Well Timed Marketing by CrowdCut? Marketing and Selling Around Tragedy.

Considering the events that transpired yesterday, I found the CrowdCut email I received interesting. Is the timing intentional or lucky? See the deals for today below. I did see some tweets with reports of contractors, insurance people and remodelers posting signs on every house to gain new customers throughout North Minneapolis. Some would call that aggressive. One used the term “vultures.” Others consider it opportunistic. There’s a need and someone can satisfy that need. It would be mutually beneficial.

What are your thoughts on marketing and selling around tragedy?

Update: CrowdCut just tweeted me and said the six deals shown in the screen shot were planed two weeks in advance. Just a coincidence. 

~J

Twitter: @jasondouglas

LinkedIn: Jason Douglas

Facebook: Jason Douglas

Minneapolis Snowstorm Leaves Target a Little Off

Today brought another large snowfall to Minneapolis. With that, I was forced to grab the scraper and brush to unearth my car from the mass amounts of snow that had already accumulated at 2pm. Within seconds, the latest snowstorm had claimed its first casualty: my brush/scraper.

This led to my adventures at Target, where you can get anything and everything.

Except a snow brush and scraper in February in Minnesota stores.

I went to the Ridgedale Target and the Knollwood Target on a day where it’s #snowmageddon2011 1.0, and was told by a Knollwood employee that “we have moved on to spring.”

I understand that stores love to be a holiday or season ahead of pace. Sometimes, there have to be exceptions. Consider the location of your store. In Minnesota, snow does not stop falling until April. Does it make sense to have a small section of winter accessories located in your 1.5 aisles worth of Automotive products? Yes.

Go ahead and move on to spring in the Men’s and Women’s sections. Next time, try to accommodate those who endure six months of snow.

Update: I went to the local Walgreens to pick up a deluxe snow brush for $2.99.

Jason

Minneapolis, St. Paul, Thank You! Now, Let’s Collaborate!

Yesterday was one of the more interesting and fulfilling days I have had as a professional. Most of us know about #Unfollowgate. If not; check out my previous post on #Unfollowgate and its impact on the Minneapolis and St. Paul online community.

Between the hundreds of views, 18 comments, numerous public tweets, re-tweets, even more direct messages, and even some text messages and calls, the outpouring of support for me was astonishing. Thank you all very much for that.

I want to get away from #Unfollowgate and move onto the larger issue: how to make the Minneapolis and St. Paul online community more collaborative, more unified, and considered as a true leader in the online marketing space.

I have been going over what Chris Brogan said when he was here at the Minnesota Business/Reputations event, about our shortcomings as a community. It would have been easy for him to say ‘Minneapolis/St. Paul, y’all are great! Keep Truckin’!’ for a cheap pop. He did not do that, and I thank him for that. For him to say (paraphrasing) ‘you have the talent here, you don’t have the collaborative atmosphere’, and to call out Pittsburgh as his numer one community was gutsy. He travels and connects with enough people from each community where I trust his opinion more than others.

This should be a wake up call for our community. We do have the talent, we have the case studies, we have the clients, we have the passion (as was shown yesterday). How do we combine all that and more to help our community move to the head of the online marketing class?

Let’s start a discussion answering a few questions. As a community:

• What are we doing right?
• What are we doing wrong?
• What are your concerns about the state of online marketing?
• What do we want to do?
• Where do we want to go?

Minneapolis, St. Paul, metro area, Minnesota: your thoughts?

A half-marathon it is!

Yesterday, I hung out with college roommates Brian and N.I.C.  It was a fun day full of chinese/mongolian buffet food, a little shopping, 6-7 hours of playoff football, and a couple episodes of ‘It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘, arguably my favorite tv show.

Within that time, I was able to discuss plans  with Brian for competing in a race later this year.  You may remember my blog from last week about 2009 being the year of the workout; this is a follow-up to that blog.   We came to the agreement that we would participate in a half-marathon.  My first reaction in my head, ‘****!’  I’ve never ran in a coimpetitive running race, let alone a half marathon.  Now, 13.1 miles awaits me on May 31st, all of which I’m not close to being ready for.  I was secretly hoping for a 5K, but Brian thought that would be too easy.

Right now, I give the advantage to Brian.  He’s more used to running than I am.  The most I’ve ever ran continuously at one time is between 2-3 miles.  I’ve always been a short-distance runner.  The sports I’ve played support that: basketball, baseball, football, tennis.   I have no reason to be confident going into this, but I have no choice.  Hopefully, my outlook will change in a month.

There are 139 days, 50 hours, 48 minutes until the Minneapolis Half-Marathon begins.  That’s plenty of time for me to prepare for something that is definitely outside of my comfort zone.

I appreciate the people who have given me tips on how to train, especially Liz.  This should be interesting to see how this plays out.  Training starts sometime this week.

~Jason Douglas

twitter: @jasondouglas

2009: the year of the workout

One of the more important ’09 resolutions/goals was to improve my health.  One of the obvious ways to do that is to start exercising.  Let me give you a brief background on how I’ve done in recent memory with working out:

• bought a one-year membership to Bally’s Total Fitness after graduating college; never used it
• broke my wrist and had surgery, effectively ending my 2008 athletic season; that didn’t help things
• I went up the stairs in the River Centre on Saturday before the Minnesota Wild game; I was thoroughly winded.

Pathetic.  That is the one word that describes my workout ethic in the last 17 months.  I’m honestly surprised I don’t look like this.  Because I don’t, I have a chance to get back to where I’ve been before a few times.  I don’t doubt that I can get there, it’s about maintaining and improving.

Last night, I tried to go to bed early: fail.  To get myself tired, I figured a few push-ups and sit-ups would do a body good.  I did 20 sit-ups, and 16 push-ups, all 20 and 16 were a complete struggle.  I don’t mind that I can only do 20 and 16, it’s just a reminder of how far off I am.  I plan on doing at least X sit-ups and X push-ups every night and/or morning.  I don’t want to join a gym until I’m much further along in this process, plus, I don’t want to be at any gym during January and February with all of those people that have ‘getting in shape’ as a New Years resolution; it makes the gym too crowded.  You do get to see who will make it and who won’t.

There’s another reason why I want to get in better shape.  Sometimes, to motivate people, you need to put something on the line.  Since improving my health for the short and long term wasn’t enough, my friend Brian thought of a good idea: sign up for a race.  5k? 10k? Half-marathon?  Of course, there would have to be a wager to make it competitive versus each other; that has yet to be determined.  Brian sent me an email with a link to the Minneapolis Marathon, which has a half-marathon and a 5K, on May 31, a day before my birthday.  What a birthday present to give myself; finishing my first race, and to beat Brian in whatever wager we have.  Whenever I’ve been in top shape, I’ve despised running with a passion.  Since I’ve posted this, consider this to be my way of saying ‘yes, I’ll run in a race with you on May 31.’

Here are some questions for you:

• How many of you have ‘getting in shape’ as your resolution?
• Did you join a gym?
• What workout(s) do you do or are planning on doing?
• For someone who’s never trained for a race of any size, what kind of training regimen do you recommend?

Wish me luck, here goes workout #2.

~Jason Douglas

twitter: @jasondouglas