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Sweet marketing music

Tanner Montague came to town from Seattle having never owned his own music venue before. He’s a musician himself, so he has a pretty good sense of good music, but he also wandered into a crowded music scene filled with concert venues large and small.But the owner of Green Room thinks he found a void in the market. It’s lacking, he says, in places serving between 200 and 500 people, a sweet spot he thinks could be a draw for both some national acts not quite big enough yet for arena gigs and local acts looking for a launching pad.“I felt that size would do well in the city to offer more options,” he says. “My goal was to A, bring another option for national acts but then, B, have a great spot for local bands to start.”Right or wrong, something seems to be working, he says. He’s got a full calendar of concerts booked out several months. How did he, as a newcomer to the market in an industry filled with competition, get the attention of the local concertgoer?

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by Andrew Tellijohn
December 2004

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Marketing fix.its: Empire building


Empire building

Planning helps make companies king for more than a day

by Elizabeth Millard   No matter how well a company is managed or how compelling its products, marketing challenges will always abound.

Here’s a sampling of some difficulties faced by smaller companies that found themselves in a marketing puzzle, and how they managed to put the pieces together.

King of talk
When it came time to choose a King Boreas for the 2004 Saint Paul Winter Carnival, the board of directors found the choice easy. John Bennett, vice president with University Bank in St. Paul, had done extensive volunteer work for the carnival in the past, and was active on numerous local boards and associations, showing his community commitment.

What wasn’t so easy for Bennett was the next step: preparing for over 150 media interviews and speeches. Although he was very visible through his work and his volunteerism, Bennett was unsure about how to handle the press or craft multiple speeches.

 “I can speak well when it comes to financial matters,” he says. “I wanted that composure in my King Boreas role, but I didn’t feel ready at all for what was coming.”

He enlisted the help of Minneapolis-based Maccabee Group Public Relations, and its media training expert Gwen Chynoweth. During several sessions, former reporter Chynoweth explained what it was like to be interviewed, and what kind of information Bennett needed to convey. Although it might seem like an interview will be similar to a conversation or even a job interview, Chynoweth emphasizes that it’s a different beast.

“For someone who’s never sat in a radio studio before or been on TV, it can be daunting,” she says. Beyond giving Bennett insight into what he should say, Chynoweth also gave him pointers on posture, breathing and gestures.

She notes, “When we first started, he was trying to get all the information out in one sentence without breathing, and he would do a lot of hand gestures that didn’t look very natural.”

After some sessions of mock interviewing in front of a video camera, Bennett got a firm grasp of how he was presenting himself, and by the time he began doing the real interviews and speeches, he was positively royal, Chynoweth says.

“You find yourself with a level of confidence you didn’t have before the training,” Bennett observes. “You don’t have to psych yourself up to be confident in front of a crowd.”

Bennett believes that people shouldn’t save media training for large events such as carnival leadership, though. He says, “There are many times that executives of smaller businesses suddenly have an opportunity to speak in front of a group and rarely do they have the skills to do the job.”

He compares media training to learning how to golf properly: it’s easier to take some lessons on proper technique, rather than trying to learn through trial and error.

Media preparation costs depend on time and complexity, as well as a trainer’s experience level. Chynoweth charges $180 per hour, and the firm’s principal and former investigative reporter Paul Maccabee charges $220 an hour.

Even if a company doesn’t have a specific event or interview planned, media training can help executives handle impromptu reporter requests. This can come in handy especially if the news that needs to be conveyed is sensitive or negative.

“Trying to do media training during a crisis is like trying to learn how to fly a plane as it’s crashing,” says Chynoweth. “That’s why we’re seeing more small businesses become interested in doing this kind of training, so they’ll be prepared for anything.”

Product launch
The situation was tense. Core Products International, an Osceola, Wisconsin-based maker of orthopedic and comfort care products, had seen its market share diminish when a new type of pillow was developed by a competitor.

In response to customer requests, the company worked to create a similar product, a water-based support pillow that was better made and addressed more stages of chiropractic care.

Although Core thought the pillow would be done in time for a major chiropractors’ trade show, product changes delayed the project, until only two months remained before the conference. The company hired marketing firm Padilla Speer Beardsley (PSB) of Minneapolis, which first chose a product name, AquaCore, that touted the pillow’s benefits and incorporated the company’s title.

