MyPunchblog

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

This week we sent out the fall edition of our quarterly newsletter. This is the second newsletter that features our updated newsletter layout — we first introduced the new format at the beginning of the summer.

In case you missed it, the fall newsletter was jam-packed with tips and helpful information for hosts planning Halloween parties as well as holiday parties. It also contained exciting news about two recent additions to our product offerings: MyPunchbowl Personalized Soda and MyPunchbowl Experiences.

So far we’ve gotten some great feedback about our newsletter. Check it out and let us know what you think!

This post written by Jill, MyPunchbowl Marketing & PR Intern

Product differentiation is an essential element for any company to gain a competitive advantage and be successful. It is a way for your company to showcase your individuality and uniqueness in a way that makes consumers want to purchase your product or service over your competitors. But not only should your company distinguish your product from competitors’ products, but also among other products that your company might offer as well. One way to do this is through the packaging of your different products.

Using this knowledge, I was in shock to discover that Miguel’s Stowe Away Tortilla Chips had nearly identical packaging on their white corn and blue corn tortilla chips (see picture below). As an angry consumer, I was encouraged to write a letter to Miguel’s to express my disbelief at their marketing problem. Below is the letter that I wrote to Bruce in their marketing and sales department.

Dear Bruce:

Yesterday, in a haste to complete a large lunch order for my co-workers, I mistakenly picked up a bag of Miguel’s white corn tortilla chips, instead of Miguel’s blue corn tortilla chips. At first glance, the packaging on these two bags of chips look eerily similar. From the color schemes to the fonts to the pictures on the bags, it is easy to see how any customer could mix them up.

As a marketing student, I have always been taught about the importance of product differentiation. It is not only important to distinguish your  product from your competitors’, but among your own products as well. Given this knowledge, it perplexes me as to why any company would choose to make the packaging on two of their different products practically the same. The only thing that distinguishes one bag from the other are the inverted colors. If there is a blue border on the bag of blue tortilla chips, it is counterintuitive to have the same blue border around the bag of white corn tortilla chips.

If you do not want to have more unhappy customers than you have already gotten from the carelessly thought out packaging of these two products, I recommend that Miguel fix it immediately. An inverted color scheme is not enough to distinguish one product from another, there needs to be more distinctions that actually make the packaging look different. By simply putting a white border around the bag of white corn tortilla chips, your packaging issues would be solved and you would have more repeat customers who were pleased with your product.

Sincerely,
Jill

I have not yet heard back from Miguel’s, but I hope that they do take my suggestions into consideration. If a company wants to build brand loyalty around their products it doesn’t help to mislead customers and cause them to make the wrong purchase. And if you don’t distinguish your product, you may just have to hear from an angry intern.

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

This past weekend, as I do every July 4th, I spent some time shopping in the outlets of Kittery, Maine. I was surprised by a few things this year: not only were the stores much more empty than usual, but the sales were much more aggressive. The recession is in full swing with our neighbors in the North.

With the discounted sales and relatively easy parking, my wife and I were ready and willing to shop. We went in about 10-12 stores over the course of two days, and I was continually surprised at how confusing it was to figure out the prices of the merchandise. The worst offender was IZOD — take a look at this picture:

Can anyone (quickly) tell me how much that $24.99 shirt ACTUALLY costs? IZOD, why are you making it so hard for me to figure out the price? When the salesperson asked me if I needed any help, I asked them if the sign meant that they would pay me 20% if I bought something. She didn’t seem that amused. By the way, I refused to buy anything off that rack. However, my wife did buy me a nice IZOD shirt, so I guess we helped keep IZOD in business. I really hope the marketing people at IZOD monitor the blogosphere…. they should be ashamed at themselves for making consumers think so much. (By the way, that $24.99 shirt would actually cost $4.99 — 80% off).

I was reminded about my weekend shopping experiences, when I came across this screenshot of a registration “Captcha.” We’ve all been frustrated by these illegible security challenges at one time or another. I don’t think I need to add much commentary — the last attempt of the person who was trying to register says it all.

If you are a MyPunchbowl user, I hope you never have this kind of experience trying to buy something from our site. For example, why not upgrade your MyPunchbowl account to a Premium or Plus account? I promise you that it will be a quick and easy process.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

In my role at MyPunchbowl I think a lot about our brand. Two of the major elements of our brand that I focus on are our messaging (how we talk about ourselves–in our ads, on our site, in the press) and our visual identity (logos, colors, fonts, imagery, etc).

