The Gift That Keeps On Giving: Anatomy Of The Perfect Corporate Gift

If you've ever had to purchase a meaningful thank-you, service appreciation, or holiday gift for your boss, a co-worker, or a valuable client, then you know exactly how difficult a task it can be!

The wrong gift, even if expensive and carefully chosen, can send the wrong message. For example, a wine basket may be inappropriate if the individual does not imbibe. A collection of cookies or candies could be a poor choice for someone who is diabetic or hypoglycemic. A gift card, even to a retailer or restaurant that you know the person likes, may appear like you didn't put any thought into the gift-giving process. And funny gifts may fall flat if the recipient does not understand or appreciate your humor. In other words, you have to REALLY know the person to whom you are giving the gift in order to make the best possible selection. So what to do?

Our friends at Flowtown, a social media marketing focused on delivering solid return on investment, came up with this humorous image of the perfect corporate gift, which essentially combines every possible option so that you cover all your bases!

It truly is the perfect SUPER gift!

O.K., this is all in good fun, but seriously...if you do have to buy a business gift for an individual of important, please make sure to evaluate his/her likes and dislike, and allow yourself enough time to evaluate a broad range of appropriate options. As the saying goes, "Choose wisely."

Weird Science: Even In Social Media, Timing Is Everything

As I've noted numerous times before here on Marketing Mulligans, content plays an obvious and critical role in the success (or failure!) of any social media campaign. However, so does timing, and and so does how that content is shared. For several years now, these dynamics have been extensively researched by brands and marketing professionals, with varying results.

Enter the latest round of data from KISSmetrics concerning the best times of the day when your social channel audiences are most likely paying attention, and when you can generate the best possible exposure for your updates and content.

The research, which focuses only on American users, reveals some intriguing insights. For example, on Twitter, combined users in the Eastern and Central time zones represent almost 80% of the U.S. population; approximately 6% of all retweets occur at 5:00 p.m. ET; and higher click-through rates can be secured by tweeting 1-4 times and hour, midweek or on weekends, and either at noon or 6:00 p.m. ET. On Facebook, Saturday, by far, is the best day for sharing content; noon is the optimum time; and 0.5 posts per day is the most effective frequency for sharing.

For a full run-down of the research, check out the infographic below:

Based on my four years of experience using Twitter, I find it best share my most important content twice per day:  once in the morning, from 8:00 - 11:00 a.m., in your own time zone, and then again about six hours later. This means my tweets are seen by my followers in my geography in prime time, and also by colleagues in other time zones when they're online. Obviously, with the high volume of tweets and users these days, there's never a guarantee that all of my content will be seen, but it's all about being in the right place at the right time to maximize visibility.

You should give this strategy a try by adjusting your posts accordingly!

How To Protect Your Business's Identity On Twitter

Editor's Note:  The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post by Christina Warren, a writer, speaker, podcaster, and video host at Mashable, and a frequent writer about the intersection of new media and technology. This article, which explains how businesses can protect their intellectual property on Twitter, originally appeared in Amex OPEN Forum. This information is beyond important because most small businesses don't take sufficient steps online to safeguard their trademarks, copyrights, and reputation...until it's too late. Instead, small business owners can be prepared well in advance by taking these simple precautions. You can follow Warren on Twitter at film_girl.

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Small and medium business owners are increasingly turning to Twitter as a tool to engage with customers, offer support and market their products and services.

Twitter has a dedicated landing page for businesses, including tips and tricks on getting started with the service, various advertising opportunities and case studies.

Protecting identity and reputation are essential for a small business, especially online. Although Twitter isn’t currently offering small business users a way to verify their accounts, there are still things business owners can do to give their accounts better visibility and make it clear that they are “official.”

1. Link Your Accounts and Profiles

Twitter’s username policy does not allow users to “reserve” a username; it’s first come, first served. As a result, business owners who have a more generic company name might find that the desired Twitter handle is already taken.

That’s not the end of the world, in fact, it can be an opportunity to better distinguish your brand or business, especially if the business name is more common.

Additionally, users can add a URL to their Twitter profile pointing to their business website and add links on their business site to their official Twitter account. Noting “official Twitter account for Business Name” in your Twitter biography can also make the account’s identity more clear.

Likewise, if you have a verified page on Facebook, Foursquare or Google Places, you can add links to your Twitter account on those services, too.

2. Protect Your Trademark and Logos

For small business owners who hold the trademarks over a business name, Twitter has a more nuanced policy.

If I own the trademark for “Cafe Christina” and a Twitter account for @cafe_christina or @cafechristina is causing intentional or unintentional confusion with my business, Twitter might be able to help.

If another Twitter account in question is using your trademark or logo in a way that is trying to confuse others, users can submit a help ticket requesting help. Twitter will look at the situation, and if it finds that the other party is trying to mislead, it may suspend that user (and grant you ownership of the account).

