Personal » Stand Aside

Marketing specifics from Vegas and tires

: Image via Wikipedia

I read a post this morning. This post –> What Vegas can teach you about Marketing. The author makes 3 key points about very public aspects of Las Vegas. I’ll reiterate just to make a few conclusions of my own.

1. The “Player’s Card” – A rewards card of sorts which gains points and rewards the more money you spend gambling in a casino. It seems like it works very much like credit cards with rewards programs. I have a credit card which gains points for every dollar I spend. Kind of depressing to look at how many rewards points I have because it directly translates to spent cash but so it goes. The key point in the situation as a marketer is to reward the behavior you desire. Go Pavlov on your customers!

2. “Comps” – Complimentary goods, services, or activities provided to customers. Similar to the Player’s Card in the sense that it is a reward of sorts. Casino give you comps to keep you in the casinos and spending money. Lesson in customer retention. Keep your customers in front of your product/service as much as possible. Do whatever it takes to keep them there, spending as much as you can afford.

3. Entry Points – Las Vegas casinos have at least half a dozen entrances. Make it easy for your customers to find you and to move on. This is my favorite and translates directly to social media.

I see the social media world on the internet as a billion points of light being born, connected, dying, and reborn again and again. By allowing users to enter and exit from as many points as possible gives maximum exposure to that which matters to the user. Even if you are not a destination on the web, being an avenue or conduit to something even better will earn credibility. Essentially that’s the model for teaching, education, the passing on of knowledge. Come into my classroom, take what you will, exit and find something even better.

As a side-note, I have a winter tire experience that I’d like to share with you. I ordered winter tires from a popular company, TireRack.com. I ordered through a phone sales agent because I’d rather talk to a person when ordering something expensive and important. Everything seemed fine until a week later and my tires still hadn’t arrived. Any calls? Nope. Any emails? No… wait… maybe one. Ah on the 7th day I received an email from TireRack stating that I am getting a refund for less than the cost of my tires. What?! I ordered tires because I want them, not because I wanted to receive a refund for less than I paid! There wasn’t even any reason on the email as to why the refund was being initiated. Turns out my dealership had closed mid-week, refused to accept the tires, didn’t call me, TireRack refunded, also didn’t call me, and I am driving around on summer performance tires in snowy, slushy blizzards. Safe to say I was pretty pissed. Talked to TireRack customer service who were very accommodating. Shipped my tires out to a verified dealer, free of freight charges. Shitty part is that I spun out on the highway, cracking my front bumper the very night before I was scheduled to get the snow tires on the car. Now that’s tough luck By the way, I love going to Las Vegas!

Relaxing, semi-ambient, semi-rocking electronic music – Album Recommendation: The Flashbulb – Soundtrack to a Vacant Life

Following focus

Image via WikipediaI'd like to briefly pay tribute to the new state of the American People. President Barack Obama was inaugurated today at a historic event where almost 2 million citizens were in attendance, stretching two miles out across the National Mall. The U.S. is finally ready to be acknowledged as a respected influencer and not as a feared imperialistic child whom everyone is scared of when it throws temper tantrums after its candy cane has been licked.

Ok. Maybe a bit of an overstatement. All in all, I'm excited to see where we're going as a nation.

Moving on with things I'd like to fill you in on my new direction for this blog. I want to provide tips and motivation on starting a career in advertising and marketing. I will be using situations from my own life and plan on continuing the conversation as I move along in my own career. I've chosen this niche topic because it is something I can continue to actively write about. Also I feel that its a welcome sight to the sad state of the U.S. job market. Any thoughts you have on this new direction would be really appreciated.

In the next few weeks posts will more than likely be link-posts. I'm designing and constructing a new, hosted blog which I've deduced is cheaper than my current setup. It also gives me more control and greater degree of customization. I'm also going to be practicing content for this new niche so please let me know what you think.

Refocus

Image by Fr Antunes via FlickrIts time I refocus my blogging efforts. I've been having trouble creating meaningful content on a regular basis for Stand Aside so something needs to be done. I've been reading a lot more and looking through all kinds of different materials to determine what I want out of this blog.