When I joined MyPunchbowl there was already an established logo and fonts. Since September we’ve been transitioning our color palette on our site to more subtle colors. The logos on the left below represent our earlier web/logo colors (darker blue), while the ones on the right show our current colors (lighter blue):

While we think the site looks great with the newer, softer color palette, our logo doesn’t necessarily stand out for other purposes, such as in ads. What’s the right approach here? Do we go with one color or the other, or is it possible to have multiple colors (or shades) of our logo without diluting our brand? Let us know your thoughts and which one you like best.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

Last night I attended a great event hosted by the Boston chapter of Girls in Tech. “Using Social Media in Your Organization” was a topic that I knew I didn’t want to miss and after reading about the speakers and the format, I signed up immediately. I also thought this would be another opportunity to work on my networking skills.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Girls in Tech, it’s a “social network enterprise focused on the engagement, education and empowerment of like-minded, professional, intelligent and influential women in technology.” I had heard of this group before in other cities like San Francisco and New York, but the Boston chapter is new this spring. Very exciting!

Held in Cambridge at Microsoft’s office overlooking the Charles River, the setup was great for chatting and grabbing a quick bite before the panel got going. The panelists — Karen Rubin, Hubspot; Rachel Happe, Community Roundtable; Mike Langford, TweetWorks; and Cappy Popp, Thought Labs — shared great ideas for how to use social media for business. The key takeaway: content, content, content. If you don’t have interesting and useful content to share with customers and potential customers, what is their reason to friend/follow/fan you?

My favorite part of the event were the case studies. Two participants from different organizations were chosen to share their story about how they currently use social media, what their goals are for social media, then ask specific questions of the panel. I found it really useful to hear real suggestions for how to improve your Facebook page or how to increase Twitter followers. Some of the things we already do (ie RSS feed of our blog to our Facebook page), but there are still things we don’t do (ie RSS feed of our blog and party planning posts to our Twitter account).

Overall I thought the event was really well done and all of the participants (speakers and attendees) seemed genuinely excited and interested to be there. I look forward to attending more Girls in Tech Boston events in the future!

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

As Mother’s Day approaches this Sunday, May 10, I have been thinking about the ways that MyPunchbowl can help people celebrate Mother’s Day in the most personal way.

I’m very close with my own mother. We’re best friends and she’s probably the one person who knows me best. If there was ever an occasion to treat in a more personal and meaningful way, Mother’s Day is definitely the day.

With MyPunchbowl eCards you can include a personal video with a picture and a special message. What mom doesn’t want to see her kids and grandkids in a video created just for her? If I got something like that it would definitely make me feel special.

I also ordered a personalized candy tin for my mom and included a picture from a trip we went on together last year. I was even able to choose her favorite jelly bean flavor (licorice) to fill the tin. I caved and gave it to her early — she loved it! It was a nice memory of the weekend we spent together.

Users can also invite their moms to a brunch or Mother’s Day outing using our online invitations and event planning tools. They can send flowers and buy other Mother’s Day gifts.

However you decide to celebrate Mother’s Day, remember to make it special for Mom. After all, it’s her day.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

We get lots of feedback from our users and while some people email us with questions and suggestions, a good portion of the feedback we receive is praise. We get email after email saying how much people love our site and how helpful it was to them as they planned an event. It makes me feel really good to read this feedback and share it with the team.

The other thing that people write in is that not only do they enjoy using our site, but they tell all of their friends about MyPunchbowl. This is terrific! Our site already has a viral element to it via the host sending invitations to a number of guests, but when our satisfied users tell their friends about their positive experience it’s an added bonus.

We recently introduced a program that is perfect for those customers who love to spread the word about MyPunchbowl. MyPunchbowl Ambassadors are an exclusive group of MyPunchbowl users who receive special benefits and rewards from MyPunchbowl. MyPunchbowl Ambassadors promote the site, provide valuable user feedback, and share their personal stories.

Do you have what it takes to be a MyPunchbowl Ambassador? Learn more about the program and how to become a MyPunchbowl Ambassador.

This post was written by Matt Douglas, Founder & CEO

Do you know what your customers really need? I believe there is only one way to really know. Be your own customer. Experience what your customers actually experience. There is simply no substitute.

Allow me to illustrate how to know what your customers really need with a story from today. Today (Monday, April 20, 2009) was the 113th running of the Boston Marathon. I’m lucky enough to live along the marathon route. My house is a short block away from Mile 10.

Now, I know what it is like to run a marathon. I ran the New York City Marathon in 2004. It was a grueling, memorable experience. There are many things I remember about that day, but I remember one thing vividly from the first handful of miles. It’s really quite simple: my nose was running a lot. From miles 5-10, I used my shirt, my sweatbands, and the back of my hand to wipe my nose. It was pretty miserable. All I needed was something dry to wipe my nose and face.

