Personalize Your Special Marketing Events

Starbucks.Com

The Starbucks Coffee Company has a leader that understands marketing very well.  If you want to glean some good ideas, check out the work this leader instills into the process of Starbucks marketing.  There is some fabulous work being done here.

Recently the leader of Starbucks held a press conference regarding his views about political campaign contributions.  He shared that it was his practice to contribute political campaign funds to leaders and programs that support his beliefs and causes.  In his press conference he made a public announcement that he was withdrawing all of his contribution funds, temporarily, until the law makers of our country clean up their act on balancing the federal budget.  He did not make this move quietly.  He processed it as a part of a public announcement.  It was designed, managed and cleverly arranged as an extension to the Starbucks marketing program.  That company leader fully understands how the mass population feels about the sentiment it holds towards the financial ills in Washington D.C.  He is doing a 'good thing' with his encouragement to refrain from offering any more money to the pockets of law making leadership until they get their 'business act' together.  He made the announcement as a motion to encourage other leaders to do the same.  Leaders lead.  Leaders market their wares very well.  I would be interested to see if a sales spike of increase occurred at Starbucks as a result.  It would not surprise me to see an increase in sales.

Keep in mind, this is not the first step of a good social marketing attempt for this company.  They practice this kind of social marketing.  Do not for goodness sake take this one event and try to duplicate it for your own marketing program and expect it to produce great results until you have successfully established this pattern as part of what your company customarily does.  Starbucks already practices this kind of marketing in its normal policies.  It does not appear strange, weird or over-the-top.  Because it is customary to Starbucks, it will be easily accepted.  Get the depth of your marketing plans completely understood before you wander off in some wild direction.  If you paint your home barn red and put up a sign in the front yard that says 'farm style home for sale' make sure it does not look like a European contemporary flat.  Be smart.

I especially like the gravity of the message and how Starbucks used its leader as the message maker.  It personalized the attempt very well.  Most people who witnessed the news about his press conference release will believe he was solely doing it for the public policy only.  Hogwash, its business.  Campaign contributions are business.  Removing campaign contributions for a public cause is also business.  It is business.  I happen to believe it was genius business.  It is simple, doable and effective.  It did not take a whole lot of marketing dollars to accomplish.  I like the ones that come so easily with little drain on the company finances.  It was a master move made by one of the business worlds' master marketers.  Learn from this stuff.  This exhibit is just one example of many that are happening out in the business world.  Pay attention if you lead a business.

Marketing can be a complicated game if you do not have a lot of good experience to rely upon.  Do not neglect getting more help if you struggle in this area.  Marketing your business is a major key to how well you will succeed in the model you are trying to build.  Get very good at marketing where you want to be.  Look around at other successful models and glean some knowledge from how they do what they do.  Pay attention to the details that come with the depth of their planning.  The good ones include a lot of thought into the process.  Go ahead, give it a lot of thought.  They do.

Great Marketing Ideas

Marketing your future should always be a part of your overall business plan.  It should not be something you do once in awhile because you have been forgetting to promote your future on a regular basis.  Go to Starbucks web page and pay close attention to how many different subjects are being promoted on a constant basis for this company.  They are reaching a lot of different interests all at the same time.  At some point, you must be reminded that they are a coffee company.  They do not offer discount cards or special sales as part of their marketing efforts.  They fully appreciate taking all of your coffee money every time you attend their register.  I like that kind of thinking.  They are not ashamed of holding their ground on the profits they need.  Pay close attention to this effort.  Starbucks is not recognized for discount mania.

Too many business owners believe they must discount their products to be able to satisfy the "sale crazy" world of consumers.  Not true.  Many business models have proven that theory wrong.  They hold the line on discounting and move a lot of product.  When and if they do hold a product discounted sale, it is a major event and very effective because they do not do it very much.  It usually is an event that is being held to raise extra money for a good cause or a recognizable charity.  They make sure the reason to discount is something other than the business model having a need to discount product items.  It is marketing that comes with a very long series of a lot of thinking behind it.  Go ahead, give your marketing a lot of thinking.  It pays to think hard about all of your marketing plans long before you insert them into your business model.

Roll all of your wet marketing ideas around in your mind long enough to see how they dry out.  If they come out wrinkled, do not wear them.  You might be able to press them with an iron to improve how they look before you introduce them into your business model.  Get good at doing some good wash with your marketing plans.  You will learn how to promote the attraction your business model will be pleased to manage.

There is a difference.  There are marketing efforts that do poorly.  There are marketing efforts that look and perform like every one else.  Then there are marketing plans that sizzle on a regular basis, providing great results over and over.  You are the leader that gets to determine which ones you will be allowing your business model to manage.  Great marketing efforts do not come from after thoughts.  Great marketing efforts are not the results of getting lucky once in awhile.  Great marketing results do not come around because they found a string of accidental discoveries that worked well.  Great marketing results come from some hard thinking, some good study and the review of how other successful models do what they do.

Quit trying to be the genius by driving your business marketing plan with your own two hands.  You need help from other brilliant people.  You need help from your staff and your employed leaders.  They need to 'buy in' on what you are trying to accomplish.  Learn how to get them involved in the health of the marketing process.  They will take better possession of the ideas if they are part of the idea making.  Your business model will improve its marketing efforts if everyone on the staff is pulling the load in the same direction.  I have seen great marketing ideas die a slow death because the staff is fighting among themselves and the energy of the pull to succeed is going in too many opposite directions.  Not only does the marketing fail in this kind of environment, many other serious challenges find their way to the surface of the face of the business model.  It can be a big challenge.  Get the staff on the bus and make sure they place their hands on the steering wheel.  I have often been pleasantly surprised at how smart my staff was when they are given the right to actually become a part of the marketing model.  Some of their basic ideas turn out to become very smart.  Sometimes our leadership responsibilities prevent us from seeing simple stuff as effectively as the staff might see them.  Simple is very good.

Go to the Starbucks web page and check it out.  http://www.starbucks.com/ They have designed a very user friendly site that makes what they do a lot more fun to check out.  As you cruise around their website, just try to remind your self they  basically sell a cup of coffee!  It will amaze you how a coffee seller can accomplish so much in such a short visit.  Use this discovery to find unique and easy ways you can accomplish the same things in the model you are trying to market.  Get your creative juices flowing and try to envision how your business model can accomplish similar results that you find on the website they are developing.  Do not infringe.  Just use the models you view as motivation for creating extended thoughts about how you can do similar things with similar presentations.  Force your yourself to think deeper about how you should be marketing your business model.  Think until it hurts.  Go ahead, work hard on making a marketing strategy that will help you build a better business future.

You can and you should produce a great marketing plan.  Get some books on the subject and look at what other successful models are doing.  You have great tools to use to make it happen.  Get to work on it.  Above all , run your ideas by your staff.  Do not surprise them with the end product running on the air!  I see business leaders who do this kind of stuff.  They produce a local radio advertisement and neglect to tell their staff about what they promised to deliver to the customers who come in.  The customers know more about the plan than the staff!  This is not the kind of work Starbucks would offer as part of their marketing plan.  It is a poor attempt at marketing.  Get your staff involved.  Listen to them.  They are the ones who walk in the trenches with the customers.  Listen to your staff.

Until next time...