Applying Pinko ideas to...

[Pete Prodoehl]

Ok, so things like online, startup, bootstrapped, community, etc. are
all a part of Pinko, right? But how (or can) Pinko ideas be used for
various types of businesses.

A technical college?

A garden center?

A skate/snowboard shop?

A manufacturer of industrial pipes?

A distributor of bottling equipment?

Companies, businesses, and organizations that may not have any sort of
identifiable community? Is a blog enough? Or maybe a starting point? Who
might read a blog about industrial pipes? Would it be worth the effort?
Let's say your apply Pinko marketing ideas to a company that distributes
bottling equipment: They've got a web site and add a new press release
every 3 months, but other than that, they just do traditional marketing
with the 3 dozen companies in the US that are their customers...

Ideas?

I can clearly see how the Pinko philosophy can apply to companies that
operate online and have passionate users, but that might be a small
percentage in comparison to other types of businesses.

Pete

[Tara Hunt]

I was in a taxi cab the other night and the driver and I were chatting. He asked me what I do, so I said, "Guerilla-type marketing - but more focused on community building than just grassroots messaging." He wanted me to explain it and asked how his girlfriend's beauty shop could use this technique...

So I suggested that he look at the salons and barber shops in African American neighbourhoods. How do they become real community gathering places? Places where people want to come and hang out? Could be partially that the hairstyles for African American women often take hours...but that doesn't explain the barber shops...a big part of it is that it is a more relaxed atmosphere where people are encouraged to interact with other customers.

The driver then started to brainstorm with me on how to create an atmosphere of community in his girlfriend's shop...and then how to 'monetize' that (like selling snacks and other beauty products...maybe even renting out a coffee/sandwich counter) because just creating community may drain the business...there needs to be some services added so that the business is sustainable.

At the end of the $18 cab ride, he said, "don't worry about it"  and felt he could really use some of the ideas we discussed, and took my email address for future inquiries.

Anyone heard of The Blue Bottle Cafe in San Francisco? Do a search. The little coffee shop opened in a corner of a garage on a reclusive side street. Now, lined up around the block every weekend and throughout some weekdays - had to open several other locations, equally busy around the city. Secret? Great coffee (like crack, we say). Authenticity. Unique product. Awesome service. Great atmosphere. Personal touches. Encouragement of your community to interact. Etc.

Peter's Drive-In in Calgary, Alberta. Keihls (now around the world).

I dare say that Pinko strategies can work better for bricks and mortar businesses than for online businesses...slightly different strategies of course, but the core remains the same: quality, authenticity, uniqueness, amazing service, personalization, allowing and encouraging your customers/community to interact and gather on your behalf, etc.

It isn't a formula, though. That's the biggest issue. We can never let it become a formula. It is highly unique and personal for every company.

Tara

--
tara 'miss rogue' hunt
agent provocateur
Citizen Agency (www.citizenagency.com)
blog: www.horsepigcow.com
phone: 415-694-1951

[paul.f...@googlemail.com]

Here, here Tara.

When brainstorming ideas around promoting the bathroom showroom
locally, the other guys always had the internet in mind - and I
completely disagree with this.

For me, the internet mimicks the most valuable selling tool - face to
face. Email, IM and forums are just one way communication tools.

Face to face is a real time, emotional engagement and conversation
where faces, eyes (see my latest post
http://blendingthemix.com/2006/06/28/the-eyes-have-it/- very
interesting by the way!) and responses to comments are based on so many
other things other than pixels resembling letters.

With face to face (as you suggest with the cafe and the barbers) you
engage the emotions of custoemrs far more and become friends with them.

A while back I posted about the old corner shop owner who knew all his
customers by name, their family and friends - this for me is the
epitome of Pinko - 2-way real-time trusted and respected conversations
between individuals.

Online simply provides another (not yet wholly faultless) way of doing
this.

Those who think pinko is purely online should remember what happened in
the early 90's - online is part of the mix, not the whole mix.

[Cole]

I agree to an extent Paul, but the internet does add a hell of a lot of
value where your community wants control of when/how they communicate
with you.

The village shop keeper can only speak to one person at a time, one of
the key things I took away from the Cluetrain Manifesto was the
scalability of the one-to-one conversation with asynchronous media
(forums/wikis/blogs even email groups). You just drop in and leave a
message whenever you want, come back get your answer whenever you want,
other people can just use your answer to help themselves etc. I swear
the whole "time economy" deal is more about having _control_ of the few
spare hours a day you get, managing/dictating your own communications
timescales and service needs.

I don't want to have to call up the bank in my lunch hour, or take a
morning off work to have a package deliverd "between 8-12". In fact I
don't wany to _have_ to do anything! Companies need to bend around me,
get out of my way and support me.

So give me a forum, a blog and a wiki, 24 hour phone support and online
tracking/account management of everything, that makes me happy -
especially if there's a person with a name at the other end of any of
them. I can decide the nature/urgency of my problem/need - you just
fix it!

[paul.f...@googlemail.com]

Absolutely Cole! Don't get me wrong, my point was simply that I believe
Pinko philosophy has its "origins" in the sort of face to face open and
honest way in which the local corner shop and local residential
community have always interacted.

As the internet cannot ever replace the fine and often visual aspects
of these relationships, then there is no point in shoe-horning the
internet into every business (after all, Pinko is a philosophy rather
than an internet tool).

I am running what I feel is a Pinko-style competition for the showroom
at the moment. And it is NOT on the internet. We are not selling, we
are interacting and at the samwe time getting to know people. If they
don't want a bathroom yet, you can be damn sure they will know where
we are when they do.

I have been handing out at local schools/car boot sales/school
bbq's/fairs we have sponsored etc., showroom-branded "Brilliant Bath
Time" colouring books and crayons (a small and cheap incentive to get
the kids involved even if they don't enter) to allow the kids to enter
our colouring competition. I have also added a small tie-breaker text
"I love my bath time because...".

This will provide me with some useful information about how our core
market (families with young kids) behave with their baths/bathrooms to
help me understand what they like to use, what they don't use and
what we might not need to stock anything of. Furthermore, the offshoot
of this is that I get further fuel for another campaign.

Entries are either sent or dropped-off back to us at the showroom and
we will be POSTING as many entries as we can (as well as the winners)
on one of the windows of the showroom. The rest will be posted inside
the showroom next to displays we feel are family-orientated (based on
what the kids have said in their "I love my bath time because..."
section.

In doing this, our showroom becomes a kids art gallery for a while
which I feel will help us present ourselves as human beings who just
happen to run a bathroom store. We are seen as fun, friendly and
approachable - all attributes which help potential customers see us as
someone they buy FROM rather than someone who sells TO them - much like
your corner shop man.

I wasn't intending this to go on as long as it did (no surprise there
then!), but I hope it demonstrates my point that it is somewhat
irrelevant whether or not your business is online or not.

It is the principle of a philosophy where sales are made by and to
mutually trusted partners, in relationship built by several small
"marathons" - such as my colouring competition.