game.  Athletes featured in the series include Los Angeles Lakers’ Pau Gasol; New York Yankees’ pitcher CC Sabathia; current and former New York Giants defensive linemen Justin Tuck and Michael Strahan; U.S. Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin; Muhammed Ali’s daughter Laila Ali, a former pro boxer; and Green Bay Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

Variety reports that Subway using the “Golf Therapy” series as a way to promote its Famous Fans program, made up of athletes who love Subway.

“Everybody talks the ‘content’ word,” Tony Pace, Subway’s chief marketing officer, told Daily Variety. “Having content that we can push out on different channels would be a big benefit for us and the people we work with. But you have to find a balance of entertainment and marketing messages. You need to have a little entertainment or you’ll get tuned out.”

Brilliant move by Subway! The fast food chain is way ahead of the competition, with the Subway TV network and online entertainment.  If you want to see a clip of the Golf Therapy video, check out the Subway Facebook Page.

(Photo: Engadget)

Subway’s ‘Golf Therapy’ Series is Brilliant Marketing is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Sometimes I suspect they skeptically regard us as just another bunch of people with something to sell, rather than a team of people passionately committed to embracing this new paradigm shift and helping them do so as well. Whenever that happens, I chuckle softly to myself and whip out this graphic, created by Gary Hayes in September of 2009.

And when I do, I watch their eyes grow wider, as the veracity of what we’ve been trying to tell them sinks in. Social media matters. Blogging matters. Search matters. And integrating digital marketing into an overall marketing strategy is critical for businesses who are serious about success. Or even serious about staying in business. This is true whether you’re a small business or a large one – and the people who are paying attention are the people who stand to gain the most marketshare the quickest. Sometimes a picture really IS worth a thousand words, and that’s certainly the case in this instance.

I am eternally grateful to Gary for creating this compelling piece of art. For a geeky girl like me, this kind of stuff makes my heart sing. Even better, it makes my job easier on a daily basis. The other thing that makes my job easier is this: for every five prospective clients who don’t get the relevance of this information, there is one gem of a prospective client who does. And that is the client we most want to work with. That makes our jobs less like pulling teeth and forcing change upon an unwilling group of people and more exciting – because we get to be involved in what we really love. And that’s helping people grow their businesses. With people who are committed to making that happen. That’s what makes us get out of bed in the morning with smiles on our faces.

What’s the thing that wakes you up in the morning so excited about that you can’t wait to begin working on it?

And PS, I happen to think Gary is brilliant – and lots of other people do, too. If you want to know more about him, visit his website and see why I’m such a fan.

The WOW Factor – How To Make Clients Believers is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Squish 'em like a bug, baby

Dear Competitor,

I couldn’t sleep last night and found myself thinking of you. I love competition, both for myself and for my clients. It keeps me thinking (which I enjoy), on my toes (good, because I’m short) and adaptable (which I find, perversely, fun). And while I was thinking of you, I felt compelled to write, just to make sure we’re on the same page on a few things.

And, of course, because I’m nice. And I worry about your business and how it’s going to measure up against me and my clients’ businesses. And just because I’m so doggone considerate, here are my suggestions for your success in 2010 and beyond.

Your Website
Please don’t change it. Not now, and not any time soon. Especially if it was built more than two or three years ago. I’m sure it’s totally up-to-date, optimized for search, well-researched and written with regard to your target audience and just out there working its little tail off for you on a daily basis. Give yourself bonus points if it’s built in Flash or has cool things like music that blares as soon as someone opens the site and or video that starts playing instantly. Those are both such attractive things and users really, really love them. Nevermind effective out the wazoo.

Google Alerts
No matter what anyone says, it really doesn’t matter what people are saying about you or your brand, so cluttering up your email box with pesky alerts from Google is just a waste of time. Plus, you know who you are and what you do, and if anyone has any questions, they can ask you, right? But listening to the social media space and all those Internet crazies, nah. Don’t do it!!

Search Smirch
All these people going on and on and on about “search” and how important it is to show up in search – which means that Google thing, I guess. Lord, but I get sick of hearing about that, too. Well, ignore ‘em. Seriously. When I want to search something, I do it the old-fashioned way, I dig out the Yellow Pages. I see you nodding your head. You do it, too, dontcha? Well, there’s no reason to expect your customers or prospective customers to do it any differently, right? After all, if people weren’t using those doggone Yellow Pages books, they wouldn’t still be delivering them to your front door, now would they? So ignore all that blather about search – people will find you the way they always have. You can count on it.

