McDonald’s France marketing division aired it’s first ad in a series called “Come as You Are” created in an effort to celebrate the diversity of the French culture. The first ad depicts a young boy dealing with his homosexuality. Although this series of ads will only air in France, it has still stirred up controversy across the globe. While some find it distasteful, others relish it in its ability to avoid stereotyping.
“We’re very comfortable with the topic of homosexuality,” said Nathalie Legarlantezec marketing director of McDonald’s France, “There is obviously no problem with homosexuality in France today.”
What do you think of this ad campaign? Would the United States audience be as open minded about sexual preferences being associated with their Big Macs? Comment below!
While there can be appropriate use of discounts, I almost always encourage clients to provide customers with an Added Value rather than a discount. For example, let’s say Paul’s Pizza regularly sells a large pizza for $15. In a tough economy he wants to maintain his regular sales volume. Paul discounts his large pizza to $12. He sells pizza and the tough economy continues for a full year. After a year, the customer is programmed to spending only $12 for a large pizza. Now Paul is going to have a tough time get his regular price back up to $15 — where it was a full year ago. Instead, Paul might consider adding value to his $15 package. “Buy a large pizza for $15 and a get a free bottle of soda.” Could be free breadsticks. Or both. As the economy improves, Paul can slowly remove the freebies, while maintaining his long-standing price of $15.
What’s your newsletter doing for you? If done right, it’s a powerful tool to stay in front of customers and prospects so they come to you when they’re ready to buy or donate. Are your readers looking forward to your next issue? Is your newsletter getting solid opens and clicks? If you want more response to your newsletter,here are some ways you can get content that will better engage your readers.
Include polls and share results. This is one of my personal favorites. It’s easy enough to do in our product, and what’s so great is that in addition to giving you content, a poll makes your newsletter fun and interactive. For example, you could ask: How do you spend most of your time online? People always wonder how other people answered. Once readers click to participate they will be able to see immediately how others answered. That get’s the audience engaged with the newsletter, and it also gets content for your next issue. In the next newsletter comment on the final results so people will know if they answered in the minority or majority. You can try a sample poll for yourself and see the results.
Have a question & answer section. Give your readers an opportunity to click and submit questions, and then provide them the answers they’re looking for in upcoming issues. The block could say: Have a Question? Let us help! Submit a question and get expert advice in the next issue. And just have that text link them to an online survey where they can type their question in. That not only gets you content that you know they’re interested in, but it’s a way to position yourself as the expert, that go-to resource. You could also use this as trivia. Put a question out there and then publish the right answer in the next issue with the percentage of people who actually got it right along with any unusual answers.
Provide a feedback section. Have a standard block that says: Are you enjoying this newsletter? Tell us what you want or Help us Improve this Newsletter where readers can regularly give you feedback. Just include a link that opens up an online survey. Here are lots of good survey questions you might want to ask to get some content ideas. You might even find a guest columnist to save yourself some effort.
Since your newsletter is something your subscribers receive on a regular basis, you have the opportunity to regularly provide them value. Give them information that you know they want and that’s really geared towards entertaining and educating them. That will keep them opening your messages, it will continue to build your relationship with them, and it will keep you top of mind so they want to come to you when they’re ready to buy or donate. Comments, questions? Just click the comment link below. Until next time, happy growing!
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