Since New Year’s Eve is on a Saturday I thought that, if I was going to travel to a public New Year's Eve event in another city, this would be the year.
I started with a look at London and was impressed to find that they had the band Glass Tiger as well as lots of events throughout the night. Because my new girlfriend is a big fan of Disney I thought the 7 pm Disney event would be up her alley. Even the 9 pm children's fireworks display gives one a double helping of fireworks.
Next was Waterloo. I was surprised to find out that their three New Year’s Events didn't go till midnight. One went till 10 pm and the other two events were over by 9 pm.
Further down the road is Mississauga. When I first checked their website in early December I read a message saying that they had spent millions updating their central city park and that they would hold a New Year’s Eve Event this year. The message made it sound like there was nothing left in the budget to afford a staff member the time to add any details on their New Year's Eve event. Last time I checked they had added some local bands to play at the event.
Toronto to my surprise is having country star George Canyon as their main entertainer. This is a surprising choice-having a country star in the most urban place in Canada. The City of Toronto website provides very little details on the event other then it runs from 10 pm till midnight and that City TV will be helping host the event this year. Considering the amount that Toronto spends on tourism one would have thought they could have afforded to put more details on their website for anyone from out of town looking to attend.
My decision is that I'm going to stay in London this New Year’s Eve and enjoy the festivities. Congratulations to the City of London staff for doing a great job preparing for this event and publishing the details.
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
Wasting Your Marketing Dollars
Marketing is essentially about telling the market about your product. This is done primarily through advertising. Now I have taken a few breaks over the last week and been able to watch some television shows. During the commercials I saw Lowe's TV advertisement for their exclusive offer with Kobalt, the Kobalt Double Drive. The Bob Villa like pitchman made this look like the most amazing screwdriver on the planet with its double drive technology that drive forward when your ratcheting backwards. I was sold on this being the Christmas gift of the century. Well, tonight after a long hard day at the surplus shop I drove across town to the Hyde Park plaza and went to Lowe's store. I was amazed at how empty the parking lot was for a 200,000 square foot store, but I guess that could have been blamed on the fact it was a Monday. When I get in the store the friendly return clerk rushes to greet me. I tell her what I'm looking for and she beckons the tool expert. The tool expert tells me that they are sold out of the Kobalt Double Drive. All that expensive TV advertising to try to sell something that only brings in $20 (in comparison to an expensive air compressor) and they weren't even able to get me to buy anything. I walked out empty handed. The marketing did its job; unfortunately they didn't have the stock to back up the promotion. Now I got home and thought perhaps it was just that one store and I should be able to go online and try to find this product on their website. Sadly no, I was unable to find the product on the website. All that money gone into expensive television ads and they don't even have the product on their website. Local London TV ads can cost as much as $1,000 a piece for a 30 second spot.
Given the tremendous expense it amazes me that a business would not make sure it has enough product in stock before launching the ad campaign. Marketers remember the next time you get dazzled by the bright lights of TV or the sound of radio think about the total cost and whether or not you have the stock or the distribution system to match the demand. By doing that you can turn advertising costs into net profits.
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Funclips Updated for 2012
If you live in the GTA than it's essential to that you get a copy of the 2012 Funclips coupon book. These books are filled with coupons for restaurants, entertainment places, automotive service centers and more. Each book contains different coupons. For example the Barrie coupon book features several golf coupons, while the Toronto coupon book has more restaurant coupons in it.
This year when updating the coupon book Franz the owner of Funclips had a unique idea to have a oval shaped deal image that would have the coupon detail information in the title tag. This means that all a potential customer would have to do is just hover over the deal image to see the coupon offer. I think it's a brilliant way to avoid making the customer have to scroll down to the bottom of the webpage to read the additional coupon information. It will be interesting to see how this affects sales.
This year when updating the coupon book Franz the owner of Funclips had a unique idea to have a oval shaped deal image that would have the coupon detail information in the title tag. This means that all a potential customer would have to do is just hover over the deal image to see the coupon offer. I think it's a brilliant way to avoid making the customer have to scroll down to the bottom of the webpage to read the additional coupon information. It will be interesting to see how this affects sales.
Monday, November 7, 2011
New Website Launched
We just launched a website for my mom's mobile hair styling business. One thing I've learned from being the Forest City Surplus Webmaster is the more unique a product the better the results seem to be from having the product on the Internet. I'm hoping that my mother's unique service of providing mobile hair styling to seniors in the comfort of their own home will benefit out of town relatives who are trying to find a hair stylist for their relative in London. You can view the website at http://www.mobilehairstyling.ca
Sunday, November 6, 2011
What I Learned from Running in the Election
As many of you know I decided back in the spring to step down from the CIPS London Section presidency to run for the MPP position in the 2011 Ontario general election.
