Marketing
6 Effective Ways to Handle Event Mistakes
1. Accept responsibility.
NVE: The Experience Agency president Brett Hyman says that owning up to any mistakes is the necessary first course of action. That means never pointing a finger at another staff member or vendor lower in the chain of command—regardless of where in the line the breakdown actually occurred. “No matter whose fault it really is, the buck stops with you,” he says. “Don’t shift the blame.” Owning the mistake alone demonstrates leadership and professionalism.
Legendary Events director of design events Sophia Lin Kanno adds that blaming is also a time and effort waster. “There is also no need to waste any energy in the moment trying to attribute blame when what matters most is ensuring the event continues without a [further] hitch.”
2. Communicate clearly.
If the problem is a small one that can be solved with fast, seamless, independent action, that’s the best course to take. But if it is an issue that will require a team effort to resolve, communicate to other relevant parties with total transparency, says Koncept Events director of operations John Vincent Dillis. He emphasizes “presenting the challenge and the solution as clearly and as quickly as possible.” Any attempts at obfuscation can only compound a bad situation.
3. Act fast.
Address the problem with urgency—but a controlled urgency that demonstrates methodical problem-solving skills. If it’s too significant an issue to solve quietly behind the scenes, make a plan B and involve those necessary to execute it without any delay in such a way that shows your team and partners—or your boss—that “you have full control of the situation and can effectively deal with any hiccups that may occur,” Lin Kanno says.
4. Make it a teachable moment.
Hyman says that smart event professionals can use an event goof as a way to learn—and to avoid repeating the same mistake twice. “Retrace your steps,” he says. “Look through your paper trail and analyze where things went wrong.” Even if the goof-up really was someone else’s fault, learn from the experience and implement systems that can help prevent even someone else’s breakdown from becoming an issue. “Innovate your systems and your infrastructure so that you can prevent people from negatively impacting your event,” he says.
5. Take the long view.
It’s shortsighted to flee the scene of an event mistake in embarrassment or shame, especially in a relationship-based business. The goal is long-term partnerships with mutually committed industry players, devoted to each other’s success, that can withstand bumps in the road. So after a mistake, be clear about the intention to make things right when presented the next opportunity—and then really do it. Dillis emphasizes the importance of “operating from a place of sincere empathy” and “brainstorming” solutions, so that affected parties feel listened to, understood, and comfortable continuing a relationship.
6. Remain calm.
Executing a contingency plan is productive; panicking is not. “If despite [all efforts to prepare] something happens, obviously take a deep breath and remain calm [is] the number one piece of advice,” Lin Kanno says. “You can’t be afraid of a problem; it has to be handled. So it’s best to just keep a clear head and come at the issue from a problem-solving perspective.”
Credit: Alesandra Dubin
See an Event That Engaged All 5 Senses
The event was inspired by the glass chalice that has become a symbol for the Stella Artois brand. “The chalice is uniquely crafted to engage all five senses for a superior beer experience,” Bascom said. “We asked ourselves a simple question: how can we bring the sensorial experience intrinsic to our … chalice to life in a bigger way?”
To design the experience, planners partnered with a team of so-called “sensorial experts.” Chef Richie Farina, formerly of Chicago’s Michelin-starred restaurant Moto, was tapped to the design the menu. “His whole career has been about making meals a sensory experience,” Bascom said. “Once he was in place, we went out and found the people who are … doing the most leading-edge work on engaging sight, sound, and scent.”
Filmmaker Jamie Webster created a 360-degree film to be projected inside the dome. Nyles Miszcyk of Royal Mountain Records created a set list of original compositions meant to pair with each course of the five-course meal, and Doctor Irwin Adams Eydelnanat of Future Food Studio created custom aromas to enhance each menu item. “We had to bring in some impressive ventilation to ensure that the scents from one course didn’t carry over into another,” Bascom said.
Delivering unexpected experiences is central to the brand’s overall marketing strategy. “We know that the Stella Artois drinker is a sophisticated consumer,” Bascom said. “At Stella Artois, we’ve always been about elevating experiences—that’s at the core of our brand.”
