WIN Firm's Dream Campaign

Good day everyone!

On behalf of The WIN Firm, I would like to thank each of you for following our blog! We have been absent for a few weeks due to client needs, but now have an update of our work to share. Are you ready for another post from me, Chris Teague? If not, take a moment to prepare yourself for an exciting adventure in the world of WIN marketing and as we say in simple terms: "Get READY!"

This blog post will be followed by a series of posts updating our campaign, The Dream Ticket. Demonstrating our charitable intentions and following our mission to help those around us, we at The WIN Firm have partnered with a local organization to help raise funds for them via a raffle. What is so special about this raffle? The special part is that the organization we have selected to help is NOT paying us a dime! That's right, we are not billing the organization at all. In fact, we are donating a bit of our own money to their efforts as well as the money we are helping them to raise through the Dream Campaign.

Once I have permission to list the charitable organization we are helping, I will list their name. However, each step of this campaign is going to revealed in our blog. Thus, today's post is our first update of The WIN Firm's Dream Ticket. Okay, ready for the breakdown?

We have created the concept of a Dream Ticket based on the lottery's proven model of selling a dream. We are reaching a certain audience for promotion as this ticket is loaded with value items that appeal to a certain audience. In fact, there are two key audiences for this campaign. Want to know what two audiences we are working to reach? Come BACK next week! Some of the ticket items include condo units, a trip to Vegas (fully paid for), season tickets to a chosen event along with a BIG TV. There will be more items as we progress, but for now, we have created enough value for our chosen audience to buy the Dream Ticket.

Thank you for reading today's post. Check back here next week around 3 P.M. EST for an update on The Dream Ticket brought to you by your community-driven marketing firm, The WIN Firm. We work so you WIN!

Blessings,
Chris Teague
V.P. The WIN Firm, Inc.
www.thewinfirm.com
info@thewinfirm.com

Service is KEY to Customer Service

Good day everyone! Welcome to my post for the WIN Firm regarding marketing and our actual examples of strategies/tactics we use. I realize most of you following this blog have probably been inundated with media regarding Health Care Reform, and recently, Kanye West. Wow! We have seen a lot lately, and there still is plenty to come. I want to take time out for a moment and shed light on an important subject today, customer service.

Our firm is working on a promotion to help a local Food Bank, Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee, win a tractor trailer truck load of food from Kraft. Being a cause-oriented marketing firm, we are always excited to help the less fortunate, and love partnering with organizations that do their part, whether they be non-profit or for-profit. Where am I going with this story? I'll explain.

Today, a colleague of mine went to Verizon Wireless in Johnson City, TN to see about obtaining a few wireless air cards that Second Harvest would use for an upcoming event. Now, I realize that most event marketing decisions come from corporate, but small event decisions are often made on the local level, especially if they do not involve money. We first thought of Verizon because they are the Food Bank's cell phone company. However, despite Verizon's crafty commercials depicting a wonderful cell service, their customer service is absolutely terrible, at least locally anyways. My colleague reported back to me that in our attempt to use air cards from the local Verizon store in Johnson City, the store manager would not even speak to him; rather, had an employee tell him "corporate handles events." My colleague did not even have a chance to explain what exactly we were doing, but was hurried out the door. Wow! That is EXCELLENT service, right!

What does this experience tell me? It tells me that corporate structure must have problems as well for Verizon if the local manager had zero skills in customer service. Why? As person who oversees projects with colleagues working on them, I take full responsibility of how each project is handled because it is a direct reflection of how I lead. Yes, leadership is key, and customer service starts from the top and works its way down. I wander how much emphasis is placed on training customer service for Verizon Wireless.

How does this lack of service relate to marketing? It is the foundation of marketing. Marketing is about managing a perception by communicating effectively with people. When your customer service is awful, your company is perceived as being awful. In this case, our company will most likely not ever use Verizon for our business needs thanks to one lousy manager in our local store. What can be learned from all of this? Think about how you treat people, because your advertising budget will not change someone's perception of you following a bad experience.

Blessings,
Chris Teague
V.P. WIN Firm

Working to Help the Hungry

Good day everybody! Welcome to another post from the WIN Firm brought to you by me, Chris Teague. Today's post is especially important for us at the WIN Firm! We are taking time out to recognize the importance of helping those that are less fortunate than us. I want to tell you a story about one of our clients, Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee and partner, Feeding America. This story is not about our firm today; rather, it is about our client doing an AMAZING job helping hungry residents in our Northeast Tennessee community and the country as well. We at the WIN Firm would like to introduce you to Roger's Story.

Roger, a child that lives in Bristol, TN, participates in Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee's Food for Kids program through the Bristol City Schools. Roger’s mother was laid-off from her job and faced some challenging situations that included the difficult choice many parents in our region and country must make, whether to pay for utilities or food. Roger’s mother chose to provide food for her son and pay for the utilities to the best of her abilities, but soon found herself behind in paying the bills. As money decreased, Roger’s mother was forced to leave the apartment she lived in and move into a tent. Roger’s only shelter at night came from a nylon piece of fabric and the only food he ate was for lunch at school. Roger’s situation was discovered by his school and action was taken to enroll him into Food for Kids. Thanks to Second Harvest and Feeding America, Roger was able to immediately receive food from Second Harvest Food Bank of Northeast Tennessee to take home, so that his mother would not have to make the choice between feeding Roger and using her limited income to find housing for her family. Roger’s story is unique, but many children in our region and America suffer from malnutrition because of their impoverished living conditions.

