Early this week, I came across an interesting post about a mobile ice cream truck using twitter to let followers know their current location.  A while back I read another post about a local bakery that tweeted when fresh bread came out of the oven.  I have been thinking a lot about the most effective use of Twitter as a tool to connect with customers and how this applies to local business’s.  Everyone wants to jump on the Twitter bandwagon but it might be worthwhile to think about how Twitter can fit into your overall outreach strategy.  You may have a big name brand behind you, and that can help, but how do you create a local presence in this medium?  Here are 3 aspects of your business to consider when thinking about the use of Twitter in your outreach strategy.

T = Time Sensitivity

Some products have greater value based on time sensitivity.  Anything were the product loses value quickly after the time of production/generation or their is a real (or perceived) scarcity aspect to the product.  The bakery scenario above is a perfect example.  People who are big fans of baked goods typically like them fresh, so know this provides value to them.  A new shipment of the newest technical gizmo or video game might be another example based on the scarcity principal.

L = Location Sensitivity

All local business have some level location sensitivity built into their business, however what I mean here is more related to business’s that are mobile, or offer some type of service with physical location is important to the customer.  The mobile ice cream truck mentioned above is an example.  Another example is the Korean BBQ Taco truck.    This doesn’t just have to apply to mobile product sales.  What about hotel shuttle buses on twitter to know when its at the lobby?

C = Costs Sensitivity

Yes, every business has promotions and sales because of course, everyone likes a deal, however that may not be enough for some types of business’s to entice people follow them on twitter.  (although there are exceptions notably in consumer technology).  Cost Sensitivity more likely applies based on the demographic of your customer base, and purchase frequency of your product.  Coupons, specials and offers are very enticing to a cost sensitive demographic, especially if the item is something that is purchased often.  This applies very well to food products and other lower ticket items that require low decision time on the purchase.   

Of course, if you can combine more than one of these element your chance of success becomes even greater.  Think about the Dell Twitter Campaign.  Even though its not a local business Dell has created one of the most successful twitter followings based on the concept of both price and time sensitivity (scarcity).

The key to Twitter and really any social media marketing is to give something of value to your followers.  You need to earn the right to have each and every one of them as your follower.  A twitter account by itself will not guarantee followers.  Figure out the content that your customers will find valuable, and how this can be used in an social media outreach program.  Does TLC apply to your business?  

I am proud to announce that Quiznos has selected the Balihoo platform to drive all marketing at a local level. The

marketing department at Quiznos has been looking for an integrated solution to drive demand at the local level and when they found Balihoo it was a perfect fit. The Balihoo platform will provide the 4000+ franchise owners of Quiznos with a simple to use, yet powerful marketing platform to both create and execute campaigns across 14 different media types from Television to Pay Per Click, In-Store to E-mail.

Quiznos is a very forward thinking franchise and has recognized the fact that high quality local marketing is critical to the success of their organization and their franchisees. We are thrilled that they have identified Balihoo as their solution to implementing national quality marketing at the local level.

Bringing Quiznos on to the platform continues our long string of growth, which we have been able to sustain even during these difficult economic times. You can read more about the win here

Joel Libava, aka “The Franchise King“, posts a valuable blog post on the OPEN FORUM at American Express:  Franchise Execs, Are You Planning For An Upturn?

Lots of good tips for franchise organizations looking to capitalize on an economic turnaround, of course my favorite is:

“You may want to get your franchisee’s local marketing activities more automated. I found some folks who specialize in this through Twitter. Check out Balihoo.com “

On the heels of our recent successful on-time launch of the next version of our Local Marketing Automation platform, I though I would go back and revisit what we have accomplished over the past few months and some of what lead up to this initiative.

From a macro perspective, it might actually be considered almost textbook SaaS (Software as a Service)development: Build and prototype quickly, get customers early, get feedback, drive to early revenue, continue iterating the product features and re-architect the technology in a just-in-time fashion.  Then, of course add in your typical startup constraints - budget limitations, resource constraints, just to spice things up!

Let me first take you back to the dog days of summer in August 08 when we launch what might now be called the beta release of our Local Marketing Automation platform (although we resisted the convention of actually calling it a beta) with our first set of customers.  The application showed immediate value, and our user base grew quickly.  However, by December of 2008, it became obvious that from an operational and scale perspective we had a few issues that might get worse given our current trajectory.  Additionally, aggregated customer support call data indicated a number of recurring themes, in addition to feedback from the field with potential clients showing some leading indicators of potential cracks that might become problematic when our growth track continued.  All of these diverse data points were indicating a need for a larger revolutionary overhaul over the current evolutionary development model.

