Advice
September 28, 2011 | 
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How Do You Get Your Employees to Care? Here Are A Few Ideas
It’s one of the most difficult things a business owner deals with. How do you get your employees to care about the company as much as you? First of all they won’t, they aren’t the owner. Once that is clear it becomes an issue of trying to get them to enjoy their job and have the desire to do a little more than the general job requirements.
Not everyone is driven by money. There are many different types of employees so what makes one employee fulfilled may not be the same thing as another. As an owner it takes time and effort to figure out what drives each person and keep that hanging in front of them. Some it’s money, some it’s flexible schedule, another may be just giddy over you letting them take a late lunch every day to go let their dog out. I realize there is a job to be done and you can’t appease everyone but putting in a little effort to drive a talented employee is well worth the time. I also realize a happy employee still doesn’t always mean they care. There is one commonality in employees. They all want a purpose and to be needed at their company. Most like some form of structure and want to stay busy, if only to make the day go quicker. You can feed on these basic needs to create an employee that cares. Here are a few things I think you can do to help them care a little bit more.
1. Create an “Error” account. Everyone makes mistakes, it’s human nature. Put some money in an account that is tied to a measurable action. An action that if it takes place causes money to be lost. Figure out how many times you can accept that action to happen and tie a dollar amount to it. If it happens you take the money out of the account. If all goes well and there are few errors, they get to keep all the money. If they screw up then they get nothing. Approach it in a positive way. “If you are error free you are going to get this amount of money”.
2. Give Out Half Day Off Coupons: “An action rewarded is an action repeated” I was in a management session with an owner that handed out half day off coupons to employees that went above and beyond what he expected in a given time period. Officially it fits into a monetary reward but I find there are just as many people that think time off is as valuable as the money. Others would love the time off but they can’t afford to take a day. An employee who feels their company appreciates their extra effort is more likely to care about putting it in.
3. Make One Person Responsible: Sounds easy but it’s surprising how many companies play the “group effort” game. The group will allow people to put the blame on someone else for lack of production. In general, people love responsibility and are empowered by the chance of praise and reward. This doesn’t mean one person has to do it all. On the contrary, you can still form groups but divide up the responsibility so individual parts are given to individual people. It also make it easier to spot the person that isn’t putting in the effort.
4. Switch jobs. Once or twice a year have your employees switch jobs for a day. Make the job as completely different from their daily tasks as you can. Make the marketing guy the courier. Put the order puller in tech. You have to be a little careful for your customer’s sake to make sure you don’t let the company slip too far and of course the order puller isn’t coding. It gives people a chance to see how difficult other jobs can be.
5. If you allow employees to buy stock in the company, match it. Encourage them to invest by giving them double the money. Again, a simple act but one that many companies are no longer doing.
6. Keep things in house. You may be surprised what your own employees can create. Outsourcing is the rule in today’s business but nobody knows your company like your own employees. I used to have other people do my ads but turns out I have someone here that produces a better print ad. Have a contest to find out. You don’t have to use it and it will give the employees a chance to show their hidden talents.
7. Get rid of those that don’t. One lousy employee can ruin an entire group. No matter how valuable, dump them. It may be hard in the beginning but most of the time the surrounding employees will pick up the slack just because they are so happy that person is gone.
5 Reason To Use Social Marketing
5 Reasons Why You Should Be on Social Media
Rachel Clark, Product Administrator
The numbers are in, and with about one billion social media accounts worldwide, it is safe to say that social media has truly infiltrated society. Facebook is reported to have almost 700 million users and Twitter has 300 million users. After only two years, the new kid, Foursquare, has 10 million people registered. Now more than ever, the arguments you have been hearing in favor of social media have support, and here are five reasons you should consider entering this new medium. Let us know what your #6 would be in the comments.
1) It doesn’t matter if you are small: In his book UnMarketing, Scott Stratten writes that “…social media can actually be better for local-based businesses than for anyone else.” The one to three location businesses will never have millions of fans, but that doesn’t make a social media presence not worth it. Most of our clients, although small, have avid fans that are extremely involved with them. The fact that it is a small business means that there is a closer connection felt between the customer and the brand. Fans love to be in a relationship.
