By Mark Cipolletti, Pinch Hit Partners Founder and Fractional CMO

As a lifelong Cleveland Browns fan, seeing their winless drought end last night was a relief. I must admit that I’ve been embarrassed for the last few years to even claim them as my favorite team. Our hero-in-waiting, Baker Mayfield, came into the came and put an end to a 19-game losing streak that spanned 635 days (yes, we were counting).

And what did Mayfield say to reporters after bringing this big victory to the city of Cleveland? “Dilly Dilly to the Cleveland fans!”

That’s right, Bud Light won the game too.

As a Cleveland native and Browns fan, I was happy to feel the joy of victory again. As a marketing consultant, I had to salute Bud Light for their marketing genius. If you aren’t familiar with the Bud Light promotion that I’m referring to, this may be the first of many times you will hear about it today and in the days to come.
Knowing that a Cleveland Browns victory would come at some point (hopefully this season!), Bud Light offered to give free beer to Browns fans to celebrate after the next win. Dozens of coolers were placed around the city of Cleveland and state of Ohio with 200 cans of beer locked inside each. Once the victory was official, the coolers were automatically opened.

Brilliant, right? Bud Light knew this win would be big news – not just sports news – but a big national (maybe international) story. You know, one of those underdog, come from behind, feel good news stories. And what will each of those stories include? Free Bud Light for the fans. I bow to the creatives who concocted this plan.

Of course social media is a buzz about the free beer giveaway. Even the Cleveland Police got into the act, tweeting, “We WON!!! — Wait…oh God. The free beer thing…Ok Cleveland. Stay calm. GO BROWNS!!!! @Browns @Budlight #CLE.”

So, what’s the marketing moral of this story?

Be prepared to take advantage of a big event that connects with your brand in some way. Sure Bud Light is a huge brand with a big budget and they are able to go really big with their version of this promotion, but that doesn’t mean that other brands or even a small local business can’t get creative and find a connection. Don’t be afraid to have some fun with your marketing. Surprise and delight your customers every once in a while. They’ll remember it.

Go Browns! Dilly Dilly.

​About the Author:  Mark Cipolletti is a fractional Chief Marketing Officer and the founder of Pinch Hit Partners. If you’d like to chat about the Browns (or marketing) you can contact him at [email protected].

By Mark Cipolletti, Pinch Hit Partners Founder and Fractional CMO

It’s very difficult to get a new customer. And of course difficult translates to expensive. Research on this topic provides a wide range of figures on the costs associated with acquiring vs. retaining a customer, but most agree that it’s at least five times more costly to convince a new customer to buy than it is to get an existing customer to buy again.

So, why do so many businesses quickly forget about the customers they already have – the ones they’ve paid so dearly to acquire? Do they think that just because someone bought from them once that they will automatically buy again? I hope not. Other brands are constantly selling to our customers so we must continue to engage with them too. Maybe it’s because most agencies that support our companies are focused on customer acquisition. When was the last time you heard an agency tout their latest award for an email they created for existing customers? Uh…never.

Regardless of the reasons, the sad truth is that we often forget that most of our revenue comes from a small, but loyal, segment of our existing customers. Every marketing plan should include strategies for identifying our best customers and selling them more stuff.

​Here are some customer retention strategies to grow your business with the customers you already have:

By Hillary Bressler, Travel and Hospitality Marketing Lead, Pinch Hit Partners

Stats are the lifeblood of good marketers. The funny thing is that many marketers got into marketing because they thought they had a lack of solid math skills in school and thus went the route of the non-math related careers in school.  This is a bad joke as we come to find out that the marketer’s entire career revolves around math.  Budgets, column inch, pixels, impressions, conversions, percentages and the good old statistic.

Marketers have come to have a love hate relationship with math, except that of the statistic. The statistic drives us and gives us ideas.  Marketers love statistics.

There are many statistics out there that are completely useless to marketers whose main goal is to increase sales or drive recognition of a brand.  For example, global mobile ad spending is expected to reach 247.4 billion U.S. dollars by 2020.  This stat is interesting to marketers, but it does not help us drive traffic to businesses or our clients. Yes, it tells us that the mobile industry is not going away, and we keep an eye on it to watch for major shifts, but it doesn’t fuel us.

I have compiled stats that fuel marketers and engage the thinking process.  Each one can spark an idea or help marketers convince key stakeholders to move budgets around to support this ever changing digital landscape. If these stats are not a wake-up call, I don’t know what is.

The times in digital marketing are changing….rapidly.

So fast I would consider many strategies, like mobile, to be considered an emergency. With mobile now representing 69% of digital media time spent (comScore​, 2017) the time to shift to mobile was yesterday.

In addition, 37% of all online spending in the United States and Europe is now made through Amazon. This figure is 57% for US consumers (Salmon 2017).

You may hate stats or love them, but you can’t leave them. Here are some of the most worthwhile: