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As you may have noticed, it's World Cup time.
Now, whether you think the World Cup is the highlight of
your entire life, an excuse to decorate your car with flags,
or just a complete bore.....it doesn't matter because it may
offer you and your business an opportunity for some really
great Marketing.
One of the most effective Marketing strategies available to
us all is to link our Marketing, Advertising and Promotions
to current events.
These events could be a news story, a TV show, a celebrity
story or a sporting occasion. If you run a very local
business, events in your community could provide the
Marketing 'hook' you're looking for.
How you do this is only limited by your imagination.
All good Marketers are always looking for possible ways to
'leverage' their business against current events. The World
Cup is a classic example.
I am going to avoid references to specific countries or
teams because we have people reading this from all over the
world and we all know how sensitive people get over their
football! (If you're reading this in the USA you can apply
all of these principles to your football, baseball etc.)
An obvious World Cup linkage, that we've all seen, is when
restaurants, pubs and bars decorate themselves with their
country's flag during the World Cup, put up a big screen and
have a big booze up for the big game.
Personally, I think I'd rather spend the night in prison -
but personal preferences aside, there's a lesson here for
all of us. There are ways for you and your business to link
yourself to the World Cup. You need to steer clear of using
official logos etc - but other than that, you can have some
real summer fun with this and pull in some new customers as
a result.
Here are some examples:
1 Promotions
Any type of promotion that you offer can be a World Cup
celebration. Whether it be a price reduction, three for two,
special bonuses etc, tell your customers it's World Cup time
and you're celebrating with a special promo/offer. (Again,
avoid implying that you have an official World Cup promotion
or FIFA may send you a rather large bill)
2 Celebration
When your country's team wins a game, celebrate
with an enticing offer for your customers. Get them while
they're on a high. You do not need to design a snazzy flyer
to do this. You can keep it quick and informal especially if
you use email to announce the celebration. One of the big
advantages of of combining this strategy with the use of
email is speed. You can announce your celebration within
minutes of the event actually happening.
3 Commiseration
When your team lose and are thrown mercilessly
out of the tournament (admit it, you know it's going to
happen!) you can share your customers' misery and offer them
something special to make up for it. You need to be careful
with this one because you don't want to link your product or
service too much to peoples' unhappiness. In all
seriousness, there is a segment of the population for whom
football really is their life and when their team is out of
the tournament they're truly depressed. You may want to
steer clear for a while.
4 World Cup Victory Contingency
Plan
As you can tell, I am trying very hard to avoid
mentions of my home country in the interests of this being a
global website..... but let's just say that some of us are
in countries where the chances of World Cup Victory
are......slim? However, you had better be prepared for the
unexpected. When a country wins the World Cup, the effect on
its population is very powerful. People are in a state of
ecstasy and you and your business should jump right in to
the middle of it. How you do that is going to be very
dependent on the type of business you are in and your
relationship with your customers. But have a World Cup
Victory contingency plan in place now. If it happens, it
will be a once in a business lifetime opportunity.
5 Sweepstakes
The next 30 people who buy from you enter your
World Cup sweepstake and the winner gets xxxxxxxxx
6 Competition
If you're feeling really bold and it's
financially worthwhile, you could still purchase a ticket
for one of your country's games and give it away in a
competition. (If you're too late for the World Cup, or it's
not practical, how could you use this principle with other
big national events or events in your community?)
7 Emails and Blogs
Of course, you could just go for the very simple
approach. If you're a football fan, send your customers some
emails during the World Cup with your thoughts and opinions
and asking what they think.
What's this got to do with the product and service you
offer? Probably nothing. What's this got to do with your
relationship with your customers? Everything. The type of
thinking outside box is what can really set you and your
business apart from the rest. I am always encouraging
business owners to build their profile and create a
personality with their customers. This is just one way to do
it. You could even set up your own World Cup blog.
So the above are just some suggestions to get you thinking.
Be creative. Do something different. Have fun. And although
I've been discussing the World Cup, you should be constantly
thinking about how you can maximise on current events.
Of course, if Germany wins the World Cup
again, none of the above applies and we'll all just take our lives in a series
of bizarre ceremonies.
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