Credit: Jenny Berg
5 Tips for Creating an Appealing, Engaging, and Memorable Brand
It’s 2015. If you want your company to rise above the digital noise, a cold, sterile approach isn’t going to cut it. To get consumers talking about your product or service, you need to develop a strong, memorable, warm-blooded brand.
Straying from the mold in order to elevate your company from the pack comes with risks, of course. But in the words of hockey legend Wayne Gretzky: “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.”
With that in mind, here are six strategies for humanizing your brand.
1. Start with a sense of humor
Don’t be afraid to use humor to promote your brand. Have fun with your fans — tell a funny story, maybe even push the envelope a bit.
Consider the Super Bowl. The event is as much about the ads as the game, and the brand with the funniest commercial wins big. Doritos, for instance, nailed it with its flying pig commercial, which ensured consumers would think of that LOL moment every time they opened a bag of the chips.
If you’re unsure how to incorporate humor, take a few tips from media sites offering ‘how-to’ ideas, such as Social Media Examiner. The site recommends including jokes about your brand on your landing page and in your newsletters, as well as including quirky Instagram shots of people, places and things that can be easily associated with your product or brand. Lastly, the Social Media Examiner suggests hiring professional writers to compose humorous stories about your company to share on social media.
Related: How to Distinguish Your Personal From Your Professional Brand Online
2. Use colloquial language
Nothing kills a customer’s interest in your brand faster than jargon, or overly complicated details. Consumers don’t want to listen to business speak and industry-specific language. Words like ‘value-added,’ ‘best practice,’ and ‘synergistic’ will annoy consumers and drive them away, according to business consultant Patti Rowlson. Speak to your customers like you’d speak to your friends.
3. Blend in-store experiences with online ones
Businesses often wrestle with how best to meld their offline and online presences. A good strategy is to create an offline experience that mirrors your business’s online experience.
For example, Nordstrom has cultivated a strong community of Pinterest users. To link its brick-and-mortar stores with its ecommerce site, Nordstrom uses Pinterest to ID items popular with its social followers, and then highlights these products at the brick-and-mortar stores so customers can easily find the most pinned merchandise.
4. Own up to mistakes
If your startup makes a mistake, own up to it and be transparent with your customers about how you are working to fix it.
Take Coca-Cola. In 1985, the company decided, without much market research, to change its basic formula. The results were catastrophic. Coca-Cola received more than 40,000 letters of complaints and a heaping pile of negative press. The company responded by returning to the original taste, which it named Coca-Cola Classic. The debacle generated so much attention that when Coca-Cola announced it was reviving the old formula, anchor Peter Jennings interrupted General Hospital to break the news. Sales for Coca-Cola Classic soared.
Related: How to Update Your Online Presence While You’re Moving
Confessing a mistake – after correcting it, of course — shows your customers you can be trusted.
5. Make it personal
Who writes your blogs, posts your Facebook notices, or takes your Pinterest photos? Technology has made shopping more convenient, but automating the process can also make it feel dehumanizing. A good fix is to have your staff sign their individual names on company social media interactions and bulletins, as well as ensure that their personal information is easily accessible to consumers.
It’s important to adopt a “holistic” approach to the customer. This means having a unified presence across all online platforms. “When customers can access your brand on more than one venue, meaning they can see it on Facebook and Twitter as well as on YouTube, and see that it’s presented in the same professional and transparent manner in all media, they begin to trust what you’ve got and want to know the story behind it — which you are also presenting on multiple media,” says Richard Hollis, the founder and CEO of Holonis, a digital marketplace. The idea is to provide your audience with a clear picture of the human behind each post, thus personalizing every interaction.
For example, when a customer receives an anonymous tweet thanking her for making a purchase, she may feel irritated at the interruption; but if a real person’s name is attached to the tweet, she may feel more inclined to purchase again — and soon.
As a related sidebar, remember to include a call to action – such as a link to your startup’s landing page — in your email signature. (You can how to do so here.)
Credit: Scott Langdon
How Brands Are Using Fitness Events to Flex Their Marketing Muscles
More and more lifestyle companies are organizing workout sessions to target key consumers and spread their message through sweat.