January 2009: In addition to our standard ongoing iterative development process, we began brainstorming ideas for how the application could be redesigned to make a revolutionary leap forward.  We did this with a user-centric approach, starting at the user interface and worked backwards into more of the technical aspects of the design.  Even though our product falls under the B2B application space, our focus was to designing it for a B2C user from a design and usability perspective.  We wanted to make the application intuitive and usable, without the need for extensive training.  We first looked at other sites that were popular on the web that had related functions and worked well in the consumer world.  We then took these design concepts, mixed them with our domain expertise and applied them to our product.  This first produced a few hand drawn mocks, followed with some more functional screen flows put together in PowerPoint.

Next, we shopped these around to our all teams internally - sales, marketing with a deep focused on the groups that interacted with the app and our customers directly (inside sales, account mgmt, support).  They were our best window to our customers without the time or luxury for extensive market research.  Along with this, we presented the conceptual flows to our current client base.  From here, we moved forward by presenting the concepts to a select set of actual end-user customers identified by our account management team.  Looking back at my files there were at least a dozen major revisions through these prototyping exercises with many many more minor tweaks.

Now that we had a good idea of where we were going, the next step was to engage our creative team, who then gave the life to our wire-frames as they would appear in the real application.  This also served as an exercise in breaking down our interface into named visual components to support a common language when talking with our technical team.  This turned out to be a critical factor in ensuring we could develop the solution at breakneck speed.

So, to give some perspective - we did all of the above over a 2.5 month timeframe through Mid-March as a side project, while we still continuing to do iterative development to enhance the existing product (being extremely careful not to develop things that would likely be thrown away with the upcoming redesign).

In March we started working with our technical team on design to see what the new concepts would mean to the underlying architecture (data and business logic).  It indicated large changes - but for the better.  We would be able to throw out a lot of things and build new structures that would support our customers more effectively.  (In the end 80+% of our data structure and code base would be rebuilt).

In April we started the first of two formal development sprints with stabilization periods between each that would span a total of approximately 12 weeks.  In that periods of time, the product and development teams (with the support of the rest of the company) carried out a Herculean effort of rapid design and development - making constant adjustments as new issues arose.

About 4 weeks into the effort we locked down our release date to June 15.  This was critical to support ongoing sales efforts and work with clients to support their internal planning.  Due to the large number of dependencies and the scope of the change, about 6 weeks in, we had to start managing the overall effort with more of a ‘traditional software project management’ technique to incorporate all of the other pieces required for a release of this magnitude (customer transition & training efforts, outbound communication, cross company testing etc.)  However, at the core we continued to follow agile development principals, and the agile mind-set.

The cut-over was planned on a weekend, to give us the most time to react to any issues with the deployment.  We used almost all of the hours in that weekend to upgrade, convert customer data and validate to ensure a successful go-live on Monday morning.  On Monday June 15 the latest release of our Local Marketing Automation platform went live! … breath.

In retrospect, here is what I would consider to be our 5 key success factors for this redesign:

• Relentless focus on the customer, and letting form drive function
• Domain knowledge backed up with real world experience from the beta allowing us to design/build rapidly and make fast decisions
• Fanatical focus on prioritization to time-box the effort
• A passionate product and engineering team with a ‘lets getr done’ attitude
• An all hands on deck mentality across the company to support the product release where and when needed

Within days of launch, feedback has started rolling in from the our support team and through our customer transition/training webinars being held.  Here is a quote our support team received on day 2:

“I just wanted to say thank you for what you’ve done with the tool.  I had a list of things that I wanted to see changed, and this new version has covered almost all of them.  I really appreciate the changes you’ve made.  It is a lot more user friendly.”

Of course you can never sit on your laurels for very long as constant improvement is a must to stay competitive, but at the end of the day this is really what product development is all about. A satisfied, excited customer.

Since moving to Boise, a drier climate than my native home of Seattle, I’ve discovered I have an affliction I never knew existed: allergies.  Now a simple morning ritual such as putting on mascara has me sneezing and itching my swollen eyes. And like most young professionals, getting to the doctor’s office for a basic visit to treat allergies is nearly impossible given the hectic work week.  So what do I do? I go online and search every keyword combination I can imagine, scour chat rooms, visit WebMD, and research the merits of Zyrtec and antihistamine eye drops before finally deciding to visit a physician.

