Here are some quick points about how not to annoy people while promoting your organization from Amber MacArthur (via Guy Kawasaki)…
The New Rules of Marketing & PR – Book review
January 21, 2010 By 2 Comments
Summary
I recommend David Meerman Scott’s book for people in the PR and Marketing profession as well as individuals that have an interest in taking control of their PR or have a desire to be able to ask more informed questions of the people that do manage these efforts. While the book makes an effort to speak to beginners, I think you have to be very interested in informing yourself on the practices he describes and have some free time to execute the ideas. Scott discusses how there has been a shift from interruption marketing (commercials and the like) towards delivering value to potential customers in order to build a relationship with them and turn them into more passionate patrons – something we love at Community Cultivator. Topics cover blogs, podcasts, news releases and plugging into PR distribution channels, forums and wikis, viral videos, web site design philosophy, RSS, social networks and more.
Review
The foundation of The New Rules of Marketing & PR is built on the idea that consumers are less and less swayed by glitzy magazine ads and Super Bowl commercials – it is easier for them to better inform themselves about options and the organizations that provide those options. Scott presents case studies and thought experiments for today’s consumer. If you are going to buy a car and go to an auto manufacturer’s website, you are more likely to be interested in tangible information about their offering rather than being informed of a “72-hour sale.” You most likely want to know details about their product (example from page 1 of the book).
With so much information easily available nowadays, people are more interested in providers that make it easy to determine if their offering meets the consumer’s needs. I personally hope this is true since I have never been good at the soft sell 
. That idea leads into a discussion of what your website should be … essentially a source of relevant information that educates potential customers and treats them as an intelligent audience. This is the first step in building the relationship.
The book continues to discuss what I refer to as the theory of “be everywhere your patrons are.” Some people read blogs, some subscribe to RSS, some are on social networks and, in an ideal world, your message is available in all of the relevant channels. Scott refers to this idea as Thinking like a Publisher:
It is about delivering content when and where it is needed and, in the process, branding your organization as a leader…. What works is a focus on your buyers and their problems. What fails is an egocentric display of your products and service.
The book does a good job at covering the various tools available (I have the Publishing News Releases Through a Distribution Service section bookmarked for follow up) and includes key concepts about how and when to use these resources as well as a framework for designing your PR strategy. Scott recognizes the fact that his readers may only use a fraction of the suggestions he recommends and emphasizes you should take advantage of what makes sense for you.
My summary is that I think The New Rules of Marketing & PR is good for 1) existing PR and Marketing professionals or 2) individuals that are aware that the world has changed regarding how to reach target audiences, but are a little overwhelmed and struggling with how to make sense of it all.
NOTE: David Meerman Scott’s blog can be found at http://www.webinknow.com/
The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging – Book Review
January 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Summary
Very good book for the beginner blogger written without any political slant (although there are references to specific political articles from the Huffington Post).
Review
Over the past few months, a number of organization leaders (including businesses) have asked me questions about blogging. What exactly is it? How do you do it? How does it help build a patron base? When you deal with technology every day, there is a tendency to forget where the rest of the world is in their understanding. In all of these cases, I recommended the person should read this book.
The Huffington Post was started by Arianna Huffington in 2005 and has grown to be a powerhouse in the blogosphere. This book, written by Arianna and various editors of the blog – is a very easy read and helps to explain what a blog is as well as how to get started.
Most books on blogging fall into one of two categories: 1) highly technical that discuss the mechanics of blogging or 2) grand discussions of how to do PR online (“it’s a new world of unparalleled opportunity, blah, blah, blah). This book strikes a happy medium and covers topics such as:
- An overview of what a blog is and why they are valuable (in general terms)
- Determining the subject area you will focus on
- Determining your writing style. Blogs aren’t college papers and yours should match your personality
- Gaining traffic to your blog
- Building a community
- Some of the technology options that are available
This book is not a highly technical book that tells you how to setup and configure your blog, but is a strategic guidebook that helps you determine if you want to blog in the first place. You can always go by WordPress for Dummies if you are inspired.
Getting Started with Twitter
December 20, 2009 By Leave a Comment
For us that deal with social media on a daily basis – Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, RSS feeds, etc – there is a risk that we become disconnected with understanding where the rest of the country is in their understanding of the tools we take for granted. This point was emphasized to me last week through a conversation I had with Bob and Carol Marek – owners of American Period Furniture on Ponce in Atlanta.
Bob and Carol are great people that have run the store for years. As with any business owners, they want to reach their target audience – they have a high quality product with great service and know there are patrons that would love to find them, but the challenge remains how to reach them? They have heard all of the buzz about online promotions, but don’t know where to start – what is Twitter, what is Facebook, what are blogs, what are iPhone apps? More importantly, how does an organization use these technologies and which ones are best suited for changing needs? This conversation has inspired me to write some very basic posts about this new world… starting with Twitter.
What is Twitter?
To answer this question, I refer people to my post for a super basic introduction – http://www.o2p.org/twitter-super-basic-intro-for-organizations. This covers the topic in a very easy to understand way. My next post in this series will cover the topic of how to gain Followers on Twitter (http://www.o2p.org/attracting-followers-on-twitter).
