actionable marketing guide

Dear ,

This has been a crazy week in New York City—weather in the 60s followed by windblown 30s.

It was the perfect weather for industrial level spring-cleaning: sunny enough to get inspired, cold enough to want to stay in.

Here’s where reading Maria Kondo’s short book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, saves time and reduces decision making. You don’t have to agonize over the dress you wore to an important event 10 years ago and have kept in case you need it again. If it doesn’t fit and it doesn’t bring your joy, dump it.

Kondo is very polite. She thanks things for their service.

When I was in college, I had a friend named Bobbye whose father distinguished between junk and garbage. Junk you keep and garbage you throw out. On the night junk was put out in his neighborhood, he went on the prowl for new acquisitions.

Bobbye’s first studio had 21 chairs, none of which matched. Her dad had rescued them from various junk piles.

Seriously I can’t make this stuff up.

Unfortunately, my mom was of the “if you no longer use it, give it away” school. My sister and I pined for her Louis Vitton bucket bag and her original Coach pocket books she donated.

Now that my husband and I are in major disposal mode these memories come back to me.

Even if you’re not a hoarder by nature, it’s amazing how quickly stuff can accumulate under the guise of  “I may need it sometime in the future”. Of course, for many of us, that future doesn’t occur during our lifetime.

The stuff gets squirreled away into a file cabinet or other neat organizer. The prettier the storage the less likely it is to get moved. We discovered this when we cleaned out our storage area last week.

Because we’re cleaning more than one home, we had a lot of stuff to get rid of, even after multiple trips to Goodwill.

So we called JunkLuggers. To be honest we cut our research time. We took a personal recommendation from someone we trusted.

Wearing bright green hats and black t-shirts Joseph, Nick and Christopher were amazing. Despite the windy weather, they pulled up their Junk Luggers bright green truck within the promised time window.

Before they start, they walk around your home to assess how much stuff you want removed. Then they give you a price including any extra charges for certain items; minus discounts (10% off for putting their lawn sign in your front yard.)  Even better, you only pay for the portion of the truck you use.

I loved that they’re careful about what they take. They recycle what they can and donate what’s still usable. If your stuff is donated to a charity, they send you a receipt for your taxes later.

All we had to do was to point to the stuff that had to go and they quickly removed it.

JunkLuggers clearly state their core values on their website:

1. Be A Mensch (Yiddish word that translates to “a person of integrity and honor.”)
2. Build A Positive Team And Family Culture.
3. Deliver “WOW” Through Service.

Joseph kidded they were puzzle experts. What an interesting way for a furniture mover to think.

They efficiently dug out stuff that was buried under piles of other stuff we wanted to keep. They moved furniture without hurting it and without messing up the stuff that remained. These guys knew what they were doing and were good at it.

And – they were fun. My husband and I enjoyed the process. Joseph showed us photos of how they played around with the stuff they brought back to their home base.

Here’s the marketing lesson (you knew it was coming—right?):

• No matter what your business is, there’s always a fun way to spotlight your customers and your product.

The best part is you probably have customers like my husband and I who are willing to participate and have fun taking photos or short videos. (Here’s some more social media photo advice.)

It doesn’t take much work.

Actionable Marketing Tips:

• Make your retail employees and sales team into brand ambassadors. Provide them with the props they need such as fun signs, hats and t-shirts.
  
  
• Create a fun daily Instagram or Pinterest board for stuff your customers are trying out and buying. Even better, motivate them with an internal contest to see who gets the best images.
  
  
• Make this content the basis of a weekly blog post or video interview. This is quick, easily formatted content to create.
  
  
• Have a set of social media guidelines. Ensure that all of your employees know what they can and can’t do on social media.
  
  
• Get permission from customers to use their photos. You don’t want to have trouble later. Be careful with photos of children.
  
  
• BONUS POINTS: Send customers the photos so they can share them on social media.

If you’ve tested this type of customer content, I’d love it if you’d share your experience and links with me.

In addition to spring cleaning, I’m getting ready for my blogging workshop at Social Media Marketing World 2017. I’m deep into every thing blog-related.

If you’re attending Social Media Marketing World live, please respond to this email. I’d love to meet you IRL.

If your budget doesn’t allow it, perhaps you’ll consider the virtual version.

Until next week.

Happy Marketing
Heidi.

Heidi Cohen
Actionable Marketing Guide

Like many of you, my inbox is stuffed with all of the amazing blogs and newsletters I love.

When it comes to writing and blogging, one of my favorites is Henneke. Her writing is straight-forward and easy-to-consume.

But, English isn’t her native language!

If nothing else, her blog is worth reading because she’s great at writing introductions and conclusions.

This week, I rediscovered an older post: 6 Transition Tricks For A Smooth Reading Experience.

9 Steps To Organize Your Social Media For Success

• Heidi Cohen was referenced in the Search Engine People’s useful blog post, Jaw-Dropping 2017 B2B Content Marketing Controversies (and What Can You Do About Them).  The author analyzed Content Marketing Institute’s 2017 Predictions, a meaty piece of roundup content. They spotlighted the differences and other highpoints using data to make their point. It’s a great example of how to create content based on other people’s research or roundups.
  
  
• Heidi Cohen weighed in on the 2017 ecommerce trends along with 18 other experts.

Navigating the Digital Landscape 2017 - A Guide For Marketers

Get ahead of challenges in the complex digital landscape by taking advantage of this guide.

From the excitement surrounding video advertising and artificial intelligence, to the stress of ensuring that multi-channel attribution accuracy, we’ve seen the good, the bad, and the just plain confusing. Find clarity with our in-house experts and social marketing data:

• Compelling tech trends, from live video and messaging apps to AI and VR
• Survey results, including the choice between traditional and digital channels
• Proprietary audience and social advertising data analysis
• Fast facts on all the key social platforms for advertisers

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