“Reebok understands that the female consuming behaviors are changing so rapidly and that specialization is so important,” says Catherine Marshall, the brand’s director of global business development. “We also understand that fitness is a social vehicle for many, and so we’re focusing more on grassroots events where we can create rich experiential touch points with the female ‘Fitgen.’” Reebok’s target consumer is known as the “Fit Generation,” or Fitgen: stylish twentysomethings who view working out as a social activity.
To reach this audience, Reebok has enlisted the help of Wellthily, a wellness-minded company that organizes pop-up events and fitness services for high-end boutique hotels and clients such as Under Armour, Lifeway, and Estée Lauder. In addition to events, the company also supplies travel kits and on-demand workouts, as well as information on healthy restaurant options for visiting hotel guests.
“Wellthily to us is the perfect partner to engage with our female ‘Fitgen’ consumer as they have a trusted voice with [that audience] already,” Marshall says. “They are a go-to when it comes to experiencing fitness in the most social sense. They illustrate the ever-proverbial ‘fitness is the new happy hour.’”
In February, Reebok worked with the company to organize an early morning yoga class for Axis trade show attendees on the Refinery Hotel rooftop in New York. And, in August the brand will be coordinating with Wellthily again on a three-day event that will include dance cardio, a boot camp workout, and yoga at Gurney’s Resort in Montauk.
As co-founder of Well&Good Alexia Brue explains, the eastern beach town and the Hamptons in general have grown into a “wellness hot spot”—not just a party locale. This summer, the lifestyle and wellness website hosted Surfside Salutations at the Surf Lodge in Montauk. “The Surf Lodge is known for its nightlife, however they are also really into wellness and wanted us to come in to up their wellness offerings for the summer,” she says.
Tara Curran, the hotel’s in-house wellness director, explained that Well&Good’s ideas were in line with the Surf Lodge’s established program, and that “good energy” and “good times” make for a successful fitness event. “Wellness isn’t about being on a strict diet; it’s about finding a balance and enjoying life,” she says.
Guests can purchase a workout and wellness pass, which includes a fitness class and workshops, plus access to a braid bar and lounging at the hotel. Brunch and a stand-up paddle-boarding session are also available for additional fees. (The last event takes place August 22.) “The events tap into our love of good food, good advice, good sweat, good looks, and great events,” Brue said.
As part of the Surfside Salutations series, Well&Good collaborated with C9 by Champion at Target, integrating its brand ambassadors into the fitness programming. C9 also set up a pop-up showcase for attendees to browse its latest collection and offered free product giveaways, including sports bras, “which was a huge hit and literally got their brand into the hands of these influential, fitness-loving attendees,” Brue explains.
For those city dwellers (and sponsors) who were looking for a more rugged experience, Tough Mudder recently debuted Urban Mudder—a five-mile obstacle course and all-day festival with food trucks and entertainment, which took place July 25 on Randall’s Island in New York.
“It was important for us to create innovative and fun obstacles that would mimic a city-based area. Since this is our inaugural event, we were challenged to create all new obstacles that would appeal to both our new and existing audience, as well as create a festival-like atmosphere for the post-event celebration,” says Ben Johnson, global communications director for Tough Mudder and Urban Mudder. “We are excited to take a new approach with our event production and product innovation, and we feel we truly captured the essence of what an urban obstacle course challenge should be.”
From custom-built, branded obstacles to on-site activations with giveaways and raffles, Urban Mudder sponsorships included a beer garden by Shock Top, a warm-up session sponsored by Cellucor, obstacles branded by Radisson and Oberto, and transportation deals provided by Uber. “We work with [our sponsors] individually to create unique ways for their brands to engage with participants and spectators and have an exciting on-site presence.”
And while there are no specific plans to expand Urban Mudder to other cities, Johnson says that they “are always exploring options to bring life-changing experiences to new markets and people, and we’re looking forward to future opportunities as we continue to see demand grow.”
Credit: Michele Laufik
7 Essentials of Your B2B Customer Self-Service Strategy
“By 2017, two-thirds of all customer service interactions will no longer require the support of a human intermediary. Current research shows that, in 2014, this was 55% of the interactions.”
That is a prediction1 by analysts at Gartner, Inc. supported by statistical evidence of this trend. So, given that more than 50% of customer service interactions already do not require human support, organizations have to really think outside the box to strike a balance—personalization alongside customer self service.
B2C companies that have integrated self-service across multiple channels are finding a good measure of success with ensuring consistent and high quality customer experience. For B2B marketers, this problem is particularly complex and challenging. The buyer journey is more than 60% complete before there is even a desire to connect with a possible vendor. The actual sale itself goes through a fine filter of several decision makers with their own, hard-nosed wish lists of what they want the purchased product or service to deliver. Once the customer is on board, you have not one, or even a small group of individuals to serve, but an entire enterprise that you want to retain and gain referral business from. Forrester had an insightful report on B2B Loyalty, the B2C Way—you can download it here. Building customer loyalty is anything but an easy task.
Here are 7 essential steps you can take as a B2B marketer to optimize your customer self-service strategy.
- Make it easy to provide feedback. Even if you deploy the most innovative self-service tools and systems, your customers need to be able to give you feedback on whether your system is working for them or not. Or rather, you need to get this feedback; both good and bad! A feedback mechanism is a critical component of customer self-service and it needs to be built into the system from the outset; not developed as you go when holes start to emerge.
- Differentiate with strong branding. Why simply call your 24/7 operations support a Help Desk? You have the opportunity to brand it in a way that resonates with your customers and makes them feel like it is truly their first point of contact and source of help when they need it. Do the same with your online portal, FAQ, online or offline kiosks, tutorial videos, mobile channels, demos and any other tool you use to support customers.
- Simplify and speed up. On average, the customer who needs a lot of vendor support and frequently, is the one that is closer to the point of frustration. It may not always be the case, but to a large extent, it’s true. The last thing you want to do then is to make things difficult for this confused, running-out-of-patience, and soon to become dissatisfied customer. Test your systems and processes, online, offline and on mobile channels, to ensure that whatever your customers need to do in order to use your self-service tools, it is simple, straight-forward and quick. Time is of the essence and so is simplicity. The problems your customers face are already complex; the solutions shouldn’t be.
- Think ahead. Walk in your customers’ shoes—everyday. Your sales people can prove to be an invaluable resource when it comes to understanding customer pain points. By predicting issues your customers may face, you can plan for positive outcomes and make answers available before the questions come to you. From your FAQs online to your automated phone help system to help videos, tutorials, printed manuals, and more, you can put it all out there for customers to use as and when they need it.
- Train your teams to handle complaints in addition to questions. This is a good lesson to learn from B2C. We have all been stuck in a phone tree at some point when trying to get a complaint resolved as a consumer. The customer service representative at the other end of the line is great with asking all the questions and even answering questions we may have. However, when it comes to thoroughly understanding a complaint and being responsible for addressing that complaint, we are often dissatisfied. Don’t let that happen in your B2B organization. Your customer support staff must have at least a certain threshold level of authority to be able to take care of customer complaints without passing the baton to a supervisor or manager.
- Be easy to reach. That’s the first rule of personalization. No matter how much and what you automate, know that when your customer needs a human interaction, nothing else will do. Yes, you can use efficient web technologies and incorporate live chat online or live phone support. Don’t make the mistake however, to keep these systems up and running in the absence of a real person to operate them. Nothing puts your customer off more than clicking a live chat button on your website to find that it’s only automated software that neither has the intelligence to answer their questions properly, nor the capability to resolve an issue. If you cannot support a 24/7 live chat or telephone help system, it’s okay to turn it off and commit to certain business hours when you can provide this service.
- Make friends with your customers. You did everything you could to win the trust and confidence of that qualified lead. Let that nurturing spirit and friendly manner continue after the lead becomes a customer. A happy customer is your ticket to long-term profitability and growth. A neglected, ignored or badly treated customer is a sitting duck for your competition and a serious threat to your customer retention and B2B lead generation efforts.
Credit: Louis Foong
Study Reveals Cross Channel Marketing Challenges (Infographic)
Maximizing cross channel marketing is more important than ever. But integrating elements such as web, email, point of sale, search and more can be a challenge. A recent survey by marketing firm Signal finds that only a very small fraction of companies are collecting data in such a way where they have a single view into what their customers want and need. This infographic summarizes its findings — as well as important solutions to help you understand how to streamline efforts and focus just on what your clients — and company — needs.
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Credit: Entrepreneur Staff