What is the value of Twitter?
In my conversation last week, I emphasized that tools like blogs and mobile apps are more about delivering unique to people and not direct advertising. Twitter, however, seems like a good place to start for someone that is used to traditional promotions, but wants to move efforts online. It’s a place to start building a more intimate relationship with patrons, but can still be used to announce special offers and business-focused news without offending Followers. Twitter is a way for organizations to connect to patrons real-time (or close to it). Users choose the people and organizations they want to Follow – they want information from you!
Setting Expectations
- Your Followers will not see every announcement you post (called tweets).
- Your Followers are looking for short posts that tell them what is new with your organization – upcoming sells, new shipments, change of hours, special events, etc.
- Your Followers will not respond to every tweet they read. They won’t come in for every sell, event, etc., but you will have a way to keep them informed.
Think of Twitter as a bulletin board that is full of short messages. Some posts get read and some don’t, but it’s a public way to connect with your target audience and every now and then your message gets to the right person at the right time, leading them them to take action (come in and buy something, attend your event, whatever). If this sounds ineffective, think about advertisements that you might have posted in newspapers or other print publications – there are lots of people that flip through the pages, but how many see your announcement much less take action? The advantage of Twitter is that people have indicated that they actually want to plug into you. Extending the analogy, imagine a newspaper where the classifieds are limited only to the organizations of interest to the reader – when they want to find information, they only see posts from organizations they like. Here’s how it works:
- People discover you on Twitter (more information in later posts)
- They choose to Follow you, which means all of your tweets will be sent to them in Twitter alongside everyone else they Follow. Sometimes they are paying attention and sometimes they aren’t.
- By periodically looking at their stream of tweets (ordered chronologically) people are able to take the pulse of what’s going on with everyone they follow.
Creating your Twitter account
Twitter Sign up page (click for full size)
Twitter Sign up page (click for full size)
This is super easy. Go to https://twitter.com/signup and follow the directions to setup your profile. Make sure to select a username that identifies your organization. For example, American Period Furniture chose APFurniture, meaning that their profile can be viewed at www.twitter.com/APFurniture. This isn’t rocket science and creating your account is super simple, so don’t be intimidated!
Customizing your Twitter Profile
At any point after creating your Twitter account, you can customize it by logging in and going to Settings (http://twitter.com/account/settings). You can play around with the properties, but the most important are:
Twitter Settings (click for full size)
- Name – this helps people find you on Twitter. American Period Furniture should be used for APFurniture, for example.
- More Info URL – this provides people with a link to other places you might promote online, such as your organization’s website. You can also use a link to your Facebook page, profile on a local search solution like Yelp or Citysearch, etc.
- One line bio – enter something descriptive here so that if people find your profile they can determine if they want to Follow you. Also, think about keywords – if you deal in antique furniture, include that in the bio.
- Location – make sure to indicate what town or city you are. A big driving factor for people is local organizations.
Twitter Design (click for full size)
You also want to make your profile stand out a little more by customizing your background.
Under settings, there is a link to Design where you can set this. At the very least, you should choose one of the pre-defined templates, but at the bottom you can also upload your own custom image.
Finally, make sure you click the link to Picture. This allows you to set an image for your profile that will show up to the left of any tweets you post as well as showing up on your profile. Try to choose a picture that represents your organization – for instance:
- A DJ might show turntables
- A restaurant might show pictures of entrees
- Any physical location might choose a picture of their building
Congratulations, you are now a Twitter user! Watch for additional posts to see where to go from here.
Notes:
American Period Furniture is on Twitter at www.twitter.com/APFurniture and is located at:
1097 Ponce De Leon Avenue (map)
Atlanta, GA 30306
(404) 892-8576
Help them get their feet wet by Following them!
Lynn Lilly with Blackout Productions and Lilly White Events
December 16, 2009 By 1 Comment
Lynn Lilly
Lynn Lilly is the founder of Blackout Productions and Lilly White Events. She started Blackout Productions about 1 1/2 years ago with the goal of changing the landscape of events in Atlanta by focusing on innovative event marketing, production and design that closely aligns with clients’ objectives and target demographics. These have been created to be distinct, buzz generating, “must attend” events that people don’t want to miss and will talk about the next day, with an emphasis on the restaurant industry and nightlife. Her clients have include Three Olives Vodka, Whiskey Park, and Straits, with event participation into the thousands.
About 4 months ago, she created Lilly White Events to address an under met demand for similar services for the private event market – events for corporate, bridal and non-profit organizations. These are events with a greater need for planning than promotions, but for both companies, the focus remains on client centered services and showing results.
In this interview, Lynn discusses her experience getting “butts in seats” for her diverse client list with each having a different target audience. Listen to the entire interview below.
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audience
Blackout’s clients include restaurants, clubs, boutiques, and alcohol brands whereas Lilly White’s clients are mostly corporate (real estate agents, doctors, lawyers), non-profits and bridal. This is a wide-ranging base that has an equally diverse target audience varying from women interested in high end fashion (Jedal Italian Fashion in Phipps Plaza) to nightclub goers (W Hotel’s Whiskey Park in Midtown Atlanta) to brides.
