AMiable Solution #62: Where to Go When You’re Not at Your Desk, Option 3

Looking at the same four walls day after day can make coming up with fresh ideas difficult.  Why not take a break from the office and clear your mind with something wild.  Wild animals, that is.   

Whether you choose a large facility like the National Zoo in D.C., an indoor facility like the National Aquarium in Baltimore, or an off-the-beaten-path facility like Green Meadows Farms in Frederick, MD, or the Catoctin Wildlife Preserve and Zoo in Thurmont, MD, you’ll experience life without office politics and deadlines.  Days ruled by basic goals.  Fresh air that blows out all the cobwebs.

Trading in one set of animals for another for a day will not only help you reset your internal clock and recharge your energy, but it will also allow you to pick up a trick or two from the animals:

• Those who hide never stand out
• Color gets attention
• Personal experiences rule
• Basic communication gets the job done

And if the animals don’t inspire you, don’t give up.  People watching can be pretty eye-opening, too.

AMiable Solution #61: Where to Go When You’re Not at Your Desk, Option 2

If you have a vacation day to use and want a low-cost, local option for spending it, you could run errands or catch up on household chores.  Or, if you’re a marketer in need of a “fresh” perspective, you could visit your local farmers’ market. 

                               

What can you gain from an otherwise ordinary-sounding exercise?  More than just a necessity like doing laundry or paying bills, shopping for groceries at a local farmers’ market may just provide you with a little physical and psychological respite from the daily work grind.  By shopping at a farmers’ market, you

• Support local businesses and entrepreneurs. 
• Remind yourself that no matter how much your organization or industry struggles, few businesses are as dependent on factors and influences beyond their control as farming.
• Maximize the flavor and nutrients you intake from your produce (nothing lost in travel time), protecting your body against the effects of stress.
• Get outside and moving, even if it is a leisurely pace.

To find your nearest farmers’ market, check your local newspaper for listings or search online by county for locations and dates.  For a comprehensive look at the available farmers’ markets in the D.C. and surrounding area, see The Washington Post’s interactive map at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/lifestyle/dc-farmers-markets-interactive-map/.

AMiable Solution #60: Where to Go When You’re Not at Your Desk, Option 1

The start of summer is just weeks away.  Whether you want to take time off or you’re being forced to, and whether you plan to take off multiple days in a row or singles here and there, you’re going to have calendar days to fill. 

Whatever will you do with your time?  This month we propose four local, D.C. day-trip ideas, one for every type of marketer.

Up first: a day trip for the marketer who can’t leave work at work.  The location: the National Postal Museum on Massachusetts Avenue, D.C.

Located in the old Post Office building next to Union Station, the National Postal Museum, which opened in 1993, examines the postal system’s history of innovations and successes. It also serves as a good reminder that, despite the USPS’s modern financial struggles, the organization has been operating far longer than most of the ones we work for.

What’s there to see?  Exhibits include

• “Systems at Work,” which “recreates the paths” of mail from sender to recipient over the last 200 years
• “Mail Call,” which examines the history of military mail and its importance to the government, military members, their communities, and their families
• “On the Road,” which looks at the history of city mail vehicles from 1899 to the present and features a 1931 Model A Ford
• “Binding the Nation,” which examines the importance of mail itself from colonial times through the 19^th century
• “Postal Inspectors,” which examines the role of today’s more than 2,000 postal inspectors

If you want to check it out before you go, the National Postal Museum offers a pretty impressive virtual tour on its website, http://www.postalmuseum.si.edu/museum/1_museum.html. 

But be sure to consider seeing it in person.  You’ll get some much-needed time on your feet instead of behind a desk.  And best of all, it’s free.  And air conditioned, for when you want to escape the summer heat.

Subject: AMiable Solution #59: Forecasting Repeated Showers

Direct mail absence does not make the heart grow fonder: it makes the brain forgetful. No matter how wonderful your product, service, or cause or how gorgeous your mail piece, sometimes the main factor influencing a customer's decision to respond is one that's completely out of your control: timing. And if you don't reach your customers at the right time, they'll find someone else.

Whether you're selling a product, soliciting membership or donations, or offering a service, you can't expect a customer to think of you first if they've responded only once to one of your direct mail promotions and haven't heard much from you since, especially when they're being hit-up by your competitors in the mail, online, on their mobile devices, and in public ads or professional publications on a regular basis.

And you can't expect them to be loyal to you if you haven't taken the time to follow-up with them: to send a letter thanking them for their business and offering a discount on a future purchase, to mail a brochure with items of similar interest, to notify them of updates or changes to their existing service.

So how often should you mail your customers? It depends on what you're offering and who you're offering it to. You wouldn't mail multiple lawn-service offers to customers in December. Most homeowners aren't thinking about keeping their lawns green when they're covered in snow. But you could send a service renewal notice two, three, four, even six times after the new year, when people generally stop enjoying winter and start looking forward to spring.

Likewise, you could send a renewal notice multiple times before a subscription or membership expires, expressing with increasing urgency in each mailing the need to renew by a specified date, especially if the promotion has a successful track record.

No matter how often you mail your customers, make sure you mail them regularly. One day soon, they'll thank you for it.