I am definitely no expert on allergies and certainly have no business trying to self-diagnose and develop a treatment plan, but given the vast amount of information we now have at our fingertips, I found that I am not alone.  Even my grandmother is researching arthritis treatments and denture options before visiting a professional.  A new study published by Pew Internet and American Life Project found the 61% of Americans, up from 25% in 2000, now look to the internet to research health options along with traditional means.  In addition, they are making decisions based on what they read; 60% reported that the information they found online affected a decision on how they treat an illness or condition.

http://www.marketingcharts.com/interactive/61-of-american-adults-seek-online-medical-info-9464/

Now more than ever we are managing our health care options like we organize the family trip to Italy, and health care professionals need to take notice, follow the trend, and consider altering their communication strategy.

I was shocked when searching for an allergist in Boise and not one physician or clinic had sponsored links on Google.  Don’t the clinics realize that as a young adult this is the only way I know how to find a service?  Yellow pages – it goes straight in the recycle bin.  Website and search opmtization are a safe place for medical providers to begin advertising. Once you start to see call volume increase it may be time to consider proactively getting your message in front of patients. I get plenty of junk mail from Bed Bath and Beyond and the local grocer and would welcome a piece on treating allergies when the pollen count exceeds 1,000.

I don’t watch too much TV.  Throughout my life, I’ve really only consistently watched three shows – Mash, Cheers, and Seinfeld.  Pretty sad.  Since Seinfeld went off the air in ‘98, I haven’t regularly “tuned in” to anything except baseball.  Advertisers haven’t been able to easily reach me on television, but I have begun watching one show pretty regularly – The Colbert Report.  All politics aside, I just love his dry sense of humor and witticisms.

So, if you want to advertise to me on TV, you have only one choice: Comedy Central at 10:30 MST.  I prefer to see advertising for fly fishing gear, or any other outdoor gear for that matter – more realistically, I’d probably respond to some travel-related stuff or maybe a cheaper way to buy Gillette Fusion razor blades, but I am yet to see any of it on Comedy Central.  That’s probably because the typical advertiser on Comedy Central is trying to reach the younger male 18-34 demographic, which is one of the more coveted demos – and of course, one of the most expensive to reach.

Reading a recent Forbes.com post really opened my eyes to the shifting demographics of late night/news television.  According to Forbes, the number of viewers between 18 and 34 watching Colbert and Stewart dropped 15% and 14%, respectively over the last year.  This would be considered relatively bad news for the television network (Viacom owns Comedy Central) – but it’s important data for advertisers.

Colbert is categorized into the “late night talk show” category.  Based on the Forbes article, here are the average ages for male viewers between May 2008 and May 2009:

• The Colbert Report 38.3 (up five years)
• The Daily Show (Jon Stewart) 41.4 (up five years)
• The Late Show (Letterman)  54
• Tonight Show (Leno – before O’Brien) 55

The takeaway for advertisers: if you are trying to reach a slightly older male demo, you may want to consider these cable shows.  They may give you a fresh place to run your ads.  But, be careful, the younger audience may still be “priced in” to the rates – so just make sure you’re getting a good deal for your ad dollars.  Over time, keep your eyes on the ratings data as I would expect Comedy Central tries to skew back toward a younger demo to be more consistent with its overall programming.

Latest Balihoo release delivers a simplified, consolidated marketing platform that allows distributed marketers to plan, customize, execute and report on local marketing activities across all marketing channels.

June 16, 2009 — Balihoo, the premier provider of Local Marketing Automation technology and services to franchises and national brands with local marketing needs, announced today that it has finalized the roll-out of a completely upgraded solution across all of its customers.

“This release incorporates the feedback of thousands of local affiliates and delivers on the promise of effective and simple marketing at the local level,” said Kevin Donaldson, Balihoo’s Director of Product Management. “We’re providing the ability for national brands to translate marketing strategies into local execution, seamlessly.”

Key features of this new release:

“Balihoo now supports planning, customization, execution and analysis across fourteen fully-integrated media and marketing channels,” continued Donaldson. “This release represents a significant shift in how national brands will drive local demand through their affiliate networks, bringing true enterprise-class marketing to the local level.”

About Balihoo
Balihoo (www.balihoo.com) is the premier provider of Local Marketing Automation technology and services to franchises and national brands with local marketing needs. Balihoo brings enterprise-class marketing to the local level and gives national brands full visibility into all local marketing activities and results.

Learn more about Balihoo and Local Marketing Automation by requesting the Local Marketing Automation white paper at www.balihoo.com/lma.

