Tag Archives: wichita small business

Who’s afraid of the big bad (recession) wolf? Not Wichita small business owners

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You know what you do when everybody says, “Don’t panic,” right? You panic. So, with everybody talking recovery one minute and doomsday the next, it’s hard to know what to think.

Fortunately for us, Wichita small business owners are resourceful, independent thinkers who don’t always accept the status quo or go along with the crowd. This innovative thinking extends beyond marketing and into how things are being made and distributed.

But if entrepreneurial thinking isn’t enough to convince you of why you should keep your chin up, then here are a few more.

1. Gasoline prices are at their lowest levels in months. If prices move another 25 or 50 cents lower it could contribute greatly to a prolonged economic recovery.

2. Retail spending is up leaps and bounds as Christmas has come early for many merchants.

3. Marketers and consumers seem to be reaching agreement on a new value proposition based on getting more (or better) for less.

4. There is a renewed effort on the part of government and other institutions to advance small business as much or more as big business.

5. Greater numbers of manufacturers are shifting their core strengths to new market foci in order to take advantage of opportunities outside dying or consolidating industries.

Indeed, there is much to give us hope. There is no nation like ours, particularly when it comes to small business. We are so much better, though, when we are fearless.

Goodyear marketing comes to Wichita but leaves the website behind

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The new Goodyear “Tire Amnesia” marketing campaign is getting a little play around Wichita and in many cities across the country, thanks in no small part to a huge media buy and tie-ins with NASCAR and even NASA. Never mind the fact that most people are skeptical when a company tries to compare its work on the moon with how it can serve consumers. BTW, Goodyear, the 1960s are over, and the newness of Sputnik wore off a long time ago.

OK, readers, I’ll go ahead and give away the point of this article up front: When you have a multimedia marketing promotion strategy, it is important to tie the message threads in all those media together in a common bond. If you’re doing radio ads promoting your new guacamole burger, I should see it featured on the front page of your website and on your Facebook page. (Oops, Spangles, I couldn’t find it. Not even on the burgers page of your site. Unless I looked really hard at the menu.) Here’s what I’m talking about in terms of Goodyear. And it applies to Wichita small business marketing just as strongly.

The biggest problem with this new marketing push from an enduring American icon is that it simply neglects the website portion of the campaign. I couldn’t find evidence of the same content as the radio and television advertising anywhere on Goodyear’s website, meaning the continuity of message was completely lost.

The main idea of the advertising campaign is that many of us suffer from tire amnesia. For whatever reason, be it senility, apathy, or any other, we just can’t remember what kinds of tires we have on our car. Cute concept. You don’t remember. Get Goodyear tires and you’ll never forget because of our unforgettable performance and durability. Great. Got it.

But if you’re going to pull off a multi-million-dollar media blitz with NASCAR Films, sponsorships and more, then why wouldn’t you spend a few grand to make your website an appropriate carrier of the “cure for tire amnesia” message? Tell you what, Goodyear, I can fix that problem for $5,000. That’s about what I would charge a Wichita business owner for a similar website strategy and development.

Not to pour salt in a wound, but now that I think about it, I couldn’t even find any ads or ad materials when I did a Google search for “goodyear tire amnesia.” It’s called YouTube, Goodyear. Don’t make me go to your website to find your six-figure videos, and

Huge companies teach Wichita small businesses about marketing by screwing up

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Domino's: Artisan pizza for $7.99. Really? Please.

The first time I heard the phrase “Domino’s Artisan Pizza,” I said to myself, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Then I thought, “Come on, Dave. Give a reasonable, objective review of this new marketing effort.”

So, I did. And I said to myself, “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard since the one unfortunate time I blurted out an honest answer when my wife asked for my opinion about a purse.” Then I thought it might be possible to use this colossal idiocy to help small businesses in Wichita market themselves more effectively.

OK, how many ways is this campaign wrong?

1. Artisan and Domino’s do not go together. It’s not a credible value proposition. As a small business, you need to make sure your products and your company’s brand are congruent. If you want to say your pizza makers are artisans, that’s great. But show us how you back it up. Otherwise, I’m going to continue frequenting my favorite local Wichita pizza joint, Knolla’s.

2. The product doesn’t even look like it’s that much better than anything else Domino’s puts out. It really needs to stand out from the crowd. As it is, it looks a bit like a petite version of the Bigfoot pizza from some years back. If you are a small business in Wichita and you introduce a new product or service, you’d better make sure it walks and talks significantly differently than everything else.

3. See if you follow this logic. Because I don’t. First, Domino’s introduces an Artisan Pizza. It positions the pizza as having better toppings and being made better. Then the company declares that its pizza makers aren’t artisans. More incongruence. Next, Domino’s runs TV spots making fun of artisans. I guess I could understand this strategy if Domino’s didn’t choose to call its new pizza an “artisan” pizza. Make their mistake your gain, Wichita marketers: make your product name, your pricing and your promotion align properly. (See #4.)