These audiences require individualized promotions, although the tools used are fairly consistent.
Entice
To entice these audiences, Lynn creates cutting edge, innovative events unlike anything people have seen in Atlanta, creating must attend events. With both Blackout Productions and Lilly White Events, she emphasizes that she will take the headache out of having an event while providing metrics to prove success. This has built a reputation for her that has led to a referral-based sales channel.
Promotions
Promoting to these audiences is not just an issue of getting people to show up, but reaching the audience that matches the client’s desired demographic. Someone attending an upscale event for high end fashion that can’t spend $1,000 on shoes is not a successful attendee. This is a tough challenge and Lynn uses a multi-pronged strategy.
The Personal Touch
Skyy Infusion Event
In some cases, to make sure that the right people show up for events, Lynn takes a very active personal approach. For example, when Skyy Vodka Pineapple Infusion launched, they wanted to reach influencers at bars and restaurants so she sent personal invites to owners, managers and bartenders to make sure they showed up. In some cases, she visited businesses to deliver the invitation personally. It’s all part of understanding your audience and making the connection that most influences them.
Flyers
When she first started, Lynn’s initial efforts focused on handing out flyers to reach her audience. Now that she has a strong reputation and an impressive database of contacts, this practice has tapered off.
Facebook
Social media is one of the principle ways Lynn promotes and when a client hires Blackout Productions, they aren’t just getting a great event, but access to Lynn’s sphere of influence. Facebook is a great tool for this. Lynn will help build out a client’s Facebook presence to promote their event while encouraging her contacts to become Fans. This has lasting value beyond the event, providing the client with a receptive audience for future messages. Additionally, Lynn encourages attendees to look at pictures from the event on the client’s Facebook page and tag themselves… of course, the ability to tag photos requires users to become a Fan first. All of these tags propagate to news feeds that help to further promote the client even after the event.
She has used paid ads on Facebook when trying to reach a very targeted demographic. Most relevant are ads for bridal events through Lilly White Events to reach women in Atlanta that have a relationship status of “engaged.”
Lilly White Events cake
Lynn promotes events on Twitter through her personal account as well as Blackout Productions and Lilly White Events. The viral nature of re-tweets can not only get feet in the door, but increase the client’s number of Followers.
Local Search
Lynn describes herself as being hard to sell to, but she was convinced to subscribe to Citysearch’s service. It was a terrible experience:
- Delays in Getting profile setup. Blackout Productions had to rely on Citysearch to put their content online, so they submitted all of their information (photos, video, copy, etc) a week prior to their first month of service, but the information was still not right 2 weeks into the month (wrong logo, no content or wrong content, etc.).
- Budget overages. Of course, Citysearch was still charging them for traffic even though the information was wrong or incomplete, but instead of the agreed upon budget of $25/day, they were being charged $50/day.
- Lack of communication. Lynn was sold, in part, by the sales person’s description of Citysearch’s excellent customer service. However, she was given inaccurate information about where to send content (leading to some of the delays) and phone calls and emails went unanswered. All of this led to a battle for a refund from Citysearch.
The sales person was very good at selling, but the responsiveness, customer support, and effectiveness they had been promised was a huge disappointment. Lynn canceled their subscription and has no plans to use Citysearch again. Her experience with local search left such a bad impression that when Yelp called a few weeks later, she immediately said “not interested.” She would recommend social marketing to her clients 100x over before recommending local search like Citysearch.
Google Ads
Lynn has considered using Google Ads, but hasn’t had time to investigate in detail. She has heard good things about it, though.
Email Campaigns
Lynn uses her contact database to email event announcements to relevant demographics. Similar to her efforts in social media, she encourages new subscribers to also register with the clients’ newsletters – providing residual value that lasts well beyond any single event.
Blogs and Online Publications
Blackout Productions has had great experience with blog and online publication posts about their unique events. Lynn uses Google the day after an event to track what’s being said and connect to those contributing to the buzz. Influentially writers get added to her media list.
Print Advertising
Blackout Productions has paid for some print advertisement with publications like 6 Degrees, but Lynn doesn’t think there’s a lot of value to the print promotions. However, in many cases, these outlets provide additional promotions through their website, Facebook pages, email lists, etc. that Lynn does think have a lot of value and reach. Summation – it’s OK to pay for print if it gains access to a big online presence. (Sounds like print publications are selling the wrong thing)
Television and Radio
Lynn hasn’t used paid advertising on television or radio because she hasn’t felt that it was suitable for any of her events to this point.
Other Online Advertisement
Depending on the type of event, other online advertisement has proven useful, including sites like Atlanta Occasions, Atlanta Bridal, and Access Atlanta.
Blackout Productions
Leverage
Blackout Productions
Lynn leverages Word of Mouth through a number of viral, online tools. Facebook, Twitter, and blogs all generate content that is easily shared and email campaigns give people an easy way to forward information to friends. It’s a multi-channel world and you have to take advantage of all of the avenues available.
She is constantly looking for new tools that can increase her ability to harness word of mouth, although the challenge has been that each new technology is yet another place that she has to manage information. Keeping up with all the tools is becoming more and more of a challenge, but pays great dividends.
Connect
Social marketing tools like Facebook and Twitter have been great at connecting to people and keeping them informed about upcoming events, leading to “butts in seats.” The only monetary cost is related to the paid ads she posts on Facebook for bridal events – generally a few hundred dollars – and isn’t that significant .
However, there is a significant time-cost promoting with these tools, which takes away from time she could spend on “creating a better event or spending more time on event design or cultivating new business.” Time is money.
“It’s a lot of repetitive work. It’s the same thing over and over again for each site and it’s time consuming and it’s boring and it drives me nuts.”
Simplify
Lynn has been fortunate enough to find vendors that she can trust when putting together events. Knowing her partners are reliable reduces the number of things she needs to worry about and helps simplify the number of spinning plates she has to manage.
One of Lynn’s biggest challenges is managing all of the avenues of social media marketing. Updating websites, Facebook, Twitter, etc takes a lot of time (although I did recommend she look into solutions like Tweetdeck to consolidation her efforts a little). One thing she does to simplify this some is integrating her Facebook status updates with her tweets.
For RSVP’s, Blackout Productions and Lilly White Events use a dedicated email account designed for responses and then checks people off at the door as they arrive. They also track people that show up off the street and use that as an opportunity to capture new email addresses.
Email campaigns are managed through GoDaddy, but she is not completely happy with them as a solution (it’s not very user friendly). She has also tried Constant Contact, but didn’t like it either.
Blackout Productions Event
Success
Blackout Productions Event
Lynn is a big numbers person. One example involves monitoring the ratio of received RSVP’s to the number that actually shows up. This provides her with statistical information so she knows how many people to expect based on responses – categorized not only by the type of event, but by factors like weather (if it rains, how will that effect turnout) and the day of the week. When a client says they want 1,000 people to show up, she knows how many RSVP’s she needs to secure based on this information.
That method is great if you focus solely on head count, but for organizations like restaurants, bars, clubs and lounges, it’s all about the bottom line. For these clients, Lynn looks to other tools, such as POS systems. For Whiskey Park at the W Midtown Atlanta, she’ll look at bar sells by hour as well as a break down of what drinks are being ordered – especially important when she partners with a liquor company.
The numbers are there and, by analyzing them, lessons are learned about how to make every event more successful than the last. Additionally, by following trends, Lynn is able to provide clients with proof that their efforts are paying off as well as give them insights about their patrons’ behavior.
Closing Words
Promotions that get noticed by Blackout Productions
The biggest challenge is promotions. It’s difficult to reach the right audience and takes a lot of hard work – you have to be creative and keep up with the latest tools. In all of your efforts, you also have to have the right team that is driven and represents your brand well. Finally, always measure your metrics.
Upcoming Events
Friday, December 18. Winter Wonderland event at Whiskey Park to benefit Toys for Tots and co-sponsored by Van Gogh Blue Vodka. What’s not to love – Van Gogh Blue Sno Cones, a gelato bar, and midnight lingerie fashion show by LiviRae Lingerie.
August 2010. Atlanta Food Rave. A huge culinary event that is still under wraps, but will feature a number of Atlanta’s top chefs.
Shout Outs
- Whiskey Park – a great client that is driven to succeed and works closely with Lynn, in large part due to the GM – Brad Wyatt – and the great team at Gerber Bars.
- Jeremy Brown at 944 Magazine
- Justin Epstein at Premier PR
Connect with Lynn Lilly, Blackout Productions and Lilly White
Blackout Production (map)
15 Lenox Pointe NE
Suite C
Atlanta, GA 30324
404.842.9944
info@blackoutproductionsatlanta.com
- Blackout Productions – www.blackoutproductionsatlanta.com
- Lilly White Events - www.lillywhiteevents.com
- Facebook Group – www.facebook.com/BlackoutProductions
- Lynn Lilly on LinkedIn – www.linkedin.com/in/lynnmlilly
- Twitter - twitter.com/blackoutprod
Background
Lynn has been planning events for non-profits since high school. This continued through both her sorority and student government when she attended Auburn University – sophomore year, she planned the biggest fundraiser on campus, raising $40,000 for breast cancer research in one night. As a junior and senior, she was responsible for handling 3 events and PR for the Student Government Association.
After college, she went into advertising and marketing in Atlanta while networking every night of the week. This allowed her to build connections that led to her first event – promoting Ludacris’ Straits Restaurant in Midtown Atlanta. Blackout Productions has been growing ever since. Some of her honors include:
- Featured in 6 Degrees magazine
- Trendy Atlanta wrote about her as an up and coming young entrepreneur
- Her work with Lilly White Events led to her being listed in CRAVE Atlanta‘s first book as one of Atlanta’s top 100 young entrepreneuress that you have to know
- Lilly White was selected as a sponsor and the event planner for Save A Smile’s Atlanta Holiday House
Link Centre- Tupelo’s non-profit Community Cultivator
December 2, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Link Centre - Tupelo
Over Thanksgiving, I was able to interview Melanie Deas and Rebecca Lane who head up the Link Centre in Tupelo, MS. Tupelo is a town of about 40,000 people, the birth place of Elvis Presley – king of Rock n’ Roll – my hometown, and consistently impresses me with the cultural density and talent it produces. I’ve been going to events sponsored by the Tupelo Ballet, Tupelo Symphony and Tupelo Community Theater since I was a kid and have high school friends that have had their bands featured on national TV shows and have even played at Carnegie Hall.
The Link Centre is a organization that furthers this history of cultural and community development as a “non-profit that helps bring together arts, entertainment, culture, education and health” by serving several purposes:
Hoop-elo fun
- Community Cultivator (I’m willing to share the title). They provide a training facility for senior services and art studios, sponsor events such as music classes for kids, a culinary arts program, real estate education classes, hula hooping classes (Hoop-elo), film and music series, after school programs, etc.
- Community Coordinator. By “linking” the efforts of other local non-profits, they help bring people together for the purpose of improving Tupelo’s cultural footprint.
- Multi-tenant non-profit center. The Link Centre is housed in the old Harrisburg Baptist Church where the Salvation Army and Girl Scouts also serve as anchor tenants. Additionally, they provide affordable office space for other local, non-profits and act like a non-profit incubator for the community which helps to foster collaboration opportunities.
Listen to the entire interview
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Audience
The programs organized by the Link Centre are targeted at providing value to the entire community – from infants to elders. Their independent film series has included everything from a documentary on the furniture industry to the animated version of Flatland (very cool) and generally includes someone involved with the film, such as the director, writer or producer. Typically, this attracts a subject-specific audience as well as local film makers that benefit from conversations ranging from cinematography to production. This taps into the huge film community around the Mid-South and draws an audience ranging from 20-somethings and up.
Another example of the diverse audience attracted by the Link Centre’s events is the monthly music series that features a different genre each month. Typically, patrons for these events are in their 40′s and up, but there is also an appeal to a wide range of local musicians interested in collaborating with their peers.
Extending the audience even further are events like Hoop-elo that have had participants from 2 1/2 years old to 80.
Entice
Because of the diverse programs offered by the Link Centre, there is generally something for everyone. Patrons that are aware of these efforts are able to monitor upcoming events and select those that appeal to them – they look to the Link Centre as a highly localized organization that provides an ongoing stream of activities and serves as a consolidated source of local information.
Promotions
One of the challenges that accompanies a wide-ranging target audience is knowing how to reach that audience. Melanie describes the Link Centre’s efforts as shotgun marketing – they have to use a variety of efforts to be effective.
Link Centre's diabetes support event
Link Centre's diabetes support event
Community College Collaboration
The Link Centre works in conjunction with Itawamba Community College to define and promote events. ICC utilizes Link Centre’s physical space and takes on the management and promotional role of specific events through their workforce development and continuing education programs. In two years, this has led to the participation of over 700 students.
Public Displays of Activities
Hoop-elo at night
A guerrilla tactic used to promote the Link Centre is public displays highlighting their programs, such as Hoop-elo. Not only does the Link Centre have classes in Hula Hooping, but this group goes to various community events to show off their skill. “You take people hula hooping with light up, LED hula hoops to a concert and … people notice.” There is even an integration with the Tupelo Public School PE programs.
Synergy
The Pre-Symphony Dinner Series is an example of how Link Centre cross-promotes events for synergy. Before every symphony performance, the Culinary Arts program prepares an affordable, multi-course dinner in the same building as the event. Diners walk across the building after their meal and have reserved, VIP seating – which not only helps to promote the symphony, but the culinary arts program. In another effort, they doubled down on this strategy by hosting the dinner among a a city-wide art exhibit.
Online / Social Networking
Using social networking tools like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter is a new effort by the Link Centre, but has proven very effective. It allows them to quickly and cheaply (free) propogate information about upcoming events and offers a platform that patrons can use to provide feedback. There is still a struggle about how to most effectively use these tools and there is a limitation to the audience reach – elderly patrons frequently aren’t online – but they are happy with the experience so far.
One of the time costs for promoting online is the management of sites. New and updated event information must be posted on Tupelo.Net, Myspace, Twitter, Facebook, the Arts Commission website, etc. In fact, Rebecca has 2 pages of sites that have to be managed. Keeping all of this information current is tough, but the audience reach is worth the effort.
Email Campaigns
Historically, emails were sent from a standard email client, but this led to a 6-month backlog of updates and additions related to the mailing list. Melanie was able to resolve this issue by implementing the email campaign tool Constant Contact. Not only does Constant Contact allow individuals to manage their own subscriptions to emails, it also provides metrics about how effective these campaigns are – how many people are opening the messages, forwarding them, etc.
There is one criticism – Melanie would like some instruction on how to improve open rates. The data is great, but what do you do with it? Overall, though, it is direct, fast, inexpensive and seems effective.
Direct Mail
Direct Mail is successful for certain efforts such as reaching older patrons, fund raising and sending announcements to Symphony Dinner patrons. The general advice is: know your audience and use direct mail accordingly – and definitely use bulk mail to reduce costs.
Homemade Jamz
In cities that have higher population densities, there are numerous publications that promote local events, but in areas with less density, these publications have limited effectiveness because either they 1) don’t have suitable focus (state wide versus town/region) or 2) aren’t published in a timely manner (yearly, quarterly).
That being said, the Link Centre does do some print promotions in the local paper, especially in the free event postings section. There is also a new local publication the Link Centre is working with called ShakeMag that focuses on community activities in the Tupelo area.
Television
Melanie has had a television spot produced and was happy with the quality, but it was not clear what effect, if any, the ad had. Her opinion now is, while there might be an event in the future that seems more suitable for this type of promotion, for the time being she is avoiding it as an expensive option that is difficult to measure the success of.
Loyalty Program
The Link Centre has dabbled with a Donor Program that offers free or discounted events to donors based on their contribution amount with levels starting at $100. This program is still in its early phase so the results aren’t in yet.
PSA’s (Public Service Announcements)
Local television stations and radio stations have budgeted time for PSA’s and Melanie makes sure that the Link Centre gets its fair share. One example is being included on the Weather Channel’s crawl (the news that scrolls across the bottom of the screen).
Leverage
As always, word of mouth rules. While this is harnessed in part by the viral tools built into social networking, there are also powerful case studies of influencers spreading news to their personal networks. In one case, the mother of a home grown star of the Lawrence Welk program did a great job promoting her son’s upcoming show in Tupelo to her friends (big fans of Lawrence Welk). Word of mouth gets people in the door which creates an opportunity to turn these consumers into passionate patrons that will return again and again.
Word of mouth is also the primary way that other non-profits keep up with what their peers are doing. This is great to generate peer support of programs, but the information flow can be inefficient – you hope that relevant news makes its way to you.
Connect
People stay connected in different ways and the key is to promote in the various places that your patrons look for information. Social networks and online resources, email, direct mail, and local publications lead these efforts, but it’s important to know which are best suited for the specific information you are trying to disseminate.
Simplify
There are a couple of key ways that the Link Centre simplifies their efforts:
- Constant Contact makes email campaigns much more effective and easier to manage.
- Adobe’s Contribute is used to manage the Link Centre’s website and allows Melanie and Rebecca to update the site without having to rely on a web developer.
- Paypal is used as a quick and easy way to process ticket purchases. It is a “very simple and cost effective tool” for the Link Centre to add this functionality for patrons. Very, very clever.
- The partnership with Itawamba Community College has allowed the Link Centre to off load some of their promotional and organizational efforts.
- Quickbooks is replacing the Link Centre’s traditional use of physical books and has made things much easier while consolidating information.
Success
The first measure of success is how many people show up for events. Beyond that, the Link Centre monitors web traffic of their site on a monthly basis and has discovered most people are focused on the events page, buying tickets and making donations. This provides Melanie guidance on where to spend time… making sure this information is up to date.
Future efforts of measuring success might include in-house surveys to find out how people discover events. This not only would provide supplemental information to metrics available from web promotions, but would help close the loop on determining the effectiveness of off line promotions like newspaper advertisements.
Words of Advice
Running an organization like the Link Centre is challenging, but don’t give up and try not to get frustrated. Cultural development is a valuable service and shouldn’t be viewed as extraneous, but as a critical part of the community.
Upcoming Events
- December 5, 2009. Gallagher. It’s unknown if he will be using locally sourced, organic watermelons, but it should be fun nonetheless.
- December 12, 2009. Christmas by Candlelight Symphony with Pre-symphony dinner and post-concert reception
- January 8, 2010. Marty Stuart Concert to benefit the three anchor tenants of the Link Centre (Link Centre, Salvation Army and Girl Scouts)
- Every Tuesday at 1PM – CPR and AED courses sponsored by the Weston Reed Foundation
- Every Tuesday at 6PM – Hoop-elo
- Monthly (resuming in January). Independant Film Series
- Monthly (resuming in January). Monthly Music mix
Keep up to date with the official calendar.
Connect With Link Centre
Link Centre (Map)
1800 W. Main, Box 12
Tupelo, MS 38801
662.690.4011
f. 662.690.4012
Website: http://www.link-centre.org/
Make a Donation: http://www.link-centre.org/support.html
Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/LinkCentreTupelo
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniedeas
Twitter: http://twitter.com/linkcentretup
Background
Melanie Deas
Melanie has been the Executive Director of the Link Centre for almost 3 years where she is responsible for a variety of roles, including event planning, box office management, and house management. She has a background in theater and university tour and event planning with an undergraduate focus on History and Literature (Harvard) and graduate work in Dramaturgy and Dramatic Criticism (Yale).
Rebecca Lane
Rebecca has been the Community Developer for the Link Centre since June of 2009 and supports Melanie’s role as well as spearheads Link Centre’s social media efforts. She focused on Elementary Education at Itawamba Community College and owned and operated Gum Tree Montessori and More attended by her two daughters.
