The FORUM Effect

The Tale of Two Tracks

I recently visited several stores in a local mall. Two stops in particular drew a startling contrast.

 The first represented what many would consider to be a typical retail hobby shop. The store consisted mainly of shelves filled with boxes of model race cars, board games, and the like. The window display, while nice, contained an assorted mish-mash of merchandise with no apparent theme.

 In one corner of this store, a small table held two small cars completing endless laps on a circular snap-together track. There were no controllers to operate the cars - they apparently were set to "demo" mode. Toward the back, an employee manned the register while another roamed the shop floor, occasionally asking that most cringe-inducing line in all of retail: “Can I help you?”. To which, of course, I replied, “No. Just looking.” Needless to say I quickly exited after a few minutes, unimpressed and barely noticed by the staff.

 Later that day, I found myself in front of American Hot Rod Racer where I encountered a completely different kind of toy store.

 My first clue that this was not a typical retail store: the storefront windows clearly were not intended to display merchandise or “stuff”. Rather, the windows were there to provide an unhindered view of the live action inside the store.

 Inside, the focus wasn’t on shelves of pre-packaged toys or models in shrink-wrapped boxes. Center stage was occupied by a real, working racetrack -- easily 50 feet around and three feet wide, with dips and S-curves along the way. Three enthralled boys and one beaming grownup (Dad perhaps?) were racing their newly-built remote control toy cars, swerving and passing each other with great abandon. Several other people looked on,  pulling for the drivers or clutching their own racers.

 Along the sides of the store, well-lit themed displays showed a wide variety of car parts, tools, and accessories to create and build hot rods. Toward the back, several kids proudly assembled the custom-built racers they themselves had designed, occasionally getting advice from employees who collective called themselves the “Pit Crew”.

 For the next hour, I watched races and chatted with racers (they don't call them customers!) and employees. I learned the store hosts frequent for-fee birthday parties -- starting at $250 and going to $600…and up! In addition the store holds regularly scheduled racing events for both adults and kids of all skill levels. Competition at these races is fierce, one member of the Pit Crew told me, and the store sees significant sales from racers upgrading their cars -- or building new ones -– as they pursue the checkered flag for the next race.

American Hot Rod Racer is NOT in the goods or services business. They are in the experience business. The cars are merely props. The races are the real offering, driving demand for the store’s goods – over and over again. One key measurement supporting this observation: the total square footage allocated for building and racing cars far exceeds the space dedicated to the sale of the physical goods!

 For any organization in the business of providing goods or services, American Hot Rod Racer provokes a worthy question: What revenue-generating experience or portfolio of experiences could you stage in order to generate increased demand for your offerings – over and over again? Companies able to successfully answer that question will be well on their way to Victory Lane.

PR 2.0 -- It's Not Your Mother's Press Release

What is Public Relations 2.0 and how does it differ from traditional public relations?  As is the case with the other “updated versions,” it is much more interactive in nature.  New technologies have resulted in traditional journalists being dethroned as the gatekeepers of the media and created a new breed of “citizen journalists.”  Anyone can post news via a blog, a Web site or RSS feed.  The newswires are no longer the sole domain of the major media but will [who will?] now accept releases from anyone.

Does this mean that traditional public relations is dead?  Not at all!  The best practices of this discipline have gained new tools and channels.  And just as public relations is evolving, so is the release.  It is no longer appropriate to call it a press release, since you may now completely bypass the traditional media outlets and go directly to your customers.  Instead, you may now simply call it a news release.

How do you bypass the traditional media and access these citizen journalists and your potential customers? There are a several ways open to you.  You can submit a news release to one of several wire services such as PR Newswire or PRWeb. These services charge by the extent of distribution you desire, but whether you select local or national, the release will go to both Google News and Yahoo News and thus hit the World Wide Web.  You can also distribute the news via your own Web site or blog.  And don’t forget all the new opportunities you have to post it to social media sites such as Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us to name a few. The most active citizen journalists, however, are the thousands of bloggers out there writing on every subject under the sun.

Writing a news release that will be read and not tossed is the real trick.  Many years ago journalism schools taught that there were strict rules regarding the construction of a press release.  These rules are still valuable guidelines and are covered in detail in the PR Toolkit at PR Newswire.  But now there is a new breed of news release – the Social Media Release.  The SMR, as it is known, is designed to get conversation going and provide new media influencers with the information they need without having to carve out the hype of a traditional release or pitch.  These releases utilize keywords and phrases to “optimize” their success, much in the same way that you optimize a Web page.

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Making Sense of Meetings

Whether you’re putting together a small roundtable discussion for a dozen people, or producing a ballroom gathering for hundreds, the list of activities necessary to host a successful and engaging meeting can pile up quickly. 