The following year after the marathon was my first Boston Marathon as a spectator. So I decided to give the runners the one thing that I wished I had that day: a piece of dry paper towel. That year, I took all of the paper towels in my house and went down the street to Mile 10. The smiles on the runners faces said it all. Within a half an hour, all of the paper towels were gone.

Since then, it’s become a bit of a tradition at Mile 10. Today was the best ever. Along with a handful of my neighbors, we handed out about 15 rolls of paper towels to the runners. We welcomed the runners to “Paper Towel Mile,” and were thanked by countless runners. It was worth every penny that I spent at BJs.

One thing that stuck with me today — so many of the runners looked me with deeply thankful eyes and said “Thank you! That is exactly what I needed.” 

Do you know what your customers really need? There’s one way to find out. Walk a mile in their shoes. Or better yet — try running 26.2 miles. Then you’ll really know.

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

On Monday Matt wrote about 5 Reasons to follow @mattdouglas on Twitter. It got me thinking about who I choose to follow, how I find them, and why I choose to follow them. The people I follow on Twitter fall into four distinct categories.

The first group is people I know. This includes friends, colleagues, and coworkers. I follow friends and people I know personally as yet another way to keep in touch, network, and enhance connections.

The second group is marketing/social networking thought-leaders. I’ve mentioned in previous posts that I’m relatively green when it comes to Twitter and following those people who use it well is a great way to learn. These are the people whose blogs I read or whose services I use (Hubspot, HARO, etc). They often post great links and tweet useful and interesting information.

The third group is press contacts. More and more journalists now use Twitter to find sources for stories. My hope is that Twitter will enhance relationships that we have with the press who have written or who will potentially write about MyPunchbowl.

The last group is celebrities. I have to say this one is purely for entertainment but I do get a small sense of enjoyment when I see a tweet from @RyanSeacrest or @johncmayer. Is it weird that I sometimes want to respond to them?

That brings me back to @mattdouglas. Matt falls into a few of these categories for me which is why I agree with him that you might just want to follow him on Twitter.

1. If you’ve ever met Matt you’ll know that he always has a lot to say. He’s a smart guy so most of the time what he has to say is interesting and thought-provoking.

2. He will be brutally honest about those interesting things in his tweets. I know this because he called me out in my interview for not giving him the brutal truth in one of my answers (I think it was right after he wrote a blog post about the brutal truth).

3. While Matt might not be one the known leaders in marketing and social networking, I’ve definitely learned a lot from him in my time working with him at MyPunchbowl so I think you could too.

4. Matt also likes Ryan Seacrest so I’m hoping that he’ll actually respond to some of Ryan’s tweets!

So what do you think? Will you follow @mattdouglas?

This post written by Stephanie Fader, Marketing & PR Manager

As you are probably aware by now today is St. Patrick’s Day. MyPunchbowl offers several ways for people to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day in their own way–either as a host of a St. Patrick’s Day party, perhaps as a guest to a party, or by designing and sending free eCards.

In my position as marketing manager, my goal is to drive traffic on days like today when the likelihood of sending eCards for a given holiday are much higher than any other day.

Earlier today I did a Twitter search for St. Patrick’s Day and noticed that five of the top ten trending topics were related to St. Patrick’s Day. Keep in mind that only on St. Patrick’s Day would you find a color in the trending topics and know exactly why it’s made it’s way to the top of Twitter’s most mentioned list.

If only I had a way to easily reach out to all of these people! Just reading through the pages of search results, it’s clear that most of them are excited about the holiday and more often than not are just tweeting to wish their followers a happy St. Patrick’s Day. I just want to shout from the rooftops to them about how they can fully customize a St. Patrick’s Day eCard on MyPunchbowl that they can share on Twitter.

On more than one occasion, I’ve wanted a way to Tweet all of the people who mentioned a particular trending topic but there is no such thing. Next best option: advertising.

There’s been a lot written about Twitter and the possibility of advertising. As recently as yesterday Michael Arrington wrote about how Twitter is experimenting with text advertising. As a Twitter user I understand those people who don’t want there to be advertising on the site. However, as a marketer I really appreciate the ability to finely target advertising to a group that is active, tech savvy, and enthusiastic about a particular topic.

As Twitter keeps growing and becomes more mainstream (I heard it mentioned on “The View” the other day), I think it will be impossible for them not to offer advertising. When that day comes maybe you’ll see MyPunchbowl there.