If the account is confusing to users, but isn’t intended to mislead, Twitter will give the account holder the opportunity to work things out and may ultimately release the username to the trademark holder.

Remember, if someone is using a name you have trademarked in a way that has nothing to do with your product or service, Twitter is not obligated to intervene.

3. Customize Your Profile

Small businesses can make their business affiliation even more clear by customizing their Twitter profile to match their branding, logo and color scheme.

©2005-2011 Mashable, Inc.

Competition You Can't Ignore

Editor's Note:  The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post by Rajesh Setty, an entrepreneur, author, and speaker based in Silicon Valley, and a creator and seller of limited-edition prints at Sparktastic. This piece, which discusses the importance of identifying and monitoring indirect competitors, originally appeared in Amex OPEN Forum. Why is this critical? Because most companies only pay attention to direct competitors...the ones who pose the most obvious threats. However, competition can come from a variety of sources, and it's important to know exactly what those sources are so you can devise an appropriate marketing strategy that deals with them appropriately. You can follow Setty on Twitter at @rajsetty.

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First, there is no product or service that doesn't have competition. And if you tell someone that your product has no competition, what they hear is that there isn't a big market for your product...which isn't good.

Having clarified that, let’s look at the two big categories of competition.

On one hand, you have direct competition for your business — this is mainly other companies that are making the same promises that you are making. Lot of factors about the competitor (such as size of the company, pricing of their offerings, brand and image, etc.) will influence how much they will affect your business.

On the other hand, you have indirect competition. As the name indicates, this kind of competition is easy to miss.

Here are five of them to consider:

1. There is no “real” need now.

This is a mindshare competition. This happens when you create products that are “solutions waiting for problems.” There is a big “lean startup” movement going on (at least in Silicon Valley) where products are co-developed with customers. Most often, that’s not the case—someone develops a product because they see a need for it and assume everyone has that same need. If you have a solution that is looking for a problem, you need to go back to the drawing board.

2. There are mediocre, but less expensive, alternatives.

Whether you like it or not, if there are less expensive alternatives to what you are offering, there will be a large majority of people who will opt for it. Quality and standards are relative and varies based on taste. What one thinks as mediocre may be perfectly acceptable to someone else.

3. There are “minimal” alternatives.

Your gizmo may do everything from video chat to bringing your newspaper in the morning. You may also be adding new features every other month. The point is that not everybody wants all your features. 37Signals built a huge business building products with no-frills. Eighty percent of the people out there can get by using a product with minimal features and 80 percent is a large enough market to focus on.

4. People generally maintain “status quo.”

This is the hardest one to recognize and digest. Before your product or service came into the market, life was going on and life can go on without people having to use your product. In general, status quo will be maintained only because the alternate option is “to change,” which is not easy to come by.

As you design products, think of incentives that you can provide for people to embrace your product. It is harder than you think.

5. New ways of serving “needs” emerge.

You may remember products like Sony Walkman, floppy disks and VHS tapes. During their times, those products were popular and served the needs of people. Things changed and new products that changed the game emerged. With these new products, the way the needs were served changed—be it more capacity, more convenience, speed or new capabilities. Once that happened, the old products became obsolete and entered the end of their product life cycles.

© 2011 American Express Company. All Rights Reserved.

How To Make Your PR And Marketing Believable

Editor's Note:  The following is a guest Marketing Mulligans post by Erica Swallow, an associate editor of partner content at Mashable, where this piece initially appeared. All marketing and communications relies on credibility, or in this case, being believable, to be truly effective. Read on for a more detailed look at this important issue.

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Public relations and marketing professionals have dug themselves into a hole. With the overwhelming amount of PR spin and marketing messages flying at consumers on a daily basis, individuals are constantly on guard, trying to spot the underlying motives behind each claim, motto, message or deal that brands introduce. Many times the assumption by consumers is that marketing messages are motivated by greedy or deceptive intentions. This phenomena is what Ogilvy’s senior vice president of global strategy and marketing, Rohit Bhargava, recently called a “believability crisis” during his presentation at Mashable Connect 2011.

“Affinity has become the new secret weapon — we believe in people and companies that we like,” said Bhargava. For those in the public relations and marketing industries, it is important to gain back the trust they’ve lost from consumers by understanding what makes people, ideas and organizations more believable.

Bhargava spoke about what he calls Likeonomics, which “explains the new affinity economy where the most likeable people, ideas and organizations are the ones we believe in, buy from and get inspired by.”

What makes a person or organization believable, then? Bhargava said that Likeonomics is based on being simple, human, brutally honest and emotional.

1. Simple

To be more believable, the first step is simple and based on personal relationships, said Bhargava. “Be genuine, be honest, be open.” He believes that this concept has powered the social media revolution and the brands that have embraced it.

Bhargava pointed to Ally Bank as an example of a brand that gets it. Using the slogan “Straightforward,” the bank sheds light on deceptive industry practices and aims for complete transparency on rates and terms. Says one Ally ad, “we make money with you, not off you.”

