A double treat for you this Halloween, I’m posting twice. I don’t normally, however, what I witnessed this evening was worth sharing.
I’ve spent a lot of time the past few weeks setting goals and coming up with a plan on how to get there. I’ve been in tears over this whole process at times, not because I’m not happy with the goals that I’ve set, but I struggled with putting it all on paper.
Since I’ve set my goals, I’ve been more focused and have thoroughly enjoyed marking them off as I achieve them. While I didn’t meet all the goals I set for October, I came darn near close. What it means is that I need to go back and rethink what I did and how I can improve upon them.
Tonight as I prepared my angel and my ninja for a night out on the town, I listened to the two of them discuss the evening.
Ninja Matthew: Samara, I want to go with Nick because his big brother is going and they are taking the tractor. We can go on more streets.
Angel Samara: No, I want to go over to Sondra’s neighborhood. There aren’t any hills and the houses are closer together. Plus, they have that area where no one ever goes and those people give out the big candy bars.
I could just see the wheels turning in their heads as they tried to figure out what the best plan was for them to gain the most candy.
We ended up going over to the next neighborhood where my friend lives. I did influence them slightly simply because there are no hills in her neighborhood and at least I would have someone to talk to.
Half way through our tour, the kids stopped and came up to me asking me to hold their candy. As soon as I took their bags (which were very heavy) they whipped out Wal-Mart bags and took off. I hear the ninja yell to the angel, “Now they will think that it’s late and we haven’t gotten much candy. They’ll feel sorry for us and give us more.” How’s that for marketing? And a plan.
After 2 and a half hours of going door to door (except in the one part where you had to go 4 or 5 doors apart to get the big candy bars) we headed back to our house and ran into Nick. Nick had one bag of candy. Between the ninja and the angel, they had 4. I heard Nick make a comment to my ninja about the amount of candy he had and the ninja simply replied, “we had a better plan.” 
When was the last time you evaluated your goals and your plans to reach them? I put it off for so long and only did it this time because my coach made me do it. I struggled, I fought it, and now I’m kicking myself for not doing it sooner.
The right planning will bring you more treats than tricks and make you a very happy ninja or angel.
Until next time…
Heather
PS. I don’t normally share pictures of my guys over here, but I thought that they deserved the spotlight tonight, for helping to reiterate to me the importance of goals, plans, and marketing.
Without further adieu…
The angel…(Samara)
I thought I would come up with a “themed” post today since it was Halloween. Of course, it needed to be marketing related as well, so I Googled “Halloween Marketing” and the first URL that popped up was the Halloween Advertising Agency.
I’m a big promoter of using holidays to your advantage when marketing but I never thought there would be an agency that ONLY focused on Halloween. I guess I assumed that Halloween wasn’t that big of a deal. According to their statistics, Halloween is just as much fun for adults as it is kids and it’s becomming as popular as Christmas!
(I don’t like Halloween, for the record. It wasn’t always this way. I loved it as a kid. But somehow, now that I’m older, walking around the neighborhood in an uncomfortable costume in the cold is no longer appealing. )
There were also spending statistics on their site as well. I was shocked to learn that 16% (262 people out of 1690 surveyed) spent over $350 on Halloween. At our house, we have a pumpkin table cloth and place mats and a big blow up Winnie the Pooh that says Happy Halloween. Total cost — $10. (I picked them up at Target last year after Halloween was over.)
So there you have it. If you’re looking to capitalize on Halloween, head on over and visit the Halloween Advertising Agency. Talk about narrowing down your target market!
Have a safe and happy Halloween!
Until next time…
Heather
Permalink 10 CommentsYou’ve heard me say it time and time again…customer service is everything. If you have my book, Making Dollars Out of Cents: 101 Tips for the Frugal Marketer, you know that one of the tips is to say “Thank You.” I’ve found that a simple thank you goes a long way.
Kelly McCausey of WAHM Talk Radio mentioned on her show that she was going to send people who advertised with her that year a complimentary copy of the WC. The cost out of her pocket? The small cost of shipping.
The other night I was surfing online and came across Dale and Thomas Popcorn. Because it’s October, and October is Popcorn month, they are offering free bags of popcorn (up to 6) and you pay the small price of shipping ($2.95 per bag.) Can I afford $3 to send my client a thank you gift? You bet I can! I wanted to find something unique to say as well and came up with “Just “poppin’” in to say thanks for you business.” Thanks to Becki and Dale Noles, we came up with an even better saying to relate to the popcorn.
My point is this. It doesn’t have to cost you and arm and a leg to provide superior customer service. The free bag of popcorn is going to mean just as much as an MP3 player I might have sent. The thank you goes a long way.
Dale and Thomas is offering their promotion until the end of Popcorn month, so if you’ve got clients that you’d like to send a gift to, for no reason at all, you can head over there and place your order.
I can’t wait for mine to come in the mail…it looks delicious!
Until next time…
Heather
Permalink 1 CommentWhat are you doing next Monday night? How would you like the opportunity to learn more about marketing your business…for FREE? I’m offering a free teleclass on marketing and we’re going to take it back to the basics…we’re going to make it simple.
I’d like to invite you to join me for an hour on Monday, November 7th at 9pm EST. Now, if you can’t make it, I still invite you to sign up as I will be posting the audio after the call is finished.
Until next time…
Heather
Permalink 2 CommentsBlog Mavens has been released! Whether you’re new to blogging or have been blogging forever, Blog Mavens is the place to be. New classes begin Thursday, November 10th…You can start your journey into the blogosphere here.
We also offer a Blog Roll! If you would like more information on how to have your blog listed on Blog Mavens, head on over to the Blog Mavens Blog Roll!
Until next time…
Heather
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