How to get a Radio Offer in One Hour (or less)

Placing the Pie Princess onto the Into the Soup Radio Program.

If you want to get onto a radio program, have a good story that helps the radio host connect with their audience.

Mari-Lyn Harris, the owner and chief pie-maker of Sedona Pies in Sedona AZ, creates all kinds of pies that contain “adult" ingredients; wine, beer, and liqueurs. Some of her masterpieces include Cabernet-Blueberry, Merlot and Mixed Berries, and Amaretto and Chocolate. They’re delicious!

When I heard of her pies, I realized that there was the possibility of a good story. We met and discussed her products as well as how she creates such interesting pies. During our meeting I remembered that April 28th is National Blueberry Pie Day. That’s perfect: A national day about blueberry pie, and a blueberry pie that contains Cabernet wine – it’s unusual and it ties into a specific day.

At 12:05pm on April 9th I sent a press release to our local media pitching a story about Cabernet-Blueberry pie for National Blueberry Pie Day. At 1:00 pm that same day I heard back from Heidi Lee, the host of Into the Soup, a food and cooking program on KFNX AM-1100 in Phoenix. She thought that the Cabernet pies were a great idea and wanted to have Mari-Lyn do a segment on her show on April 24th.

The response from Heidi Lee took about an hour. Why did it happen so fast? Here’s what we did:

1. April 28th is National Blueberry Pie Day. It’s a specific date on the calendar. Remember how I keep talking about the “days of the month that will get you publicity”? That’s what I mean by “leverage the ‘National Food Days’”. I personally know of 416 days, 52 weeks, and 12 months of the year that celebrate some sort of food (yes, I know…I’m weird). So whenever I hear of an unusual food, I check to see if there’s a day that fits it.
2. Cabernet-Blueberry pie is very unusual. A little research revealed that there is NO other Cabernet-Blueberry pie anywhere. Remember how I keep suggesting that you find an unusual twist to your story? This is a perfect example.

We had a story that the media would find very interesting for their audience. We provided expertise and a good timely topic. Therefore, Into the Soup was interested.

Again, we made sure that it was a good story before we sent it to the media – we didn’t just slap something together and throw it at them. Always remember: Radio people want compelling stories that their audiences want to hear. So we put together a story that would (hopefully) make the audience tell their friends “Wow! Guess what I heard about on Into the Soup!!!”

So if you’d like that kind of coverage, then do what we did with Mari-Lyn. It’s really that easy. (Well, there’s a little more to it, like how I wrote the press release, my discussions with Heidi, and how Mari-Lyn and I discussed how to be a good guest for Heidi, but I can’t reveal ALL my secrets!)

Here’s the link to Into the Soup. Look for the April 24th broadcast and click on it. It’ll play on your computer’s media player. http://intothesoup.com/soup-radio-april-24-2010

To summarize:

1. Have an unusual and interesting story.
2. Tie it into something that makes it timely.
3. Make sure you have a good story: something that will help the media connect with their audience even more.

Do that, and you’ll get coverage.

If you’d like some excellent "naughty" pies, contact Mari-Lyn Harris at Sedona Pies. Her website: www.sedonapies.com.

And if you want to listen to a great radio program about food and cooking that has great guests every week and is delivered with lots of fun and energy, listen to Into the Soup on KFNX AM-1100 every Saturday afternoon at 2:00pm Arizona time.
http://intothesoup.com/
http://www.1100kfnx.com

Thanks Heidi, for a great show!

And thanks Mari-Lyn, for great pies!

Tips for Better Festival Marketing, Part Two

Marketing lessons made obvious at the Scottsdale Culinary Festival’s “Great American Picnic”:

Last Saturday, 4/17/10, I attended the Great American Picnic (GAP) in Scottsdale AZ, and came back with more than just a sunburn …I came back with a couple of festival marketing truths that were really obvious that day. (Yes I know, these come under the heading of “yeah, of course!”, but it’s always good to remind ourselves). Besides, if someone as big as Bacardi (as you’ll read) forgets it, then maybe it’s not as obvious as we might think.

Lesson #2: Select your booth’s location very carefully.

There are two parts to this one:
1. Select where you booth will be.
2. Carefully examine the surrounding area for anything detrimental.

This was demonstrated very well by two different spirits vendors: Bacardi Rum and Absolut Vodka. Both had set up areas where the event visitors could congregate, purchase cocktails, and have some good times with their friends. Both of the areas were on main walkways, so the visitors had to pass by them while walking around the event.

The two pavilions were vastly different.

