Marathon Sponsorships
Selling has evolved from an emphasis on what [a product] has, to what it does, to what you will feel, to who you are ... while benefits are still important to people, personal identity has become even more important. (Marty Neumeier)
I would use Marathons events more for product promotions. Marathons are associated with endurance and power. They are pretty much about “who you are” than anything else.
It is not like companies do not do sponsorships, but their efforts often go unnoticed. Here is something that might be done differently about it:
- Link your product to marathon through bright images and stories
- Create high-tech (high-quality) T-shirts with product messaging and marathon logo
- Distribute them for free to the event participants as the second T-shirt in addition to the main/standard marathon t-shirts
- Have a variety of colors and sizes
- Distribute t-shirts in advance so that they were worn during the event
In terms of the costs, it will be around $10 per participant.
It might be used for a car add. For example, an ad of the most efficient sports sedan with a V6 engine :-)
There are a lot of companies that use various sports events. Actually this is the reason why professional sport exists. What I am trying to say is that the image of certain brands might be more tightly linked to the strong emotional impulse of certain sports like marathon. Another point is that there might be relatively inexpensive ways to do it.
Did you order a pizza lately?
Online Ordering SMB Portal
Problem StatementHave you ordered a pizza lately? ... I have. And I did not enjoy it. I mean the ordering experience, not the pizza itself :-)We tried Domino’s Pizza, Round Table Pizza and Papa Jones Pizza:
- Papa Jones Pizza: There was no online ordering. We have not managed to get through at once. Once we reached them and ordered pizza, we had to wait over 2 hours for it. I understand it was lunch time, but no one told us we would have to wait for so long.
- Round Table Pizza: No online ordering in our area. I had to call them. Called them 3 times and no one picked the phone. I had to order pizza from Domino’s after all.
- Domino’s Pizza: They have online ordering system – not everywhere, just in few locations, but one of those is close to us (link). Their web site is pretty confusing. And we did not manage to find a menu there with ready-to-order pizzas: you need to pick components for your pizza each time you order it. Also both times we ordered a pizza from Domino's one or two components they had on their web site were missing and we got our pizza without them.
I guess these are not exceptions. Online ordering is quite painful and cumbersome both for consumers and for small businesses.
The Idea
Why not to create an online portal that would provide a online order processing functionality for small businesses - restaurants first of all?
This service should support the following basic functions:
- Selecting items from the menu (possibly with the pictures of the dishes, nutrition facts, etc.)
- Сustomizing certain items (like without onion or with jalapenos instead of the green pepper)
- Getting a list of cross-sells (side dishes, drinks, etc.)
- Providing delivery address
- Ordering delivery for certain time
- Getting delivery timing estimate (based on the current ordering backlog)
- Credit Card Payment processing
This service might have both B2B and B2C interfaces:
- B2B service provides small businesses either hosted or web-services-based product ordering functionality, order tracking, etc.
- On the B2C side there might be a portal for the customers browsing the restaurants having delivery option and convenient online ordering in their area
There might be a lot of ways to monetize this business model:
- Basic subscription for small businesses to this service might be free (just like Gmail or Googlepages services) or priced very attractively (as something “free” might be perceived as something not quite reliable by restaurant owners)
- Once people start using this basic service, they might need additional functionality – which will end up in additional subscription to the premium service
- Also this service might provide a lot of opportunities for banner ads both on B2B side (as soon as the ads are non-competitive) and in the B2C portal.
Selling has evolved from an emphasis on what [a product] has, to what it does, to what you will feel, to who you are ... while benefits are still important to people, personal identity has become even more important. (Marty Neumeier)
