1. Influencer program – every company needs to have one of them. It’s the smartest program you will develop to have your core advocates promote your product. Their program reads: “Our Influencer program is designed to connect us with you – core enthusiasts that embrace prAna’s company values. Our goals are to open a dialogue for product testing and development ideas; promote ideas of health, wellness and sustainability; and create a community for like-minded people to share their passions.” Create a community of like-minded individuals is exactly what every company needs to be working on.

2. Customer service – Superb! They understand how to treat their customers and make it their mission to have satisfied customers. Under promise and overdeliver is what great marketers do.

3. Products – Excellent quality, great fit and made to last. Everything I have ordered fits and looks great. Start with a remarkable product and you will build a strong customer base with word-of-mouth. Great marketers know that remarkable products get people talking.

4. Story – every company needs a story that people will remember them by. I like Prana’s. What is your story? Is it on your website?

5.  Website – clean design, friendly, well organized, light and encouraging dialogue yet built for the primary goal of selling clothes. Well done.

6. Design and branding – from their catalog, to their photos and logo design Prana has done a fantastic job of providing visually appealing images and collateral to their target market.

7. Customer engagement – Prana is currently looking for T-shirt designs from their customers. I like the name of their contest: How does PRANA look like to you?. An email went out to their influencers too, asking for submission of their favorite clothes. Upon sending your favorite item to Prana, you receive free shipping. Nice little incentive to gather valuable feedback from their most loyal customers.

8. Great causes – Prana is dedicated to support Natural Power Initiative. It fits perfectly with their values.

9. Social – Prana has an active blog, a very popular Facebook page, lots of views on their YouTube channel, and a decent Vimeo channel. I wonder what their social media strategy is but in terms of engaging their fans, Prana scores high in my eyes. One suggestion would be to implement a social purchase incentive, where if you recommend Prana product to friends at the time of purchase, you immediately receive percent off your purchase. Take a look at how Abe’s Market is doing it.

10. Ambassadors – I’m not sure how anyone can become an ambassador but I’m sure if you are interested, you will get a fast response from Prana.

Prana has passionate people who have created a great product and have figured out how to build legendary marketing.

Have you purchased any Prana clothes? Are you going to after this post? Do you have any favorite companies?

For those of you that are not aware of the situation described here, the original post is located here. After a few Tweets with the Chrysler Twitter team and the blog post, I was personally contacted by Chrysler’s Customer Service department which was definitely a step in the right direction.  A few emails and phone conversations with them later, they offered us to replace the truck, and expedited the build and the delivery. The end result is, we are back in a new Dodge truck we absolutely love and very, very satisfied with the way Chrysler handled the entire process from the initial phone call.

I would specially like to thank the Chrysler’s Twitter team and the Customer Service Department at Chrysler Corporation with one individual whose name should remain a secret for privacy issues. This person completely understands customer service and acts on customer’s behalf. Everyone we had contact with at Chrysler believes in the power of social media and how it could affect a company of their size.  I hope to be able to generate ten times more positive outreach for them than the original negative post I wrote.  Based on this personal experience, it’s clear to me that Chrysler is committed to delivering great customer service.

A few lessons learned from this:

1. Social Media has provided a new medium for people to voice their opinions and corporations now need to listen and respond accordingly in new places.

2. A company should be consistent across all channels when it comes to dealing with customers. Certainly, social media participants may expect a much faster response than a snail mail or telephone call but they should all receive the same customer service regardless of the channel used.

3. Only 2% of people will voice their opinions online. Perhaps there’s a need for more “citizen journalism” and people fighting for their rights as consumers which will put more pressure on companies to stay engaged online.

Thank you Chrysler! You kept us a loyal and happy customers. Well done!

This blog post is way overdue. It happened two winters ago and I just haven’t gotten around to write about it. It absolutely impressed me as a situation where clearly a company “Gets It”.

The company: The company is Ralph Lauren and more specifically their Polo Blue Cologne Fragrance. They created a brand new campaign to help launch their Red, White and Blue product line.

Photo Credit: JustBeMagazine.com

The Concept: A special edition under the Polo Blue franchise inspired by the Ralph Lauren Spirit and the icy invigoration of winter sports. Experience a fragrance celebration of exceptional athletic achievement. Come “push the boundaries” of BLUE.