• Absolut had roped off an area, put up some open-air booth covers, a couple of tables and no place to sit. Nothing special.
• Bacardi had set up an area called “Bacardi Beach”. It had water fountains, beach balls, umbrellas, and thatched-roof booth-covers to give it that “beach party” theme.
  

Which area had more people? Absolut! The place was packed! People were spilling onto the sidewalk in front, and there was a line to get in (see the photo below).


Bacardi, on the other hand, was surprisingly empty (see the photo below).

Why? You would think that Bacardi would be getting more people. After all, it had water and fun and chairs and tables. Why wasn’t it crowded?

Here’s why: Directly across from Bacardi Beach (20 feet away, maximum) was a really LOUD band, with the speakers pointing directly at Bacardi Beach. It was so loud that it made your ears hurt. They were a good band, (they really knew their stuff), and I’m a fan of rock music, but man alive! You literally couldn’t hear yourself think. It was really, really LOUD.


And that probably drove the people away from Bacardi Beach. People were attending the Great American Picnic for some fun with their friends. That means talking and interacting. At Bacardi Beach, you would have had to shout loudly to be heard above the din from the band. At Absolut, there was normal noise, but no louder than anything at a crowded bar.

When Bacardi selected the location of Bacardi Beach, it would have been wise for them to check the surroundings and ask specifically what else was there. A quick check of the layout of the event showed the location of the band pavilion. That would have been a red flag because bands at events tend to play loudly.


I’ve experienced something similar. When I worked for a high tech company back in 2001, our event planner decided to position our booth “close to a door” so we could get more traffic. The planner, however, didn’t ask what the door was *for* - it was assumed to be an entrance, so the planner didn’t look at the building layout. The door wasn’t an entrance. It was a door to the kitchen area where only the convention center employees went in and out. So our booth was stuck off in a corner where nobody went. We had to come up with some clever methods of drawing people over to the booth to get some decent traffic.


Bonus! Good Marketing Technique by Bacardi:
On the positive side, though, Bacardi Beach did do something that was smart. They had a person handing out coupons for the cantina/grill that was sponsoring Bacardi Beach. The coupon is very clever: the holder has 1.5 months to redeem it, and they get 2-for-1 Bacardi drinks plus a free taco. This is clever because:

1. You get a chance to taste the food. This can create upsell.
2. 2-for-1 drinks means most people will bring a friend.
   

Even though they may not have gotten as many people to their booth as they would have liked, they still had a plan to get people to the cantina/grill later. And the beauty of it is: nobody else was handing out coupons - so the visitors went home with a reason to return to only one place: Barrio Cantina, which serves Bacardi. That helps people remember your business.


So let’s remember these lessons the next time we’re selecting a booth for an event.

1. Know the demographics of the people who will be attending.
2. Know the location of your booth and what’s surrounding it.

Again, yes, we all should know this, but it’s always good to remind ourselves. Because every step we take toward improving our position, no matter how small, is still a positive step that leads to more sales.

Tips for Better Festival Marketing, Part One

Marketing lessons made obvious at the Scottsdale Culinary Festival’s “Great American Picnic”:

Last Saturday, 4/17/10, I attended the Great American Picnic in Scottsdale AZ. (A quick overview: The Great American Picnic (GAP) is the culmination of the annual Scottsdale Culinary Festival. Six days of food and specialized food/wine events. The GAP is their two-day outdoor event which features booths by restaurants and spirits vendors.)

The GAP also includes the Southwest Beer Festival in which visitors can pay a cover charge and enter a roped-off area where they have their selection of 200 beers to sample.So I went, camera in hand, looking for interesting food and liquid refreshment. I came back, as usual, with an observation of the marketing techniques we can learn from this. Yes, I’m boring. I admit it.

Every event like this gives us an opportunity to observe what’s working and what isn’t. Putting up a booth at an event is a very expensive proposition in both time and money. So we want to make sure we've made a good decision BEFORE we book space at the event. We want to ask pertinent questions that will determine (roughly) the response we’ll get from our presence.

Lesson #1: Learn the demographics of the people who are expected to attend.

This is HUGE, and often overlooked. This is probably the MOST IMPORTANT question to ask before you register for an event. If the right people are there, you’ll do well. If not, you won’t. It’s that simple. Make sure the demographics of the attendees are within your target market. If they’re not, don’t go. Save yourself the time and money.

Audience demographics observed at the culinary festival:

• Average age: Early 30’s. Most people 21 – 35. Yes, a few people 40+, but fewer.
• Average income (at a guess): $40k/yr.
  

