Right idea, wrong execution

Maybe we’re all just a few tweaks away from creating something brilliant...I recently came across an article about Breakthrough Brands. You know, the brands that are growing by leaps and bounds because they understand their market, their customers and most importantly how to break through all the noise in today's advertising world and achieve success. 

Here’s an excerpt from the article that really spoke to me: 

"For every new campaign, emerging brands develop smarter strategies by testing a number of variations of copy, image, and ad type to hone in on what works best. Concept A or B? Stacked vertically or horizontally? These are real-time tests being decided in days rather than weeks. Brands like this understand that sometimes the idea is right but the execution is wrong, and so they test and iterate until they get it right." - Judy Lee, Facebook

What a great reminder for us all to keep on pushing–don’t give up on your ideas! If something isn't working, it may just need a little tweak. One major benefit of technology is that digital ads can literally be updated in a matter of minutes, making your perfect marketing campaign just a few tweaks away. 

Happy tweaking!

Shannon P.R. 

Projects, events & awards

It’s been a busy few months and here’s a little update on some fun projects and events Remember Marketing is helping out with...even some that you can join in on!

Picture Ohio
If you love Ohio as much I do, make sure to check out the recent #PictureOhio album that Remember Marketing helped compile on Ohio Farm Bureau's Facebook page. Each month we ask for photos on a variety of Ohio topics. We were blown away by the fascinating stories and images we received for this month's theme, which was Ohio barns! Next up is funny farm animals...get your cameras ready!

Credit Union of Ohio's Community Carnival
This is the fourth year we have helped promote Credit Union of Ohio's annual community carnival and it has grown from a few hundred attendees to almost 1,500 attendees last year! As a completely free event, open to the public, it is becoming known as the best way for families to kick off their summer. 

The carnival takes place 5:30 - 7:30 p.m. June 9 at Credit Union of Ohio’s Hilliard headquarters. Come say “hi” and enjoy some free food, activities and live music. Most importantly, keep your fingers crossed for sunny weather!

Affordable, easy C-bus event planning
Psst...I have a secret to share. We are helping arrange some informal focus groups in June and were searching for a space that would give brewery tours and tastings, as well! After contacting a few inflexible (and overly expensive) venues, I want to give a shout out to Mandy at Hofbrauhaus Columbus for helping plan the details of our event within minutes. Hofhaus is definitely Remember Marketing approved and we are excited for Sauerkraut Balls and Lager. Prost! 

Forty under 40 fun
Finally, what a honor to be included in this year’s Forty under 40 class! Last night was the Awards Gala and it was quite an event. I was definitely humbled to be attending with some of the city's finest professionals. Here's a snippet from the complete supplement and a fun blooper video that you just might see me in! 

Feeling extremely grateful for my dear clients, family and friends! Have a good weekend, ya'll!

Shannon P.R.


 

Marketing lessons from a "crazy" taco joint

Taco Loco is the name of the unassuming Mexican restaurant located in a strip mall in northwest Columbus. In Spanish, the name stands for crazy taco. While there isn’t anything too crazy about the environment or food, the restaurant probably won’t ever need to rebrand. Why? Because they are doing the most important thing right. 

The restaurant doesn’t have a remarkable ambiance, but it has the one thing that will keep customers coming back time and time again—a welcoming vibe. (Ahem, we all want to belong!) Of course, the other reason to come back is for the delicious, authentic Mexican food.

From my observations, Taco Loco has mastered the way to make customers feel like they belong. I have dined there several times in the last few months to observe the place bumbling with a variety of patrons, spanning all races and ages. 

First, when you walk through the door you are greeted with a smile, handshake or hug. One day I watched people steadily walk in for about 15 minutes and most of them got the hug. Many are called by name, too. The restaurant’s regulars come back because they are welcomed and treated like family. They are taken care of, not just by one person while they dine, but by the entire staff who checks on patrons throughout their meal to make sure they are having the best experience. It’s an authentic, over-the-top focus on the customer experience. 

