Marketing Commentary from interlinkONE
Marketing. Web-to-Print. Warehouse Management.
The Greatest Pizza Ever
Posted by 
on Wednesday, April 21, 2010 
at 8:36 AM 
in 
I promise – I really intended to take a picture of the whole pizza. But, I became caught up in excitement from the moment it was delivered to my table, and as you can see, I was a few slices-in-the-hole by the time I remembered to pull out my iPhone.
The pizza in the picture above is from one of my favorite restaurants – Flatbread. (Go ahead – Light the oven and enter.)
They do many things well. Here are a few lessons that I have learned from watching them that could be useful for all businesses.
The Product is the Best
When it comes to marketing, we naturally do whatever we can to make people believe our product or service is exactly what they need. It is our job. We need to create awareness and demand. Of course, we never want to overlook this fact —- our product/service should truly be better than what the competition has!
Once you’ve eaten Flatbread’s pizza, all other pizza places sink down a level. Sure, you may need to go to other places every once in a while for convenience’s sake, or even perhaps due to cost. But you will always know that the product is not as good as it could be.
Along with the quality, Flatbread keeps their product fresh and unique. Every week they provide two different specials – one in the carne department, and the other for veggies. I’ve eaten there many times, and am always excited about their latest twist.
How often do you find ways to spice up your product or service offering?
Personality, Galore
The people that work at Flatbread are amazing. You will never feel intimidated when it comes to asking questions. They also put forth a tremendous amount of effort to reach out to you while you’re there. I can personally speak for the Flatbread in Burlington, MA — the owner/manager during the mid-week deserves an award and a raise. Now.
Also, the setup of Flatbread allows you to have visibility to all of their employees — from the servers to the chefs to the bartenders and to management.
When it comes to our business, we all have a tremendous opportunity to humanize our brand. Thanks to technology and marketing channels, we can all easily create and distribute content that features people from all of the various departments in our company. It might be in the form of videos, pictures, blog posts, podcasts, and other methods.
Are you fully taken advantage of opportunities to promote your company’s personality?
Keep in Touch with Me
Flatbread sends out a weekly newsletter. Primarily, I look forward to it to hear what the new specials are for the week. But they also do a great job providing news on special events and other causes that are important to them.
Newsletters are easy to send out! Sure, if we are starting from scratch, we may need to make a push to develop some content. However, it’s not only doable, but it’s also very important. Sending out a newsletter on a regular basis to subscribers is one of the best ways to stay in front of your prospects and customers.
Tags Drip Marketing
Drip Marketing – that term may not yet have a page on Wikipedia (although I did find E-Mail Drip Marketing), but it’s absolutely something that should be discussed as a marketing tactic.
The term “drip” alone may not always have the most positive connotations. Perhaps you think of standing under a roof somewhere, and a consistent drip of water keeps dropping on your head.
Well, there is a key word in that sentence — consistent.
A marketing department may bring in a ton of leads for a sales team. The sales force may try to follow-up with all leads. Sometimes that happens. But oftentimes, a lead will get missed. But even if the each lead is followed up one time, is that number, “one”, really enough?
Many products and services have a long sales cycle. Along with bringing in leads, marketing departments have a responsibility to help sales teams successfully push a prospect through that cycle. When it ends, the prospect will be perfectly primed to be converted into a customer.
A drip campaign can be effective. But, just like the water running off a roof, it can also become annoying. Here are a few key things in mind to run an effective drip marketing campaign:
- Mix up your channels and medias
- Provide relevant content
- Turn down the sales pitch
- Be considerate of timing
Mix up your channels and medias - this takes effort, but it’s essential. It may be easy to simply send an email each week to a person. But you risk becoming viewed as spam. There are plenty of other channels that can be used. Is the person on Twitter, or LinkedIn? If so, send them a message through that social media channel. Send an email one week… then a social media message on week 2. Then in week 3, mail out a hand-written letter.
Provide relevant content – One wonderful thing about a drip campaign is that it can be automated. However, that doesn’t mean that every person should get the same exact piece. When they first opted into your materials, hopefully they were prompted to provide some details about them. Or perhaps you already have some marketing knowledge of them in your database. If so, put it to use! If they expressed an interest in “reducing costs”, make sure the “save money with us” link is prominent in the first email you send to them.
One great way to deliver relevant content is with personalized URLs. They are often used to generate leads. But they can work great when you need to deliver relevant materials to someone that has already responded.
Turn down the sales pitch – This may not be easy to do. Perhaps you want to shout about all the wonderful things that your product or service can do each time you talk to someone. But if you are going to “hit” them with materials 7-10 times, they can’t all be sales-y. You’ll fail. Rather, serve to educate… If you find a great article in an industry publication, share it. Simply say “I thought you’d find this informative, and helpful to your business”. Don’t say anything about your product or service. People want to know that you care about them. This is one way to prove it.
Be considerate of timing - This goes both ways. Are you sending a mailer that will end up in the day-after-July-4th pile? If so, well….. you probably should have saved the stamp. But be especially considerate of your prospect. Do you know that they recently went on vacation? Or are attending a trade show? If so, you may need to hold back the next email/letter/message a few days. Show consideration, and you’ll increase the chances that someone will pay attention to what you have to say.
