Aaron Weiche

I'm headed out to Spokane, Washington tomorrow to sit in on the one day Local University put on by GetListed.org.  This local search focused workshop is being headed up by David Mihm, Matt McGee, Mike Blumenthal as well as some other great small business Internet marketing minds.

As much as anything I'm looking forward to hanging out with David and Matt.  Those two guys are on my short list of great local and search marketing minds, write blog posts I read frequently and worth a follow by any business on Twitter. I have had the chance to interact with both of them over the years via email, social media or projects as well.

One other goal besides the knowledge, networking and beer(s) ... is working with David to bring one of these Local University sessions to Minneapolis.  It would be fantastic and of great value to the business community here. 

I'll post pics and a round-up later this week.

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Nothing comforts a broken heart like food. Punch Pizza, with seven Twin Cities locations reached out to passionate Vikings fans on Sunday on various social media sites offering a free pizza the next night to help them deal with the devastating NFC Championship loss to the Saints.

The result was nearly 10,000 pizzas given away (number from Punch Pizza), customers lined-up out the door, local TV news coverage and thousands of mentions on the web. Genius.

Few restaurants in the Minneapolis / St Paul area have been as savvy or active with social media as Punch Pizza and their latest interaction produced some incredible results. 

Let’s look at a few of the ingredients to Punch’s most recent online success (they’ve had a few).

The Method:  Punch has been socially active on the web for some time now. They use Twitter, Facebook, Blogging, Flick and their website. With over 5,000 Twitter followers of @punchpizza and 7,000 Facebook fans, Punch has plenty of customers to interact with. 

Timing: I loved the fact that they were prepared and jumped into the mix at a time when social sites were busting with chatter from the game.  Overtime has just ended, fans were crushed and Punch offered a small bit of light. Timing matters, Punch knew this.

The Offer:  Punch was ready to roll with 2 offer options, one to celebrate a Vikings win, the other to comfort the masses with a Vikings loss.  The Vikes lost and so Punch sent out a tweet and posted the offer to their Facebook page, free pizza was the cure.

The offer/coupon was posted to their Flickr page. All you had to do was print or show it on your phone to get a free pizza for dinner on Monday night.  Punch has carried out multiple marketing campaigns that integrate all of their social tools together, which is always a great move.

Conversation Effect:  Punch leveraged their community, network and customer base to turn a ripple into a wave.  One offer, one tweet and one Facebook update created well over 3,000 clicks to their coupon.

This Twitter mention graph from Squawk shows how they generated over 370 tweets in 2 days, a massive spike form their normal mentions and activity.

Their Facebook status update gathered interaction from a few hundred in the form of “Likes” and comments. See a few of them below, wouldn’t you love this conversation about your business?

You can also factor in they gathered new followers and fans on these accounts thanks to the mentions and interaction.

Traditional Coverage:  I haven’t been able to pin down from Punch Pizza if the local media was contacted or they picked up on the buzz from the social networks themselves, but Punch was featured on the 10pm news on KARE11.  30 seconds of air time showed sad Vikings fans getting cheered up waiting in line at Punch Pizza locations. (photo below from Kare11)

As one Vikings and Punch fan shared on camera: "I am really sad about yesterday because I thought this was the year and the pizza will definitely help because there is no better pizza. So, I'll get over it real quick and we'll put on our purple for next year," says Tere Haas as she waited in line in the cold.

Outcome: I don’t know how you could ask for anything more out of a promotion like this.  Social interaction, branding, traditional media coverage and 10,000 pizzas in the hands of your faithful and newly found customers is a huge win.  I think you can measure this social media marketing and I'd bet they are pouring over the data generated past what I've outlined. ;)

Punch Pizza and their marketing minds (agency and/or internal) are commended for putting together a great social promotion. My only issue was that I wasn’t able to get to the Wayzata location last night and get my free pizza.

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Here's a small, basic, but fun example of building a bit of social media ... literally.  Employees at Walmart in Baxter, MN built a great display of Pepsi products to support the Minnesota Vikings quest to reach the Super Bowl this Sunday vs. the Saints.

Where it get's social is they then uploaded the photo the StarTribune.com's user submitted photo area ... which can then lead to someone else sharing it, blogging or tweeting about it or more.  Yup, that further sharing just happened.

I have no idea if they added the photo anywhere else on the web, but it sure was easy to add on more exposure after it was built.

Any retail business could have a little creative fun with their product or store display and then push it to a few social networks.  Social media doesn't have to be complex, you just have to take many basic things a step further and share.

I'd like to see the display come true. Go Vikings.

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I just finished reading You've Been Yelped, a great article on Yelp.com put out by Inc Magazine writer Max Chafkin. Two weeks ago David Mihm outlined Yelp's Coming of Age in a detailed post. If you're into local Internet marketing at all, read them both.

Max illustrated both the good and the bad for small business owners affected by the website.  The customer reviews posted on Yelp can make or break a small business and as the article details, it can drive an owner downright crazy.

As a business owner myself I see both sides of Yelp.com's offering and effect on small business.  I think the collection of opinions of others experiences is great for the consumer to crowdsource to find great services or products, but I also question if the right filters can control the inmates running the asylum.