2) Marketing is a relationship: You can no longer push information into the world and hope it takes hold. Much like planning out your business strategy, you have to plan how you are going to approach, interact, and engage with your fans. Old methods of direct mail coupons, Savvy Shoppers, Valpaks, etc. are not giving you the same effect as a social medium. Today, marketing is a two-way communication. If you are not willing to put the time and effort into building trust with your customers, you are truly missing out because someone else is taking the time and effort. It is much more difficult to break something as strong as a consumer-brand relationship, but to maintain that relationship requires work.
3) It’s where your customers are! Like I stated earlier, there are almost one billion social media accounts worldwide. Every day, people are coming to your establishment and checking in on Foursquare and Facebook, looking to see if you are ready to engage with them. In the past, a large part of marketing was targeting your audience – where they are, what they like, etc. Using a social medium helps eliminate a lot of that work. A lot of times, your customers are the ones looking for you, not the other way around. Many of our clients were unaware they even had a Facebook presence until they saw Place Pages where they already had dozens of “likes” and check-ins from their audience. Their fans were just sitting there, waiting to be engaged and rewarded for liking their brand. The longer you abstain from something like Facebook, the larger the audience you are ignoring. And fans do not want to be ignored.
Fans want to engage with your brand.4) Social networks are how we are wired to communicate: Lon Safko writes in The Social Media Bible, “Social networks have been around as long as there have been humans to create them.” A social network is not solely social media, and that is something that can confuse people. Social networks are basically trusted groups of people with “similar interests and a common bond.” Since people lived in caves we have banded together to form groups amongst which we socialize. Social media is just a new way to be a part of a bigger network. People thrive on communicating with others, whether it is in person or virtually. Either way, it’s an extension of human habit. There is no need to fight Facebook or call it unnatural. It’s actually about as natural as it gets.
5) Did I mention it’s where your customers are? With almost 700 million people on Facebook alone, the excuse “My fans are not using social media” has no traction. I hear it all the time and I refuse to let you think that anymore. When I mentioned earlier that social media is important because it is where your customers are, I wasn’t talking solely about college kids. Actually, the average age of a person on Facebook is 38. They have an average of 130 friends (or an immediate social network of 130), and according to an article by The Telegraph on June 22nd, in the United Kingdom 22% of grandparents over 60 have a social media account – and 71% of those are on Facebook. So just because you cater to an older clientele does not mean social media is not an option. It is becoming an important option more and more each day. With such a large age spectrum, social media can’t be pegged to just one generation- it is spanning all of them.
So, social media is truly an exciting new way to engage with your audience, even though it is still a relatively new medium. The reasons above are just a couple of general notes about why it is a useful tool for business owners today. Brands more than ever have a chance to interact and build lasting relationships with their customers, and it is an opportunity that should not be ignored. Do you really want to stick to old methods when it could alienate the very relationships you have worked so hard to build? Let us know in the comments!
Have you ever had to fire someone for stealing?
Have you ever had to fire someone for stealing? That could be a loaded question. If you’re a restaurant operator, you’ve probably had to let people go for taking advantage of the business on more than one occasion, and you’ve probably wondered about many other employees. Or maybe you had a pretty good sense something wrong was happening, but you had no concrete proof. You have to walk a fine line – you don’t want people to walk all over you because you’re too trusting, but you don’t want to assume every server is out to get you, either.
You may be familiar with these 4 common server scams:
- Comp after close – The server re-opens the check & comps some or all of the items, putting the cash in his pocket.
- Comp after print – After the table pays the printed amount on the receipt with cash, the server comps some or all of the items, keeping the difference.
- Over tipping – Putting in an amount that is higher than was written on the receipt.
- Transfer/wagon wheel – Self-service items are entered in when the first table orders them, and then they are transferred between guest checks instead of being rung in each time. The server pockets the cash for the item on each table.
Unfortunately, these scams are only a few of the ways employees have found to steal from restaurants. As an operator, you know it may be happening. You want to believe that your employees are trustworthy, but you have to aware of these scams that have become too common in the restaurant industry.
Is there a common scam we may have missed? Which self-service items do you think get taken advantage of the most?
Read about how Aloha Restaurant Guard helps you identify servers who may be involved in these scams and many more.
10 tips for building a digital strategy
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an excerpt of a recent blog written by Paul Barron, the founder of Fastcasual.com and DigitalCoCo, a branding and social analytic firm. For the full blog, visit his website http://www.socialcoco.com.
The decade of the door hanger is gone. The yellow pages are extinct and the printing process for promotion is dropping so fast the rain forest may yet get a reprieve after all. How the connected consumer spreads the word through mobile and social media is the real answer for our future. An all-new consumer science is emerging in the restaurant industry and that science will help our businesses grow.
Recently we tracked the most influential restaurants in America and broke it down by segment: Casual, Fast Casual and QSR. The results were somewhat expected at the top where millions are being spent to drive the digital brand. The next layer was a whole new set of players that do get it and understand the power of the new medium to educate, inform and influence millions of consumers every day. Players that get it are making the most of the newfound way to reach out to consumers and make them raving fans.
We found Starbucks as the most influential brand in Fast Casual as we studied a variety of layers of the social web:
1. How the brand engages (tone, message, interaction, focus on topics or promotions)
2. How their consumers engage with them (frequency, trends and topics, response vs. action)
3. How influential their consumers are in their social circles (not just a Klout Score)
It’s how the ripple effect works when you strategically engage in the right place. The impact can be amazing. Jimmy John’s is the No. 2 most influential with Genghis Grill and Coffee Bean trailing very tightly at Nos. 3 and 4. What is startling is that a small chain the size of Naked Pizza took the No. 5 spot in our Fast Casual segment most influential list.
Google has been about search for the past decade, Social is about influence and trust.
This is our future and the best part is that we know it’s coming this time. The recent NRA 2011 Forecast suggests that social media and digital brand development will play a major role in our business growth over the next several years. So the big question is, what can we do to get there?
Here are just a few steps to take if you are not already doing them:
1. Get a real digital strategy in place with real talent that can help make a difference. This is not an intern handling your Twitter account. It requires the combination of a full understanding of the technology being used and the business impact it can have as well.
2. Get positioned in mobile quickly. This is the reality of how consumers will engage with you for location, referral, menu, ordering, loyalty and best of all repeat business. Embracing mobile should be your No. 1 consumer engagement plan right now.
3. Social CRM (customer relationship management) is the next phase. Work fast on targeted audience acquisition. Don’t leave out integrating your e-mail as a crucial priority in an overall social CRM strategy as well.
4. Start year-round engagement campaigns. Start with digital strategies that can be integrated into all of your marketing on a year-round basis and not just here and there. Digital should be the first plan in every marketing and consumer engagement calendar.
5. Bring in your franchise and management teams. Educate them so they understand the overall digital impact on the business. Best of all, this can help with idea generation. Remember, this is not the era of “Spray and Pray” marketing anymore. That is the first thing you will have to teach your team. The game has truly changed.
6. Get digital quick. Every major platform should have your brand represented. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Quora, FourSquare and the emerging ones as well. Test often and deploy in the ones that rise to the top.
7. Build your digital content plan. You have to become a publisher now instead of a marketer. In the past you published marketing material like mad, right? Now you will need to shift to content that makes sense to your customers. The competition noise is really loud and customers won’t listen to old standard marketing messages, they are looking for a new voice. It might as well be yours.
8. Analyze your digital competition. Now with open access, you can see the plans of your competition being executed right in front of you. The successes and failures are also transparent, but with the right strategy and tools, you can start to evaluate trends. This evaluation can teach you a ton in how your business needs to compete. Trends and tactics are the key to directing where your business goes.
9. Work on many fronts at once. This will require some heavy lifting and shifting of marketing, operations and even HR budgets, but you must shift your plan into all aspects of your business. Get your suppliers involved. If those suppliers don’t have a digital and social strategy, it’s time to change suppliers.
10. Listen. Yes, I know that is a simple tip but in reality it’s the hardest thing to do. We know our own businesses better than anyone but we must listen to our guests and our staff to really understand the opportunities that lie before us. Social media and digital branding is not just an outward persona. It is a revitalization of your entire organization. Analyze your customer’s tweets, posts, and videos. Empower your employees because today there are hundreds or even thousands of brand ambassadors, and though it’s hard to hear and especially listen to them all, you will find the ones who rise to the top are worthy of your attention.
Know Your Competition
Feb 7, 2011 Carlos Flores
Who is Your Competition?
