Hand-delivered junk mail

Eight pounds worth of junk mail showed up in my home’s mailbox last Saturday. Know what it was for? It was a useless assemblage of local addresses, phone numbers and adverts I will never even look at. It was, not one, but two Cuyahoga county phone books (one had white pages, and one had yellow.)

We have options to opt-out of telemarketing phone calls, an opt-out option for junk mail, opt-out laws attempting to rule the wilds of email marketing. So where the heck is my opt-out option for these phone books? What is the deal with just burdening me with the chore of now having to recycle 8,432 pages of paper?

752,000 phone books are delivered to residents of the city of Cleveland alone. Now I know people like my mom are out there, she loves her phone books, she’s still trying to figure out how to email me pictures of the dog. And people like my mom need their phone books. But just think, if you asked some of those 752,000 phone book recipients if they really wanted a yellow book—how much time, money and trees they could save? Look at the efforts they go through to reassure you the book is made from recycled paper and inks and what not (see page 3 of the book)—they know the problem is out there.

In case you are still a phone book user, I would recommend the following online services to you, to join this movement of ridding yourself of these post consumer waste recycled books:

• maps.google.com now has a great business look-up feature that incorporates their maps. Some listings even include hours of operation and most include photos of storefronts.


• yellowbook.com has one of the coolest things you could do with a phone back in the day—reverse number lookup. Sort of the passive version of *69—type in a number and see whose it is. You can also do a reverse address lookup as well.
  


• whitepages.com: look up a published land line and you can also see their neighbors, in fact, everyone on their street!
  

But if you feel uncomfortable with these web sites freely publishing your personal information to the web at large, you can remove yourself from them here.

So I’ve gone ahead and asked the phone book company about their plans for people like me who wish to be excluded from their deliveries, I’ll post their response here if I ever get one.

In the meantime, you can bet my plans for this weekend include a trip to my designated phone book recycling drop off point to part ways with my two phone books forever. Or maybe I’ll take a hint from Amy at momadvice.com who gives us some creative uses for unwanted phone books—here’s just one:

Use your phone book to do your crafts on. Open up the book and work on your projects (painting, glitter, or anything else that is messy). When your project is complete, just tear and dispose of the pages.

Paris Hilton Rebranded

Even though Paris Hilton has hit a tough spot there are still marketing opportunities for her to pursue based on this new experience.  Here are five for which she'd be the perfect spokesperson:

 1. Personalized license plates--With all her experience in the big house making plates I am sure she would have great insight on what works and doesn’t work for the consumer.

2. HGTV’s Decorating Small Spaces--Because of her current limited living quarters I am sure she has some great ideas she can bring to the show.

3. Food Network’s Eating on $40 a Day--In jail they have to limit the spending per inmate for food consumption to keep on a budget.  Paris will have many meal suggestions for how to live on $40 a day.

 4. Curves 30-Minute Workout--With one hour a day in the yard there is only so much time to get a workout in so Paris will be able to relate to these busy women who are trying to schedule their daily fitness routine.

 5. Style Essentials Editorial in Elle-Jail doesn’t allow for a variety of clothing options and make-up applications therefore consumers would appreciate how Paris has managed select the essentials for her new environment.

It is important to know that no matter who your client is there are marketing opportunities to explore on their behalf.  It just takes a little creativity and an open-minded client. --Karen Hudock

Proof Positive That It Ain’t About Features and Benefits.

Recently, I doled out $400.00 for a product that isn’t very good. It has a track record of failure. It gets bad press almost daily. And with nearly every customer interaction, it disappoints. In fact, if I were to do one of those “side by side” comparison  ads we often see on TV, the product I purchased would lose to virtually all its competitors. Yet, I bought it anyway. And gladly. The product? The Cleveland Browns. You see, I’m one of the 60,000 or so who every year shell out a lot of money for Browns season tickets.  On a rational level, there’s no way I should be a Browns customer. But, clearly, this is not a rationally-driven purchase decision. While they may struggle on the field, The Browns have accomplished a feat that few products have : They’ve gotten me emotionally involved with them.  And despite 9 years of disappointing product performance, they’re still enjoying record sales. Which makes me wonder why more marketing managers aren’t trying to create that same connection with their own customers. It seems that so many are content to simply deliver “the facts” in hopes that their customers will sit down, make their own f&b chart, and  come to a completely rational purchase decision.  Even marketing heavyweights, like Miller Lite, are going this route. Why? Because it’s easy, it’s quick and it’s measurable. Developing a long-term connection with your customer can’t be quantified instantly on a balance sheet. And that makes marketing managers nervous. Creating an emotional bond also takes a lot of patience. And when your job is on the line every time a sales report comes out, patience isn’t an option. Taking  a long term, relationship-building strategy  means taking a few short-term risks. But, in the end, the rewards are tremendous. Because when a consumer is emotionally-involved with your product, they become loyal customers. Lifelong enthusiasts. And over the course of time, they’re willing to ignore a lot of your warts along the way. And if you’re a marketing manager trying to generate sales, wouldn’t it be nice to know that you didn’t always have to have better features than your competitors to accomplish that goal?