The attendees were "beer-drinkin’, cocktail-swiggin', listen-to-rock-music while hanging out with your pals” type of people. Not trouble makers. Just good casual people. There were some higher-income people, but the majority of them were the well-drinks-and-rock-music crowd. And while that’s good for spirits vendors, that’s NOT good for wine and specialty foods.

Evidence:

Most popular vendor of alcohol: The Southwest Beer Festival:
The place was packed and the line to get in was at least 60 feet long (see the photo below). The cover charge was $15 on top of the $10 to get into the festival. But that didn’t stop people from lining up.




Least popular vendor of alcohol: Robert Mondavi wine.
Despite the easily recognized name and the comfortable surroundings of Mondavi’s pavilion, there were only a few people trying the wines (see the photo below). Why? Because the majority of the people at the GAP were in the younger age bracket: they were there for the beer and pizza, not for the tasting and discussions that tend to accompany wine.

• Most popular food booth: BBQ Pork sandwiches (notice the long line in the photo below).
• Least popular food booths: specialty foods like artisan cookies and rum cakes.
  

The lesson we can remind ourselves of is: know the audience. Who will be there? What’s their average age, income, marital status, etc.? If the vendor renting the booth space can’t tell you, you might want to reconsider buying a space.

Despite the large crowd at the GAP, several specialty food vendors (and one big wine company) looked like they were not doing well because people weren’t at their booths during the event. So take the time to learn who’s in the audience. That one simple question can make (or save) a whole lot of money.



Lesson #2 is coming in a couple of days. This would have been too long if I tried to cram them all into one post.

Loyal Customers: Essential in this Economy

Let’s talk about customer loyalty for a moment. This is an important area of business that we always want to be working on. Even more so now that the economy is slow and people might be considering trimming their budgets. We want to make sure that some of the discretionary dollars that they’re going to spend on themselves will still be headed in our direction.

A study done by the Direct Marketing Association showed that current customers are 20 times more likely to buy something else than a new prospect who hasn’t purchased anything from you before. In other words, you have to spend 20 times the money (or time) to get a new customer than to have a current customer purchase something else. So we want to focus a lot of our attention on current customers because that’s where we get the most bang for our marketing buck.

Plus…current customers give you referrals. There’s nothing better than a new person buying your products because a friend referred them.

In every industry I’ve worked, maintaining customer loyalty was essential. So here are a few techniques that will help maintain a base of solid customers.

1. Know your customers personally. Remember their names and recognize them on sight. Be genuinely interested in them and their lives.

2. Give your customers something special for being in your wine club.
* Go above-and-beyond what other wine clubs are offering.
* Example: Special shirts, wine glasses, etc. Make the item tangible. Something that can be shown to other people. Of course, a discount on wine is a good thing (and keeps the customer happy), but a solid item that the customer can show off will tend to bring in more new members because they can physically see one of the benefits.

(NOTE: A really good way to get more non-member customers to join your wine club is to provide members with their special shirt or wine glass and ask the member to display it at wine events. The non-members, upon seeing that, will rush over to sign up for your wine club. [When I worked in the high-tech world, this was a favorite technique at trade shows]).

3. No customer hand-offs. When a customer calls with a question, don’t shuttle them around to various departments until they get an answering machine. Take ownership of the customer’s situation and make sure their needs are met.

4. Communicate regularly. Emails, postcards, birthday greetings, special invitations to wine events – keep the communication lines open. Don’t just quickly write about what the weather is like at your winery. Give them solid useful information.

* This is especially effective when you write a personal note specifically to them and about them on your communication (see #1, above). Even just writing “Hi Robert! How was your vacation in Hawaii?” on the card will build the relationship.

5. Give them more than they expect. In other words, throw a little extra something into their usual purchases/shipments.
* We used to call this the “Cracker Jack Prize”. People like the popcorn and peanuts of Cracker Jack, but they really buy it for the prize inside. When one of your better wine-club members visits to pick up his monthly shipment, take him aside and “sneak” him a bottle of your port or something else you make that you know he likes. This works wonders. I once worked with a salesperson who built a small account into a $2 Million/year account by regularly outfitting his kids with T-shirts. “Cracker Jack Prizes” work every time. And they don't need to be expensive either.


6. Always be asking for their input. When they stop by, ask them for their opinion. If you’re working on a new wine, ask them to try it and give you their thoughts. If you’re a chef, ask your regular customers to do some taste-testing and provide some feedback. We talked about this in the last post (here). Fez Restaurant holds monthly “You be the judge” menu-item tastings, and they always have sellout crowds. People LOVE to give their opinions. When you ask for it, you’re building loyalty.