The Promotion: Ralph Lauren teamed up with Warren Miller film tour and showed their product to 250,000+ moviegoers right before an incredible skiing and snowboarding footage from around the world. They created a 30 sec film combining the new fragrance with exciting skiing and snowboarding scenes. In addition, they had the product available for people to touch and smell prior to going in the movies. More promotions included YouTube video, Twitter contest, Facebook and newsletter promotions.

I participated in their Twitter contest initiated by @SkiingExaminer whom I have been following for a while and trust. I retweeted a short message from the company announcing the product in connection with the upcoming Warren Miller movie premiere.

The Results:

1. Established authenticity for winter sports positioning.

2. Sales increased 70% at Macy’s and 50% at other retailers for the week following the movie premiere.

3. Created excitement among youthful audience.

This so far looks like a well thought out and executed marketing campaign. Great product, good positioning and good tie in of traditional and new media.

What Impressed me?

Following the Twitter contest I was notified that I had won the product and it’s on its way. I completely forgot about it until 2-3 weeks later I received a package in the mail. Inside the package there was the new Ralph Lauren Red White and Blue Men fragrance. In addition, there was a ladies Red White and Blue fragrance bottle and a handwritten note from their Marketing Director. The note said: Dear Milena (Yes, that’s me) Thank you for participating and congratulations. We are including an extra fragrance bottle for you (they figured it out who they are sending the prize too; extra bonus). We hope you enjoy the new fragrance. Sincerely, Ralph Lauren Marketing Director. Did I mention it was a handwritten note? You bet it made me feel very special and appreciated. They way every company should make you feel if they want to keep you as a customer.

I was so impressed with the results that I tracked down the contact information for the Marketing Director from @SkiingExaminer and asked her to send me some information about the campaign to include in my blog. That’s how I know what the campaign generated in the Results section. She sent me an entire PowerPoint presentation with impressive slides, numbers and examples from the campaign some of which I have used in this post. This blog post is the least I can do to show my appreciation for a big brand that “Gets It” and tell you how a big company can actually be personable.

Ralph Lauren obviously gets what it takes to make people feel special. Do you do the same? Share some of your stories here in the comments section.

It’s 2010 – Is your business social?

Do you need help figuring out how to best use social media marketing for your business? Do you want to understand how to use word-of-mouth online to compliment your traditional and online marketing efforts. Are you new to social media? Do you need justification for yourself or to your boss that social media is not just playing on Facebook? Do you think social media is some type of black magic and only young people really get it? Do you know how to deal with a social media crisis or prevent one? Do you have a social media policy for your employees? A social media strategy? Proof of return-on-investment?

I’ll try to answer all of these questions and more at the interactive 3 hour workshop at Parasol Tahoe Community Foundation, Incline Village, Lake Tahoe on Oct 7th. Book your calendar, save $10 from not buying a coffee at Starbucks for 3 days, and come hear real life case stories, learn from successful small Lake Tahoe businesses, and best of all learn from each other on how to use social media to your advantage.

Word of mouth is the best marketing tool in your tool box. Social media just helps spreading word of mouth by making it viral. Are you taking advantage of it? Can you afford not to?

It’s hard to speak in public.  It takes time to prepare a presentation. I promise you I will do my best to not bore you for one minute. We are going to have a lot of fun! Get ready for this high energy, 3 hour session. Bring your questions. Bring your friends. Bring your Starbucks coffee. But be there!!! I know I can count on you! All proceeds go to Parasol. I make nothing from this event except for the pure enjoyment of spending time with you and sharing information and knowledge.

Click on the link below to see the flyer with more information about the event. Post it on your wall. Mark your calendar. Please, RSVP to Parasol directly, the gracious organizer of this event.

