Tag Archives: Christmas

The Genius Behind Small Business Saturday

Small Business Saturday is held annually on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Looking at that another way, it’s sandwiched between Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday.

Small Business Saturday Rocks

I heard people talking about Small Business Saturday days before Black Friday kicked-off. That’s pretty impressive, considering that it was launched less than a decade ago.

Small businesses like it. Folks who support small businesses like it, and who doesn’t like small? Local businesses have a reputation for the kind of personal service that you might not receive from a bureaucracy or impersonal multinational corporation.

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What You Can Learn from how Costco and Consumer Reports Deal With Quitters

I’ve been simplifying my life, which included a cancellation binge. I cancelled my Consumer Reports subscription, and allowed my Costco membership to lapse.

Deafening Silence

Costco logoI was puzzled that Costco never made any effort to find out why I was no longer a member, and never even acknowledged my departure as a customer. Their emails kept coming, and when I unsubscribed from those there was again a deafening silence.

My experience with Consumer Reports was completely the opposite. I unsubscribed online and was immediately surveyed as to why I was leaving, how they could do better, and whether I’d consider coming back. They even asked if I’d be interested in joining a focus group with fellow ex-subscribers.

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When Marketing Doesn’t Feel Like Advertising

When is the last time you watched a TV commercial more than once. On purpose.

321,837 YouTube ViewsWhile I was skipping past commercials during a program I’d recorded, one ad caught my eye. I actually skipped back to watch this “Holiday Surprise” commercial from Kohl’s. I was touched, and checked-out the #ShowKindness hashtag shown at the end of the video.

It hit a chord with me and I checked if the video was on YouTube. Clearly it resonated with many other people, since it had been watched hundreds of thousands of times. After watching it a couple more times, I shared it across several social media sites, like this post on Twitter:

Why Such a Big Impact?

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