Running a small business is tough enough, you'll never please everyone and now anyone can shout it out to the masses ... permanently.  That said, an owner can learn a lot from customer insight and feedback.

Maybe the best thing to hope for is reviews being held to a responsibility code, where constructive criticism is allowed (and welcomed), but childish savaging or outlandish claims are left off.  I think we all know that some only look for ways to whine, rip or rant whenever possible.

So is Yelp the answer to running a better business?  Is it the answer to helping consumers?  I don't have a clear answer on those 2 questions, but I do know that it's not going away.

As one owner quoted in the story stated: "Ignoring Yelp gets you nothing. You can't hate the future."

My hope is that Yelp's future brings a better balance to small business and consumer interaction.

One last time, it's a great article so go and read it: You've Been Yelped - Inc.

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Gary Vaynerchuk put out a great video looking at social media interaction from brands today and how it may be an expected interaction in the future.

The video has great examples of how things like free shipping, post holiday sales and social media interaction from athletes and big brands have produced a "Wow!" in the beginning, but grow over time to be expected by the consumer.

Some great food for thought. Is your brand ready for the expectation of personal interaction?

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When you follow hundreds of great people that are constantly putting out valuable tweets, links and conversations, of course you want to try and stay up on as much of it as possible.  For most of us, our Twitter stream is more like a raging river.  For that reason I use the favorites tag, mostly when I'm on Tweetie on my iPhone to tag tweets and links that I want to make sure and read later.

It's my own must read or "to-do" list. The feature serves as a great tool for me, helping me build a list I can get to later. When I'm done writing this post I'm going to catch up on 3 different tweets regarding Foursquare, all caught my eye earlier today.

What about you? Do you use the favorites tag at all on Twitter? Do you use another method, service or tool to file away potential gems?

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When visiting the Minneapolis Star Tribune this afternoon I was bombarded with a page of ads for email marketing services.

Both iContact and Vertical Response were serving up banner ads on the newspaper's home page.  It could only mean one thing, Minneapolis is the place for email marketing.

In all seriousness though, it shows how widely accepted email marketing has become. Business big and small, non-profits, interest groups, associations and even neighborhoods use email marketing to communicate, market and sell.

Though widely accepted and used, there still lies a great distance between using email to market and greatly leveraging the tools capabilities. List building, segmentation, purposed messaging and performance measurement can all be taken to great lengths with email marketing when done right.

Email marketing offers a lot for sure, but it's also important to see past just "doing it" and really unleash its power.

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Headed into a meeting in Minneapolis I decided to check in on Foursquare as I walked into the Fifth Street Towers. Foursquare is a social game and mobile application that lets users "check-in" from where they are eating, shopping or visiting. Based on your check-in frequency you can earn points, badges, alert your friends and more. It's gaining popularity and hitting new areas like Des Moines.

Upon checking in I quickly noticed the "special nearby" alert on my iPhone.

The nearby offer feature is a great way for a business to introduce itself to a new customer and motivate them to stop in.  Bars, restaurants or stores that are near other attractions could easily sway a few more wallets into their business by using this and at the very least increase their exposure.

As with many offers though, the Restaurant Max offer was weak. I hadn't eaten lunch yet so a decent lunch special might have swayed me into their place.

Only offering a Birthday Special isn't going to appeal to very many customers.  This offer limits their opportunity to engage with someone to one week out of the year.  The offer does seem to have a big dollar value with a free bottle of wine, but they could really benefit from something more general or even by changing their offer during lunch times and dinner times (if possible).

As others have noted, there is marketing potential in Foursquare.  With social, game, mobile and loyalty marketing elements mixed together, it's one more way a business can create an opportunity with a consumer already in their area. 

In the end though, it still hinges on how strong the motivation is with your offer. Have you ran across a great Foursquare offer?

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Practicing what we preach, Five Technology is launching a targeted email campaign this year to our e-commerce clients and prospects. The biggest takeaway in putting this together is "What took us so long?"

It's a win-win effort.  Our e-commerce clients and prospects get content, tips and ideas that are much more specific to their business and website.  Our firm wins by forming a tighter relationship, further education for the client and a chance to introduce more services to aid in their e-commerce success.

What about your business?  I would bet you have some opportunities to deliver a more focused form of communication by segmenting your email lists. 

Here are just a few email list segmentation ideas:

• Segment your list by customers or prospects
• Segment your list by previous purchase types, product or service
• Segment your list by location

Those are just three ideas that might allow you to take a piece of your email list and deliver a more focused message for better results.

As for us, we can't wait to send out our first E-commerce Quarterly next week.

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As I opened today's article on ESPN's new 3D network to start in June, my attention immediately went to the massive camera man photo in the article.

 
It seems that this guy is about 6-5 and 250 pounds.  Not only has the money in sports driven athetes to cheat, but it now seems 3D camera men will be on the juice.  That is some serious equipment on that shoulder for a 3 to 4 hour game.

If anything, it ads to the career opportunities of retired NFL lineman.

Photo by ESPN

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