Social Marketing Workshop Flyer

Sliding on The Cheap turned to Out&About Marketing for help with social media. Kevin Tinto, a great businessman and founder of Sliding  on The Cheap could see the potential for using social media for his business. His website, http://slidingonthecheap.com offers discounted skiing and snowboarding lift tickets, ski&stay packages, ski deals, ski shop sales,  ski resort events and killer deals from around the country. Sliding on the Cheap has solid email following (30,000 subscribers+) and many businesses report a spike in phone calls the minute their newsletter goes out. Kevin, who lives part time in the Bay Area and part time in Truckee is a hard core skier and really passionate about skiing, snowboarding, motorcycles, wakeboarding, biking and anything outdoors. He’s determined to spread discounts and insights from the ski resorts to his loyal followers and help making skiing and boarding more affordable – a great idea in this economy. If you are not already a fan of his newsletter, join today and watch for it to hit your Inbox – you are guaranteed to read something that you will like and use for your next ski/board adventure.

Here’s what Kevin Tinto said about this custom created social media strategy for Sliding on The Cheap:

“As one of the largest Ski/Snowboard informational services with more than 30,000 weekly email subscribers worldwide,  we sensed that Social Media was critical to the continued growth and success of our business, but had no idea how to implement on a large scale.  With limited knowledge of this new medium, we turned to Milena Regos.  Her charge:  Develop in a matter of weeks, a complete and professional Facebook and Twitter Strategy. Within two weeks of launch we had 345 Facebook Fans and we are adding new Fans and Email subscribers daily.  We fully expect to add thousands of email subscribers by season’s end, and expand our business in directions we couldn’t have even contemplated just six months ago. As Managers, you have two choices: use Out&About Marketing to work on your Social Media Strategy, or find yourself  outgunned in a complex and changing Internet environment”.

With the launch of Sliding on The Cheap social media strategy, they are off to a great start. Within days, they accumulated 345 Facebook fans and continue to grow fast thanks to an easy and engaging Facebook contest.

It’s the perfect business to engage on social media with their fans. People love discounts and freebies and they will help spread the love from Sliding on The Cheap. Fan them on Facebook or start following them on Twitter today. Although, we can’t disclose the specifics of their social media strategy, here are some tips that any business can utilize to become successful:

1. Create a solid word-of-mouth campaign. Word of Mouth is your best marketing vehicle. If you have happy customers, they will talk about your business to their friends and spread the word for you – for free. If you need help creating your Word of Mouth campaign, Out&About Marketing can help.
2. Explore the possibilities of social media. Find the networks that make the most sense for you. Not everyone needs to be on Twitter and not everyone needs to be on LinkedIn. With more than 300 million active users on Facebook you can’t ignore it but you still need a plan on why and how you are going to engage. Have you heard of Foursquare? It may be the next Twitter.
3. Understand that once you commit to being on social media, you need to keep your content fresh and engage with your followers. There’s nothing worse than seeing a blog that hasn’t been updated for a year or going to a Facebook page that’s been non-existent for months.
4. Think of fresh and engaging content. Make sure you provide value and not just sell your business.
5. Listen to what your customers are telling you and address their requests in your business. Use social networks as a research tool to make your business better.
6. Adjust your strategy as you learn more about the social media environment. You will make mistakes. Apologize quickly and publicly when you make a mistake and move on.
7. Hire someone with experience that can help you get your social media off the ground. This new marketing medium is changing too fast and you need someone who’s staying on top of it, understands how it all works and can recommend the best approach for your business. You are probably not going to hire someone full time to learn and maintain your social media effort, but you can outsource some of it and commit to doing some of in in-house by spreading the responsibilities to people within your company. Social media can be very powerful if used well and any company can benefit from it. Social media does take knowledge and time. The knowledge required is not just about social media, but also about online marketing in general and how customers behave online. If you get stuck, Out&About Marketing is here to help you!

Share some excellent social media stories here or tell us what you need help with. Do you know someone who wants to explore the endless possibilities that word-of-mouth and social media present? Send them this post today. (Full disclosure: In case it’s not clear until now, Sliding on The Cheap is my client).

1. Community – it takes a community to make Burning Man special. From its inception in Stinson Beach, it took creativity, imagination and pushing the norm to create, continue and grow this event. It took different organizations getting involved. Various volunteers helping out and donating their time. It took passion and devotion.Individuality and cohesion. Synergy.  Can your business say it has loyal followers who would devote hours to making this event happen? In the world of social media, community is vital to the survival of any business. Burning Man has managed to create a vibrant community with loyal followers. Just take a look at their Facebook page. Can you say that your business Facebook page gets so many posts and involvement from your customers?