One of our Core Values is Work-Life Passion.  To get to know one another better, we share our passions on a regular basis in the form of a company event - pretty much anything goes: whether it be white water rafting, roping dummies, or eating pancakes.  Last week, our resident accountant shared his passion for Dutch oven cooking.  We took off to Ann Morrison Park on a stormy afternoon and feasted on the culinary genius of Mr. Steve Nett.  Equipped only with charcoal briquettes and cast iron, he created  3 delicious desserts: apple crisp, berry cobbler, and a chocolate marshmallow madness.  Thanks, Dutch Brother!

Weaver’s Flooring America, a franchise location of retailer Flooring America, was featured in “All About ROI” magazine this month for using Balihoo’s Local Marketing Automation platform to drive demand gen in their local market. 

The full article can be read here:  http://www.allaboutroimag.com/article/marketing-platform-lets-national-franchisee-focus-local-roots-407579_2.html 

Congrats to the Weaver’s team and Chad Nussbaum for this great press and for taking advantage of this down market to strategically approach their media and marketing efforts! 

For 2.5 years now, we at Balihoo have applied, practiced, refined and tweaked agile development concepts to create a highly functioning and well oiled product development process.  Yes, we still have issues - the real world and a constantly changing marketplace will do that to you.  Our process is still evolving to this day and will continue to do so to support the changing face of our company, but in general it is stable and predictable which is a great feat as anyone in software will tell you.

Our chosen path for product development started with a flavor of Agile called Scrum.  You see Agile is not a methodology as some might suggest - it is a mind-set.  At its core it is about

• Individuals and interactions over processes and tools
• Customer collaboration over contract negotiation
• Responding to change over following a plan

I say we started with a flavor of Agile called Scrum.  The thing is  - every company and situation are different.  People who fail with Agile are looking for a cookbook.  Agile, Scrum, XP or any of the other buzzwords thrown around are not cookbooks, and if you try and treat them as such you will end up abandoning the concept as ‘great idea but won’t work here’.  It takes effort, experimentation, and hard work to figure out what works best in any organization, but the payoffs can be great.

One of the key concepts used in Scrum that we have kept, is the concept of a morning stand up or more affectionately known as the morning scrum.   At its core the morning scrum is really a communication tool with an underlying theme of self organization.  It is focused on:

• shared commitment
• communicating daily status, progress and plans
• identifying obstacles so the team can take steps to remove them
• setting direction and focus
• building a team

On the surface, it might sound like any other meeting, but it is much more than that.  (You can learn more about how a morning standup/scrum is organized in software development here)  For example, it takes place  every morning, everyone stands, its only 15 minutes, and its organized around 3 basic questions. They are:

• What did I accomplish yesterday?
• What do I plan to accomplish today?
• What roadblocks or issues are standing in my way ?

There is actually a 4th one that could be used at the manager scrum: What other teams will I impact by what I am doing?

As an organization we decided that it might be worth adopting this concept across all teams in the organization separately.  Of course it would need to lose some of the software development nuances, but again - thinking about underlying concepts and purpose we thought it would be an excellent tool for other/all groups to increase the rate of communication without sacrificing time,  drive issue ownership and resolution more quickly, and generally get the day going with a bang.

Now, a few weeks into this experiment we have all teams carrying out a planning exercises (mostly on a calendar month basis), track ’stories’ (goals) on a visual board and communicate status to their teammates with with a standup each morning.  I know that some will say: ‘That wouldn’t work for us because of the work we do’….  We have account management, sales and even our creative development team trying and adapting the concept.

In addition the management team is also doing it as well, which comes with additional challenges due to the typical cross functional nature of the work, the sheer diversity of items worked on, and ensuring that we  do not duplicate items that are already being managed by sub teams.

(Image: Balihoo Mgmt Team Scrum Tracking board)

Everyone is still trying to figure out how to make the concept best work for their teams, but early feedback is already positive.  For example, At the management level, we have dropped our bi-weekly mgmt meetings now, and they only come on the calendar for special topics.  We have had a number of people in the organization say that the morning scrums get everyone energized and focused for the day, and almost universally everyone agrees that the near real time, quick view of what’s going on around, helps keep important information flowing and helps drive issues to resolution much faster.

Only time will tell how things evolve and change, but for now we will continue to iterate and adapt the process to fit our demanding organizational needs.   Many startups call themselves agile as a synonym to chaos, however with simple tools like the morning scrum, it can start to feel a little more organized and maintaining or even increasing the organizations agility.