VerveCast

As a recently engaged woman, I’ve been doing a lot of research within the wedding industry. And I have to admit, the amount of terrible marketing in the field has been fairly shocking. Some examples…

(Note: these observations/suggestions could easily transfer to many other industries.)

Photography

The wedding venue my fiancé and I chose is beautiful, charming and rustic… but you’d never guess from the photography on its website. Photography should be the Number One sales tool for wedding venues. How else will potential clients get a feel for your space and envision themselves choosing your facility for one of the most important days of their lives? (Luckily, I heard about my venue from a trusted friend, or I may have missed out completely.)

Salespeople

I attended a bridal show a few weeks ago and encountered the worst salesperson I have met in my entire life. As I approached his booth, where he was sitting on the table, he immediately told me how much he didn’t want to be there. He then asked where my wedding was to be held. After I told him, his head immediately dropped. “Not there,” he says. “You should consider choosing another venue.” Not something an excited bride-to-be wants to hear mere hours after she signs her contract for the venue. The guy goes on to explain that they don’t like the place because it’s up on a hill, it’s hard to get equipment to, it’s on the smaller side, yada, yada, yada. Really, dude? Make sure you keep your employees in check. That first impression of your company could easily make or break the sale.

Websites

Or shall I say, lack thereof. I’ve looked up multiple vendors only to find their profiles on YellowPages.com, and nowhere else. Hello! Get yourself a website. Hire a freelancer, ask a friend for help. Anything to have some presence in cyber space. That’s where I’m doing most of my research, and I’m assuming most other brides are doing the same.

Taglines

This is a more minor one, but just something I noticed. Taglines such as “Photography you can live with,” are not the most convincing. Maybe run your tagline by a few people (or anyone, for that matter) before it goes live? This idea also can translate to your company name in general. For example, alliteration using letters that aren’t actually in the correct spelling of what you are trying to say. Often seen with “K”s used in place of “C”s.

As a marketing/communications professional, I might be a bit more sensitive to these blunders than the average bride. However, I think most others in my position would appreciate the improvements.

Anyone who’s a fan of the brand Taste of Home on Facebook, as I am, probably noticed a major uproar this week over the cover of its latest magazine issue. Apparently, the bunny cupcakes that were featured front and center were initially created by a popular blogger named Callye, who, it seems, has many loyal readers.

I guess Taste of Home took credit for creating the cupcakes themselves, either a) not realizing bunny cupcakes were, like, so 2011, or b) by “subconsciously” replicating the idea. But, what’s important is how the brand reacted to the situation.

And after some research (and/or crisis communications help)…

I applaud the way in which this situation was handled, and so do the brand’s fans. Of course, there were still some bitter people, but the majority of them were happy with the company’s response.

All companies make mistakes. Rational consumers understand this. All they expect are answers and a little remorse. They’ll get over it if they feel you’re being transparent and truthful.

If you’re in the product delivery business, it’s probably a good rule of thumb to actually deliver your product when it’s ordered. Sounds simple. But have you heard about the giant 1-800-Flowers Valentine’s Day 2012 ordeal? What a disaster. Apparently, this February 14, the company failed to deliver hundreds of orders. I can only imagine how that affected households across the country.

As you’d expect, the flowerless customers took to social media with their rants. The company’s Facebook page was bombarded with posts from unhappy customers saying things like, “TERRIBLE TERRIBLE SERVICE USE ANY OTHER COMPANY/SITE,” and “Thanks for deliverying (sic) my girlfriends flowers 2 days late. Thanks for only sending 9 out of the 12 roses and thanks for sending 2 dead flowers. Thanks for ruining Valentines Day.” Its Twitter account is seeing similar messages.

After reading the messages, I’m actually starting to feel sorry for the customer service reps (more likely social media/PR peeps) over there who are tasked with responding to every negative comment and attempting to fix the orders. From what I can see, it looks like they are actually doing a pretty good job of staying on top of the responses. (I keep picturing the red-eyed employees in one huge room, hovering over their computers, eating doughnuts, and pulling out their hair.)

So, what happened? Maybe this was a computer glitch? Maybe it was a staffing issue? Who knows? The point is… we should know! 1-800-Flowers should have come out with a public statement as soon as they discovered the problem. Some sort of explanation should have been set forth by a trained company spokesperson (read: PR person ghostwriting for company spokesperson). Although explaining the situation probably wouldn’t have completely repaired the dissatisfaction with the missing orders, it would have at least helped the public to understand how something like this occurred and, more importantly, what safeguards are now in place to ensure it will never happen again.

Last year, we at Z2 began searching for a better way to communicate internally. We were using iChat to communicate one-on-one (and still do) and of course were sending out the traditional company-wide emails, but we were looking for something more interactive—and fun. We soon discovered the joys of Yammer.

Yammer is kind of like a social network for businesses—think of it as one main Facebook wall in which everyone can post. You can even download a Yammer App on your smart phone to get updates when you’re away from your computer, if you so choose. The program works perfectly for a smaller office, like ours. It keeps us all on the same page in terms of meetings, schedules, client news, and more.

The ‘more’ typically includes things like photos of our pets, YouTube videos, funny quotes from co-workers, etc. One example, below.

If you’re a small business and looking for a new way to foster internal communication, we suggest you check out Yammer.

A couple Z2 staffers had the opportunity to spend time at the impressive World of Concrete trade show in Las Vegas earlier this week with one of our newer clients, Putzmeister America… and it was a blast.

Over the past few months, we have worked on many projects for the show, including the booth itself, brochures, product videos, press kits, sales sheets, and much more. It was great to see it all come together, and to help Putzmeister stand out at the event. A special thanks to the Z2 staff for the hard work that went into the show, and to our client for a valuable new partnership.