Photo credit: Flickr - Tristan Savatier

2. Creativity – There is amazing imagination and creativity in this event. From organization and annual themes (this year the theme was “Evolution”, next year is “Metropolis”) to the amazing art that people dream up and build in the Nevada desert, from clothes and costumes to theme camps, creativity abounds. Burning Man gathers people from all disciplines and professions who love, breathe and live art. It offers plenty of wide open spaces where the craziest contraptions can be built only for one week of enjoyment. Creativity keeps this event vibrant and people return for more each year. Participation is key. Individuality can be seen in every person. As a business, remember that one size does not fit all. People want to be different. They want to stand out and be themselves.

Burning Man 2009

Burning Man 2009

3. Passion – people have passion for this event. They talk all year about it and get ready for it. They stand by online when ticket sales first open to be the first to grab tickets and confirm their participation. They shop for clothes, accessories and supplies for Burning Man. They talk to their friends about it. Post photos and videos online. Share content. Spread the word. Meet other “burners” and feel immediate connection with them.

Happy Burners

4. Loyalty – I met people at Burning Man who have been going to it for 16+ years. Every year, the week before Labor Day, they pack their camps, food, water and drinks and any art cars or art they’ve dreamed up and head out to the middle of nowhere – Gerlach, Nevada to be in the cruel, harsh desert for a week where it’s incredibly hot during the day and cold at night. And they love doing it, year after year, because they have loyalty to Burning Man. They volunteer to do things for this community all for the same goal. How many businesses in real life can claim the same loyalty from their customers.

Nightly ceremony to light the streets

5. Word-of Mouth – I’m starting to repeat myself but burners love to share their experience – offline and online. There are 471,792 photos on Flickr for “Burning Man”. They have 47,576 Facebook Fans. There are millions of conversation happening on Twitter, in blogs, on websites and forums. Word-of-mouth will make or brake a business. Have you been able to embrace, create and share word-of-mouth yet for your business?

6. Self survival and self sufficiency – Burning Man prepares you and teaches you to be self reliant. You are completely on your own (unless you have very good neighbors) when it comes to your survival. You need to bring all your water, food, gasoline, shelter, clothes. The only things you can purchase at Black Rock City are ice and coffee. On top of everything, the event is a Leave No Trace event. Pack it in and pack it out. And when everyone leaves, there is nothing left at the Playa but dust. As a business, these values should be incorporated in your business plan. People should protect our only planet. Eco – awareness and working together as a community to create a city in a week can be a valuable skill. Just take a look at what happened with Katrina. Surviving in harsh environment is a necessary skill for every person and for every business that is feeling the recession.

7. Communication – Burning Man does a really good job at preparing everyone for the event. From their website and newsletter to handing out brochures at the gate containing all the information you need, it really makes things easier for newcomers as well as old time burners. The logisitcs for this event are absolutely amazing and the event seems to go without a glitch. The volunteer rangers help control the peace and everyone seems to get along fine. That’s 48,000 people living together peacefully for a week!

And finally, direct from Larry Harvey, the organizer of Burning Man an interview on 5 things cities can learn from Black Rock City.

Let me know what you want to add to this list. There are many lessons every business and every person can take away from this amazing event. What do you think? Let’s create a list of what every business can learn from Burning Man.

1. Look for a product or service that is already successful
2. Start small
3. Find your niche
4. Ignore the naysayers

Excellent quick reading for people interested in how Quicksilver started.

Evian just created a remarkable and clever campaign with a social media component to it. The Evian Live Young campaign was just released today. The video on YouTube had 323 views as of the writing of this blog.  I think the campaign is funny and memorable. The break dancing was done by adults. Babies bodies and faces were used in the commercial. No babies were made to dance .

You can see the video below.

What do you think? What goals did Evian set up with this campaign? Do you think it’s going to accomplish the goals?
To see the entire making of the TV commercial check out the EvianLiveYoung website. I feel energized and awake. If that was one of the goals of the campaign I have to say it was successful. I’m not sure it will make me purchase Evian water but I  live in Lake Tahoe where the tap water tastes better than bottle water. I’m fortunate this way.