A competitor is any company or individual that can provide products and services similar to the products and services you provide and offers or can deliver those products or services to your target market. While this definition may seem broad, it is quite precise. If, for example, you sell shoes, your competition includes local shoe stores within driving distance of your immediate area. It also includes shoe departments in the local department and clothing stores. It includes mail order and Internet stores. If you specialize in ladies’ shoes, your competition will include men’s shoe stores that could potentially sell ladies’ shoes.
If, on the other hand, you run a neighborhood restaurant, your competition might not include a similar restaurant in a nearby town or across town even if they offer the exact same menu you offer. This is because consumers do not typically go to other towns or across town to eat at a neighborhood restaurant. This statement causes a little bit of a back track. To properly identify your competition, you must first understand the buying habits of your customers and potential customers.
Let me go back to the restaurant example. If you run an expensive, romantic restaurant specializing in a particular cuisine, your competition will probably include similar restaurants within driving distance that target your potential customers, even if they specialize in a different cuisine. After all, we have all asked the question, “Spanish food or French?”
Your competition may change depending on the time of day. For example, a neighborhood restaurant may compete for business with a fast food restaurant during lunch hours but not during dinner hours. At lunch time, people are in a hurry and may decide where to eat based on how fast they can get in and out. To compete, the neighborhood restaurant needs to offer a quick lunch menu that is price competitive with the fast-food establishments while providing better quality and sit-down service. People who use a fast-food establishment as a dinner alternative typically either do so because they are in a hurry or want to take the children out for inexpensive food and entertainment. There is little the neighborhood restaurant can do to compete for that type of business. On the other hand, the neighborhood restaurant can focus on offering a dinner experience that is quiet and unhurried. The fast food restaurant may be your competition at lunch time but not at dinner time.
Continuing with the restaurant example, some of the competition, such as the other neighborhood restaurant across the street, is direct. Some competition, such as deli department at the local supermarket, is indirect. Don’t limit your concept of competition only to other businesses. A neighborhood restaurant also has indirect competition from the home kitchen. Why? A person cooking at home is not going to the restaurant to eat. That is lost business. The neighborhood restaurant has to figure out how to entice the consumer to leave the comfort of their home to eat at the restaurant. Therefore, you must identify who is your competition, what kind of competition they are, and under what circumstances.
How Do You Compare to Your Competition?
Once your have identified your competition, you need to know how they compare to you. There are a few basic reasons why. For example, in order to make sure that you are providing the best possible product, with the best possible service, at the best possible price, you need a basis for comparison. Your competition provides that basis. Evaluate several of your competitors and rate them in critical areas. Do the same for your business. Now compare. Identify the areas in which your competition has you beat and come up with a plan to improve in those areas. Identify areas in which your competition is right behind you and find ways to widen the gap or, at least, keep your edge. Look for innovations that they have introduced and see whether you can apply them to your business.
Your industry may provide statistics and standards against which you can compare your business. Although you should use these when available, their basis is often the entire industry or large demographic areas. Comparing your business against those that you have identified as your direct competitors is much more meaningful than comparing it against industry standards.
Look at what your competition is marketing heavily. This will give you an idea of what they think is important. Understand the marketing techniques that they are using. It will help you understand how they reach their customers. How do their sales compare to your sales? If they have strong sales, then they are doing something right. Can you implement some of their techniques? If they are floundering, can you identify what they are doing wrong? Can you avoid the same mistakes? Finally, put yourself in your competitor’s shoes. Try to see things from their point of view.
Business Competition is Like a Battlefield
Any good military commander knows that the best way to beat an enemy is to learn to think how they think. How does the competition view your business? How do they think you are doing? What do they think you are up to?
Knowing your competition is important regardless of how well you are doing. It is important regardless of whether you are in a shrinking market, a stable market, or an expanding market. Many companies think that because there is enough business to go around, they don’t have to worry about the competitors. That may be true in some cases. However, it is only temporary. The customers you get are the overflow that your competitors cannot handle. Those are not good quality customers. They will split and run the moment another company can service them.
In today’s environment, markets change overnight. You must always be prepared to make changes to your strategies and approaches in order to remain competitive. They best way to remain competitive is to understand with whom you are competing.
How to Grow Your Restaurant Or Hospitality Career
If you are interested in learning more about How to Grow Your Restaurant Or Hospitality Career. Then check our complete Careers Employment section.
