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In the Ram Zone

06/06/2010 by

The following is a blog that I wrote for R. L. Polk, an automotive and trucking industry market analysis and data company, that focuses on some of the things that I’ve been talking about recently. I plan to highlight good programs that deal with social media and permission marketing along high quality marketing communication. I enjoy being able to look at people doing it right and the people at Ram Trucks are definitely doing it right. I hope you enjoy…

Usually you hear of athletes being in the zone and they say phrases like, “the goal looked like an ocean,” and “the game seemed to slow down.” Well, ever since breaking away from Dodge and becoming their own brand, Ram Trucks has been in the zone – literally and figuratively. Their aptly named blog, “The Ram Zone” represents the engagement centerpiece of the Ram Trucks Integrated Marketing Communications strategy. This along with an excellent product will surely make for brand resonance with Ram owners, and a recognized personality that is unmistakably unique to Ram Trucks alone.  They are reaching people through a variety of digital channels, experiential events, in-store promotions and partnerships.  I’m pretty impressed with what the Ram people have accomplished in a few short months. The following is what I’ve noticed.

Social Media Marketing
The main piece, as I previously mentioned, is their blog The Ram Zone. Here you can keep up with all news Ram, while registering to join the community so you can comment about the stories and connect with other Ram owners. Additionally, there is a gallery with tons of immersive  pictorial content. Most important, the blog promotes a Ram Trucks lifestyle that is decidedly tough, hard-working and showing a love for the great outdoors.

There are also easy navigation buttons to the flickr page, and Facebook Fan page where there are nearly 21,000 fans of Ram Trucks. Many of these fans have uploaded pictures and descriptions of their Ram truck, which has created a strong community. They also have a twitter feed, but there doesn’t seem to be as much engagement here. It is just a barrage of event details and tweets containing pictures of those events. They also have their own YouTube channel, with videos of Rams doing some gnarly things.

Strategic Partnerships
When developing a new brand, it is often easier to introduce your position by attaching to a more established name and/or cause to create the desired emotive affect. That is what Ram Trucks has done with Letters for Lyrics and the Zac Brown Band. They’re attempting to get to 1,000,000 letters to soldiers in war zones, while offering some great concerts and music. Dealers benefit too, because the repositories for the letters are only at Ram Trucks locations.

As the website states, the promotion works like this:

  1. Write a letter to a soldier
  2. Take it to a Ram dealer
  3. Receive the free CD

Experiential Events
Finally, Ram Trucks is taking their Motor Trend Truck of the year all over the place to compete in sled pulls, do demonstrations for on-lookers or create viral videos of Rams doing outrageous stuff. Then, to bring it all home, they post the videos and pics up on their website, flickr, YouTube, Facebook, twitter feed, write blog posts and promote lively discussion in all those places.

No matter where they have shown up, Ram Trucks have promoted their slogan…which is either “Get Some Mud on Your Tires,” or “Nothing Works Harder than a Ram.” Either one works. What do you think of the new Ram Trucks brand? Have they captured your attention with their aggressive brand messaging

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Filed Under: Branding, Email, Facebook, Integrated Marketing Communications, Social Media, Twitter Tagged With: , , , , ,

Podcasting?

05/23/2010 by

Recently, I was lucky enough to be able to speak about my views on “The Value Equation” for businesses in digital marketing. I had never done a podcast before, but found that I really enjoyed being a part of it. In the podcast, on Portage Digital Media, we discussed the changes on Facebook, matching messages to an emotional connection, and the pitfalls of the “freemium” model. Central to the conversation was, “why do people pay me money for what I’m doing”?

I don’t know if this will become a regular thing, but I hope people will check it out because there is some great value interspersed with fun and jokes. David Lingholm and Jeremiah Staes of Portage are some smart guys that get it, when it comes to making money and communicating value properly.

Please check it out and tell us what you think. I truly hope you enjoy. And as always, be brilliant.