Besides creating regulars with these exceptional customer service standards, Taco Loco is also building its fan base and free word-of-mouth advertisers (like me, ha!). This genuine way of doing business can truly help their customer base grow exponentially. It’s not a bad payoff for simply making the effort to focus on their customer’s comfort level and experience. 

I wish more companies in today’s service industry would take some tips from Taco Loco. You can create the best marketing campaigns in the world, but they mean nothing if you don’t follow through at the ground level and treat your customers right!

Now for your homework: How can you recreate or refresh this exceptional customer service example for your business? What will keep people wanting to come back? 

Let me know if you’d like to TACO ‘bout it!

Shannon P.R.
 

#OptOutsideTheNorm

Overindulgence in good food and holiday merriment has finally come to an end (at least for a couple of weeks) and I’m back with a clear head focused on marketing wellness for the rest of 2016. 

Last weekend it was reported that this was a record year for Black Friday online shopping, but my thoughts shifted to another Black Friday activity: #OptOutside. 

In 2015, outdoor clothing company REI rolled out a novel idea. It closed its doors to shoppers and paid its employees to #optoutside. The movement to spend time outdoors on Black Friday quickly became trending news with approximately 2.7 billion PR impressions in 24 hours. More than 150 retailers followed the trend to close their doors and opt outside, too. The campaign rightfully won a lot of attention as well as a prestigious award at the 2016 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Check out the reel below.

Why was it so successful? Because REI chose to go against the grain in a big way and took a positive risk. Knowing their audience would most likely embrace the idea of opting outdoors, they went for it. 

Wildly successful campaigns like this one raise the question, how can we create something similar and achieve trending success for our clients, organizations or personally? To me, the formula is a simple one, but the components and execution are the tricky part.

Here’s the simple Remember Marketing formula for trending success:

Know your target audience (really find out what motivates them) + Do something unexpected that they will embrace (OptOutsideTheNorm) = Trending Success

For a brand like REI, the motivation to spend a day outdoors made perfect sense for their target audience. But for other brands, getting the right formula for what motivates your customer can take some work. The doing something unexpected part can be a challenge—it’s those ideas that you may think are too out of the ordinary that are typically the ones that stick. In this case, REI’s idea can be extended to marketing too: #OptOutsideTheNorm and go against the grain. In this “opt outside zone” you will most likely find success. 

How will you opt outside the norm this week? I challenge you to take a positive risk!

Shannon P.R.

Change starts here: Columbus Women In Digital

I promised a recap of the inaugural Columbus Women in Digital conference last week, so here it is! The conference was brought to life and organized by the fabulous Alaina Shearer of Cement Marketing. I first heard about it via social media (go figure) and was intrigued by the lineup of topics and people I knew who were planning to attend. I decided it was a must-attend event, and I’m really glad I did. 

The full-day conference took place at the beautiful Wells Barn at Franklin Park Conservatory. [Side note: This is a lovely setting for an event! If you are looking for something unique, with an outdoorsy yet intimate feel convenient to downtown Columbus, this is your place.] 

OK, back to the conference. With about 250 women and a few hand-selected men in attendance, the day was jam packed with inspiration, conversation and goal setting for the future of the group. A women-only lineup of speakers spanning different industries and experiences shared their knowledge on leadership, client relations, social media strategy and much more!

One agenda item of the day was to vote if men should be allowed to participate in the group. Yes, as Shearer put it, this is probably one of the only events of its kind that a white male was not allowed to attend. However, seven “Digital Dudes” were voted to attend the conference, representing the three percent of C-level positions held by women in digital advertising fields. Those men were recognized and helped cast the vote, along with all attendees, for the future of the group. 

Shearer has big plans for growing this group to a national scale, and what an honor to be a part of the very beginning stages. A couple ways you can join me in getting involved to inspire, educate and empower women in digital are to take the Columbus Women in Digital pledge and take the confidential salary survey.

Here are a few of my favorite inspirations and quotes from the day! 

