Archive for the ‘Small Business’ Category

People have been asking me if small businesses are better at being customer-centric. So, I thought I’d do a little research this morning to see what the trend is. As you will see, the discussion on the topic goes back a few years. I will need to do some digger deeper to provide examples of small businesses who have been successful as a customer-centric business (Note: adding that to the “to do” list. If you know of any, be sure to let me know.).

The one thing I noticed when researching—and this is very important—is that a lot of articles and blog posts around the topic of small business and customer-centric were focused solely on customer service.

Please understand that customer-centric and customer service are not synonymous.

Keep Reading…

Even More Goodness! Related Posts:

• Your “Industry Experience Only” Requirement Is Hurting Customers, Employees and Shareholders
• Saturday Morning Reads: What’s the Return on Investment (ROI) of Content Marketing?
• What Integrated Marketing Is Not (Hint: It’s Not Integrated Tactics)
• Outside-In Thinking

I’d like to introduce you to Ramon De Leon of Domino’s in Chicago. How I met Ramon is quite simple: Twitter. This morning I tweeted out Tom Martin’s latest post “Is Pizza Hut’s Twintern Job Post Ethical” and I got the following response from @DPZRAMON: “Could be just a publicity stunt for Pizza Hut. Why advertise in NYT? @tommartin is rt- that shows they don’t get it.”

By clicking on DPZRAMON’s Twitter bio I could see that he was with Domino’s in Chicago. So, I asked him the obvious question: “Hi there! As a Domino’s owner, how are you dealing with what happened? Is it affecting business at all locally? (Agree, PH stunt)”

Ramon’s responses:

“The effect was minimized b/c since Tues(4.14) I went after the Chgo convo’s about this.Did not hide;made myself extremely visible.”

“I used monitter.com and joined as many Chicago Tweets on this issue as poss;I started answering B4 ppl were asking.Tks 4 asking”

Obviously, from a social media perspective, I was intrigued and wanted to learn more about Mr. De Leon. Ramon honored me with a phone call so I could get the scoop on how he uses social media to connect with customers. What I found out was indeed quite interesting!

Ramon De Leon (aka DPZRAMON) – King of Online Sales

Ramon has been engaged in online sales of Domino’s pizza since 1999 and has been engaged in social media since 2005 (long before the term it’s known by now). Ramon has long been a Facebook member and has connected with students for the past 4 years. His Facebook strategy is simple: Connect with local university/college students, give them the best service & pizza ever, and develop relationships that will last beyond their college years (as in delivering pizza to their place of business). According to Ramon, “it’s a social cycle.”

Social media, potholes and pizza

What do these three uncommon things have in common? Ramon, of course. When Ramon heard that CBS2 was doing a story on potholes, he reached out to them to share his collection of pothole videos (made with 12seconds.tv). Why potholes? Well, Ramon has 75 drivers who encounter these potholes often while delivery pizza all over Chicago. Apparently, if hit just the right way, potholes can really mess up the quality/appearance of a pizza, thus affecting customer service. Ramon was featured in nearly half of CBS2′s 3 minute story…all while wearing his Domino’s shirt.

Turning the camera on CBS 2

When I was checking out Ramon’s blog (before I learned his back story) I found something that amazed me. Ramon was able to turn the cameras on TWO CBS2 reporters and interview them (be sure to take a look at the two videos) after they interviewed him for their potholes story. I don’t know about you, but it’s the first time I’ve ever seen that happen. But here’s a hint: the only way that it happens is if you develop a relationship with reporters by giving them something newsworthy to begin with!

But wait, there’s more!

Not only does Ramon use social media for customer service, video blogging and public relations, he also monitors what customers are saying and when necessary uses social media to apologize.

A passion for pizza and social media.

If you speak with Ramon it is so obvious that he is passionate about Domino’s, customers, and social media. In fact, he constantly monitors social sites for mentions of his stores and he provides a flyer that includes all his social sites on a flyer, which is taped to all Domino’s pizza boxes leaving his stores just to make sure customers can find him online. He also attends a lot of social media conferences to keep up on the latest social media best practices. If you don’t believe me when I say Ramon is passionate, maybe you’ll believe Gary Vaynerchuk.

The million dollar question(s)

So Ramon, we all want to know…is all this social media stuff increasing your bottomline? Ramon’s answer: YES!

And, of course, we are all wondering…why isn’t corporate taking some lesson’s from Ramon? Well, it appears they are, but let’s give them some time to wrap their heads around it, okay?

Lessons Learned

1. Monitor conversations
2. Engage customers on & offline
3. Provide quality
4. Relationships are job #1
5. Reporters can be your friends
6. Be honest
7. Be passionate
8. Have fun!

DPZRAMON is the pizza guy to know in Chicago! Thanks Ramon for your time and sharing your story with us!

[Image: EasyFindGuide]

Even More Goodness! Related Posts:

• Saturday Morning Reads: MADD Reading
• Dear CEO: Your Customers Really Want You To Know Them
• Is Personal Social Media Experience A Negative For Job Seekers?
• Saturday Morning Reads: Do Marketers Need to Become Social Psychologists?

You know I am a big fan of marketers educating themselves on trends, best practices, etc., so I just wanted to let you all know about two great upcoming events. I will be speaking at Learn About Web and I’ll be attending MarketingProfs as a blogger.

MarketingProfs’ Business-to-Business Forum 2009 – June 8-9, Boston MA

You probably know this by now, but I am a HUGE MarketingProfs fan! I have been a member since around 2000 when “Profs” actually stood for professionals and professors (image a site that worked for me on both fronts!). And the ability to get to know Allen Weiss and Ann Handley over the past year has just made me a raving lunatic…um, I mean evangelist. I also am part of the Daily Fix team, which is a complete honor.

I attended MarketingProfs’ Digital Marketing Mixer last October and all I can say is that I walked away with a complete marketing high. My passion for marketing was somehow even more invigorated. Crazy, I know. The speakers were superb, the food was great, it was well-organized, and the ability to meet so many new people (a lot whom I only knew from Twitter) was wonderful.

By clicking on the MarketingProfs badge, you can learn more about the event AND save $200!

Learn About Web – September 14-15, Denver CO

Learn about Web (LAW) is an event that Craig Sutton of BrightWeb Marketing is putting together. The first LAW was back in the fall in his home state of Washington. Now Craig is bringing LAW to Denver.

I first met Craig at Small Business Marketing Unleashed in September and I can tell you he’s a straight-shooter that has a passion for helping businesses grow…especially online!

LAW is a great conference for small businesses that are looking to boost their brands online and will be offering tracks in social media, web design, and search marketing that will be taught by some of the best in the business including:

• Jennifer Laycock
• Jennifer Leggio
• Andrew Hyde
• Mack Collier
• Deb Robison
• Amber Naslund
• Thu An Bui
• Anita Campbell
• Shashi Bellamkonda
• Douglas Waltman II
• Gennefer Snowfield
• Matt McGee
• Harry Brooks (sorry Harry, couldn’t find you on Twitter!)

But don’t take my word for it! Mack Collier has done a great job of capturing his experience at LAW last year. And if you use the code from the LAW badge, you’ll save $199!

The Fine Print

I have made a decision to not monetize my blog for two reasons. One, because this blog (it’s also the HMC website) is about sharing information on marketing, communications and social media and conversation…I don’t see a point to monetizing that. And two, because unless there is something in it for you, whether it’s a discount, free item, etc., you gain nothing from me slapping ads all over the place.

The fine print… While I personally find value in both of these events, like I stated above, I am also talking about them because I am attending the MarketingProfs event as press and will be blogging about the event while I am there and I will be speaking at LAW. And yes, by having ads here I do get an affiliation fee.

Even if I wasn’t attending either even and could share a discount with you all, I would. I believe in marketers continually keeping up-to-date on the changes in our industry and attending conferences are one way to do it. So is this monetization, yes…temporarily. By the way, please don’t take this as an invitation to ask me to post ads here, because I won’t. I have a relationship with both the folks at MarketingProfs and Craig Sutton and that just didn’t happen overnight (Hint: social media works).

Even More Goodness! Related Posts:

• The Importance of Community & Marketing: I am joining the MarketingProfs Team
• Are you a social media tease?
• I am off to Boston!
• Passion.

Last night I had the opportunity to hear Bill McDermott SAP’s President of Global Field Operations (and member of the SAP AG Executive Board) speak at Villanova University’s 3rd Annual Marketing Professionals Showcase, a showcase for two student groups to present their marketing projects to local companies.

Bill kicked off the night talking about today’s economic crisis and how in his life he’s seen and worked through three others: the oil crisis (70s), the Wall Street crisis (80s) and the dot.com crisis (early 2000). During his keynote, Bill mentioned transparency as part of corporate culture (although in this sense he’s referring to Sarbanes-Oxley). During the Q&A portion his advice to the companies attending was that excellent customer service is what would help them to stand out and help them to survive…nothing new or earth shattering there, right? But then he said something that made me smile. He said that business is about people helping people.

I took that as an opportunity to ask Bill how he felt about social media and how it “pulls back the covers of a corporation so that ‘people’ were the face of the corporation, not the brand.” To which he replied (and not verbatim at all) that he embraced social media, social networks, etc. Of course, he also said that there are negatives. As an example, he went on to say that he’d rather have relationships with people online so that they got their information correct vs. someone writing something that wasn’t totally true (i.e. bloggers). He also mentioned online communities and how it’s important to be a part of them. And let’s be clear, SAP is walking the walk when it comes to implementing social media.

