Never a Lack of Ideas

After its great "Customer Appreciation Day" promotion in which Chicagoland Jimmy John's offered sub sandwiches for just $1, I wrote to Jimmy John's and asked them to answer five questions about the promotion. The company graciously responded with the following answers: What were your goals for the promotion and was it a success? Can you give any specifics? The goal of our customer appreciation day was exactly that, to show appreciation to our customers. It¹s sharing the love and thanking our loyal JJ fans for keeping us in business for the past 27 years. Hell yea it was a success, did you see those lines? What type of preparation did you do ahead of time to run the promotion? (Staffing, food preparation, research about other food giveaway promotions, etc.). With last year's disastrous KFC free grilled chicken promotion , I'm highly impressed that you guys pulled off such an awesome food promotion across Chicagoland. You didn't run out of food and your lin...

Subs So Inexpensive You'll Freak On June 10, 2010, Jimmy John's restaurants in the Chicagoland area and Northwest Indiana offered $1 sandwiches from 11:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. as part of Customer Appreciation Day. Unlike the KFC free grilled chicken promotion disaster that occurred last summer (I wrote about it here and here ), this promotion was a huge success. I visited two Jimmy John's in Chicago to check up on the promotion. I visited the one at 28 N. Clark at 11:45 a.m. (view the video above to see the line out the door at that time) and 2:45 p.m. and the one at 216 W. Washington at noon. Both restaurants had massive lines out the door during each of my visits, but the Jimmy John's staff handled the situation beautifully: Neither store ran out of food. My co-worker, who waited in line for 35 minutes to get a $1 sub, reported that employees at the restaurant on Clark were constantly replenishing the supply of fresh vegetables and bread in order to keep customers mov...

On the Hunt The Field Museum in Chicago is currently featuring an exhibit entitled, "Mammoths and Mastodons." To advertise for the exhibit, the museum has converted a double-decker tour bus into a giant wooly mammoth, complete with patches of hair on its sides. I first saw this bus about a month ago and I have spent a lot of time since then trying to track it down in order to shoot the video you see above. An informal poll of my friends and co-workers has proven to me that the bus has generated tons of buzz in the city. Texture Matters The best part about the Wooly Mammoth bus is how its hair shimmers in the wind as the bus cruises down the street -- that's why I wanted to include a video of the bus instead of just a picture. Because of the bus's unique texture, it's impossible not to notice it when it's in motion. Unique textures draw us in and convert ads that engage only our sense of sight into two-dimensional ads that also engage our sense of touch. My co...

One Great Deal Per Day Groupon has experienced tremendous growth because it offers one fantastic deal and one small "side deal" per day to a group of people in selected cities around the country. Yet, Groupon's existing business model only allows for growth in the form of attracting new customers in existing cities or expanding to new cities to attract new customers. Eventually, Groupon will run out of new cities in which to expand, so it needs to find a new way to grow. The solution? Sub-segmentation and targeted offers. Segmented Markets Aren't Good Enough Groupon currently segments its customers by geographic location. Essentially, the company has two key business principles: Offer one featured deal per day on the website, based on the city in which you live. Encourage customers to sign up to receive one email per day about the deals of the day. Herein lies Groupon's dilemma: The company knows that a certain percentage of its customers will not be interested ...

The Perfect Gift Whether it's for personal or business purposes, everyone will love receiving a customized bobblehead doll in their own likeness. Why? Because they start conversations and are downright fun! My family and I just bought my dad a customized bobblehead for his birthday. (Check it out on the right.) He's a teacher and when he brought it into school it was a huge hit. Everyone loved it and wanted to know who gave it to him and where we bought it. We ordered the bobblehead online at www.headbobble.com . There are several other online bobblehead producers. I chose this one because I was able to see a photo of the doll's head before it shipped. We paid extra to give the doll a customized shirt, shorts, and logo on its back. It was totally worth the additional expense. Personalized Gifts are Always Best It takes a great relationship to give someone a customized bobblehead doll. You wouldn't just give a doll to anybody. That's what makes them such great gifts ...

Look Out Below! On Saturday, April 3rd, 2010 (the day before Easter), Faith Lutheran Church in Aurora, IL (that's the church I attend) held an amazing outreach event for the community. At 11:00 a.m., a helicopter hovered next to our church while our pastor dumped 3,000 plastic Easter eggs onto an open field. Hundreds of children from our community then raced out to gather all of the eggs. It was an amazing sight. I was able to take some video of the event and I spliced it with some still photos that my sister took in order to make the video above. Check it out! If You Drop Them, They Will Come Our church used the drop as a great outreach event. We wanted to create some buzz in the community and invite people who might not know about our church to come out and have a fun time without strings attached. We took the idea of a classic Easter egg hunt and made it a big, bad, fantastic spectacle. My favorite part of the event was the fact that out of the 3,000 candy-filled eggs that were...

This is my third of three posts on creative ways to land a marketing internship. Read the first . Read the second . It's Simple This is the easiest of my three suggestions for how to get a marketing internship: write an amazing cover letter. I've read hundreds (thousands?) of marketing internship cover letters, and only a few still stand out in my mind. Your letter must include the following three components, in this order: State that you really want to work at the company and why you want to work there -- be sure to mention how you feel the internship fits into your career goals. Be enthusiastic. Describe why you are the best qualified for the job. Keep it short and to the point. State that no task is too small for you and that you will have a positive attitude no matter what you are asked to do. Do not start your cover letter describing how you are qualified for the job. It's not about you at first – it's about the company and its needs. And the company's most ...