Customer Appreciation Day "Smart Marketing Tool"

            Whatever you are selling as a business whether it be a product or a service, keeping your customers satisifed is the key ingredient to a sustainable business model. Doing something for your customers more than a simple thank you will get your customers talking about you and wanting to come back because they are treated so well. By offering a day that involves free product give aways or great discounts this can grab the attention of new customers as well as all the customers you already have. Its a great marketing tool because if you just recently opened your business or your looking for a new way to generate more income and traffic this will work well. On this customer appreciation day if you let people try the new product your trying to sell then it creates awarness for that product you are trying to promote with out making it so focused on your products you are focusing on the customer and making them feel home at your place. Its like a warm invitation to come back because a great experience was created for you. I noticed how many places have a customer appreciation day ever year so it must be worth it.
Do you think that it is worth it to loose money for one day to have customer appreciation day for your customers? What are some other places you know that have this day or something like it?

In Response to Chris Mallon "Subway"

           Thats crazy that your heard that deal by word of mouth as I did too. I think everyone did because I asked a friend who told me where he heard that information from and he said he heard it from someone else. That deal really is a great deal. $5 footlongs are already a great concept and subway has made substantial profits off of that campaign. Buy one $5 and get one free is $2.50 a person when you split it with a friend. You cant go wrong with that. I was researching the deal and found that it started on April 16th or 18th as customer appreciation day I guess they have coupons you can get online. The announcement started on their facebook site so whoever is a fan of them through facebook spread the word through facebook and word of mouth. Facebook is a great promotional tool.

In Response to Hayley Irwin "Disney"

         I think that it is very wrong to promote your business in a positive light if the truth behind it all is that your are socially irresponsible. Not only is disney socially irresponsible but they are going againt human rights. In a sweatshop in Bangladesh workers are beaten for not working fast enough. They are forced to work 14-19 hour days and end up working 30-40 hours overtime working in horrible conditions. The drinking water is healthy, they are never given enough food or time for a break, and they are cramped into small spaces. It amazes me how well disney is at marketing its self and its products. It literally doesnt make you think once that something horrible could be going on behind it all. I dont understand how it could get to that point. Being unethical in the business environment is one thing. That alone can push the envelope. This right here is shredding the envelope. I hope the national labor committee solves these issues for good.

The Personal Selling Process Part 2

When reading our text book I learned about the 7 steps of the personal selling process. Due to my experience I now a have a better understanding for how each step goes. Here they are.

1. Prospecting- The website developed a list of potenital customers by gathering information on people who wanted to be a free member.

2. Preapproach- The lady came up with a preplan to get my attention. She left me a message that got me excited.

3. Approach- She tried to develop a personal relationship with me over the phone to make me feel comfortable about what they had to offer.

4. Making the presentation- She gave examples of huge success rates which I'm sure are not normal. They were very rare cases.

5. Overcoming Objections- She tried to respond in terms of my needs and any type of questions I had that would make it seem like I'm not interested.

6. Closing the sale- This did not happen but she sure did try by asking me a couple time if I wanted to be promoted through them. She talked like I was going to say yes or as if I had already said yes almost trying to pressure me into it.

7. Follow up- A sale did not happen but an email was sent to me the next day telling me to think about it and to just call anytime if I am considering it.
Do you have any experiences with a kind of unethical scam like this?

The Personal Selling Process "What A Bad Day"

            So I recently had an experience that involved personal selling. There is this website called ArtistPR and what they do is help independent musicians with promotion to get their music to radio stations, record labels, and editors or magazines who could write a review about your music. Their goal is to get you publicity so you can get a greater fan base and get more traffic to your website. So there was a sign up area under "Free membership" It stated that if we like your music enough we will call you. So I submited my info and a song I had made. The next day I get a voicemail from a lady namked Kate for Hollywood,California. She said" I liked your song and I was wondering if you could send me your demo" So I called her back being really excited. As soon as she answered she tried to make me feel special and talked about everything ArtistPR could do for me. She also told me how a client of hers just got paid $5,000 because a song clip of hers was played on American Idol. My excitement was short lived when she told me it was cost me $60 a month to work with them. Thats when I got mad, the conversation ended, and that was the end of that. The entire time I was waiting for her to ask for my demo. Ofcourse not! This is a great example of Personal Selling.

In Response to Johns Blog "Future of Cars"

        I feel as if there has to be a point where environmentally friendly cars start to take on a huge part of the market. They have been introduced to the public for awhile now but I dont know a whole lot of people who have smart cars. I think that whole industry concept of pushing freindly cars foward into the market will be a huge success in the future but right now I feel as if gas powered cars will be around for along while. The entire oily industry would suffer and thought would create a huge loss in income and jobs. People would not be so happy. I think it is going to take time to hit a happy medium where everyone can make out on the product being sold to the consumers.

William Faulkner

        I thought that having the guest speaker come in to talk to us during our marketing class was awsome. He was very into what he was talking about because its what he does for his career. I really got into the conversations we were having talking about our Country Life project. Every question we all had been thinking about were finally put out there and answered very thoughtfully. He helped us grapple with our ideas and helped us to think harder and be more creative toward this project. It was nice to get a real prospective from someone who is really good at marketing and is doing it full time. Alot of information we learned from the book finally clicked. Especially talking about the SWOT analysis, business model and business plan.I learned that the business model is how you go to market it. Its the rules of the game, and it dictates what you can and can't do. A business plan is what you choose to do. It is best put as the tactics vs. the plan. This jump started my enthusiasm in digging deep into the project. Did anyone else enjoy this or feel the same way?