I have already shared the commercial on my Facebook page and I wrote a blog post about it. I do believe that this campaign will become viral fast. Just wait until all the moms on Facebook and the blogosphere see this! By the time I was done with the blog post, the YouTube video had generated 2,620,643 views! Talk about fast! I didn’t spend more than 25 min writing!

I think this commercial is much more engaging than the previous Water babies commercial from Evian. I like the combination of traditional and online media. You can see the older Evian TV commercial below.

The old commercial so far has generated 91,144 views on YouTube. I’d be interested to see how many views the new spot will be able to generate.

I also found out that Evian just became a sponsor of the 39th Annual Los Angeles LGBT PRIDE Celebration (LA PRIDE) to keep its youth spirit.

You can  read the official press release about the new advertising campaign here.

1. Susan Boyle singing sensation

The news picked up the story of this phenomenal singer and within days the YouTube video went from 1,578,735 views (this is what it was recorded on it when I wrote my previous post) to 19,233,462 views as of the writing of this blog. This is only in a matter of 3 days. As a matter of fact by the time I finished the blog, the video had accumulated another 2,000,000 views within an hour.  In addition to this video, there are millions more views on other videos that are on Susan Boyle. Her amazing singing and performance will continue to grow virally with the power of the Internet. Of course, main news stories picked up the video and it’s been all over traditional media but the viral effect of YouTube and the power it has to build a brand has been proved.There is already an official website for Susan Boyle. At the time of this post, there were 2,355,880 blogs  written that included her name. She went from a no one to a star within a matter of hours. That’s the power of YouTube!

Click here to view the embedded video.

2. The Domino’s Effect

Domino’s spent years building their brand only to be destroyed in seconds by the YouTube video posted by two of their employees. Domino’s has been active in social media with a Twitter account, YouTube account, Facebook page and MySpace page. Domino’s video has been pulled from YouTube since then but you can still see it here if you really want to watch Domino’s employees doing disgusting things to food which is being prepared for customers. The employees say they created the video as a “prank” and since then have been fired from the company. The company itself called them “idiots”. The lesson here is that anyone with a video camera and an Internet connection can do a lot more damage to your company than you can imagine. Another lesson for these two people is that they may discover that finding a new job just got a lot harder for them  and it doesn’t have anything to do with the state of the economy. As a potential employer would you really want to hire a person whose face was on traditional and social media associated with a “prank” on their current employer. This is certainly a bad choice for showing how you are being active in social media.

Domino’s has responded to the “prank” with their own video:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The video has been seen by 353,466 viewers as of the time of this post.

MediaCurves released a survey on how effective the Domino’s apology video has been.

Among the findings:

“Which of the following actions are you likely to perform in the next three months?”

“Do you think the apology response video released by Domino’s USA President, Patrick Doyle, was effective in rectifying and restoring Domino’s image after this incident?”

For more information about this study, you can visit MediaCurves.

This is a story on how a brand can be destroyed with the help of YouTube.

3. ‘The Best job in the World” by Tourism Queensland

One of my favorite examples of how effectively to use social media to generate brand awareness and start up a conversation. Tourism Queensland released a contest for the best job int he world – a caretaker for one of their islands and a person who would blog about their experience while on Hamilton island for a year. Brilliant! The application had to be submitted via a YouTube video. Tourism Queensland put a nice package for the job that included accommodation, travel insurance, and get this: $150,000 AUS for 1 year period. What’s does the job entail? Blogging, traveling on the islands and doing a lot of snorkeling, swimming with the fish, kayaking, sailing, and bushwalking. Amazing! It sounds great right? What’s the catch? Nothing. They are looking to create buzz about their destination and continue the buzz online.  A brilliant idea and awesome execution. They had 34,000 applications for the job from 22 countries. That’s 34,000 youtube videos of people saying why they are the perfect candidate for the job. The news went viral from just one press release and got also picked up by main news agencies around the world. It sure put Queensland on the map. They are still going with their process and the final candidate should be picked up in the first week of May. Stay tuned for more news coming up from this beautiful destination.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

As of this post the video had 1,578,735 views.  Susan’s goal was to perform in front of a large audience and she did it so well that jaws dropped. The judges were simply amazed, the audience speechless.  First impressions were forgotten immediately. Thanks to social media, this video is going to go around the world a few times and Susan is going to be a famous singing star! Go Susan!