Alex Brounstein – Grindhouse Burgers Atlanta
November 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Alex Brounstein at Grindhouse Burgers
Alex Brounstein is the owner of one of Atlanta’s newest burger joints – Grindhouse Killer Burgers. However, instead of opening a “burger boutique,” which seem to be all the rage, he went old school, but with high quality ingredients. The result is one of the hottest new spots in Atlanta.
His recipe for success is simple:
- Work hard to get stimulus money for a city icon (more than $700,000 for the Sweet Auburn Curb Market) and in the process discover a hidden gem of a location with lots of foot traffic.
- Get a great lease on an unused space that is already mostly built out – including a kitchen.
- Brand the location and the restaurant simply, but with some flava.
- Hand out flyers to everyone you see and email all your friends.
- Randomly meet a popular food blogger that ignites a viral campaign that scorches its way across social media and creates long lines of people within 2 weeks of opening.
Simple.
(see Community Cultivator’s other blog post on Grindhouse to get my initial impressions right after the grand opening)
This is Alex’s first restaurant and he shared some insights on how to reach your target audience, connect with patrons, and get butts in seats.
Audience
Sweet Auburn Curb Market - Atlanta
Sweet Auburn Curb Market - Atlanta
Sweet Auburn Curb Market is located in downtown Atlanta on Edgewood Avenue. It’s just steps away from Grady Hospital and Georgia State and just a few blocks away from big buildings that house big companies. It’s also close to a historically seedy part of town. Based on location, Alex’s patrons are:
- Corporate big wigs in power ties
- Patients and the families of patients at Grady
- Medical personnel
- College students
- Low income residence of the area
But Grindhouse doesn’t just attract the locals. Word of mouth and social media has reached the ears of foodies and they come in droves to judge the offering against their burger aficionado palates.
Rich and not so rich, people come from near and far because, as Alex puts it, “Everybody loves burgers.”
Entice
To entice this diverse group is a multi-pronged strategy:
Location, Location, Location
Sweet Auburn Curb Market has foot traffic and, as much as it pains me, that’s something not too common in Atlanta. Alex claims the first enticement is convenience to downtown businesses, Georgia State, Grady, and local residents. Combine that with increasing growth in the area around 85/75 and Edgewood and the burgeoning reputation of the Edgewood corridor as a destination for trendy restaurants and you’ve got a high potential market.
Look and Feel
Grindhouse at the back of Curb Market
Grindhouse at the back of Curb Market
The Sweet Auburn Curb Market is a maze of butchers, seafood and vegetable stands, small shops and food vendors. In most cases, the advertisement of these businesses is limited to the display of their wares with very little signage or branding. As you head towards the back of the market, though, you start catching glimpses of the bright neon Grindhouse sign and discover a dining counter that stretches across 1/3 of the back of the building with a white tile wall serving as a backdrop to the work area. On this wall, a variety of campy movies are projected – such as Attack of the Killer Tomatoes – and a hodge podge of Atlanta residents watch on as they sit bent over their juicy burgers. The restaurant stands out in the market not only because it’s the only business that has stylized branding, but it’s actually having fun with it. With the amount of daily foot traffic, Grindhouse sticks out like a big, neon thumb.
Marketing material follows this lead. The Grindhouse logo seems inspired by 60′s-70′s Grindhouse movies, with towering stone letters crumbling with decay on top of a splatter of gore … or chipotle ranch dressing. Even the menu has the feel of a 60′s diner. All of this sets expectations of a place that pays attention to details and has fun doing it.
Alex has exerted a lot of effort to not only get the restaurant side of things right, but to use his experience in branding to make it pop.
Menu
A Grindhouse Killer Burger
All of the other enticements don’t matter if the food isn’t good and Alex uses high quality ingredients to help insure a delicious selection. To serve a wider audience, he also includes turkey and veggie burgers on the menu and adds some flair by including toppings like sauteed mushrooms, grilled onions, green chilis, chipotle ranch, blue cheese spread and a Grindhouse burger sauce. Oh yeah, throw in some hand spun milkshakes for good measure.
Pricing
Because of the economic diversity of his audience, Alex has orchestrated a menu that can meet any budget. The starting price for a burger is $3.99, but he’s seen people construct a $12 burger with all the bells and whistles. It works – anyone looking at the lunch counter around noon can see one of the most diverse patron bases imaginable.
Promotions
Foot traffic is great, but Alex has also done a good job with promotions, although he admits a lot of this was luck.
Bloggers
Alex was at Top Flr one night before Grindhouse opened and happened to get into a conversation with the blogger for foodiebuddha.com. Soon after, there was a post on the blog about the anticipated opening followed up by a review of Grindhouse once it went live. This was picked up in the blogosphere by others (including me) and led to a chain reaction of posts. The viral spread led to a review in Creative Loafing and eventually the AJC – all within a few weeks. Without a dime being spent, Alex was getting tremendous old and new press.
Flyers
Alex is a big believer in flyers and this was where he placed the majority of his initial efforts. His handouts were simple, glossy, included a map to the restaurant, a sample of the menu and and offered free fries with the purchase of a burger. Coupons get butts in seats.
