New Changes

So it has been about two years since I last worked on this blog. The Mirth Cafe is still in business but no longer online. As part of an effort to get the business back on track it is my new goal to post at least once a day. Out here in KS, a bunch of highly motivated bloggers are doing some pretty damn good work, and I thought that I should at least try to work myself back into shape.

Which leads me to my thought for the day. The Mirth Cafe was a little coffee shop I was hired to do some marketing for in the hopes of building some additional business.

I decided that the shop should have a website and advertise online as a way of getting the word out about the store. We also handed out flyers at the local campus, and instituted customer comment cards in house.

The flyers served a purpose, but without any sort of takeaway or “meaningful” information, the fliers did not much more than briefly introduce the store to students. Having looked back at the numbers, it was almost negligible.

The comment cards helped, but looking back at it, we should have made the cards line up much more with forward thinking objectives with the store instead of the traditional “Who was your server?”, “How was your meal?”, etc. I believe the cards would have been more successful if customers were asked what changes they would have liked to see to the menu AND if the cards had been followed up with a coupon as a thank you.

The last thing that I think didn’t work well was the website. These days any small business needs to have a site, but the real beauty of it is how you use it and how you build a following with it.

Having the menu online is good for new visitors, and advertising in local newspaper or community sites is great (for low costs btw), but websites for small businesses need to incorporate functionality like Facebook, Myspace, and Twitter to keep the audience informed. Using a posting service like ping.fm is an amazing tool for store owners to not only keep their customers informed, but to also help achieve the holy rail of marketing their business with new recommendations for customers from other existing ones.

Thats all I got now. Keep you posted.

Otaku …

It’s been w little while but things have been very busy around here (2 new sites coming soon!) and I wanted to post something before I lost my motivation.  This video below is from the TED convention and features Seth Godin, a respected marketing guru, talking about sliced bread and other marketing ideas.  The video is fantastic because it talks about marketing in a sense that I think most business just isn’t comfortable with.  

If the video isn’t up here is the link.

What makes this video really appealing to me is a little thing I saw last week.  I was shopping with the girlfriend in the Legends, and we decided to get some food.  After we got out of the car, I noticed that the parking stripes in the mall were actually sponsored by a company.  The company’s name was bright and shiny on the parking stripe to help draw attention to the fact that the safe parking experience was possible by XXX.  I won’t give the name, but it was a great example of how mass marketing is struggling to find new methods.  I wondered how many people, if any, would decide to look up the business because it was nice enough to establish the parking lines in the lot.

Rock Chalk, Jayhawks!

It was a great weekend.  Went to Manhattan and saw my beloved Hawks beat K-state 30-24 and secure a top 25 ranking for the first time in 11 years.

Having worked for the team during th 2002 season and sitting through an 2-10 mess, it was an awesome feeling to know that KU has now turned the corner and is a competitive team wherever they go.

It toook about six years, but Mangino’s goal has finally started to become reality.  It shows me how hard work really can get the job done.  You may not see results right away, but I think it’s important to recognize what you have accomplished every now and then.

Next week, KU takes on Baylor at home.  With a win KU will start 6-0 for the first time ever and be bowl eligible.  Making holiday travel arrangements in the middle of October is a problem that I would like to get used to. 

Today’s work …

Well, today we updated the menu portion of mirthcafe.com and I am pleased to say that it only took about an hour when I had all the images in place.  Getting the actual scans from them menu took two hours by itself, but once I got that straightened out, it was relatively smooth sailing. 

It’s by no means done in my mind.  I’d still like to add a Flash application for the gallery feature and rework the menu organization, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

Also continued to work with the Myspace.com site.  Forgot how much spam comes to the site manager, but I’m very hopeful that it can become a cost-effective avenue for marketing.  After 15 minutes I have sent out a couple of friend invites and added myself, but I believe the true rewards will come 3-6 months down the road when it begins to build some momentum.  As for Facebook, it will be interesting to see how Mirthcafe.com could utilize the network much like we plan for Myspace.com.

I also thought to myself the power of the net with a restaurants (or maybe a clubs) long wine/liquor list.  Especially for restaurants, being able to have a site where future patrons can truly learn about wine BEFORE eating at the restaurant leads to an anticipation that can only help the brand.  A wine teaching “widget” on a restaurant website could be a useful and buzzworthy tool for an owner.

The coyotes are howling, so its time to go to bed.  Take care…

If you ever get bored …

http://www.sp-studio.de/ is a great place to waste 5 mins.  This is what I came up with, and I have to say I don’t look bad

Check out our newest site!

After weeks of planning and work, www.mirthcafe.com is now online.  Check it out and let me kow what you think.

How do you Darkhorse?

Hey there all …  this is the new blog for Darkhorse Communications.  As a digital communications agency, a blog is not only the thing to have but also a nice way to experiment with new media.

 Stay tuned for more, well, stuff.  It will even be worth reading!  

Hello world!

What’s the word?