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Filed Under: Branding, Customer Relationship Management, Email, Facebook, Hand-Raiser Blog, Integrated Marketing Communications, Small Business, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

In the Beginning…

05/19/2010 by

…marketers were able to control their message in all facets. As a business, you had 100% say over what messages about your brand were being received. Some (many) are still clinging to the idea that they can accomplish resonance via pushing messages out to consumers. Meanwhile, there are others out there that realize this is simply not possible. You can no more push messages and expect that to be a holistic view of what your receivers see, think or feel about your brand, than you can expect the telegraph to come back. Sorry, but the private business sector and general public have discovered the cell phone of marketing.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel though, so don’t despair! There are a multitude of ways to influence brand perception and still be effective at promoting your company. Let’s look at a couple of them. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Branding, Creative, Customer Relationship Management, Email, Hand-Raiser Blog, Integrated Marketing Communications, Small Business, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

Be Grateful for your Customers

05/11/2010 by

Do you have a loyalty program? If not, you might be one of those people that believes the E-Trade baby is really talking. Okay, that’s not fair.That E-Trade baby is convincing. Regardless, as a business  you should be grateful for your customers. The best way to show that is through loyalty. Loyalty is great because it translates – like many things – in business as it does in life. When there is a confluence of relevancy in this way, emotive feelings of that thing (in this case loyalty) are projected on to your brand/business.

Loyalty programs can show up in a plethora of forms. You can send out a monthly email/newsletter to all of your customers that has discounts embedded in the communication. Loyalty cash, for repeat purchase, is great for irregular or large purchases like cars. You might even offer sample products you’re weighing whether or not to stock, if you’re a retail establishment. Regular purchases like coffee or gas lend themselves well to freebies based off of a certain number of purchases.

Most important, loyalty programs regularly remind your customer base why they spend their money with you and not the other business. Let’s face it, there are very few product/service niches that are so unique that there isn’t anywhere else for a customer to get a similar product or service. So, it is imperative that you treat your customers as a valued friend or acquaintance. Caveat: If you happen to be one of those people that itemizes the dinner bill and fights about splitting it evenly because ‘you only drank water’ then don’t treat your customers like friends because that is just kind of rude and classless. But, if you realize that the value of your friendship is greater than one dinner then you’re in the clear. Yes, I said it.

Remember, it is 60% less expensive to obtain repeat purchase than it is to gain new customers, so take care of the people already patronizing you. Any decent CRM will allow you to keep tabs on who is purchasing what and when so there shouldn’t be any problem with knowing which customers to incentivize and which ones to leave out. The point is to reward people that have rewarded you with their dollars and loyalty by showing some loyalty back to them. Reciprocation isn’t only suggested but expected in life.

Finally, you can link it to your integrated marketing communications strategy. If you’re focusing on individuality, then you might offer free or discount ringtones. Ringtones might not directly associate to your product but if it fits with your IMC big idea then go for it!  Offers such as this can translate to positive reinforcement of the intangibles or brand personality you want to convey.

Do you have any loyalty program successes? Tell me about them, or anything else you might want to talk about.

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Filed Under: Business Growth, Customer Relationship Management, Hand-Raiser Blog, Integrated Marketing Communications Tagged With: , , , , ,

Matching Technology to Need

05/06/2010 by

How To Gain Respect with Businesses

Usually I write for businesses and since this is a small business marketing blog that would be appropriate. Today, I want to speak with some of my cohorts in marketing who focus on technology. The social media, web dev, app dev folks of the world apparently need to be reminded that they are often ahead of the rest of society in technology acceptance.

