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?

1. The Cause -  Special Olympics. Special Olympics provides year-round sports training and competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities.

2. Special Olympics history – The concept for Special Olympics was born in the early 1960s when Eunice Kennedy Shriver started a day camp for people with developmental disabilities at her home in Rockville, Maryland. The first International Special Olympics Games were held in 1968 at Soldier Field, Chicago with 1,000 athletes with intellectual disabilities from 26 states and Canada.

Mrs. Shriver’s vision has grown into one of the largest and most successful sports and volunteer organizations in the world. There are Chapters in every state of America and in more than 140 countries worldwide serving more than one-million Special Olympics athletes.

3. Special Olympics Northern California is proud to serve more than 13,000 individuals with intellectual disabilities.

4. Diamond Peak and Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe have been the proud sponsor for Special Olympics two years in a row. This event receives support from the community and many IVGID and Hyatt employees.

5. My pledge - My goal is to raise at least $5,500 for this organization and I’m counting on your support.

6. It’s a party! – On March 6th, come to the Hyatt pier and watch me jump in the freezing waters of Lake Tahoe. Temperature is around 40F (4C). Brrrrrrrr!!!!!! Bring your cameras! I will need your support.Even better, sign up to jump in with me.

7. Please, donate. Every little bit will help me reach my goal. You can donate online here.

8. Spread the word. We can do it together. Let’s use social media, online and personal networks and let’s raise some money. These kids need it. We can all help.

Are you in?

1. If you are a consumer make sure to read the reviews on TripAdvisor prior to booking your trip. You may find insightful information about a place you would like to visit. I usually glance at the reviews before pulling out my credit card and committing to a reservation. You may not always see positive reviews about a place, but sometimes people just like to complain. Personally, if most reviews are good and there are a few bad reviews I would take them into account but put more emphasis on the positive. I like to think the glass is half full. Big points go to the property that has responded to a negative review. Seeing a response usually makes me smile as this means the property is actually monitoring their reviews and responding to complaints. When I see negative reviews and no response, this usually is enough for me to look elsewhere.
2. If you represent a travel brand (think hotels, restaurants, cruises, vacation properties and even airlines) you can use TripAdvisor to gather feedback and correspond with your customers who are reviewing your place while you are reading this. Here are a few tips for travel companies on how to use TripAdvisor to their advantage:

• Get your business listed on TripAdvisor and make sure you give as much information as possible about your property. Photos are KEY!
• Sign up to receive reviews by email and every time someone posts a new review you will be notified.
• Read the reviews and respond if necessary with a thank you or a comment. If the review is negative, proceed with caution. Sometimes an acknowledgment and stating the facts may be sufficient but be careful not to make an already angry person even angrier. It’s a very fine line what you say and how you say it.
• Encourage your guests to spread the word for you with signs at your property, links on your website and in your email newsletters.
• Track your performance and see how you rank against your competitors (this service is offered to accommodations only)

TripAdvisor offers excellent and free business owners resources online to help with getting more reviews, best practices including how to respond to reviews, links and badges for your website/email newsletter, and content ideas.

They recently added user generated lists and tours to their mobile application which will continue to increase TripAdvisor’s popularity with travelers.

Don’t ignore online reviews as part of your social media strategy. With a huge audience, TripAdvisor is a popular place for people to turn to when researching their trip. I know I do.

Do you use TripAdvisor as a consumer? Have you implemented it in your social media efforts for your company?

Dr. Seuss

Running your own business is complicated enough. How do you make sure your customers are happy and they bring you referrals and positive word-of-mouth? Here are 3 tips to follow:

1. Under promise and over deliver. Return their phone call, email, tweet, question within reasonable time.  If you are completely swamped then tell them you will get back to them upon review. Deliver on what you promised. Take it a step further – under promise and over deliver. Make sure you meet the deadline you suggested in the first place. Always go above and beyond to make sure you are over-delivering on their expectations. Just meeting their expectations doesn’t cut it anymore.

2. Be consistent. This means be consistent in everything you do – from your marketing to the way you answer emails. Again, this is based on creating expectations. People doing business with you get used to doing it a certain way. People don’t like change. If you are planning on improving anything, make sure to give people plenty of notice and allow them to opt out. An example is how Twitter and Facebook change their platforms. Twitter allows people to go back to the old version of the platform. Facebook makes the change whether you like it or not. People don’t like change. Be consistent and you have a better chance of making people happy. This doesn’t mean be consistent at under delivering, you will only create a complete failure.