Please take a moment to support the hungry. We at the WIN Firm make sure our work goes to raise awareness for issues that touch our lives. You too can help be the voice for our country's hungry, impoverished residents. We at the WIN Firm invite you to go to www.hungeractioncenter.org, sign up to be a voice for hunger support, and help feed the less fortunate people around you. As a perk, there is a contest that helps your local food bank. When you take action on hungeractioncenter.org, minutes are logged for your work and counted. The food banks that accumulate the most minutes by the end of September win a free tractor trailer load of food for their community. Please help us!

Blessings,
Chris Teague
V.P.
WIN Firm
"We create ideas that WIN."

Your Stop for SUCCESS!

Hello, this is Chris Teague, V.P. of the WIN Firm. Good day to all of you following the WIN Firm here on our blog! Whether you are a public or private follower, we are happy to help you see how our marketing firm works, giving you an inside look into our operations and the understanding of why we are a great asset for our clients.

From day one, we decided to post a few projects we are working on, and past ones that teach you how to achieve the same marketing success ALL of our clients have achieved. Today's post will be brief, but is designed to help you be more than just a creative individual, but be a process-oriented individual who can create the campaign you want, producing desired results. Here we go!

Imagine working for a firm or agency that has a mission and vision of using its skills and talents of communication to promote generosity and progress. Then imagine that a pre-requisite for being hired was that you were active in helping others in your community. Think of the work environment! It must be great! This environment is not utopia; rather, it is the environment we all work in at the WIN Firm. I want you to know where we come from because it is the core of our winning concepts and our clients success.

According to the Tennessee State Report Card, 47 percent of children in our region of Northeast Tennessee participate in the federal free/reduced meal program. Two out of the eight counties in our region rank among the nation's highest counties for childhood poverty. Wow! What can we do about these shocking statistics? You are about to learn what WIN is working on to help meet the needs of our community in a 3 step process.

Step 1- Identify those who presently support the effort to end childhood hunger and create a message of "Thanks." Working with our local food bank, we help communicate how wonderful those who support the food bank are in all we do. Why? See step 2.

Step 2- A common fact in business is that customer service is a key ingredient to repeat business. We firmly believe in this model and made sure that the food bank's first part of marketing was to acknowledge those who give on a personal level, keeping in touch regularly.

Step 3- Thank the donor for giving what they have never given before. We do this for the food bank's thank you letters and the return in money is incredible! Simply thanking someone for increasing their giving efforts even if they haven't, subconsciously creates a call to action for more giving. It works! We helped raise over $32,000 in thank you letters in one month!

Have a great day everyone! We will see you shortly.

Blessings,
Chris Teague
V.P. Marketing
WIN Firm

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!

It's a beautiful day here in Tennessee and our Chicago office reports the same! I hope all is well with everyone following us at the WIN Firm! Today, we are going to get back on the topic of Keep Brazil Beautiful: our shoe marketing concept that communicates sustainability.

Previous posts on Keep Brazil Beautiful began with figuring design layouts, working with other groups in Brazil and developing a strong concept to communicate to the masses. Yesterday, I posted a topic on simple marketing, mentioning my trip to Chattanooga over the weekend. This trip was fun and very informative. In fact, I was able to shop a potential competitor and compare our concept with their concept to receive some qualitative feedback. The results were awesome for Keep Brazil Beautiful!

Realizing that we had first touched a good side of people with our initial concept of donating a portion of our shoe sales back to the Rain Forest, we have sought to strengthen this concept and have received great feedback along with some attention from other shoe companies in Brazil and here in the U.S. Therefore, our concept is fully dedicated to promoting a truly "Green" and "Sustainable" cause through reactive and proactive sustainability measures. This approach will enable our client to far surpass any competition that exists today.

We have mentioned that our marketing is for all to see. However, out of respect and per client request, we will not reveal the total sustainability concept to you in our blog, but don't worry: you'll see it all over the place soon enough! Just know that we do a lot of field research and through our research we have discovered key reasons why we as consumers buy shoes and how certain companies like, Tom's Shoes, successfully sell their shoes based on cause-oriented marketing concepts. Therefore, we have modified our concept to encompass complete, and whole sustainability. Did you know that when you buy our client's shoes you will be supporting economic development and growth? YOU WILL! Way to go! Way to support progress!

Your support will be shared by all those who wear our client's shoes and each of you wearing them will know that you have truly made a difference in the lives of those in-need. Our concept is not only reactive, meaning we don't merely wish to contribute to an existing problem. Rather, we wish to provide opportunities for growth through funding of prevention methods to problems/challenges. This is something our client's competitors are no where near doing and if they were to read this blog, they still would be far behind what we have developed.

