Merrily’s Items of Interest

Gorilla or Guerrilla? Effective Marketing or What….?

These times in marketing are different than ever before. First there is the economy and the effects it has on businesses. Then there is the new interactional component of marketing. Together they are forming a sort of perfect storm, and one where businesses are trying to figure out how to sell more. So, one question might be, do you want to try guerrilla or gorilla tactics?

“Guerrilla marketing” is a term coined by Jay Conrad Levinson in his book of the same name which was written in 1984. On his Web site, Levinson defines guerrilla marketing as the art of “achieving conventional goals, such as profits and joy, with unconventional methods, such as investing energy instead of money.” Levinson says, “Guerrilla marketing is needed because it gives small businesses a delightfully unfair advantage: certainty in an uncertain world, economy in a high-priced world, simplicity in a complicated world, marketing awareness in a clueless world.”Read More

No Pay and Still Play

When you think about getting media attention that works, you might be thinking of those LouisvilleHelpWanted.com radio ads where the irritated mother is trying to get her 34-year-old son to move out of the basement and get a job. Your internal projector might be showing the Geico gecko’s uncomfortable predicament in which he has to tell his boss he accidentally spent his coveted “first dollar” on a bag of crisps. Or you might simply be thinking of an interstate billboard for a personal injury lawyer you saw on the way to work this morning. The Heavy Hitter is at it again.

These are all effective, high profile means of disseminating your message to the masses. They are also expensive.Read More

10 Rules for Success from Sam the Man Walton

From an entrepreneurship posting that is worthy of sharing.

Rule #1
Commit to your business. Believe in it more than anything else. If you love your work, you’ll be out there every day trying to do the best you can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you – like a fever.

Rule #2
Share your profits with all your associates, and treat them as partners. In turn, they will treat you as a partner, and together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.

Rule #3
Motivate your partners. Money and ownership aren’t enough. Set high goals, encourage competition and then keep score. Make bets with outrageous payoffs.

Rule #4
Communicate everything you possibly can to your partners. The more they know, the more they’ll understand. The more they understand, the more they’ll care. Once they care, there’s no stopping them. Information is power, and the gain you get from empowering your associates more than offsets the risk of informing your competitors.

Rule #5
Appreciate everything your associates do for the business. Nothing else can quite substitute for a few well-chosen, well-timed, sincere words of praise. They’re absolutely free and worth a fortune.

Rule #6
Celebrate your success and find humor in your failures. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Loosen up and everyone around you will loosen up. Have fun and always show enthusiasm. When all else fails put on a costume and sing a silly song.

Rule #7
Listen to everyone in your company, and figure out ways to get them talking. The folks on the front line – the ones who actually talk to customers – are the only ones who really know what’s going on out there. You’d better find out what they know.

Rule #8
Exceed your customer’s expectations. If you do they’ll come back over and over. Give them what they want – and a little more. Let them know you appreciate them. Make good on all your mistakes, and don’t make excuses – apologize. Stand behind everything you do. ‘Satisfaction guaranteed’ will make all the difference.

Rule #9
Control your expenses better than your competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot of mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and still go out of business if you’re too inefficient.

Rule #10
Swim upstream. Go the other way. Ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody is doing it one way, there’s a good chance you can find your niche by going exactly in the opposite direction.
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Sam Walton’s 10 Rules For Success – from Sam Walton: Made in America, My Story, co-authored by J. Huey, Doubleday.

Do No Harm

The problem with Bud Light’s current marketing strategy isn’t its effectiveness or its accuracy, according to the Federal Trade Commission. It’s the colors.

An article in The Wall Street Journal quotes Janet Evans, an attorney for the agency, as saying that the FTC has “grave concerns” over a campaign by Anheuser-Busch to roll out Bud Light cans branded with the colors of various college sports teams. The reason for Evans’ worries? Despite the assurances of company executives that the special cans will only be sold at retailers whose customers are 21 years and older, the FTC believes the promotion may encourage underage and binge drinking on college campuses. As a result, the FTC is recommending that Anheuser-Busch drop the promotion.Read More

Create a Mean Lead Generation Machine

When it comes to creating revenue and keeping your cash flow positive, one oft overlooked item is generating new leads. Keeping that sales pipeline full is one way to stay ahead of the competition. In today’s marketing environment, it is important to understand and implement how your Web site can play an important role in this process.

Your Web site should be more than just an information repository about your company and the services it provides. Information on the Internet is not meant to just flow one way. The site can and should provide the user with important information, but it can also be a tool by which they submit information to help  you in your marketing efforts.Read More

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