3. Treat everyone with respect and give them special attention. Respect your customers and they will respect you back. People are all individuals an they deserve the utmost respect until proven otherwise. Everybody wants to feel special. You can make them feel special by finding out what they like and jotting it down in your computer. If you have some type of customer relationship program, record it there. Otherwise, attach it to their name somehow, electronically is the preferred method. Remember their birthdays. Remember little things they said in your every day conversation that could lead to a special recognition or gift. For example, if someone likes tea instead of coffee, get them a special tea set for the holidays with a hand written note from you. If you make them feel special, they will remember your business. Once they need your service, they will come back to you.

Happy people spread positive word of mouth – the most affordable marketing your small business can purchase.

Go ahead and make your promise. Just make sure you actually over deliver on it, be consistent and give them individual treatment.

What’s your best advice for small business owners?

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.

I’ve been seeing him for over 15 years now despite of changes in dental insurances and 45 min drive to the office one way. He’s one of these older, nice gentleman who can make you feel very comfortable.Even in the dentist chair.

What I like most about this dentist is his attitude towards his clients and his high and I mean really high standard for customer service.

Dr. Donald Orme (in Truckee, CA) by far wins my award for customer service for a local Lake Tahoe business. He knows how to treat his customers and by that I don’t mean keep their teeth healthy but treat them with respect. He understands what it takes to make them feel good, how to make things right and how to keep his clients happy.

He “gets” how word-of-mouth and referrals work and he practices it every day. I wished more Lake Tahoe small and large businesses would learn from Dr. Orme and apply his unwritten policy: Do whatever it takes to make the customer happy.

I wrote a review about him on DentistDig. If you end up going to see him, feel free to write your opinion as well.

Have you run into a good or bad customer service experience lately? Leave a comment on this blog.

Photo credit: PeterSpain.com

This is one of two posts on how small businesses can use social media to their advantage. I got particularly interested in paddleboarding and decided to track the entire process of how social media is affecting the bottom line of a small business.

Adrift Tahoe is located in Kings Beach, Lake Tahoe, CA and they offer rentals, sales, fun special events and merchandise. It’s all about paddleboarding and surfing with very friendly staff.

My interest in paddleboarding started with a Facebook post by a friend – sharing her excitement about this addictive and fun sport. I decided to check it out for myself. It is a great sport, an excellent full body work out and a phenomenal way to spend summer time on the water in Tahoe.

I offered to create a short video about the shop and the sport and post it on YouTube. See it below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

So far, I know that I have hooked a few friends and family members on the sport. They are interested in getting more involved, would like to purchase paddleboards and continue to spread their passion about paddleboarding in Lake Tahoe.

The second blog post will tell you how a Facebook update and a You Tube video delivered real dollars for this business. Interested? Stay tuned. Whether you are a small business or a big one, are you able to identify dollars from your social media efforts?

Have you tried paddleboarding yet?

So staying up late at night and working on weekends doesn’t bother me. I’m doing what I love and what I’m passionate about. I consider myself lucky. Very lucky. How about you? What are you passionate about?

Photo credit: Jeff Engerbretson

I’m speaking tomorrow at the North Lake Tahoe Chamber of Commerce Breakfast Club. I’m looking forward to hearing the key note speaker, Bob Roberts from the California Ski Industry Association as well as seeing my colleagues in the industry. I hope everyone is as excited as I am about the start of a new season. In my presentation I’d like to make three points that I’m passionate about and keep me up at night.

3 things that in my opinion can help your ski resort in today’s economy succeed. 3 things that we as marketers and business owners need to invest in, understand and encourage.

