French Connection harness the power of the print

French Connection Winter 2014 catalogue

There is something special about receiving a printed catalogue if it's well executed and makes an emotional connection with the customer.

UK fashion retailer French Connection have got things just right. Their latest French Connection printed catalogue is a thing of beauty. It's not ostentatious but its unstated design, clever, striking creative and use of matt papers generates a strong desire to see more.

In their Manchester store, the creative is skilfully carried through into the merchandising so you feel you already know a good deal about the season's collection. It works well on the company's website too.

This shows that their is a strong place for print and direct mail in any company's marketing communications plans so long as it meets the needs of customers and dovetails with other activity.

Facebook competitions - now even easier to run

With Facebook relaxing their competition Terms & Conditions, it's never been easier to run a competition on Facebook. Here's why you might want to do this:

• start a conversation
• create a buzz
• capture customer data
• increase your Likes
• promote a new product or service
• build reputation
• seek customer input into product development

The list is almost endless.

The most popular type of competition asks entrants to Like as the way to enter. Facebook T&Cs allow you to do this. The T&Cs are not onerous but avoid using a share this link on a timeline method of entry - it's one of the few prohibitions in the T&Cs. It means that you don't need to use a third part application such as Offerpop or custom design to produce your application any more. Having said that, the latter does produce some amazingly good competitions.  Here are some good recent examples with creativity at the fore.

Red Spotted Hanky Facebook travel voucher promotion

Berghaus Facebook photo competition

Innocent Smoothie Facebook knitting promotion

Dorset Cereals Facebook spot the difference promotion


Here are the latest FacebookT&Cs in full

How brand promise can be damaged by third parties and how to avoid

Lots of companies work with third parties to deliver a brand promise. Here's an experience of how it can go horribly wrong and how the pitfalls can be avoided.

Mentioning no names
This is about a global distribution company, no names mentioned but they have brown livery, retro vehicles and a gold logo.If you still haven't got it, its U**. It was all so straightforward to start with. I sold concert tickets on StubHub, printed out the delivery label of their distribution partner, U**, checked on the shipper's site for the nearest drop-off point and took my package to the point.

Poor service
The drop-off point was not a U** operation. They provide a lot of locations run by independent businesses so customers never have to travel far. It's a great idea. When I arrived, there was no U** branding on site but  I asked to send my package - not much response for the from the sales person who continued to serve other customers in the convenience store whilst dealing with me. After several minutes of  failed attempts to scan the package, I was handed a receipt. I thought no more off it and thought that was that.

Lack of information
The package had not arrived several days later. Trying to track with the receipt I had been given, U**s website couldn't help. It would only track with the code on the package which maddingly, I had not kept a note of. Calls, emails, Tweets to StubHub were responded to but with no hard information from U**. Over a week later, StubHub were able to confirm the that the package had not been delivered because it hadn't been scanned properly at the drop-off point and had not got on U**s system so it wasn't delivered.

Getting it right
Thinking about my experience, companies who sub-contract part of their service should do the following to make sure their brand promise is always delivered:

• Only partner with companies who share share your outlook e.g. great customer service values
• Make sure staff in the partner companies are properly trained and understand the customer service levels expected.
• Make your brand visible in the partner's operation e.g. sticker in window
• Encourage customer feedback of how the partner performs - I haven't been asked.
• Resolve customer concerns quickly - U** didn't

Bye bye Wildfire, hello offerpop?

Those wonderful people at Wildfire provide powerful, easy-to-use social media marketing tools for pages, messages, ads, promotions, monitoring, analytics and more. Lots of marketers though only use one element of their service - the promotions app. It's so popular because it allows you easily and cost effectively to run customers competitions on Facebook.

It has worked really well for this marketer being easy to set-up, offers easy communication with entrants and good analytics. Just as importantly, it means that you are not breaking Facebook's Terms and Conditions. Lots of businesses ignore these when they run a competition on Facebook. It's not worth the risk. Who would want their page taken down without notice?

That all changes on 30 June 2013 when they will cease to offer this stand alone product. Instead, customers will have to subscribe to the full range. Not all customers will want this so it's time to look at the alternatives.

Strutta like Wildfire offers a package of products with no stand alone promotions tool. Their Small Business Plus option allows you to run Facebook competitions - price $199 per month. You can try before you buy with a free 14 day trail

More flexible in it's offer and pricing is offerpop where you can opt for an annual subscription paying monthly - this ranges from free to $675 per month depending on your number of fans or followers. Interestingly, there is a no commit option where you can pay per competition. This costs between nothing ad $425 for a campaign of up to 14 days. There is also a 14 day trial.

Wishpond has a cost effective range of products which start at $19 per month. I recommend the $44 package which allows you to customise the generic competition templates. Free trial also available.

Tesco customer service - work in progress

Tesco boss Philip Clarke's mantra for business success is the same as that as his predecessor Terry Leahy - provide what the customer wants.

Part of Clarke's turnaround plans for the business which has just posted it's first decline in profit in two decades is to enhance customer service. He has acknowledged that there have been too few staff in store in recent years as the company rode the good times of strong consumer spending particularly pre-2008.

Has this produced any noticeable effect for this long term customer? The investment is store refurbishment is noticeable and stores are brighter and more welcoming. If you can't find a product, staff helpfully lead you to it. The experience at the checkout is mixed - sometimes friendly, other times barely any recognition or staff have a private conversation among themselves. Staff also seem a bit embarrassed about saying how much you have saved as part the current price promise. Overall, it's work in progress and if Clarke can get the customer service right, it will be an important element in delivering his improvement plan.