With the AquaCore ready to ship, the real work began. For the product’s launch, the firm decided to extend the water theme in a major way. First, says PSB vice president Sandy Swanson, graphics were created that featured waves and beaches, and the logos were printed on all of the company’s conference materials. Next was the need to get distributors to take notice at a time when they were busily preparing for a major show.

Seashells and starfish did the trick. PSB emphasized the fact that it was distributors and customers that had asked Core to create the pillow, so in a product information mailer, it had “We got your message” as its headline.

The box also contained a message about the pillow in a bottle, nestled among sand dollars, seashells and starfish. Swanson notes that they found all of the necessary material online from wholesalers and other Web sites, for surprisingly little money.

At the show, Core kept to its theme by sponsoring a contest that would send an attendee to Jamaica, and another for distributors that also featured the island getaway.

Kevin McArdle, Core vice president of sales and marketing, says the speedy product launch was a success, complete with a “best in show” award from the conference organizers recognizing the company’s pre-show promotion. It was a pretty impressive achievement, says McArdle, considering it had all been pulled together in about six weeks.

“We were up against a wall,” says McArdle. “We had a deadline that had to be met. It was comforting to have a partner that helped with design, promotion and marketing.”

He notes that one of the company’s largest challenges was in getting focus and clarity for its branding and positioning. By sitting down and brainstorming, Core and PSB were able to come up with creative ways that promoted the pillow, stuck to a theme, and worked in the short time frame.

With any product launch, creativity is key, says Swanson. Not only does it help to keep a project fun, but with so many products on the market, an unusual approach to marketing helps a company to grab attention.

Swanson notes that the entire strategy, from product naming to identity development, media relations, and mailer creation cost about $40,000. Smaller companies can reduce product launch costs by doing their own printing, naming and other tasks, but it does help to employ a firm to bring a campaign together.

Ice scrapers rule
Minneapolis-based TOLD Development believed that a mixed-use housing and retail project at Excelsior & Grand in St. Louis Park would be dynamic, unique and attractive. But with so many other mixed-use developments sprouting up across the metro, the difficulty was in making potential tenants feel the same.

To set Excelsior & Grand apart, TOLD first needed to discover what made the development different, and why tenants should be lining up to move in. Principal Bob Cunningham asked Minneapolis-based Fast Horse to create a marketing strategy that identified a target audience and created a message that would spark interest. It was a fairly tall order, considering that at the time the development was just a large hole in the ground and a few tall piles of dirt.

Fast Horse President Jorg Pierach began visiting apartment locator services and doing apartment tours in the area. He also chatted with different groups of renters in the area. “Finding out everything about the competition informed a lot of our marketing decisions,” says Pierach.

To differentiate themselves, TOLD decided to market Excelsior & Grand as the best of city living, without the hassles of the city. On his apartment tours, Pierach had heard about how tenants loved being close to Uptown and the lakes, but grumbled about parking regulations and crowded streets.

In preparation for the first snow emergency of the year, Pierach, Cunningham, and some colleagues had 500  ice scrapers printed with the message, “Tired of moving your car? Move to Excelsior & Grand” and then put them under the windshield wipers of cars throughout Uptown.

The costs were minimal, and created a buzz. Because the scrapers also featured the development’s Web site address, there was a spike in Internet visitors, and TOLD realized that targeting urban-minded tenants was the right strategy.

“We made sure that everything we did was with that audience in mind,” says Pierach. “We created a billboard, and direct mail pieces that spoke to their needs.”

Cunningham says, “We kept very close to our brand identity and that audience. It’s a challenge, to create a marketing strategy for apartments, condos, and retail, but we felt that a single strategy that appeals to all three groups would be the way to go. And it turns out we were right.”

Keeping a single-minded focus is a powerful way to build brand, says Pierach, as is knowing how the competition is marketing itself.

[contact] John Bennett, University Bank: 651.265.5612; www.universitybank.com. Gwen Chynoweth, Maccabee Group Public Relations: 612.337.0087; gwen@maccabee.com; www.maccabee.com. Bob Cunningham, TOLD Development Co.: 952.278.0113; www.excelsiorandgrand.com. Kevin McArdle, Core Products: 715.294.5545; kmcardle@coreproducts.com; www.coreproducts.com. Jorg Pierach, Fast Horse: 612.746.4610; jorgp@fasthorseinc.com; www.fasthorseinc.com. Sandy Swanson, Padilla Speer Beardsley: 612.455.1700; sswanson@psbpr.com; www.psbpr.com.