The Starbucks® ROI Experiment

A brilliant engineer I know raised this question “How much business has actually been won or sales resulted from business conducted at Starbucks®?” Wouldn’t it be interesting if we could measure the Return on Investment (ROI) related to those coffees purchased (or chai tea, in my case)?

We define ROI as the areas we spend our time and energy on that actually bring in profitable business. How can you measure it? With something as simple as a spreadsheet or a complex system such as http://www.aprimo.com/ . We could write another whole blog on methods which I won’t get into right now, but perhaps later.

Let’s think about that for a second. Can we start a movement where every time someone meets at a Starbucks or has a meeting with a Starbucks in hand, one records the amount of business resulting from that meeting? In addition to measuring the source – such as a networking event, association, referrals, etc. (as we all should be doing and BrightBlue does!) - let’s measure if Starbucks was somehow involved in closing that business.

My mind is now wandering to thoughts about different Starbucks locations and why hot beverages seem to make social/business interactions smoother. Is it the innate comfort we have of routine and/or familiar surroundings? Or maybe that eating and drinking together promotes a feeling of camaraderie? Does the caffeine and sugar kickstart the creative juices?

Comment on our blog and we’ll treat you to something at Starbucks!

Let the revolution begin: Ready, set, take a sip!

BrightBlue Marketing Recommends

What a horse! What a BOOK! Go out and read "Seabiscuit: An American Legend" by Laura Hillenbrand

Book Summary from Bookbrowse.com

Seabiscuit was one of the most electrifying and popular attractions in sports history and the single biggest newsmaker in the world in 1938, receiving more coverage than FDR, Hitler, or Mussolini. But his success was a surprise to the racing establishment, which had written off the crooked-legged racehorse with the sad tail. Three men changed Seabiscuit’s fortunes:

Charles Howard was a onetime bicycle repairman who introduced the automobile to the western United States and became an overnight millionaire. When he needed a trainer for his new racehorses, he hired Tom Smith, a mysterious mustang breaker from the Colorado plains. Smith urged Howard to buy Seabiscuit for a bargain-basement price, then hired as his jockey Red Pollard, a failed boxer who was blind in one eye, half-crippled, and prone to quoting passages from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Over four years, these unlikely partners survived a phenomenal run of bad fortune, conspiracy, and severe injury to transform Seabiscuit from a neurotic, pathologically indolent also-ran into an American sports icon.

Author Laura Hillenbrand brilliantly re-creates a universal underdog story, one that proves life is a horse race.

In many ways, sales is like a horserace. You might get knocked around on the way to the finish line, but if you stay consistent, set goals and keep your eyes on the finish line, you're gonna be a winner. What does YOUR finish line look like?

Something to Believe In

Before the Super Bowl, someone asked me who I was rooting for. Since the Cowboys were out of the running, I hadn't really thought about it.

Leading up to Super Bowl Sunday, the New Orleans Saints became the favorite for many Americans (sorry Colts!). After all, they’d never won, and their city had been through so much since the hurricane. America loves a great underdog story, and the Saints didn't disappoint. They won, and decisively!

Since Super Bowl Sunday, it’s been great to watch the city of New Orleans celebrate such a great win by their team. The Saints have given their city something to believe in…something to focus on after so much adversity. We all need something to believe in, and something positive to hold on to. It's been a rough few years for America, with natural disasters and the economy, the war and the feeling of hopelessness. It's very similar to the years after the Great Depression. That era had its underdog story in the form of a horse named Seabiscuit, who was a symbol of hope to a beleaguered nation. He was undersized and had a long recovery from major injuries, but managed to win the 1940 Santa Anita Handicap with a purse of $100,000 (about $1.25 million in today's dollars). At the end of the movie, Seabiscuit's jockey, Red Pollard says "You know everyone thinks that we found this broken down horse and fixed him, but we didn't, he fixed us, everyone of us." And maybe that's what broken down but not out New Orleans did for us in 2010, too.

Congratulations, New Orleans!

BrightBlue Marketing Recommends

We recommend that you be on the lookout for the new BrightBlue Marketing offering in the works. I’ve been talking to Candace about it at length, and it’s just amazing. We call it Virtual Marketing Outreach (VMO), which offers monthly campaigns to your prospects and clients. Why is this so important? To make YOUR company come to mind first when they need products or services (aka “top of mind”).

You might say to yourself, well, we send out e-mails kinda regularly. Be honest, is it the same old cut-and-dried “Who We Are” verbiage time and again? That’s why VMO is so supercool; we give companies something fresh and compelling to send out every month to their clients. There are different levels of VMO service, too, so you can purchase only the parts of the program that make sense for your company and/or your budget.

We wanna talk MORE about it. If you do, too, then contact us! We’re right here, ready to help you, just like always.