I've decided that I want to narrow my focus. I want my topics to be insightful, concise, and consistent. Although I never want to lose my personal touch. I would like this blog to be laden with my personality so that it never becomes a machine. I've been using link-posts to keep up the activity on my blog and I will continue to do so. However, from now on they will be relevant to a central topic. I'm sure that by habit I'll throw some off-topic personal links in there but I will try to stay on topic as much as possible.

As for topics… I still have a lot of thinking to do. Here is the direction I'm moving in. I'm a college student and graduating soon. I would like to share my education and career journey with anyone who would like tips, motivation, maybe some laughs, or to make a connection. It seems like a natural topic that I would like to write about. Besides my fiance, yes I'm now engaged [more about that on a later date], my passions lie in my work and school. In school, I'm a marketing student. At work, I'm an advertising professional. Both go hand in hand making an excellent piece, that I would call "Stand Aside". My blog will be my personal work of art. Heh, sounds so cliche but I like it. I'm excited for this new direction!

Holiday Break

Image by pictoscribe via FlickrMerry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you all.

I'm taking a break for a week so you'll be seeing lots of link posts. I'm back in Ohio and spending my time with Rachel, family, and friends.

Its been cold as hell and I've been enjoying the relaxation time. Plenty of drinking and eating around the holidays. Gave some gifts to people. Received some myself. Laughing at the amount of people shopping during BIG RED SIGN SALES EVENTS. Granted their are probably some decent items to save on and its good for the economy BUT I have my gripes, in fact–here they are in order from most disappointing on.

1. Why spend just as much after Christmas as I did beforehand?
2. Do I really want to brave the crowds of slow-walkers and "should-I-buy-this"-ers?
3. Retailers reach for the money in my pockets during designated shopping days like "Black Friday" and "Black Friday 2". I'll shop when I want to.

Semester One of Senior Year: Complete

It feels quite righteous to be so close to the end. 4 years of going to school and working to pay the bills is finally culminating with receipt of the coveted Bachelor's Degree!! To be honest, I think I am more excited that I will finally be able to just work. Wierd huh? I know, there are probably a lot of people out there saying, 'He doesn't know what he's in for.' and 'He'll be wishing he was back in college soon enough.' But I am truly excited to just work for awhile. It is so taxing to have to concentrate on school as well as work. The two are very involved and I'd like to devote more energy to one vs the other but when I have to do both its just very difficult. [<--Run on sentence?]

Anyways some new stuff:

Linux is running on an old laptop as my music-box. I move a lot of my music files to that machine when I don't listen to them as much so I can save space on my primary laptop. I have Rhythmbox running a DAAP music server so that I can listen to everything through iTunes. It auto updates as I load stuff onto it. The only downfall so far is that Joe, my roomate, cannot put any of his music on it because its all iTunes protected. That's BS in my opinion, but let's not get into a rant on proprietary music rights.

I'm setting up a local server on Linux so that I can begin work on a Wordpress site. I found that when I used wordpress I was able to retain a lot more knowledge on web development because I was constantly doing it. I want that knowledge back, and I also want the scalability and cost-savings of a wordpress site. So, yes, I will probImage via Wikipediaably be transitioning this site over in a few months. I'll let ya'll know my progress as I go. Maybe I'll start a nice little page on my adventures with Linux.

I can't tell you how much of a pain it was for me to just get the linux machine to run a print server. It took me a good week of troubleshooting and talking to Billy, my unofficial Linux techsupport [he is running Ubuntu 8.10 as his main OS on an Acer laptop]. Alas it finally runs smoothly with my computer and Joe's computer.

Its late. I'm tired. Plenty of West Wing and Family Guy to watch. Plenty of books and articles to read. All ready for work in the morning.

Peace readers and Thank you so much for dedicating a few minutes of your day to hear my thoughts.

StandAside Author: Kris Patel

Stand Aside

on Marketing, Media, and Technology