 I love TED. TED is Technology Entertainment Design, a small non-profit enterprise dedicated to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started in 1984 as a conference to bring advanced thinkers together in the fields of technology, entertainment and design, TED has evolved into an internet phenomenon with TEDtalks, video representations of 18 minute or less talks given by TED featured presenters.
I have watched about a dozen TEDtalks and most of them are fascinating – brainy PBS with no commercials or sponsors. Thought provoking and stimulating , TEDtalks are candy for the mind, and soul, in some cases. Each video is less than 20 minutes long, ideal for taking a break from…well….anything.
Work-Life Balance - see video upper right - is the first of many TEDtalks videos I hope to present on this blog. Nigel Marsh, author of “Fat, Forty and Fired” and “Overworked and Underpaid”, lays out his Work-Life Balance premise in just 8 minutes: that each of us needs to take charge of our choices and seriously consider what a life well-lived really means.
Marsh’s observations about how to achieve work-life balance fall into four categories - honest debate, setting boundaries, realistic time frames and achieving balance without simply adding more activities.
When describing a recent day spent with his young son, Marsh creates a memorable word picture of the value he espouses - Small Things Matter. Seek balance in what is right in front of you and the route to a life well-lived comes naturally. Definitely a common sense idea worth spreading.
(An unfortunate five minute commercial for Rolex watches follows Marsh’s talk, discrediting in part or in whole the thesis of this video. Someone wasn’t thinking here.)
Seth Godin has made a career out of challenging the marketers status quo, influencing a generation of business owners to think out of the box where customers are concerned. He regularly points out the absurdity of conventional behavior, often stimulating a level of discomfort geared to spur alternative  action.
In How should you treat your best customers?, Godin asks why we give all the discounts and buying perks to gain new customers, when it’s our loyal fans who should be getting special treatment. In fact, Godin ponders, what if we acted like our best customers were our best marketers? How would that change behavior?
I wonder how that might work if we started from the beginning looking for those new customers by treating them with an expectation that they will become a raving fan. What if we acted like they already love us and our products? What would that look like?
 Here are a few ideas to get you thinking about how you can cultivate customers to become your best marketers…
1. Acknowledge the new relationship you’ve started… for example, when they become a Facebook fan, say thanks in comments right there for everyone else to see.
2. Throw in a freebie early on in the buying relationship. A quick Thanks for doing business with us, here’s a free sample pack/cup of coffee/seminar discount/coupon for a free something. There’s nothing like personalized, special treatment that’s not apart of a plan to grow the love.
3. Send a discount coupon ahead of the pack. Just wanted to give you a heads up on our next special . Thanks for doing business with us.
4. Create a no- brainer frequent buyer program, like Panera’s. Present card at time of purchase, points add up, earn free stuff. End of story. The clerk prompts you each time with a end date for the free item, but they give you plenty of time to redeem, so the pressure feels helpful, not pressured.
5. Be creative – what can you do to make a new customer feel special? Start your list today and do it.
 Are you a local small business owner struggling to make financial and time management sense of on-line marketing and social media? Do you wonder how to drive traffic from your website to your brick and mortar store?
The beauty of the ever-evolving nature of web marketing is your answer is right around the corner. The latest in marketing is O2O, or on-line to off-line marketing, the booming business of directing on-line traffic to off-line locations through e-mail marketing sites such as Groupon.
Groupon, the frontrunner of this movement, is less than two years old and currently funded at just over $1 billion. Groupon leads a field of lesser known but equally viable O2O platforms like Restaurant.com, SpaFinder, Open Table and others.
Businesses drive foot traffic to their stores by sending enticing first time buyer or percent off coupons directly to permission based e-mail lists. Buyers take advantage of a deal or special by downloading a coupon, purchasing one time at a deeply discounted rate, then taking that coupon to the store to buy.
Whether you sign up for an on-line system like Groupon, or just send an offer to your current list of e-mail contacts, you immediately have a way to track how those buyers came to your store. Having the ability to measure on-line activity with bottom line buying patterns in your stores, is an enticing and exciting development in the world of interactive marketing. Read more about the pros and cons of using on-line to off-line marketing integration in this article from Duct Tape Marketing.
The world of interactive marketing will continue to shift, change, improve, and innovate, and there will always be room for growth and improvement, but you would do well to consider the power of O2O marketing.
Growing a small business means constantly reassessing what you’re doing to serve your customers and prospective clients.
 One easy way to do that is to share what I’m learning about the best practices of marketers on and off the web, operating on the principle of being helpful. So today, I’m introducing a new feature on my blog, Worth Watching. Once a month or more, I’ll post a video with marketing content I think is helpful to small business owners. It’s right there on the top right of the page.
First up – Matt Cutts, a Google whiz kid who is about as approachable as computer geeks come. Matt knows his stuff, and his videos are full of helpful information on how to make the most of your web-based marketing. They’re short, easy to understand and …well, take a look.
You can give away what you know on your blog or website in the form of tips, articles and shared content, too. Sharing knowledge and connections is a powerful way to gain loyalty from current customers and helps to develop interest in prospects.
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I love TED. TED is Technology Entertainment Design, a small non-profit enterprise dedicated to Ideas Worth Spreading. Started in 1984 as a conference to bring advanced thinkers together in the fields of technology, entertainment and design, TED has evolved into an internet phenomenon with TEDtalks, video representations of 18 minute or less talks given by TED featured presenters.
