IBM, The New Yorker, Customer Service, and Thy Retail Business

I spotted an ad in an old edition of The New Yorker I had been saving until I could spend time devouring the fiction in it. It was a full-page ad that had very little on the page, sort of a smokey, Wedgwood blue. It said "Shirts can pick a tie for you." My reaction was, "Hun?" But they had me hooked.

Then it said, "IBM helped a German retailer boost customer satisfaction 18% with dressing rooms that actually suggest accessories." It suggested you learn more by going to http://ibm.com/smarterplanet .

For some reason, reading this felt almost as good to me as finishing the fiction piece I had been looking forward to.  It's about promise for the retailing in general. About the importance of keeping up with technology. It's about partnering with people and businesses that know what they're doing. And most of all, it's about service.

Now, service is something that never goes out of style, never stops making a difference in reaching our goals.

-----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques launched at the National Stationery Show at Javits Center. Because she is the author of the multi award-winning how-to books for writers,The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, retailers will also find essentials of writing for blogs, Web sites, and newsletters on this blog. She is the author of an award-winning novel, This Is the Place; and other fiction and poetry. She blogs on better writing at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. Find her tweeting for retailers at @frugalretailing . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use this little green widget to let them know about it:

Is Your Marketing Mail Even Being Read?

You may remember how I warn authors in A Retailer's Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotion (www.budurl.com/retailersguide) against using attachments when they e-mail, especially when contacting the media. Well, now Time magazine includes a warning on their roster page not to do so. It says, “Write to Us: Send an e-mail: letters@time.com. Please do not send attachments.”

I know many of you are still attaching because you attach in your e-mails to me. Often the attachment is short enough to fit nicely in the window of an e-mail, so there is no need.

In that award-winning book, I also tell you your job is to make it as easy as possible for your contacts to help you promote by using your name, title, articles, etc.? Putting your information in your e-mail rather than attaching makes it easier for them.

But more importantly, they will see what you have to say. Many media outlets block e-mail with attachments and/or won’t open or read them. Time is one of those that won’t. And the sad part is, you may not even know they didn't see your media release or pitch. Even sadder, that may discourage you from doing more marketing that will benefit your business.

----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson's FRUGAL book for retailers is A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques launched at the National Stationery Show at Javits Center. Because she is the author of the multi award-winning how-to books for writers,The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won't and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success, retailers will also find essentials of writing for blogs, Web sites, and newsletters on this blog. She is the author of an award-winning novel, This Is the Place; and other fiction and poetry. She blogs on better writing at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor blog. Find her tweeting for retailers at @frugalretailing . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use this little green widget to let them know about it: