How Can We Increase Shopping Mall Store Traffic?

Publicity

Like most retailers, we, a small lifestyle retailer selling premium home decor products, also rely on shopping centers. Being small, we lack bargain power. A few of our stores are buried in those big shopping centers and customers complaining it hard to find us. We have some marketing initiatives to increase store traffic, but center management won’t support saying they have a center to look after not just one particular store. Being small again, we have a tight budget. What suggestions would give us to bring more people to our shops.

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Jay’s Answer: Co-market with your fellow hidden mall gems. Instead of approaching the center management individually, approach them as a team with your smaller gems. The goal is to get people to see the mall as containing more than the "usual" offerings.

If you don’t have a budget, then consider some guerrilla techniques in the mall itself. For example, get some friends to dress to get noticed carrying bags around (or their entourage) that has your store name clearly printed LARGE on the bags with gift wrapped items.

Create in-store seminars for how to dress or find gifts for the holiday season (etc) and send out free press releases.

Just because you don’t have a big budget doesn’t mean you can’t achieve big things. It just takes a bit more creativity.

How Should My Web Company Do Software Escrow?

Services

We are almost done with the development of our web project. There is more work to be done, but we want to change providers because our current company can’t meet their own target dates (we’re looking at a November launch of a project that was promised by last June.) Our contract has an intellectual property clause that gives us control of the code for our own further development with other contractors. My question is how and when does one go about setting up a software escrow? Once this contract is fulfilled, will we necessarily need a software escrow to access the code for further development? Are there any recommendations for choosing a software escrow company?

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Jay’s Answer: Here’s a good article detailing the whole escrow process including recommendations: http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=236193

What Is A Good Tagline For A Year-Round Bar?

Names + Taglines

Our summer bar needs a tagline to tell clients that it is also open in the winter. Clients are locals. In the winter it is a small, cozy bar. In the summer, it is a large open club, under the stars. We don’t care about the summer now, we want a tagline for the winter.

We thought of: ‘Perfect winter time’ and ‘Winter cocooning starts here’

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Jay’s Answer: Do the locals visit your bar in the summer? If not, you’ll need to find out why. If they do, but don’t come in the winter, is it because of lack of a crowd?

It sounds like you basically have 2 different clubs: a summer and winter club. They feel different. Market them differently ("The Winter Club is Now Open"). Create speed-dating events. Family events. Ladies-Only nights. Book clubs. Public speakers. Live mike night.

You’ll have to match your demographics with your community to discover what works for you.

Fundraising For Social Change

Book Reviews, Clubs + Associations, Publicity, Starting Out, ,

Buy This Book If you work for (or with) a non-profit, this book is a must-read. Kim Klein (the editor) focuses on key problem all non-profits face: acquiring, retaining, and upgrading donors.

Acquiring is the process of getting new people to donate to your organization. Typically this is done with direct mail, web site asks, and some special events. The goal is to create an impulse donation.

Retaining is the strategy of converting an impulse donation into a habit.

Upgrading converts the “regulars” to give more than they have before. Typically this is done via a personal call, letter, or special “insider” event.

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Finding Donors. Did you know that in 2004, 75.6% of contributions came from individuals (11.6% of foundations, 8% bequests, and 4.8% corporations)? Or, 7 out of 10 adults in the US and Canada give away money?

Asking For Money. What’s the #1 way to get donations? Ask for them! You need to identify people who: are able to make a gift, believe in your organization, and can be contacted. Formally, you ask for letter first with a letter detailing your organization and a request for monies for a specific need, following up with a phone call, and ending with a face-to-face meeting. Informally, a phone call followed by a letter would suffice.

Special Events. A special event is a two-fer: a fund-raising opportunity plus increased publicity. During the event, there must be a pitch to let people know now is the time to donate. Consider having some friends of your organization purposely start the donation process to break the ice.

Direct Mail. Use direct mail to: get someone to give for the first time, get donors to repeat their gift, and get donors to renew their gift. On a direct mail piece, expect less than 1% response (higher quality lists produce greater response) – so you’ll need to play the numbers game. Before starting a direct mail campaign, calculate the cost of the mailing vs. the likely result of the donation to arrive at a net income per donor. There a lot of information in the book about crafting the copy of the mail piece.

This book is a gold-mine of non-profit fundraising strategy. If you work with non-profits, read it often.

Marketing Snake Oil

Creative Business Ideas,

The Dark Side Of Marketing The Dark Side Of Marketing

For the longest time, I associated people who market and advertise with evil. I hated seeing advertisements telling me “if only I bought this, I would be cool also”. I couldn’t imagine what type of person became a marketer or advertiser. Now I am one.

