Buzz Builder

Buzz Marketing Lessons from Attendees at The ASPPA 401(k) Summit 2009

On 3/23/09, I gave a general session presentation at The ASPPA 401(k) Summit on how 401(k) plan advisors and providers can galvanize their business with buzz. I was pleased to see that attendees were excited about finding innovative ways to grow their businesses outside the realm of traditional marketing. Seemingly, many of them have experienced lackluster results with conventional advertising approaches similar to those that led me to start my word of mouth marketing company in 2002.

Afterwards, Sheri Fitts from The Standard and I led a workshop which featured three plan advisors discussing how they have worked with us in building their businesses with buzz over the past five months. The panelists were David Hinderstein (Strategic Retirement Group-website coming soon), Michael McCabe (Trinity Advisors Group), and Andrew Sweeny Jr. (Horan Securities).

At the workshop, we asked the advisors and providers in attendance to join a LinkedIn group called Advisors’ Buzzstorm which is open to any 401(k) professional interested in sharing creative ways to create buzz for their businesses without traditional advertising. In a workshop exercise, plan advisors and providers shared some of the most successful “buzzstorming” practices that they’ve used to grow their sales. Their comments included:

• Establishing myself as a resource for attorneys and accountants
• Using newsletters and seminars
• Sending out oversized postcards, blast emails and videos (like YouTube)
• Distributing email newsletters with Constant Contact
• Leveraging LinkedIn to build a larger professional network
• Working on visual brand
• Tracking clients and competitors via Google Alerts
• Calling clients four times a year to check in and ask for referrals at the end of every call
• Sending out a client survey
• Teaching CPE to CPA's 3 times a year along with an estate attorney
• Creating a marketing plan for referrals from 100+ brokers and CPAs at my broker/dealer
• Blogging on our website (each of our advisors contributes)
• Issuing targeted press releases about new initiatives or ideas that might be provocative, innovative or insightful regarding current events in the news
• Obtaining a certificate in retirement planning from Wharton School of Business and subsequently promoting this accomplishment via e-mail, snail mail and website
• Sending out financial newsletters by e-mail to corporate & individual clients
• Speaking at industry events where I share some of my findings
• Sending targeted e-mail campaigns to qualified prospects
• Meeting with prospects in person (road trips)
• Positioning myself as a subject matter expert available to reporters looking for commentary on industry events
• Growing through word of mouth referrals from the investment advisors we work with on various projects

An Antidote to Negative Economic Buzz: Humble School Bus Driver in Queens Feeds the Needy

All the buzz about climbing unemployment rates and economic distress is enough to depress even the most optimistic person. This recent post on the Pink Slips Are The New Black Blog about how one regular guy has made a difference in improving the lives of thousands should lift your spirits:

CNN recently featured a truly inspiring story about a 44-year-old Jorge Munoz who emigrated to the United States from Colombia in the 1980s.

A school bus driver by day, he spends the majority of his free time feeding hungry people out of his mobile soup kitchen in Queens, NY. He started the program in 2004 and he estimates he’s served 70,000 meals to date. Now it has evolved into a non-profit organization called An Angel in Queens.

From CNN:
Muñoz estimates that food and gas cost approximately $400 to 450 a week; he and his family are funding the operation through their savings and his weekly $700 paycheck.

Asked why he spends so much time to help people he doesn’t know, he answers, “I have a stable job, my mom, my family, a house… everything I want, I have. And these guys [don't]. So I just think, ‘OK, I have the food.’ At least for today they’re going to have a meal to eat.”

The Best Marketing in a Down Economy

Below is an article from the March 2009 edition of my free monthly eNewsletter The Buzz Bulletin. To sign up for future issues, please visit the Galvin Communications website.

“Do what you do so well that your customers will want to see it again and bring their friends.”
Walt Disney

In today’s difficult economic climate, it’s easy to feel as if there’s little you can do to improve sales since the media keeps churning out stories about how consumers and companies aren’t spending money. The good news is that many of your competitors will believe this and stop trying to attract customers. This presents tremendous opportunities to grow your business.

Last week, Bob Stonhaus, a friend, client and founder of modular wine storage manufacturer STORViNO, sent me a statistic about the recession of the early-1980s. McGraw Hill Research found that companies which maintained aggressive sales and marketing efforts enjoyed more growth – some 275 percent in the five years after the recession – compared with only 19 percent growth amongst companies that cut or reduced their marketing budgets during the economic downturn.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “Hey, that makes sense but I don’t have extra cash for marketing since my sales are terrible.” Well, the best marketing doesn’t cost anything. Rather, it takes a commitment to love and delight your customers with stellar service.

Yesterday, my wife Ellen and a friend went to Vinideus, a neighborhood wine shop and bar in Portland, Oregon that we’ve walked by for months but never visited. Ellen was curious to check it out since we’ve seen signs in the window announcing a diverse array of activities including a networking evening, French movie night, salsa lessons and a variety of musical performances. One of the owners greeted her and everybody who came through the doors with a smile and warm hello as if they were arriving in his living room (in fact, the shop has the cozy atmosphere of a family-run bistro in France).

When he overheard Ellen and her friend discussing the nuances of authentic French crepes, he apologized for interrupting but enthusiastically told them about his plans for introducing crepes in a few weeks as well many of the other exciting things that Vinideus would be offering.  When Ellen and her friend left, they had signed up for the shop’s weekly newsletter and were already making plans for their return.

They wandered a few blocks up the street to try another wine bar, where the atmosphere was quite different. While the service wasn’t bad, it lacked the warmth, energy and knowledge of the previous establishment. Likewise, the space itself felt cold—literally and figuratively. There was no music, no laughter and, not surprisingly, very few customers on what should have been a popular place on a Friday night. Ellen’s comment was, “There was no enthusiasm, no love.”

Think about the businesses that you love. What makes you loyal to these companies over others that offer similar products and services? Is it possible to adopt some of their customer service tactics? By doing so, you will take your business to new heights as satisfied customers keep coming back and referring their friends.

Will More People Eat Skittles Thanks to Twitter & Social Media Buzz?

In today's Wall Street Journal, there's a fascinating article about how Mars Snackfood launched a new website last week for its Skittles candy which attempts to leverage the power of social media. The article states: "Instead of a typical product site that highlights information about or videos and games related to a product, the Skittles website features content created by consumers - most of it gleaned from other websites."

The article mentions how the online buzz for Skittles jumped quickly after its new website launched with comments on Twitter going from just handful to more than 800 overnight. The comments are multiplying rapidly as you'll see on Twitter's search results page for Skittles. But when you review the comments, you'll note that most are merely attempts to land 15 seconds of fame as a tweet (Twitter post) scrolls up the Skittles home page. Additionally, a significant number of posts are quite negative about the product or Skittles attempt to stir up social media buzz. I'm sure that the advertising agency that created this new campaign for Skittles is telling Mars that online buzz is building and generating coverage in the mainstream press such as The Wall Street Journal and Advertising Age. But, would any of the people seeing this buzz ever eat even one Skittle? While Skittles foray in social media will likely garner its agency some advertising industry awards, I doubt that it will do much to sell Skittles.