From the view of the casual observer, restaurant and hospitality management careers are pretty much organized in advanced and handed to you on a pre-fabricated career map – it seems like wherever you end up, you know you will spend a good part of your life working in a hospitality environment. But professionals understand the weaknesses in that statement. They know about the many variables of the restaurant and hospitality industry. They know the restaurant/hospitality industry can be a truly unique and fun workplace, and diverse in the scope of responsibilities that one can attain. As well as being a source for a very respectful income. They know how many vocational choices there are in their business. They know that some of the highest paid people in the US work in their industry. And they know that restaurant and hospitality workplace environments vary dramatically from concept to concept, as do management methods, styles, and titles. A traditional Steakhouse restaurant is very different, as compared to a “Dairy Queen” type quick-serve-ice cream stand, in the way they operate and number of managers required to deal with their respective sales volumes – though both establishments are considered to be restaurants. Same for comparing a Biltmore hotel to a Motel 6 – yet both are lodging environments.
Let’s continue reviewing career management choices in this industry – how about the experience at a large university or corporate cafeteria or catering department, or maybe as food buyer for a regional restaurant chain, or as Front-of-House or Back-of-House manager at a local fine-dining bistro, or as manager of several food concession trucks that support large construction sites and factories, or even managing a simple shopping mall style kiosk food stand; not to mention other non-food restaurant jobs, like regional and national level real estate and marketing titles, related accounting and finance positions, administration, merchandising, health and safety, human resources, etc. It’s obvious there are many career options in the hospitality/restaurant industry. Each person will know, in their own mind, which, if any, restaurant or hospitality career appeals to them. The ideas presented in this article will help guide you to consider a career strategy specifically designed to put you in the Restaurant/Hospitality career situation you seek, or improve the one you are in now.
There are 5 key influences that affect hiring managers and job supervisors when they consider someone for employment. These 5 key influences are so strong, whether in the boardroom or regional market area or at a local facility, if the ’5 key influences’ are in order, the job candidate will usually move forward in the hiring process and find career advancement. If they are not in order, it usually ends the candidate’s chances of getting hired and slows a career. So having these 5 key influences well organized and focused on the type of job you are pursuing – or advancement you seek – you improve your chances to get hired into, or advance into, the sort of restaurant/hospitality job you prefer.
Those 5 key areas include:
RESEARCH
- DOCUMENTS
- RESUME
- DISTRIBUTION
- INTERVIEW
Research your prospective employers prior to contacting them about a job. Ask pertinent questions relating to the company and the specific job you seek. If possible, speak with some people already employed in the position you seek. Know what skills they seek from the person they will hire for the job you want. Use the answers to your questions to customize your career documents and resumes to match the needs of your prospective employers.
Your career documents include copies of your school diplomas or training certificates, letters of recommendation and professional references, membership verifications to industry or vocational associations, maybe copies or samples of reports or products relating directly to the job, and lastly – your cover letter and resume – if necessary, several versions of your cover letter and resume, customized to each employer’s needs.
Your resume should be customized to match the employer with which you are seeking employment. Entries on your resume should be tuned to match the needs of, and become the solution to, the issues faced daily in the job that you seek. Do that to your resume and your resume presents your skills as the employer’s solution. Your resume will help you stand out from the crowd.
Distribute your resume to specific employer prospects, don’t just post your resume to a few job post web sites, or mail a few copies to some employers and hope for the best. Reach out to specific employers. Identify which employers offer the best career choices for you. Do the research. Things change, so you want to make the right job choice. For instance, some restaurant franchise operators will offer fast advancement to a certain level, but careers languish and fade after a time when advancement doesn’t continue because you’ve reached near the top of their small organization. Don’t take the first job that comes along. Plan where to send your resume.
Plan for the job interviews too. Don’t expect you’ll walk into the job interview location and just ace the first contact without advanced preparation. Anticipate what questions will be asked that pertain to the vocation you seek. Have an answer for those questions. Then practice delivering your answers. Imagine how confident you will seem when you deliver answers thoroughly and directly, because you practiced your job interview first.
These primary five areas of restaurant and hospitality hiring, influence the career process in their industry. By working those five attributes in unison, the attributes combine to help serious industry professionals to establish and advance their Restaurant and Hospitality careers.