Social Media
Listen to the people! All the people who say that social media is just a big, fat, time suck are right! Nobody in his right mind cares what people are Tweetering about what they had for breakfast, what someone else is “fanning” on Facebook, or where they are checking in on a daily basis through that FourCircle thing – or whatever the heck it’s called. And for sure, that geolocation stuff blows and is so not worth a second thought. Who needs to know where anyone else is throughout the course of a day? What possible good could come from that, anyway? Never mind that Blippy thing, where people tell other people all what they’re buying and where they’re buying it, for Pete’s sake. How lame is that? Where’s the ROI in all that nonsense, anyway? Time suck. Money suck. No way, Jose. Not for me.

Mobile Marketing – What?
Sure, I use my cell phone and text my husband now and again, but that’s the exception rather than the rule. Heck, I can just call him. And when he doesn’t answer, I leave him a voicemail. And of course he listens to it (it’d be rude otherwise). It’s just what you do. Call people, they answer, you talk. All these crazy people talking about mobile marketing and using text messages as part of a marketing strategy don’t know a hill of beans about good marketing tactics – no one will stand for that garbage. Plus, who needs a coupon on the cell phone – I get mine in my daily newspaper, dude. Never mind how nutty it is to read all that shiggedy about people actually designing stuff – like websites – to be viewed on the dang cellphone. How crazy is that? Nobody does that stuff. Heck, I wait until I’m home and in front of my desktop before getting on the Internet – and everyone else who has a lick of sense does too, don’t you know it?

So, there you have it. I’ve saved you a bunch of time, expense and headaches by doing all the homework for you and sharing my findings. Just keep on keeping on, doing business the way you always have, and things will be just fine. After all, no one likes change and it’s a pain in the neck to learn new things and do things differently. It’s kind of like watering grass in the desert. Just doesn’t make sense.

Now does it?

Dear Competitor, is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Pink offers sweats and pj’s versus teddies and push-up bras. The brand image is one of “cute and playful” versus the more overtly sexy image of the core brand. The Pink collection of “loungewear” (sweatpants, T-shirts, pajamas) has become a popular brand with young women—in 2008 Pink accounted for 17 percent of total retail sales for the brand.

As a marketer, I think Victoria’s Secret is wise to court the younger customers and gain their loyalty early. As a mother of two daughters, I cringe. But since I’m a ruthless marketer, I can’t help but give snaps to Victoria’s Secret for the strategy.

Thinking Ahead to Reach Future Customers

Pink was created because teens and college-age women increasingly wear loungewear (sweat pants) outside the home.  Victoria’s Secret was thinking ahead to create a “gateway” to acquire a new segment of customers.  Is your brand thinking ahead?  Are you reaching out to future customers?

In his brilliant book Trust Agents, Chris Brogan talks about the importance of moving first and investing in the future.  Brand leaders stay ahead of the pack by looking ahead and taking risks while their competitors stand on the sidelines.

Is your business looking at new markets?  How much of your time is spent planning for future sales? If your answer is ZERO, then check out a recent post to make a new plan for the new year.

Victoria’s Secret Pink is a Brilliant Strategy, Is Your Brand Thinking Ahead? is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

But branding, well, that’s a whole different ballgame. I’m a huge advocate of brand identity and being strategic when it comes to all things relative to your brand. And I also know that establishing brand identity takes resources, commitment and know-how. This is a message I preach to my clients on a daily basis, and no one needs to try twice to get my attention when it comes to a smart move relative to branding.

So, when a good friend recently introduced me to TweetBrand, a tool developed by the folks at @marketmetweets. I gave him the courtesy of listening. Then, when I did a little homework and saw that my friend @wchingya was also experimenting with and writing about TweetBrand, it further solidified the thought that it was, most definitely something that I wanted to know more about. And, as a final step, I went to some of my SEO friends and spent some time examining the TweetBrand app and its potential, with them. The verdict – TweetBrand is definitely worth exploring. Here’s an example from my Twitter stream of what the branded tweet looks like. Note that instead of saying “from web” or “from Tweetdeck” it has my url.