2. Human

If you’re trying to build relationships, it’s a good idea to be human. Simply said, but not easily done.

Bhargava pointed to Innocent, a UK beverage brand that puts a lot of initiative into showcasing the humanity behind its brand. Each winter, Innocent runs the Big Knit, in which Innocent fans knit and send in hats to place on top of its smoothie bottles that are placed in stores. For each hat knitted, the company pledges 25p to Age UK to help make winter warmer for older people across the UK.

This initiative not only illustrates that the company’s founders care about those around them, but it is also a genius marketing idea. Walk into any grocery store and take a look at the beverage aisle (or almost any aisle). Row after row, you’ll see similarly shaped and colored packages. Now place smoothie bottles with cute knitted hats into the picture — get the point?

3. Brutally Honest

After ranking last in a consumer preferences survey of national chains in 2009, Domino’s Pizza launched its humility-filled Domino’s Pizza Turnaround campaign, which featured consumers hating on the product. Consumers complained that Domino’s Pizza crust tasted like cardboard and its sauce tasted like ketchup, among other pitfalls. Domino’s listened and its chefs got to work, reinventing a “new pizza.”

Relationships of any type are based on trust — trust isn’t possible without honesty. Bhargava said that brands must practice “brutal honesty and extreme transparency” in order to “get people over that hump of ‘I don’t believe you. I don’t trust that what you’re doing is anything more than spin.’”

Bhargava noted that “disclosure is not the same thing as honesty.” Outing the naughty deeds that your company participates in on your annual report isn’t enough.

4. Emotional

Founded by eccentric millionaire Christian Ringnes, The Mini Bottle Gallery is billed as “the world’s first miniature bottle museum.” Having recently visited the museum in Oslo, Norway, Bhargava told the story of its founding and why its so unique.

Ringnes “treats the museum with a great sense of humor, because he realizes that he has built an entire museum around something that most people who might think of visiting consider silly or at least strange,” said Bhargava. As a result, he doesn’t take himself too seriously when he markets and promotes the gallery. “The museum itself features a built in slide, a monthly award for the “tackiest miniature bottle” and even a fake brothel with a collection of 40 custom bottles from the 40 legal brothels in Las Vegas,” explained Bhargava on his blog.

Because collecting the mini bottles is his personal passion, it’s Ringnes’ goal to get potential visitors emotionally invested in it, too.

© Copyright 2005-2011 Mashable, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

How To Restore Confidence In Your Customers When You’ve Failed

Editor's Note: The following is another guest Marketing Mulligans post written by Mickie Kennedy, founder and president of eReleases, a cost-effective electronic press release distribution service, and a widely-regarded and well-respected PR professional who maintains the company's popular PR Fuel blog. How do you recover when you've made a mistake of some sort that has obviously angered your customers? It's a very important question that few businesses know how to address effectively. Find out here.

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But is there any coming back from a huge faux pas like the one you’ve committed? Your customers are likely cursing your name and are unlikely to forgive you anytime soon. How do you go about restoring confidence in your company and brand?Well, you goofed. Big time. The Twitterverse is ablaze with anger, your Facebook feed is filled with seething rage, and the national news has even given the story airtime. Your face is red and soon your profit margins will be, too! Unless you do something.

Time

For one, it’s best to remember that “anytime soon” mentioned above. Just because they may not be willing to give you a second (or third) chance right now, this may change in the future. So don’t lose your mind trying to bring them back over as soon as possible.

Right now, what you should be focusing on is getting your name back into good standing. This involves buckling down and getting to work figuring out ways to build goodwill. One way to get about this is to take into consideration what went wrong in the first place.

Was your big mistake lying to your customers? Then you need to find ways to show the world that you’re actually honest. Make sure to take the full blame for the lie first of all then go about orchestrating a campaign around “keeping promises.”

Did your product cause harm to some of your customers? Go out of your way to fix the situation, and then find some nonprofits to align yourself with to show you’re concerned with human interests.

Next Steps

When you feel the world has calmed down enough about your big goof (and it may not take long…the world moves fast these days), it’s time to start winning your old customers back. Assuming you’ve done everything in the previous step, your company’s name should be losing its tarnish.

Those old customers will remember when they were wronged, though. This won’t just go away with time. This is especially true if a rival company has already snatched them up. You’ll need something special to win those folks back.

One way to do this, depending on the age of your company, is to instill a feeling of “nostalgia” in those former customers. Remind them all the good things about your business and what you can do for them. Also, tell them what the plan is for your business in the future if they switch over.

The main thing, though, is to let everyone know that your big error will never happen again! Above all else they want to feel like you have their best interests in mind. At all times keep in mind they may be looking for ways you’re messing up again – don’t give them that reason. Mind everything you do and every word you say and you may just be able to win most of your formerly offended customers back into your confidence.

How would you go about restoring your customers’ confidence during a crisis?

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