Our marketing of these shoes will enable people to develop tools for future growth. We aren't simply going to help those in-need, we are going to EMPOWER them. Actually, YOU are going to be the KEY DRIVER to this empowerment. Just think! Your purchase of a wonderful shoe will not only make you feel good and look good, it will truly provide growth opportunities for our intended beneficiaries. Thanks to our good friend, Dan Oda, we have been able to see a much larger picture of the power we have to market this concept for our client. Therefore, we are proud to use our expertise and skills in marketing to promote PROGRESS! In fact, YOU are the answer! Congratulations for caring!! By the way, I hope you enjoy the shoes!

Blessings,
Chris Teague
V.P. Marketing
WIN Firm

Marketing the Heart: Cause-oriented Marketing

It's a beautiful day here in Johnson City, TN and all systems are a go for the WIN Firm. I hope each of you following or reading this blog is well and I wish you much success in all you do. Since our work with launching a product to help with social change through environmental and educational growth, we at the WIN Firm have been defining our own purpose for marketing. Therefore, today's topic is an introduction into the marketing we stand by and will support.

Marketing is the reason people gravitate to brands and purchase products. We as human beings are conditioned to following the leader, or in this case, the brand. However, I have discovered over my ten years of marketing experience that there is a growing disconnection between the marketer and consumer. This topic has been debated and addressed by various people, and there is even a book about losing touch with the consumer entitled: Punk Marketing. Thus, there is no reason for me to reiterate what someone else has said. Rather, today's topic is about the marketing I have challenged the WIN Firm to choose that connects with you, the consumer; the person.

If you are following marketing, then I am sure you have heard about "Big Dog" agencies that land HUGE accounts and win all sorts of creative awards. These agencies are truly talented and we at the WIN Firm appreciate the quality of work produced by them. Despite all the talented marketers in existence today with all of their awards, people still are disconnected. Why is that? What aren't marketers doing right today? I don't pretend to have all the answers, but do know that the WIN Firm is heading in a new direction and has no desire to take part in today's marketing culture the way it is.

I don't care about a commercial with puppets featuring LeBron James and Kobe Bryant no matter how creative it is. The commercial just doesn't appeal to me, and especially doesn't make me feel compelled to buy some Nike shoes. However, I did once love buying the new Jordan's when I was a teenager. Why? I felt that the shoes connected me to Michael Jordan. Wearing his shoes represented "Greatness." So, I have taken a new avenue in marketing and pitched the following idea to our firm:

Why not find a company that truly is great or tries to be great, cares for people and takes action to promote greatness instead of created an over-marketed false image of a company that wants you to think of them as great?

This question was not taken too well by my fellow marketers and I was even asked to reconsider my position. I didn't back down and even developed my own concepts, campaigns and pitched them to our firm as if I was pitching them to a client. Guess what? I still didn't get the full buy-in I wanted, but I did open the door and that paved the way for what I am doing now. My door is open a little, but now I want to bust through and have the challenge of producing.

I mentioned greatness earlier and also mentioned a book on marketing that has a theme of doing it the "Punk" way. Not to slam the authors of the book, but they missed the key to what started a revolution of underground music that led to the emergence of bands like Nirvana. I won't rant and rave on the history of punk rock (even though I love it!). Instead, I want to use the counter-culture movement that ignited punk rock and is ingrained into our culture today. The beauty of this movement is that it needed no "Big" agency to help it grow. No, this cultural shift in music came from the heart, which is where I want to take marketing.

Why should the WIN Firm create a concept for a business to increase sales or market position if it has no heart? Why should we spend months developing a brand when you have no brand to begin with? Instead, I pose the option of putting all of our skills that make decent companies look like solid companies through our creative marketing, advertising or whatever you want to call it, into companies that truly are GREAT. What companies am I talking about? How about ones that help their fellow human being? How about a group that feeds the hungry? How about a company that gives kids a shot at life? These companies are GREAT! They already see value in life! These are the companies that the WIN Firm is going to help.

There is no need to make up greatness when it already exists. So, I care nothing about the marketing culture of today that promotes mediocrity and complacency. I care about YOU! Therefore, I don't want to persuade you to buy a new car because you will be safe, look cool or have great gas mileage. I want you to see your fellow human being in-need and help him or her. The WIN Firm is moving into this direction of cause-oriented marketing, and with your help, I can make it happen sooner than later.

I would like to extend an opportunity for you to nominate your favorite cause-related group that promotes positive, ethical values and standards and tell me what makes the group great. I will then expend all of my energies, talents and God-given marketing skills to promote the best presented cause. The WIN Firm has given me permission to embark on this venture, so if you care enough, tell me what organization the WIN Firm can help. I will even launch my own product to sell on behalf of the selected group and donate at least thirty percent of all sales to the group. Therefore, I will put my marketing where my mouth is, or I should say, MY HEART! Please e-mail your submissions at:

chris@thewinfirm.com

I am also on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/thewinfirm10

Blessings,

Chris Teague
V.P. Marketing
WIN Firm