So now that I’ve done some of the legwork, here’s the skinny. TweetBrand is a free mini app that allows you to brand your tweets with your own name, a company name, a url or even a special message, depending on the situation. The cool thing about that is that instead of tweeting from Hootsuite or TweetDeck or Seesmic, etc. and having their respective links show up, what appears instead is your link. And in today’s day and age, it’s all about the links, baby. Or at least, that’s what my smarter-than-me SEO friends seem to think.

In a nutshell, some of the benefits to TweetBrand are:

– Establishing backlinks as a result of your interaction on Twitter
- Ability to establish brand awareness with each interaction
- Ability to differentiate yourself from your competitors in a classy manner
- Potential for increased traffic to your website
- Ability to identify special promotions or events via a specific message

I’m sure there are more potential benefits, these are just the ones that happen to come to mind right away.

TweetBrand is a first step in a larger application that is still in the development process. The as yet unnamed app, scheduled for launch in late January, will have the ability to schedule multiple tweets, organize groups, brand tweets from multiple users and brands as well as functionality like link shortening and other management tools, which we’ve all come to expect in any app. The folks at MarketMeTweets are excited about the app’s abilities to follow and track keyword (or key phrase) performance as well as utilize the app to auto respond. Personally, I’m on the fence about the auto-responder business – but I already admitted to being a snotty purist, so don’t hate me on that front. However, I’m not so naïve as to think there are not many others out there, major brands included, who think this will be a stellar feature of the application. And, who knows, I might even change my mind about it once I see the app in action. I can see a lot of upside, especially if used ethically, and it might even give entrenched apps like TweetDeck, Hootsuite, etc., a run for their money.

For the record, this new app will come with a monthly price tag that will probably start at about $15 for a personal account, with the price going up for more sophisticated professional accounts. Definitely not a huge investment if it turns out to be a bona fide traffic driver. But, as we all know, getting people interested in paying for anything is often a challenge, so the jury is out on that one.

Bottom line, I think, as a first step, TweetBrand is definitely worth checking out. As we know, both Google and Bing are in the process of rolling out Twitter integration, so the number of sites who aggregate the content is likely to go through the roof. I don’t know how many of those will include links, but to my way of thinking, if you have the opportunity to use your own, branded link when it comes to your engagement on Twitter, doesn’t it only make sense to do that, rather than promoting someone else’s link?

If you’re interested, sign up here to get a free download file. Watch the video tutorial that takes you through the set up (and even I managed it in record time), and then test it out. I will warn you in advance – it is still in beta format, so it’s a tiny little mini app, not something all-inclusive (yet) like TweetDeck. So you download and keep it on your desktop, and use it that way. For me, I am still using TweetDeck, but using TweetBrand, too, and just switching back and forth. I’ll be very interested to see what the larger app looks like once it’s rolled out.

Love it? Hate it? Have an idea that would make it better? Bring it – as always, I would love to know your thoughts.

Branded Tweets? It’s All About The Links, Baby. is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Don’t need to be coy, Roy. Which is good, because coy has never been my style. Direct and to the point, however, work well for me. So here goes.

Here are five simple, yet integral steps for you to get motivated for the coming year and really doing all that you can to get your business growing and thriving. And it doesn’t really matter what business you’re in – the steps are pretty much the same, no matter what.

What do you believe in? I get tired of all the focus on fancy mission statements and all that stuff we so often get hung up on. My gut always tells me to ask clients to keep it simple. What do you believe in? And, once you answer that, what can you deliver? Obviously, if you can’t deliver what you believe in, it won’t work. So answer both of those questions, and then you’re on your way.

Who are your customers? What do you do, sell, provide, etc., that they need? Understanding your customers is a huge step in any marketing plan. And if you’re not sure, bring a focus group of some of your friends or business associates, or a mixture of each, together and ask them for their insight, opinions, etc.

Get on the bus, Gus!

Now, ask yourself this – Where do you find those customers? For example, if you’ve traditionally marketed via print advertising, that’s terrific. But what if your customers, the ones you identified above, aren’t reading newspapers or magazines? You have to go where your customers are, so before you make plans to spend any of your marketing dollars, figure out where those prospective buyers are, and put your money and your efforts there.

