Two things happened to me today that clearly made me think about marketing and branding. Numero Uno...as I was dropping my kids off from school, 2 women were handing out chicken biscuits in the unloading lane. I've seen them before but hardly remembered the day when they do this. Well, today was different, I had a couple of bucks and didn't mind giving it to the woman. I raised 1 finger, she promptly came to the car, handed me my oven-warm chicken biscuit and might I add, tasty, faster than any drive-thru. Now, I'm almost positive she wasn't an employee of Chick-fil-A but guess where this busy-working-dropping-kids-off-in-a-hurry-father is going to go the next time he needs a tasty breakfast meal. You guessed it! Chick-Fil-A.
Note to Restaurants: If a school/business is willing to allow you to direct market to your consumer with no competition...do it! Why wouldn't you?
Numero Dos...I went to cash in on $100 dollar opportunity my employer is handing out to all those who fill out a medical survery for the insurance provider. Sure, I know the data's going to be used to somehow shave/massage the budget on medical spending but heck 100 bucks is 100 bucks! So I go to the website, get lost as to where to find the assesment form and darn it, if I can't find a contact number for the insurance provider. Took me 10 minutes (it might have been 5, but it seemed like 10) to track it down, way too long. And not only that, why do companies think it's okay to just put the phone number as a word i.e. 1-800-Call-Me2 I don't memorize what letters go with numbers, it's not important to me (not a big text message person yet) so why do you make it difficult for me to call you? Doesn't make sense and doesn't make me happy to have to find the letters on the keypad. Come on!
Note to Businesses: Sure, brand your phone number with your compnay name, slogan, etc but always give the numeric version. Most of us don't have the 2 minutes to waste on refamiliarizing ourselves with the phone keypad system.