Give these techniques a try. Every time you give extra-special recognition to your customers you build stronger ties which will keep them coming back to you.

How to Rivet your Customers' Attention

“Coffee News” is a weekly publication here in Phoenix that is filled with good news: trivia, interesting news items, and events around town. It’s a one-page 11” x 17” “newspaper” that’s an easy read while having a cup of your favorite beverage. The good news is in the center column of the paper and the two outer columns contain ads.

Marketing Genius:
Coffee News is a brilliant piece of marketing because it incorporates a clever idea that compels people to read the ads. Every issue of Coffee News has a contest in which readers are encouraged to “find the hidden coffee cup” within one of the ads (see the picture below). If the reader finds the coffee cup, they can enter a contest by mailing (or entering online) their contact information and where the cup was found. Prize: $20, plus an additional gift.

Here’s what’s great about it: the hidden coffee cup is really small. There’s no telling where it might be hidden within a particular ad, and it can’t be found with a quick glance. What this means is…you have to read each ad really carefully to find the hidden coffee cup. You have to read everything: the headline, the bullet points, the phone number – everything. (See below…the coffee cup is hidden within the contractor’s license number). Coffee News can tell their advertisers "Your ad WILL get read. Look at all these cards we get every week from people who read them."


Do they get results? You bet they do! I talked with Coffee News and they get hundreds of entries every week. Not bad for a simple little contest.

How This Applies to You:
First we answer this question: What is Coffee News collecting with this technique? Answer: the contact information of their readers. Through a simple contest, they’re getting information about their readers that they can use to contact them later.

So, what are YOU doing to collect the contact information of your clients or prospects? A large mailing list is the most valuable marketing tool you can have. When you have a list of people that you can contact regularly, you have the ability to stimulate increased sales repeatedly.

Do you have a contest or prize giveaway of some form that will compel people to give you their contact information? If not, why not start one? People LOVE contests! They enjoy getting involved, and if they think they’ll win a prize, they’ll jump right in!

Anything in your business can be used to create a contest that will get your customers involved.

• Are you creating a new wine blend? Why not ask your customers to come up with a name for it?
• If you’re ready to announce your summer wines, ask your customers to send a photo of themselves enjoying your wine in an exotic location and the best photo wins a prize.
• Do you own a restaurant? How about if you hold monthly taste-testings of your newest creations, and ask your customers to attend and/or make suggestions as to the ingredients to use?
  

This works. Fez Restaurant on Central Ave in Phoenix has a monthly “You be the judge of our newest dishes” day (last Sunday of the month) where people can sign up to be evaluators. They always get an overflow crowd.

So give contests a try. The prize doesn’t have to be big…what’s important is that it involves the prospect/customer in such a way that they try your product. When you do that you’ll find that you’re getting a lot more customers who will keep coming back.

Arizona Wine and Chocolate!

Today is Easter Sunday. Rather than indulging in too many marshmallow Peeps, perhaps you'd like to try a more sophisticated sweet treat: pairing Arizona Wine with Chocolate.

I took some chocolate to the Arizona Wine Festival in Tempe last week, and paired the wines I tasted with the chocolate. Yes, I know this is an unscientific survey and yes, I know it’s personal preference, but still….AZ wines are delicious, and I was really curious to see how they paired with chocolate.

Here’s how I did it.
I took three types of chocolate to the Festival:
• Hershey’s milk chocolate
• Hershey’s special dark chocolate
• Chocolove organic dark chocolate, 55% cocoa.

At each booth I asked the person there to recommend a red wine that goes well with chocolate. I then tasted all three chocolates with that particular wine. Here’s how they matched, sorted in alphabetical order by winery name:

Alcantera Vineyards Merlot: Dark Chocolate
Jerome Winery Charbono: Dark Chocolate
Kief Joshua Vineyards Cabernet Franc: Milk Chocolate
Kokopelli Winery Cabernet Reserve: Milk Chocolate
Page Springs Vineyard Vino de la Familia: Dark Chocolate
Pillsbury Wine Co “Diva” Red: Chocolove Organic Dark Chocolate

(Yes, I know there were more than six wineries at the festival, but I was driving, so I figured that it would be best to stop at that time.)

Excellent wines! Great pairings, too!

Have a Happy Easter Sunday, everyone! And if you're going to have wine with dinner, sneak in a little chocolate as well!