It all sounds so simple, doesn’t it? But I am always amazed how rarely people sit down and ask themselves these simple questions and use them to drive their marketing efforts moving forward.

The next two steps are often the most critical and, unfortunately, something rarely done by small business owners.

How much can I – actually, how much will I is the better statement, allocate for a marketing budget? Marketing isn’t a luxury, folks. Marketing is what makes your business grow, thrive and, ultimately, stay alive. If you make the mistake of thinking that just because you build it they will come, you may as well stop before you even get started and save yourself a ton of money.

So take a good, hard look at your books and make a commitment. Even if it’s just $500 or $1,000 a month, figure out what you can afford to live with and what you’re willing to irrevocably devote to the business of marketing and growing your business. And stick to it!

And, finally, commit to this: Making a new plan, Stan. Every business needs a strategic marketing plan. And once you know what you believe in and what you can deliver, who your customers are, where to reach them and how much you’ve got to do that, you have all the elements needed to make a plan. So, instead of “Ready, Set, REACT” you can instead be “Ready, Aim, Do —-> Succeed.”

Resolve to make 2010 the year that your business thrives!

And if you want to do something fun, join me and 30 other bloggers who are joining forces with @sarahrobinson, the veritable Queen of Escaping Mediocrity, for 30 Days to Change Your Game, beginning January 11, 2010. These blog posts will include inspiration for changing your game, as well as a specific game-changing task you can take action on right away. It’ll be fun, so register now to participate (it’s free!) and start escaping mediocrity right now!

Time to Make a New Plan, Stan is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency

Don’t you remember your mother’s admonition about not wearing ratty underwear in case of an accident?  Well, I’m pretty sure that we ALL have some of those kinds of underwear stashed in our drawers.  And as we all know, accidents do happen.  What she really meant by that adage was that you always want to put your best foot forward – even down to the nitty gritty of your choice of underwear, because you never know who’s going to be looking at them.

I’m not sure why we insist on keeping things that are beyond their prime.  For some, it might be out of a sense of frugality, but for many, it’s truly because change is hard.  And that, my friends, is the key.  Change. Is. Hard.

For me, websites are a bit like tattered underwear.  I encounter terrific people on a daily basis who have websites that are sadly outdated and doing absolutely nothing for them in terms of search, brand image, awareness, etc.  And anyone who thinks they are not being judged based on the look and feel, content and effectiveness of their website is simply fooling themselves.

We have a client who owns a local small business.  When we started working with her, she had a website that was about 10 years old and was more horrible than words can describe.  In short, it was so poorly constructed that she had never, ever been picked up by a search engine.  It was head-shakingly horrid. And she’d just been holding onto it because she didn’t know any better.  And she thought that to replace it would cost infinitely more than she could afford.  But, ultimately, she made the decision to trust us, find the money in an already tight budget, and redo her website.   And she was thrilled when we brought the project in $200 under budget.  We also started her blogging, integrated a contest into her marketing strategies and did a few other things designed to drive traffic, search and awareness.

We are big believers in using ethical search engine marketing tactics and go to great lengths to ensure that our clients understand that great search results take a little time.  We got amazingly lucky with regard to this particular client and she started showing up in search within a very short time of the website launch.  And the coolest thing about all of this is just being able to sit back and watch our client reap the benefits of her leap of faith into the world of actually marketing her business in a strategic manner.  She’s busier than she’s ever been.  Her phone rings on a daily basis, she gets email inquiries from all over the world. Her biggest problem these days is having enough staff to handle the influx of business.  And it’s all because people are searching for what it is that she does – and finding her.  She is loving life and her business is thriving, in spite of the down economy, and it’s all because she decided to take a chance. She decided to toss out the old, worn out, ineffective stuff and replace it with new.

The lesson here is that change is good. And necessary.  Even if you are attached to your tattered undies, you have to occasionally toss them out and buy new ones. They look better, they fit better, they feel better.  They do a better job at what it was they were designed to do.  The same is true of your website or other collateral marketing materials and tools that you have. Just because you designed them once, doesn’t mean that they are still effective.  Smart business people regularly evaluate those tools and their effectiveness. And, if you’re not doing that, you’re doing your brand and your business an injustice.

Time to Toss the Tatters is a post from: V3 Kansas City Integrated Marketing and Social Media Agency