4. So, imagine you’re Domino’s. You introduce a new pizza that has “better” toppings, “better” crust and is made lovingly by Carlos or Debbie, who sign your pizza box and solicit your feedback. Great idea! (You’re just taking your copying of Papa John’s to a new level, but that’s OK.) It’s a fine strategy from a product standpoint. All I’m saying is to package it properly by saying something like: “You might have heard about these great pizzas called ‘artisan’ pizzas. They look like this, taste like this and are made by people who LOVE to make pizza. We have them at Domino’s, but we just call them great pizza. And or a limited time, they’re just $7.99.” Now, that’s a story. Tell me a story, Wichita small businesses!

5. Domino’s didn’t take the right page from the Subway marketing manual. In fact, it’s the same mistake all the big-name chain pizza places have made. It’s the mistake of focusing on the product instead of the price. Subway has made some mistakes of its own, don’t get me wrong. But Subway has been incredibly successful with its $5 Footlong campaign. This success has gone all the way from a special offer to an ongoing fixture on the menu that gives people another reason to go to subway. Don’t come up with a fancy new product before you’ve exhausted all avenues for your current product line–including how you price it, package it and deliver it.

Bottom line, Wichita small business marketers, don’t take it for granted that putting a cute name on something makes it better.

Wichita Marketing Just Got a Whole Lot Tastier

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It’s not every day you walk into store in Wichita and become pleasantly assaulted by the sights, sounds and even smells that make the shopping experience so special. A local vendor hawking his salsa in Wal*Mart. Samplers in full swing at the Andover Dillons.

For many years, supermarkets abandoned sampling and direct sales. But for whatever reason, when I shopped my Wichita grocery store this week, there were people actively selling sushi and others were pushing samples.

The whole place had the air of an open market. The trouble is, I’m not sure if it was intentional. In any case, it got me thinking about the importance of experience to customers. It can also be a great way to differentiate your Wichita business from others in the market.

It can be very simple. Anything that makes life easier on your customer will be welcomed. Same for anything personal or customized.

It took me years to convince grocers just to put on a pot of coffee so customers would be stimulated. It’s just one example of how something small can pay big dividends.

It’s a new month, Wichita small business owners. What is the one small thing you can do this month to delight your customers? It might be a small change to your marketing program, such as trying a more regular email promotion. It might be an additional step in your customer service process.

Whatever you do, it’s a good idea to start with what you observe your customers consistently requesting. Listen to your frontline employees, too. And remember, it’s your job to read between the lines and make the ultimate call on what needs to change.

The only reason Dillons has enjoyed success in Wichita is that there is little competition. Put Dillons up against the customer service of Hy-Vee or the selection and ethnic sensitivity of Price Chopper, and it’s a very different story. To say nothing of the price competition. It might not be a coincidence that Dillons is stepping up its game if other regional competitors are thinking about opening here.

Don’t let competitive pressure be what moves you to act. Start heightening your customers’ experience now.

Try To See Things From the Customer’s Perspective

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A dipper? A Bear? A meat cleaver? Depending on your perspective, you might see something completely different.

Gazing up at the night sky, I couldn’t help but think how people in different parts of the world down through history have viewed what we call, “The Big Dipper,” as many different objects with many meanings. It’s been called the bear, the cat, the wagon, the saucepan, and depending on the time of year, it appears in one of four different rotations. How you see Ursa Major and what it means to you depends on your perspective.

Perspective, as in how one “sees” things, can be either a tremendous opportunity or a tremendous hindrance in negotiations and relationships. In the words of leadership guru Stephen Covey, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Nowhere should this advice be applied more heavily than in the way small businesses communicate to customers.

My good friend and management expert Vincent Amanor-Boadu teaches business owners to think from the outside-in, rather than from the inside-out. This forces us to consider what the market wants and take a customer-centered approach to our product offerings and our messaging. In the parlance of Covey, when we seek to understand customers, we stand a better chance of winning their hearts, minds and discretionary income.

How many times have you tuned out the advertising that is yelling at you about all the reasons you should buy a product or service? If you can’t remember the last time this happened, it’s probably because you’re just as likely to completely tune out this kind of promotion. Does any particular Wichita small business or marketing campaign come to mind?

You don’t have to do things this way. Don’t use the siding and window installers, the attorneys or the car dealerships as the models for your Wichita marketing efforts. These companies use what I call brute force marketing. Their budgets are large enough that they can run basically the same message as loudly and as often as they possibly can. And have you ever noticed how they’re the ones in their ads and you never see their customers?

This paradigm is shifting as Web 2.0 and social media are now defining how customers interact with the companies and brands they love. Many small businesses in Wichita are embracing this technology and hooking up with people who know how to help them get the most from it. The game has changed because it’s easier than ever to hear and see what customers want directly and in real time.

Still, most Wichita small businesses are not taking advantage of these tools and how they create more sincere connections with customers through better understanding.

You have a choice every day. You can try to convince customers that you’re great. Or you can let them tell you what they want. You can scream at customers on TV or get lost among dozens of print ads. Or you can chat with them online via Facebook. It’s your choice, and you can get way out in front of your competition if you do it now.