Think of technology as hip-hop and businesses as your parents in the late eighties-early nineties. Remember hearing, “this stuff isn’t music,” and the ever popular, “rap will never last”?  Well, we knew what was up, but Young MC and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince’s mainstream hits were needed to get the late adopters to finally resign in acceptance. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Branding, Business Growth, Hand-Raiser Blog, Integrated Marketing Communications, Small Business, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Measuring Cost Per Lead

04/27/2010 by

The Case for Inbound Marketing

Convention tells us that trade shows, cold calling and direct mail will elicit results. Truth is, they do and have for quite a while.  The problem is we rarely measure the cost per lead and conversion of those activities. There are no financial or accounting tricks to doing so, but the regular blocking and tackling fundamentals sometimes fall through (as one of my former coaches used to say). [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Hand-Raiser Blog, Integrated Marketing Communications, Small Business, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , ,

Future so Bright the Midwest Needs Shades

04/19/2010 by

FMW 2010This past weekend saw a conference of epic proportions. Typically I’m underwhelmed by conferences; they promise these mind-blowing, motivation inspiring experiences that rarely metastasize into realization of the guarantee. This was not to be the fate of the Future Midwest Conference (#FMW10 on Twitter), held in Royal Oak, Michigan. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Branding, Business Growth, Hand-Raiser Blog, Integrated Marketing Communications, Links, Market Research, Networking, Small Business, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Do More Than ‘Net Work & Network

04/08/2010 by

I love social media. I have met many wonderful people that have become colleagues, friends, associates, and partners. No matter how often we speak online through our various networks, the power of face-to-face old school networking is still very relevant.  I see some businesses trying to go the easy route by focusing too much on making the ‘net work that they forget to network.  More important, they forget (or were never taught) how to effectively network.

We hear about networking all the time. People often mistake it for something it is not, though. It is so omnipresent in the lexicon of America that the meaning has become watered down.  It is sort of like a brand name that has become a commodity. Some good examples are Kleenex, Jeep or Coke – even Sea-Doo suffers from this affliction.  Well, add networking to the pile of words/brands over-used creating meanings as eroded as the smooth water beaten pebbles on the beach. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Customer Relationship Management, Hand-Raiser Blog, Integrated Marketing Communications, Networking Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Good Things are Coming

04/02/2010 by

Pass it OnPower of Positive ThinkingLast week, I was at the Mid America Truck Show.  I noticed a distinct difference in the general rhetoric I have recently heard from my cohorts in the transportation industry. The last couple of years have been arduous for anyone looking to increase their business. This is especially true in an industry that has seen a 40% decline in business. Yet, I was reminded of the optimism of this great country, because I heard almost everyone utter the sentiment that good things are coming  -in their own way.

In one instance, I heard a vendor being proud of the orders they’ve brought in to their business recently. The sentiment also came in the form of, “well the phones are ringing again, and that is a good thing.” The fact of the matter is, the positive attitude can be the first step in realizing tangible advancement. The spiritual principle that “your world reflects your thoughts” is very true and may be turning toward positive in the business community.

This Universal Law demonstrates how we create the things, events, and people that come into our lives. Our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions produce energies which, in turn, attract like energies. Negative energies attract negative energies and positive energies attract positive energies.

There is a great opportunity for us to shape our world, because we’re coming from a place where the canvas has to be re-drawn, completely. Holding fast and steady to our thoughts of growth will draw to us the resources necessary to make this reality possible and true. Good things are coming and are on their way. We just have to continue thinking that a great miracle will happen for our respective communities, and they will.

I like hearing stories of triumph. Do you have anything that you would like to tell the world about? Who knows, it may inspire the prosperous thoughts, and ultimately, actions of others.

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Filed Under: Integrated Marketing Communications Tagged With: , , ,

Stop Weaving in Traffic

03/23/2010 by

It happens all the time. You’re late, or just in a hurry, flying through traffic. Maybe there’s even some horn honking as people are cut off by your intensity to reach your destination. You go left, you go right, and even slow down to change lanes and speed up. Then hear comes a light, and you’re stopped. All of the people that you were weaving through, while honking and cursing, come up to the same light after about 15 seconds. And then comes the, “you’re such a jackass” stare. I tell business people this all the time – stop weaving in traffic. You will eventually end up at the same place as everyone else. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Branding, Hand-Raiser Blog, Integrated Marketing Communications Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
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