Mark Baber has 20 years experience as a Restaurant & Hospitality Executive Search recruiter — for one-on-one RESTAURANT MANAGEMENT job search assistance submit your resume directly to Mark via: http://www.mcbaber.com ——-
5 Trends to Watch in 2011
Patricia Odell for PROMO Xtra
If 2010 led marketers farther into the digital world to wring what they could from Facebook, Twitter, wireless devices and other non-traditional promotional medias, 2011 will also deliver its own curve balls. Todd Engels, the general manager at Marketing Drive in Norwalk, CT, offers five trends to key an eye on in the coming year.
1) Leveraging the power of social media to drive commerce Groupon is setting the bar and we’re watching for how its success may fundamentally change distribution, effectiveness, and efficiency of promotional value offers to consumers. For example, Groupon recently launched “Grouponicus,” a holiday dedicated to “filling your loved ones’ gift buckets with experiences, not gift cards.” The daily deal shopping Web site also recently entered into a partnership with eBay to offer incentives to eBay loyalty members who participate in Groupon deals.
2) Integration of mobile (handheld) into shopper marketing programming As marketers and retailers look for new touch-points along the path-to-purchase we’re seeing the use of more digital applications such as QR codes. Interestingly, marketers are trying to get on the leading edge of the trend and capture the early influencers while driving greater awareness and usage for the majority vs. waiting for overall adoption rates to hit critical mass. Canon was one such brand, testing QR codes in September on its printers in a number of retail stores, including Best Buy.
3) Marginalization of “brand.com” promotional websites Virtually all clients are looking to platform their promotions on social networking sites (Facebook), sharing sites (You Tube) or partner with existing content/audience relevant sites (e.g. WebMD) vs. building their own stand alone sites.
4) Localization of promotion We’re having a lot more discussions about driving promotion down to the local grass roots level. The Web is certainly enabling this but also indicative of a trend toward greater personalization/customization and a backlash against big high-profile events as the economy continues to teeter. We’re seeing this realized often in cause marketing and at retail.
5) Continued blurring of the line between content and promotion We’re looking at, and our clients are asking for, more content integration opportunities across all platforms (TV, print, digital, social, gaming). Marketers want the promotional message to be almost indistinguishable from the content because of the ability to deliver promotional messages in high-value brand environments. We’re working on a host of videogame integration opportunities right now and traditional CPG marketers are seeing that as a new frontier to reach their audience.
Keep Them Guessing: Loyalty Programs Need Randomness
By Barry Kirk
Predictability is reassuring. It’s also boring. Think about it—when did you last you call IHOP to see if they still served pancakes? Or had any doubts whether the fall TV lineup would include a reality show where a houseful of beautiful people compete for televised validation? Some things are just a sure bet. The upside of the predictable things in life is that we don’t waste any brainpower worrying about them. The down side is … we don’t waste any brainpower paying attention to them.
Game designers intuitively know this. Randomness, or “chance,” is woven into most great game experiences, whether drawing cards or rolling dice. Randomness is novel, and novelty keeps us interested. The trick, of course, is balancing the predictable and the random to create a compelling experience that’s not frustrating. Try these seven game mechanics in your next loyalty program.
Game designers aren’t unique in understanding how humans think. Thanks to the growing fields of neuroscience and behavioral economics, marketers have a larger window into how human beings connect with what’s important to them. We can see how the brain responds to different stimulations and gain a biological understanding of how branding, rewards and messages resonate with consumers.
Typical loyalty programs are stale. Marketers focus too much on structuring programs for a mythical consumer who only thinks rationally about the program’s value proposition. Marketers need to ask themselves this one essential question. Design teams also pride themselves on creating fair rules, in part, because they’re highly predictable—members know exactly how the program works, how to earn points, and when they can redeem for a reward. Unfortunately, this focus on the rational and predictable means missing major opportunities for engagement, because you’re asking members to go on auto-pilot.
Neuroscience studies help us understand all humans are rational and emotional. Consumers engage more meaningfully when there’s opportunity for an emotional connection with the brand or program. This emotional connection may trigger the release of dopamine—which translates into a feeling of pleasure. This same “pleasure chemical” is released when we receive rewards. People experience that feeling with other program attributes that are often underdeveloped, such as status, social interaction and randomness.
The impact of randomness in this chemical interaction is that unpredictable wins produce the greatest pleasure response. Neuroscience shows unexpected rewards have a heightened emotional effect, compared to the rewards participants know are coming. The effect applies even when the value of the reward is less than the expected reward. This means “surprise and delight” isn’t just a good idea; it’s a smart financial choice. Unpredictability also equals attention, as the brain is programmed to focus on the novel and seek patterns even in those experiences that are truly random.