Don’t worry, Wichita small business marketers, you’ll find your own bacon connection someday

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Today, I found my bacon connection. Today, the worlds of business, personal life and bacon collided in a delicious, greasy, explosion of network connectivity that rivals the best of multi-level marketing down-chains. Today, I received a Facebook friend request from someone connected to me in all three areas. When I looked at the person’s public profile, I realized we have 18 mutual friends, but we did not go to school together. We don’t even live in the same town. We don’t work in the same industry. We’re not related. But we both love bacon.

Wichita marketing tastes better with bacon.

As someone who advises dozens of Wichita businesses on marketing plans, digital marketing strategy, and creates digital content for Wichita Facebook pages, I was both bemused and amazed at the depth and breadth of the electronic network at our marketing disposal. After all, this person has never emerged as a Facebook suggestion before, despite being a friend of 18 of my 1,398 friends (as of 530 CDT Aug 16). It was our bacon connection that brought us together. And now, I’m thinking to myself, “What else can I find out about this person that will benefit us both?”

Well, it turns out this person is actually from the town where I went to high school, but I never knew her because she is five years my junior and I didn’t move to the town until my sophomore year. But because we both like bacon, and because I created a bacon page with a growing Facebook fan base, we got connected. I’m looking forward to learning more about what she does in her job and where further connections might lead.

With previous Facebook-kindled re-connections, I’ve actually been able to gain project-based business.

I think there are really three big takeaways from today’s experience:

1. Our network is more vast and complex than we can imagine.

2. Facebook brings us a quantum leap closer to comprehending and utilizing our network.

3. As a Wichita marketer, I owe it to myself to be everywhere in that network I can efficiently touch. Even if it means creating a new Facebook page about green beans.

You don’t have to look far to find good reasons to use social media for marketing your Wichita small business

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While there are all kinds of benefits of social media for Wichita small businesses, some of the most important benefits are also the simplest. If you’re still on the fence regarding starting or increasing your involvement in social media for your Wichita marketing campaign, here is some more evidence to support it.

wichita social media marketing

As highlighted in an article from American Express Open that has been referenced many times, having a social media presence and maintaining at least minimal contact with your audiences can help you keep tabs on competitors and get all kinds of feedback from customers. What would you rather do, conduct expensive research or get actionable data straight from customers on Facebook?

You can also use Facebook to build relationships with current friends, prospects and customers.

Best of all, it doesn’t take nearly as much time to engage with these people via Faceook as it does to write an email or even a blog post. But you can still communicate and offer deals with ease.

While there are all kinds of benefits of social media for Wichita small businesses, some of the most important benefits are also the simplest. If you’re still on the fence regarding starting or increasing your involvement in social media for your Wichita marketing campaign, here is some more evidence to support it.

As highlighted in an article from American Express Open that has been referenced many times, having a social media presence and maintaining at least minimal contact with your audiences can help you keep tabs on competitors and get all kinds of feedback from customers. What would you rather do, conduct expensive research or get actionable data straight from customers on Facebook?

You can also use Facebook to build relationships with current friends, prospects and customers.

Best of all, it doesn’t take nearly as much time to engage with these people via Faceook as it does to write an email or even a blog post. But you can still communicate and offer deals with ease.

If  you want to learn more, call us at 316.305.8358. Or visit http://littlebigadguys.com/the-marketing-needs-assessment/.

It takes inspiration and hard work to do great Wichita marketing

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If there is one thing I’ve learned in the past 20 years, it’s that all the hard work in the world won’t do me any good if I don’t take time to be inspired and be creative. The flip side of the coin is that I can dream and create and be inspired, but without hard work (and a little luck), my plans will never prosper.

Inspiration is key to a solid Wichita marketing plan, but its effectiveness is lessened by the absence of hard work.

I was really struck by the notion of this necessary combination of work and inspiration on a recent hike in the Colorado Rockies. It occurred to me that inspiration, if I let it, could happen at various steps along the way. Or, I could allow myself to become completely oblivious to lessons, observation and other forms of inspiration, focusing instead on the hard work.

As an experienced hiker, I can relate climbing a fairly technical hill to what we do with Wichita marketing and advertising. Even though I can scramble, step and stride with the best of them, I always learn something new. And learning, to me, is the essence of inspiration. When the proverbial light bulb goes off and the idea is generated, good things happen.

But just as the journey up that hill begins with a simple step, I must be willing to take steps and learn along the way when it cones to Wichita marketing, digital media and sales promotion.

At Valé, the journey to success begins with the single step of taking our Marketing Needs AssessmentTM. You can learn more at http://littlebigadguys.com/the-marketing-needs-assessment/.

In the meantime, get out there and climb, work hard, check your map often and take time to be inspired. The payoff at the top (see photo above) is always worth it.

David Mace is co-founder and chief paradigm shifter of Valé. He has been climbing things since a very early age and hopes to summit a 20,000+ mountain some day.