I learned quite a bit from the experience and have to say that I feel improved by going through the exercise. I'm amazed at how my writing skills improved as I filled out the numerous surveys and prepared answers for potential debate questions. By the end of the election believe I was at the point where it was getting pretty difficult for me to get stumped on any question from reporter or constituent.
The entire experience gave me a chance to get to know London better. For instance I was surprised to find out going to White Hills that the LCBO and The Beer Store on some nights aren't open that late. On Mondays both are closed by 6 pm. On Tuesday and Wednesday the LCBO store is closed by 6 pm. as most retail operations are open on Sunday, I was surprised to find out that the White Hills LCBO was closed that day. In talking with White Hills residents it was easy to garner support towards Freedom Party's plan for allowing the Sherwood Forest Mall Metro (or any other grocery store in Ontario) to be granted the ability to sell beer, wine, and spirits. As this is my first time running in London-West I made a point of making sure I went to all the different neighborhoods on my door knocking adventures. I was surprised to find that the neighbourhoods of Oakridge, White Hills, Westmount, Byron, Old South, Southcrest, and River Bend each had a different feel to them. Doing the door knocking reminded me of my days as a door-to-door salesman back when I was in high school and how much I miss meeting with people at their homes.
The experience of going through the debates did wonders for sharpening my mental skills in getting me to be able to answer quickly on my feet. During this experience I had my first opportunity to be on television. It was an interesting experience being in the Rogers TV studio. I was surprised by the soundproof environment and the lack of feedback one experiences when being on TV. I see why many TV shows are still made with studio audiences as not getting the feedback to your words is an unusual experience. Even the small details amazed me. As the debate was filmed without any commercial breaks I found it interesting that the camera operator remained completely silent during the hour long production.
For the past few weeks I have been returning my focus back to my clients' Link 2 Realty and Funclips coupons. I will also be working on expanding my operations so that after mid-November I will be accepting new clients for my Internet marketing consultancy.
I learned quite a bit from the experience and have to say that I feel improved by going through the exercise. I'm amazed at how my writing skills improved as I filled out the numerous surveys and prepared answers for potential debate questions. By the end of the election believe I was at the point where it was getting pretty difficult for me to get stumped on any question from reporter or constituent.
The entire experience gave me a chance to get to know London better. For instance I was surprised to find out going to White Hills that the LCBO and The Beer Store on some nights aren't open that late. On Mondays both are closed by 6 pm. On Tuesday and Wednesday the LCBO store is closed by 6 pm. as most retail operations are open on Sunday, I was surprised to find out that the White Hills LCBO was closed that day. In talking with White Hills residents it was easy to garner support towards Freedom Party's plan for allowing the Sherwood Forest Mall Metro (or any other grocery store in Ontario) to be granted the ability to sell beer, wine, and spirits. As this is my first time running in London-West I made a point of making sure I went to all the different neighborhoods on my door knocking adventures. I was surprised to find that the neighbourhoods of Oakridge, White Hills, Westmount, Byron, Old South, Southcrest, and River Bend each had a different feel to them. Doing the door knocking reminded me of my days as a door-to-door salesman back when I was in high school and how much I miss meeting with people at their homes.
The experience of going through the debates did wonders for sharpening my mental skills in getting me to be able to answer quickly on my feet. During this experience I had my first opportunity to be on television. It was an interesting experience being in the Rogers TV studio. I was surprised by the soundproof environment and the lack of feedback one experiences when being on TV. I see why many TV shows are still made with studio audiences as not getting the feedback to your words is an unusual experience. Even the small details amazed me. As the debate was filmed without any commercial breaks I found it interesting that the camera operator remained completely silent during the hour long production.
For the past few weeks I have been returning my focus back to my clients' Link 2 Realty and Funclips coupons. I will also be working on expanding my operations so that after mid-November I will be accepting new clients for my Internet marketing consultancy.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Sorry for the lack of updates but I've been busy
When I started this blog I didn't think that I would have so few updates, but I have been busy with CIPS activities, working on my clients' websites, (Funclips Coupon books and Link 2 Realty) as well as getting ready to run in the next provincial election for Freedom Party.
As well, my day job at Forest City Surplus we're in the middle of a major website upgrade as well. Our new shopping cart will offer some major upgrades over the previous one and I'm looking forward to seeing that going live. One of the main upgrades is it will start accepting payments through PayPal. It'll be interesting to see if we get the 20% boost the PayPal says happens when companies start accepting payments through PayPal.
As well, my day job at Forest City Surplus we're in the middle of a major website upgrade as well. Our new shopping cart will offer some major upgrades over the previous one and I'm looking forward to seeing that going live. One of the main upgrades is it will start accepting payments through PayPal. It'll be interesting to see if we get the 20% boost the PayPal says happens when companies start accepting payments through PayPal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