Marketing that attempts to change our belief systems or undermine our values I consider evil . It lives by appealing to our insecurities, showing us a shortcut to happiness. It preaches fear, isolation, failure and shows salvation by living your life differently. A number of years ago advertisers made a fundamental switch in how they talked about their product. In the “old” days, a company would tell you all the wonderful things that their products did and problems they solved. You would chose your product on its own merits. Some consumers that tried those products and didn’t get the promised results wound up in court, claiming a breach of promise. After defending too many lawsuits, the companies wanted a safer way to promote their goods. The result is now companies show a lifestyle, and then show how their product fits into that lifestyle. There isn’t a claim that the product will help you achieve the lifestyle (or any other promise for that matter) – just an association between what product and lifestyle. This works wonderfully, since our brains are wired to fill in the gaps (“Gee, if I had that product, I would look/feel/act/love like that”).

The good side of marketing doesn’t attempt to sway. Instead it simply tries to help customers find the solution to their existing problem. In some cases, marketing attempts to educate you that you have a problem. The good side of marketing is actually helping people. You’re doing a genuine service (and making money doing it).

Good marketing is harder than evil marketing, since you really have to understand what problems people have and try to fix them. Good marketing can also focus on people’s fear, isolation, and failure, but it solves it authentically, not with a mirage.

Gaming the SEO System

I recently heard an interview of a web “guru” who’s showing people how to get their website noticed quickly. Their first steps were straightforward: create a blog, keyword optimize it, and publish it. So far, so good.

The next step involved generating backlinks (links to you site) and social bookmarks (a “thumbs-up” vote for something people find interesting). Instead of waiting for this to happen organically, the guru pays people to comment and bookmark their sites. Since people are interested in the “next hot thing”, the bookmarks beget other backlinks, and the traffic builds quickly. It works.

But, is this ethical right ? Not so long ago, movie studios got into trouble when reporters figured out that some reviews were written by the studio (or someone that the studio paid). Some interviews (of people coming out of the movie) that raved about the movie were also studio-generated. The studios got bad press, and the practice (supposedly) stopped.

The problem is, it’s not yet easy to figure out who has paid-for-posts/bookmarks, and who has authentic ones.

Be careful: it’s a slippery slope to trade off your ethics for dollars.

Optimize Your Website For Search In 3 Steps

Creative Business Ideas, eMarketing,

Search Engine Logos Since the purpose of having a website is for people to find you online, I wanted to go over some basic strategies for ensuring that people searching for your types of services/products find your small business’s website.

The goal of optimization is to have your website listed before your competitors ("ranked highly") (ideally on the first page of search results, which most people don’t look beyond).

Most search engines report the result of searches in two groups: sponsored ads and normal ("organic ") searches. Sponsored ads appear because the company has agreed to pay the search engine (via a pay-per-click [PPC] ad campaign) money whenever people click on their ad for specific keywords. PPC is a great way to generate traffic quickly, but it’s often not cost effective long-term. Long-term you want your website to appear organically highly ranked.

When a person does a search, the goal of the search engine is to show the most relevant websites that likely match the person’s search terms . The goal of optimizing is to make your site highly relevant for specific search terms.

  1. Identify the search terms you want to rank highly for . As in all forms of marketing, you need to think like the person who’s looking, not as the business who’s selling. That means you need to know what keywords people use to search for businesses like yours. This information is easy to find from pay-per-click programs, such as Google Ad Words Keyword Tool . Don’t forget to also spot trends (using a tool such as Google Trends ) in keyword searches, since you want to catch "up-and-coming" searches that might be ranked low now.
  2. Use the keywords in relevant pages in your website . Keywords are seen in: the main body of the web page, meta tags (less important, but still worth having), and the alt-text in your images. Use keywords naturally – remember the point is to have more customers. If your website isn’t human-readable, then all your work will be for naught. Also, make sure that if you want to target customers in a region, you use your region in your keyword phrases.
  3. Get links to your website. Search engines rank websites by their "authority ". One way they measure authority is how many (and which) other websites link to them ("backlinks "). One backlink from an top-class website is worth hundreds of poor-quality links. You can get backlinks from a wide variety of sites: organizations that you’re a member of, blogs, and directories. One tool I recommend is Directory Submitter , a free tool to get backlinks. Be warned: Google is in the process of penalizing websites with paid backlinks. Also: submit your websites to the search engines (if you have not already) so they can explicitly add your site to their directories: Google , Yahoo , and MSN .

There is a lot more to search engine optimation (SEO) that these tips. Don’t forget there are professionals that can help you with your search engine optimization (I’d be happy to recommend some).