Under pressure to meet deadlines, coordinate event logistics, and manage vendors, it’s often easy to forget that when the doors open, your participants’ first impressions will greatly influence their evaluation of the overall experience.

 So the rhetorical question becomes: Do you want to leave those critical first impressions to chance; or do you want to specifically manage impressions to create a positive, comfortable, and engaging experience?

 One powerful way to achieve this is to perform a sensory assessment on your meeting space. It’s an easy but often overlooked exercise that can both reduce negative impressions and lead to creative ideas.

 To conduct a sensory assessment, enter your meeting space as if you were a participant. For a minimum of one minute each, isolate and focus on the impressions you get via each of the five senses - sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste.

 Sight: What do you see? What should you not see? Look for specific details. Is anything out of place, or in need of repair or cleaning. Can you take advantage of visual elements in the room – a great view, artwork, or interesting architectural elements? Consider how to best control the natural and artificial lighting throughout the meeting; including upon entering, exiting, and during breaks.

 Sound: What do you hear? What do you want to hear? Is a rattling air conditioner going to distract your group? What type of music – if any – is appropriate, and when? Is there a tuba convention tuning up on the other side of that airwall?

 Touch: What is inviting to the touch? What is not inviting? Include not only the input from your hands, but also your feet and derrière. Are the sagging cushions on those older conference chairs going to lead to distracting discomfort? Should you cover that newly waxed floor with an area rug so presenters don’t break their legs on the way to the podium? Be sure to include room temperature in this category -- a few degrees either way can make or break a meeting.

Smell: What do you smell? What should you smell – or not? Are those salmon platters in the back of the room going to be an issue after a couple hours? Take a cue from the Venetian in Las Vegas, which employs a light floral scent throughout the casino – an inviting upgrade from the stale cigarette smoke of many casinos. One easy approach: use scented flip chart markers.

 Taste: What sense of taste is evoked? How can it be used effectively? Have a balanced and appropriate menu planned. An inexpensive popcorn popper in the afternoon is often a big hit with groups. Often even some simple mints or hard candy can chase away those distracting mid-morning energy dips. One favorite appeal the sense of taste: candy dishes filled with cinnamon fire balls!

 Observe Behavior: This is an additional element that is not one of the five senses, but crucial nonetheless. Take a moment to observe both worker and participant behavior. Make sure staff are keeping private discussions out of earshot. Watch participants to see if they’re encountering problems. Perhaps they can’t find the restrooms or have lost their pen. By observing behavior, you’ll be able to quickly and effectively keep participants focused on the reason they’re there: the meeting.

 Remember, whether you want them to or not, your meeting-goers will form a first impression. It’s better to actively manage those impressions than to let them form in a haphazard fashion.

 So for your next event, reexamine the impressions you want to convey, then conduct a sensory assessment to help ensure a truly memorable meeting.

Do You Really Know Who Your Audience Is?

The first commandment of marketing is "Know thy Audience." By thoroughly defining your markets, you'll hit a bull's eye with your communications.

Marketing companies spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours each year to study their customers.  But what have you done lately to get to know exactly who your target audience is?  What do you know about their current habits and needs?   

It is difficult to be all things to all people.  For this reason, when determining your target market, avoid the concept of the general public and focus on the particular segments of the population that are really interested in what you have to offer.

Actually you have more than one target market. It is important to consider everyone that will have an interest in or be impacted by your event or company, either potentially or currently.  Each has unique needs and wants to be addressed.  Each will have a different view and be interested in different aspects of it.  So be creative during this step as increasing attendance or business may only occur as a result of addressing all applicable groups.

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October Digital FORUM

View the October digital edition here.

PURL Campaign Results

To close the loop on the PURL campaign executed by The American Ceramic Society (ACerS) (see my story in the September issue of Forum Magazine), here are the high-level results:

• A total of 128 professionals responded to the PURL campaign, for a 1.3% response rate. By comparison, ACerS has commonly experienced a response rate of .5% for standard blind direct mail campaigns. The PURL campaign represents a 160% increase in responses over the typical direct mail strategy.
• Of the 128 total respondents, 99 rated “Access to the latest information on ceramics” as a 3, 4 or 5 in importance. That automatically makes these respondents very viable membership leads for the organization.
• Of the two lists that were tested – the lists came from two industry magazines – one clearly showed a stronger rate of participation. Nearly 60% of the total respondents came from one list.

The primary objective of the campaign has been to identify the right audience to target for recruitment, thus increasing the organization’s marketing ROI and enhancing its chances to recruit and retain members. The results of this campaign will allow ACerS to not only hone in on a new list of prospects, but also to accomplish its secondary objective, which is to pursue membership with the respondents to the PURL offer. The next step of the campaign will be to test ACerS’ message with a portion of this new list before sending out the message that is better received to a larger audience.