A random element can be applied to any part of your program. Charter Communication’s “Live it With Charter” program includes random redemption periods. Members only receive 24-hours notice for one of these periods. Starbuck’s loyalty program sends unexpected direct mail coupons for new products and discounts. Upstart location-based service, Whrrl, recently launched its Society Rewards loyalty program; the rewards are structured as “prizes of chance” that members might win by participating in checking-in and other engagement behaviors.
Once you choose to introduce a random element, the best approach is to adopt test-and-learn methodology. Keep in mind the need to occasionally switch things up—ironically, even randomness becomes boring if it starts to feel too predictable.
Each brain is unique in how it responds to stimulation, but there are clear advantages in looking to neuroscience to help improve loyalty marketing initiatives. When you shift your focus from only providing “stuff,” you may be amazed by the world of options for creating a more intriguing program experience. The mixing of intrinsic wins—such as the “pleasure chemical” experienced from a surprise—with more traditional rewards will strengthen brand marketers’ ability to build both lasting and meaningful consumer connections.
Barry Kirk is solution vice president, consumer loyalty, Maritz Loyalty & Motivation. He can be reached at Barry.kirk@maritz.com.
Tips for the 2011 Promotion Marketing Tool Box
By Patricia Odell for PROMO Xtra
Expect the unexpected: That’s the number-one tip for promotion marketers as 2011 gets under way. And if that’s not specific enough for you, we asked several industry pros at Aspen Marketing Services for advice on what to keep in mind in the year ahead.
Grab rich data from social media sites to predict behavior. Focus on places, such as Facebook pages, where you can watch how consumers interact with the content and what information prompts them to post. Then use the data to determine relevant topics and promotions going forward.
“We have to wedge our way in to grab that data and find out who those customers are,” said Cathy Lang, COO of Aspen Marketing Services, which ranked No. 4 on the 2010 Promo 100, with 2009 U.S. net revenue of $274 million.
Get beyond traditional marketing metrics of contacts, clicks, conversions, and sales to get at sentiment. Look at favorable and unfavorable comments, and respond to them to show consumers that you are listening to them.
Engage in customer retention warfare. The sluggish economy of the past few years has forced marketers to rethink how they interact with existing customers. This in turn has prompted the implementation or upgrading of customer retention programs.
“Existing customers have become that much more important, and to understand and cultivate that relationship so that they buy more is really a trend,” said Steven Howard, president of the advanced analytics, Aspen Marketing Services. “There needs to be a relevant communication stream through whatever means the customer prefers. Don’t talk to them the way you the marketer want to because it’s convenient; talk to the consumer the way they want to be spoken to.”
Find new audiences to target and the best ways to reach them. To understand which potential market sectors act similarly to your existing customers, you’ll want to consider database modeling. “Modeling analytics is where rubber meets the road,” Howard said.
Test multiple options, using standard direct marketing practices: Establish a control, then test new creative, timing, and messaging to gain a better response than that of the control. Conduct this sort of testing in terms of contact management strategies, prospect modeling, and predictive analytics. Then focus all the models on maintaining lifetime relationships and increasing revenue. You can also apply these learnings to social media.
Create a unified customer database. Integrate online and offline data in one central database to provide the foundation for one view of the customer, then use that view to determine your messaging and marketing.
“You have to find a way to have one universe for your customer database and to be able to capture all the interactions with that client brand,” Lang said. “You then have a universal view of the customer to be able to talk to them in a unified manner. The biggest challenge for marketers once they have that rich information set is to discuss across the organization what it means and how to best leverage the data for competitive differentiation and to drive profitable revenue.”
Remember that ROI is king and drives everything marketers do. Deadlines and expected turnaround times are getting shorter and shorter, with clients requesting immediate returns.
“More than ever before, there is a focus on ROI,” Lang said. “No longer is the payback 12 or 15 months; it’s hitting the bottom line in a shorter timespan. Every thing comes down to ‘Prove to me that there is a return on investment, and give it to me now.’”
Marketers should be asking: What are the key metrics we can measure? How do we analyze and then translate that into a financial metric for the company? What are the keys to success? How do we define success? Answering these questions entails, among other things, establishing key benchmarks such as response rates and closed sales.