How Can I Market A University Athletics Team’s Merchandise?

Clubs + Associations, Products, Publicity

I am looking to develop a merchandising strategy for a University Athletics team. Currently there is a limited selection of merchandise available, however I am looking for a method to build interest in the items already there, not develop a new product line. The challenge is the University’s teams are not very good, and as such, the attendance and participation at the games by student is still fairly small. Any thoughts… ?

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Jay’s Answer: If you want an edgy approach: have contests to modify the apparel to convey the feeling of the team by the students.

Have an anonymous student daily find someone wearing the team’s clothing, take a picture of them (for the school paper), and give them a gift certificate (for food, iTunes, etc.). This ongoing contest might stimulate new purchases if the promotion got some school-wide coverage.

Sell to alumni. They might remember the “glory days” of the teams. Offer them as part of a package for reunions.

Give them as gifts to prospective freshmen, or have a special area that tours take prospects to to get their college shirt.

How Can I Get Hotel Referrals For Local Small Businesses?

Products, Publicity

We are a small retail company that sells locally made products, souvenirs, and gift baskets. We have opened a new downtown location in a mid-size city with multiple hotels in close proximity. We have been brainstorming ideas about how to develop a rewards program for the hotels to encourage them to refer their guests to our store.

So far the only good idea we have is to give the hotels business cards with our info and possibly a discount or some sort for the customer. The card would also have the hotel name on it and when the guest comes to the store, they would give us the card and we track how many referrals have been given from that hotel.

This idea is the only functional one we have come up with. Please give any input on this idea, positive or negative or a completely different idea. I am very new to the industry and would appreciate any advice!

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Jay’s Answer: Focus on the reason for someone who’s staying at a nearby hotel to come to your store. Is it for a souvenir of their stay or a last-minute gift?

If you have attractive gift baskets, then see if there’s a public space (ideally, behind glass) in the hotel lobby that you could put your baskets in with your card.

A rewards program is just too hard to manage in your case. When someone new purchases from you, ask them if they’re staying at a local hotel, and if so, which one (and/or “How Did You Hear About Us?”). Then call the hotel (or write) to thank them for their referrals at the end of the month. If you want to make the referral tangible, gift the front desk & concierge with something you sell or a gift card for them to use (and visit your store).

Likewise, ask the local hotels for brochures of theirs to leave in your store. You can put them in a book (“Where To Stay”), etc.

What’s the Best Way To Market My Web Design Agency?

eMarketing, Services

I am operating a web design agency that is focused on corporate web designs. Our target market is Real Estate companies, corporates and middle sized companies. We are using Google Adwords and Adbrite.com. Now we plan to place print ads. In which Business Magazine we should place ads?

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Jay’s Answer: Focus on one niche at a time. I would start with real estate companies, creating a landing page that targets them instead of your generic (“we do logo, web, and branding design”) message. Sell the solution – a great logo, website, branding helps attract customers short- and long-term, etc.

Corporate and middle-sized companies most likely do this work in-house, so you’ll be less likely to find opportunities there. However, if you focus on a niched middle-sized or corporate company, and know that you have a special service that it’s unlikely they have in-house, then by all means fill the need.

As for print magazines – don’t place ads in general business magazines. Place them in magazines that your niche reads. What do they read? Ask them.

Also, make sure you get your keywords in alignment for your niche’s search. You want to be easy to find.

What Should Be In My Interview Presentation?

Starting Out

I was asked to give a 45 minute presentation to 5-10 members of our group about a project you completed in the past that you are particularly proud of.

It has been scheduled in the morning, before my meetings with other interviewers. What I should include in my slides? Self Intro, Project background, project team, project overview, process, accomplishments and Q&A, what else? I plan to do 30 minutes’ talking and 15 minutes Q&A. But still, it is not that easy to cover 30 minutes without getting into too much details.

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Jay’s Answer: Skip the slides (or keep them to just a few). You want people to be focused on you. I don’t know what position you’re interviewing for, but consider what key piece of information you want to impart in your presentation (other than “hire me”). Then, tell your story. Make the story personal. What enthusiasm can you muster? What pain could you share? Slides full of buzzwords, graphics, etc are a distraction – people remember a story. If you don’t have story, provide analogies. But describe the problem that existed, how it was uncovered, what your thought process was about it, how it was solved, the new problems that you found during that process, the solution, the short-term result, long-term result, and knowing what you know now, would you do the same project in the same way again.

Don’t wait until the last 15 minutes to let them talk. Let them ask questions to help focus your story. If you get your story down, they’ll be enthralled.