Next were two student teams that were presenting their findings after a semester long (I believe) project. One team presented a new product they developed for kids and the other a new marketing campaign for a company. The students did a great job and their marketing research, plan and presentation were really well done. However, when it came time for Q&A they really struggled with these questions:

Q: How would you use web 2.0 and Internet marketing in your promotions?

A: We have a website and a link to it so people can buy.

Q: How could you use social networking to spread the word of your new product?

A: We will have kiosks and the game at a camp and will use word of mouth.

Can you see the dichotomy at play here? SAP embraces online marketing and social media and I am sure if you were a new marketer looking to get on board, you would most likely be expected to understand it too. And yet, the kids who have lived in this “social” world all of their lives don’t understand what’s being asked from a business perspective.

It’s like convincing kids that a playground can be used for business and adults that business can be done on a playground.

I have blogged about this before…if marketers (apparently new & experienced) don’t take the time to learn how marketing is being changed forever by online marketing and social media in a few years they will be extinct.

So, how can that gap be bridged? Education, a renewed passion for marketing…and online marketing training.

And by “online” I don’t mean take an online class. By online I mean learn how online marketing is affecting how marketing and business is done today.

The Online Media Boot Camp

I hope you all know me well enough by now to know that I am passionate about marketing, communications, social media and education. The opportunity to combine it all to help fellow marketers (and companies) get a leg up in this horrible economy is important to me.

On April 9^th Liana (Li) Evans and I will hosting and speaking at the Online Media Boot Camp in King of Prussia, PA (right outside Philadelphia and convenient to NJ, NY, DE, MD).

The Online Media Boot Camp is limited to 65 attendees and offers the following online marketing training sessions:

• Social Media Fundamentals – Li Evans
• Selling On-Line Media Internally – Shashi Bellamkonda
• Corporate Blogging – Valeria Maltoni
• Public Relations 2.0 – Beth Harte
• Social Networking & Community Building – Mack Collier
• Online Marketing Workshop (Just to make sure that attendees confidently hit the ground running at the end of the day!)

Why the limited number of seats? Because as speakers we all want to make sure that we can spend as much time as possible with attendees to help get their questions answered, to help them bridge that gap I spoke about above, and to make sure that they leave with a new competitive advantage.

Online marketing and social media isn’t just for large companies with budgets. In fact, that’s not true at all! If you are a company, non-profit, agency (creative or government), college/university, etc. who wants to engage customers, prospects, shareholders, students, constinuents, etc. online, the Online Media Boot Camp is for you! Let’s face it, the Internet isn’t going away and even if you aren’t there…everyone else just might be. Why miss out on that opportunity?

To learn more about the speakers and what they are engaged in, check out their blogs:

• Liana (Li) Evans, Key Relevance
• Shashi Bellamkonda (The Social Media “Swami”), Network Solutions
• Valeria Maltoni, Conversation Agent
• Mack Collier, The Viral Garden

Registration is open and the Online Media Boot Camp is $349 per person. After 3/16 the registration is $449.

If you are already embracing online marketing and social media, how about passing on this information to a marketer that might be looking for a leg up or who gets it, but wants to learn how to implement it? You have my appreciation and thanks in advance!

If you have questions, please e-mail me at beth [at] onlinemediabootcamp [dot] com. Looking forward to hearing from you!

Even More Goodness! Related Posts:

• The Online Media Boot Camp Economic & Brain Stimulus Package: A chance to win a FREE Ticket!
• The Dichotomy Issue: “Social Media Marketing” vs. Classic Marketing
• Saturday Morning Reads: MADD Reading
• Is Personal Social Media Experience A Negative For Job Seekers?

It’s that time of year when the holidays spark a certain reminiscence about the year that has past and excitement for the year that is ahead of us. As a community that truly believes in the value of social media, we also know that it’s not just passion for marketing, communications, PR and social media that brings together…it’s also our other interests that truly makes for strong relationships.

So without further ado, I invite you all to join me for a potluck feast. Potlucks are wonderful because you never know what someone will bring and often times it gives you a chance to try something you may have never known about or ever tried.

For this potluck feast, I ask you to share a favorite blog or website (or more if you’d like!) that you enjoy and that you think others might want to feast on, it’s that simple. (And no, it doesn’t need to be marketing related–that’s the beauty of a potluck!)

Here’s what I am bringing to the table:

• Geert Hofstede Cultural Dimensions
  (a great site for anyone interested in understanding more about different cultures & international business)
• The Anti 9-to-5 Guide
  (a great site for women who might be considering going solo in 2009)

Happy holidays to you all!

Even More Goodness! Related Posts:

• The Importance of Community & Marketing: I am joining the MarketingProfs Team
• Saturday Morning Reads: MADD Reading
• Dear CEO: Your Customers Really Want You To Know Them
• Is Personal Social Media Experience A Negative For Job Seekers?