Email Campaigns
As part of his initial push, Alex sent out an email to everyone he knew (about 600 people) announcing the grand opening. Since then, he hasn’t done any additional mass emails and believes that these run the risk of being annoying to recipients. He is open to implementing a more formalized email campaign strategy, but hasn’t had time to focus on this.
Order counter at Grindhouse Burgers
PR
PR is great. There was a spike in customers after a write up by Cliff Bostock in Creative Loafing and a huge spike after a write up by John Kessler in the AJC, but those either came from word of mouth reaching the journalists or from press releases that Alex sent out.
Other articles have included:
The Thrillist: http://www.thrillist.com/atlanta/grind-house-killer-burgers-0
Access Atlanta: http://www.accessatlanta.com/atlanta-restaurants-food/grindhouse-killer-burgers-156095.html
He did look into using a PR agency, including Caren West with Caren West PR and Green Olive Media, which he thinks are effective at getting national coverage, but he couldn’t justify the $1,000+ cost per month without any guaranteed results. He did, however, receive some great support from from Lynn Lilly with Blackout Productions.
Right now, his philosophy is do it yourself PR.
Social Networking
Grindhouse does have a Facebook page which provides a way to promote to patrons already familiar with the restaurant. Alex also made an effort to add all of the local bloggers as Facebook friends prior to the launch to make sure they were aware of the new entrant to the burger market.
Grindhouse also has a twitter page that Alex uses in a similar way. He tries to keep people updated on what’s going on, without overwhelming them with tweets.
Local Search
Sites like Urbanspoon, Yelp and Citysearch have definitely driven traffic to Grindhouse and they’ve contacted Alex about paying for advertisements. His opinion is that he’s happy with his exposure on these sites and doesn’t see any benefit to paying for any additional promotions.
Print Advertising
No. That’s it… no. Alex thinks this might have been useful 20 years ago, but he doesn’t pay any attention to print ads so he just doesn’t see the value.
Leverage
Word of mouth is the gold standard of reaching your target audience and Alex has benefited from the viral spread ignited by bloggers and fosters this through use of Facebook and Twitter. In one case, after winning the Chomp and Stomp Chili cook off, he posted the news on Facebook and received 30 responses almost immediately. In another case, he tweeted an announcement of a butchering demo and someone immediately blogged about it. To a large extent, WoM is out of the hands of organizations, but these efforts help fan the flames.
Connect
To stay connected to patrons, Alex currently relies on Facebook and Twitter. It does take effort to manage these, though, and every couple of days he tries to spend an hour or so catching up.
Simplify
Keeping things simple is a mantra of Alex’s. His menu is simple, his hours of operation (11AM-4PM) are simple and avoid the long days most chefs endure, and his promotions are simple – lots of social media promotions and flyers. His early success with going viral through bloggers has allowed him to focus on filling orders.
One of the biggest challenges remains finding time to manage promotions through Facebook, Twitter, etc while still running the restaurant. Adding to this is that different people find information in different ways and you have to make sure you maximize your exposure to reach your target audience. Grindhouse is still a small operations and Alex has to do it all.
Success
Happy Customers at Grindhouse
Happy Customers at Grindhouse
Alex has a loose measurement of success – he is busy from open to close. With his new business, he hasn’t had time to gauge the effectiveness of his efforts, but here are some of his feedback channels:
- People are turning in coupons and he tracks this in his POS, but he hasn’t had time to look at the count. It seems pretty good, though.
- He hears people saying the saw him on local search sites (Yelp, Citysearch, Urbanspoon, etc.). Seems pretty good, but he has no plans to pay for more exposure.
- Traffic spiked after write ups in Creative Loafing and the AJC – PR works.
Although he has a background using metrics to gauge success, “you’ve got to have really good data to do that and I don’t feel like my data is that good” and right now he has as many customers as he can handle so it’s not as important. The one concrete exception is using POS information to help with ordering inventory.
Words of Advice
Keep things simple, never skimp on ingredients.
Connect with Grindhouse and Alex Brounstein
Website: www.grindhouseburgers.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/grindhouseburgers
Twitter: www.twitter.com/GrindHouseATL
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/pub/alex-brounstein/4/b1b/663
Background
In high school, Alex considered going to culinary school, but the long hours chefs endure on their feet wasn’t very appealing. But he’s always enjoyed cooking and, during the summers of his college years, he worked as a short order cook in various Atlanta restaurants.
After college, Alex went into consulting and branded marketing, but quickly became a down-sized victim of the Internet bust. Next, he decided to go back to school for law, received his MBA and went into real estate – just in time to be part of the real estate bubble bust. With free time on his hands, Alex began focusing more on his side project – raising funds to revitalize the Sweet Auburn Curb Market. The experience and relationships he built with the market during this successful push for a renovation grant helped him see untapped potential. Alex got a great deal on some unused space and opened Grindhouse Killer Burgers, hoping to show Atlanta that the Curb Market can support businesses with a broader appeal.
Shout Outs
Alex had only one shout out:
Lynn Lilly with Blackout Productions – very responsive, very smart, young and hungry.