1. Invest in Customer Service. This is one sure way to generate positive word of mouth. In this tough economy our customers demand better than ever customer service. I continue to get disappointed every time I go to San Francisco and visit the retail environment there.  Invest in customer service training for your employees. It will pay off for your business in the long run. Track customer service with surveys. Award your best performing employees.  Establish benchmarks. At Diamond Peak we have a mystery guest program where I personally select a customer for the day to keep an eye out for employees going above and beyond their regular line of duty. Once they spot this special employee they hand him/her a card with $25 bucks they can use anywhere at the resort. Coming from the customer, the message is a lot stronger than coming from their supervisor. We don’t announce the program to our employees; we let word of mouth spread it every year.  This program is extremely successful. In addition, we have mandatory customer service training that is taught by our General Manager at the beginning of the season. With every ticket purchased we hand out a card asking our skiers to go online and fill out a survey. We pride ourselves on high customer service and it’s one parameter in the customer experience we feel is within our control. People like to be treated nicely. They expect it and demand it. They tell their friends about it. Don’t disappoint them. Understand the Power of One – that one individual can make or break their day and you can win or lose a customer for life.
2. Understand the power of Social Media and Word of Mouth Marketing. Now is the time to embrace new technology and the new ways people are demanding information and seeking to engage with brands. 44% of the online population is engaged on social networks. Close to 20% of the adult online population are word of mouth marketing influencers and this number is expected to grow in the coming years. Facebook is the number 3 website in terms of traffic, just past Google and Yahoo and before MSN, Live.com, Amazon, eBay and Graigslist. Your business needs to have presence on social media networks like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, MySpace, FourSquare. You need to have a blog. Start building your online community. Start practicing “permission marketing” like Seth Godin refers to it. Ask people for permission to market to them. Stop interrupting them. It’s a vicious cycle when you try to shout at people and interrupt conversations. Don’t use the traditional marketing approach in the new media – it won’t work. People will turn you off. They will stop following you and stop being your friend. The ski resort industry is in a good position to show how fun and memorable the sport is. Use new media to get the image out and tap into people’s emotions with videos, photos and more user generated content. At Diamond Peak we are actively engaging with people on social networks. We are having fun doing it while establishing trust with our customers. Once they trust us they will be more likely to come and ski at our resort too.  Join in the conversation. Friend us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and watch our videos on YouTube. Let’s have some fun. Skiing is about fun.
3. CEOs and Business Owners – Encourage Smart, Honest, Aggressive, Transparent, Permission Marketing. Marketers – get 5-6 smart people in a room and start brainstorming how to increase your market share, create memorable programs, cut cost and stand out. Let’s be honest about our snow reports and ski conditions. Guess what? People can and will report ski conditions for us, right from the slopes. They will post videos, Facebook updates, Twitter posts, photos and write blogs about their experience. Now is the time to be more aggressive with our marketing efforts. The Bay Area is close and yet miles away when it comes to trying to convince a family to come and ski. We are competing for attention with other industries, other brands, other ski resort destinations.  It’s easier for a family to put the kids in front of the TV and play Wii or in front of the computer than to plan a trip to Lake Tahoe. Now is the time to build mind share. When the economy improves, and it will, they will remember us and the mind share will turn into a wallet share. Diamond Peak is known as Your Tahoe Place for kids and beginners. Diamond Peak has friendly staff. Diamond Peak created a new product this year called The Holiday Season Pass. Instead of blacking out the pass during the holidays when it may be the only time people can drive up for a ski vacation, we developed a product that’s good only during the holidays – 28 days for $249. That’s less than $9/day. Unheard of, right? Different? And finally, Diamond Peak has the most unique event in the Tahoe Basin – Last Tracks. We have some great programs in place for our customers to start the word of mouth marketing. You can discover them all at diamondpeak.com and help us spread the word – tell your friends and family about them.

To help with the networking and learning from each other I started a marketing chat room on Twitter with the hashtag of #mrktchat. It runs for an hour every Thursday at 2pm  PST. I hope you can all join us and we can all learn together as we are trying to figure out the new technology and tools available to us as marketers in the travel and tourism industry.

What are your thoughts? How are you getting ready for this season and this economy? What are you doing differently? What keeps you up at night?

Today, I want to share with you some even more amazing statistics pulled again from the same website, Quantcast.com. This time, I looked at the most visited websites online. I’m surprised to see that Facebook.com is showing as Number 3, just past Google.com and Yahoo.com and ahead of MSN.com, Live.com, Microsoft.com, Amazon.com, eBay.com and even Craigslist which is probably the Number 1 website to find a job and a lot of people right now are doing just that on a daily basis. Here are the top 10 websites in terms of traffic:

There is only one point to make here – if you are not considering Facebook.com to promote your business, why aren’t you? You can get the word out about your products and services, all at the fraction of what you will spend in traditional marketing and even online marketing? There’s very little investment cost involved in having your business presence on Facebook and you will be reaching 104 million people monthly living in the US, compared to 120 million people on Yahoo and 141 million people on Google. Facebook has become a website and a marketing vehicle that you can no longer ignore for the cost that it takes to be on it. Can you say Free? Is your business on Facebook yet?