“Being in digital is like building a rocket ship while flying.”
— As heard at Columbus WID 2016 Conference
“Embrace every opportunity to tell your story.”
— Andrea Marshall, The Nationwide Academy
“Trust is like an eraser, it gets smaller after each mistake.”
— Nicole Scharlach, The Wendy's Company
“Figuring out what you don’t want to do can make the vision of what you want to do much clearer.”
— Emily Smith, Emily Smith Professional Coaching

Bottom line, keep an eye on this group. With a bunch of powerful women working together, you’ll be amazed at what will be accomplished!  

Shannon P.R.

 

Fashionable Fun For a Cause

Did you know Columbus is a major fashion industry hub? According to a recent Columbus Monthly article, Columbus is the third largest home city for fashion designers. I guess you could say we're on point, on fleek and on trend with our fashion.

Fun fact, one of my first real jobs was as a sales specialist for Ralph Lauren while in college, so I do have quite a love for anything wearable! And that's why Remember Marketing was proud to support a very worthy cause and see some fall fashion last week!

Our October YOG cause was attending the A/W Fashion Show put on by Rowe Boutique in support of the Jack Roth Fund, benefiting lung cancer research and a camp for children with special needs. Here are a few shots from the show (where some of the best dressed in Columbus attended). 

We can honestly say this night was fashionable and fun!

 

Year Of Giving check in - three months to go!

I’m so excited to report that we have nine months of our YOG project under the belt. The project has been exciting, eye-opening, fun and most of all rewarding! What a pleasure it has been to actively search out causes to support. From causes based in the Columbus art and advertising scene, to Ohio’s farm and food community, to local families in need, and special causes like Down syndrome, we have LOVED giving back each month!

We are looking to wrap the year up strong and I hope that Remember Marketing can continue on this path of giving. As always, we invite you to join us. Email info@remembermkt.com if you'd like to make positive changes together.

Give more, live more.

Shannon P.R. 


Above is a quick collage of our September experience, volunteering at Independents’ Day festival in Franklinton. This festival showcasing some of the best artistic talent in the city is magical! We spent a few sticky hours pouring beer at the Pabst beer truck and afterwards explored and met a ton of fun, artsy people. Thanks to my husband, Doug, for being a trooper and volunteering with me on a football Sunday! That’s true love, right there! 

Creating engagement with quizzes

As humans we are curious by nature. And for most of us when a pressing question presents itself, we need to find out now! Creating a mystery, however small, within your marketing is a great tactic because people desperately want to solve a mystery. That’s why I recommend creating quizzes for use in your social media outlets, not only to engage followers but to reach a large audience size organically. 

If you want to rise above the standard posts and create engagement within your social media, just ask your followers how smart they are. It’s really that simple. There are different ways to do that, but today we’re talking about quizzes! 

Here’s a quiz we created for the Our Ohio Facebook page with fun facts about the Ohio State Fair. Not only did it create great engagement with hundreds of quiz takers, it helped our client gain new qualified leads who requested to be added to their email list. (Smart people!)

We have been using quizzes to create interactions and grow reach over the past eight months and the results have been pretty awesome. So what are some of the best quiz apps to use? We did a little research and here are three that made the top of our list.

Qzzr - We currently use Qzzr and like its functionality. Quizzes are free and easy to create in its basic model. You’ll need to upgrade to the pro account ($25/month) to take advantage of its offer and lead generation feature, which allows you to capture email addresses and more. Our favorite benefit of using Qzzr is that its customer service team is very responsive and helpful. 

Quiz Maker - Quiz Maker is used by trusted brands, including Amazon, YouTube and MensHealth. Its quiz-making tool is simple to use and pricing is affordable, starting at just $15/month. According to its website, it is “the most comprehensive quiz maker.” One unique feature Quiz Maker offers is the capability to live-quiz an audience via their smartphones. If you are a public speaker, this may be worth checking out!

Interact - Interact has an impressive set of brands using it, brands like Home Depot, Gap, Eventbrite, Harvard University and American Red Cross. Its products include easy-to-build quizzes, giveaways and assessments. Interact's major selling point is that it connects with a variety of e-marketing companies, so all leads are directly integrated with your e-marketing software, saving time. However, the cost of their service is not listed on the website, so you may want to brace yourself for sticker shock. 

Until next time, happy quiz making and taking!

Shannon P.R.