Collectigo Video

Here's an animated video we just completed for our great client Collectigo. 

Many thanks go out to the team:

• Breah Parker - Animation
• Jay Fields - Copy
• Eric Palmer - Sound Engineer
• Paul Bastin - Online Editor
• Amy LaDeroute - Voice Actor
• Ryan Bastin - Voice Actor
• David Reeder & Hudson Cobb - Kids playing

The Bicycle Saddle

To say Dave Tomsky ~ Founding Partner and Director of Public Relations here at JDM Strategies ~ is a cycling enthusiast, is like saying  the Puerto Rico Trench is pretty deep. Let's just say he really loves his bicycle and the sport in general.   This week, Dave and I were talking about the new bike he just purchased. It's in the office right now and to be honest I think just one of my wheels from my old 10 speed bike might weigh more than his new bike. It's a beautiful piece of engineering. During the conversation, the story of the bicycle saddle came up. The saddle on his previous bike was black....which didn't quite match the color scheme for his new two-wheeled acquisition.  Dave needed a white saddle.

Dave contacted the company who sold him the black saddle, Cobb Cycling (www.cobbcycling.com) located in Tyler Texas. Dave's request was simple, he wanted to send back the black saddle and exchange it for the same model, but in white.  Dave expected to be charged, since the black saddle had been used for about 3 months. On the other end of the e-mail was Ginger Cobb, daughter of the owner  and a customer service rep. Ginger's response was that she would send a white saddle (see picture above) with a return UPS slip for Dave to send back the black saddle....NO CHARGE! Seriously, no charge! Ginger didn't even want the black saddle sent first. Plus, the shipping for both saddles was free.

Zappos (www.zappos.com)  is well known for their Free 365 Day Return Policy. It's a great policy and economies of scale certainly help. Without having any empirical evidence, I would bet my next lunch that  the shoe industry has a much larger customer base than the specialty racing bike saddle industry...just a guess. That's the interesting part of this. Cobb Cycling is relatively small but their exceptional approach to customer service has made Dave a loyal customer for life and more importantly a brand evangelist. He knows other cyclists and you can be sure he will tell the Cobb Cycling saddle story. Is there a better way of marketing than to have your customers spreading enthusiastic and sincere testimonials to their circle about your brand? I think not.

Have you got other stories like this? Let me know.

BTW, if you should see Dave (#944) on May 24th  riding his Bianchi 928 SL during the Assault on Mt. Mitchell (his 10th time) http://tinyurl.com/2ekb94k  give him a cheer.

Splitting Wood

Our home has a wood fireplace which gets a lot of use during the winter months. Prior to this winter I used to chop and split wood by hand. We had a lot of wood around and I was never in a rush. This past Fall however, we had to have a 140' white oak tree taken down very close to the house.  The tree service left it ~ as per my instructions ~ in large pieces, that I would have to clean up. There was a lot of wood and I knew that it would be foolish to try and split that much wood by hand.

So, a friend of mine came over  on a Saturday morning with his gas powered hydraulic log splitter and we went to work. The quantity of wood we were able to split was amazing. He got a truck load of wood and I got enough wood for a couple of winters...all in a day.

Splitting wood by hand vs a gas powered log splitter - This got me thinking about marketing.

There are companies out there that implement their own marketing plans, some better than others. They're splitting wood by hand.

There are companies that have a gas powered log splitter in house.

There are other companies that split wood by hand on occasion, but bring in the gas powered log splitter for efficiencies and a competitive advantage.

What kind of company are you?

Taking Risks

The URL below, penned by Seth Godin, is his take on risks:
http://tinyurl.com/yhmvwyx
As usual, Seth's words got me thinking.
First, the picture on the right. It's of my son Ryan, when he was about 4 years old. My brother Paul took the picture and I've always loved it. A friend said to me not long ago when he spied this picture "whoa, that looks risky." Well, I suppose it does a bit. But Ryan didn't think so and I guess my brother didn't either. When Ryan took that step, I don't think he understood the risk or possible consequences if his balance was off. Most of us took many risks when we were younger and learned from them in the process. I'm sure there's some cool graphic illustration out there that shows the correlation between age and risk. For some people, as they mature, their appetite for risk decreases, for others, not so much. Tiger Woods, for reasons we may never know or understand, allegedly made a number of very risky decisions that had nothing to do with how he was going to play a particular hole on a golf course. Crazy on so many levels. On a less dramatic scale, but still crazy, are the decisions that small and large companies make when thinking about marketing. There are those that forge ahead of their competition with continued or even increased marketing efforts and there are others that would rather ride out the current economic climate without a marketing strategy in place. That's risky. I'm not sure if that will hurt your marriage, but I know it will hurt your brand.
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Won't get fooled again

Arguably one of the best songs from the British rock group "The Who"...."won't get fooled again" seems to be a theme in our world today. From people that are tired of the hypocrisy in the church, to people that are weary of big lending institutions and Wall Street, from folks that just can’t believe what politicians have to say, to folks who keep big business at arms length. Trust is a commodity in short supply. 

Last week, in discussions with a new client, stories of broken promises and inconsistent service from their previous marketing agency poured out. On a scale of 1 – 10, their trust level for our industry was a pretty small number. Without verbalizing it, this client was saying, “we won’t get fooled again.” So our journey with this client might be slightly uphill, but it’ll also be an opportunity to grow their trust again and redefine their perspective on our industry.

Like every other industry and business that is faced with heightened consumer/public skepticism, the goal of trust will not be realized over night. It will take some time and once achieved, should not be mishandled.

If you have a product or a service, what are you doing to grow the trust of new and existing customers? How has your marketing changed to reflect your efforts?

My 9 year old son Ryan ~ an inspiration on a daily basis ~ came home from the North Carolina Arboretum camp not too long ago with an interesting fact: It takes 4 gallons of maple tree sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup. As Ryan described it, the sap gets boiled, water evaporates and it becomes thick and sweet, then it goes into a bottle. My first thought was that's a lot of sap to make a little syrup and that I'd appreciate the next banana pancake breakfast more than normal.

My next thought was centered on the marketing process with clients and how it paralleled the maple syrup process. Before we make any marketing recommendations, there is a ton of information that needs to be "boiled down" in order for the true essence of a product or service to be defined and implemented in a marketing strategy. External and internal variables make for a very dynamic process that should not be taken lightly. 

So, next time pancakes and maple syrup are on your plate, think about all that sap that was boiled down. If marketing is on your plate, think of the information that needs to be boiled down for your brand to stand out.