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I was traveling around Queen Street West in downtown Toronto this week and as always I popped into a Chapters bookshop (like a Borders). In Canada most bookshops have either a Starbucks or a Second Cup coffee shop. Many of the posts in this blog were created in cafes inside bookshops around the world.

I ordered a tea and an oat brownie from Starbucks. The brownie was delivered instantly, but the tea wasn’t, so I walked over to the delivery end of the cafe and waited.

The customers just before me received their order and I expected mine next. The customers who ordered after me then walked up and collected their coffees. Then the next customer. Clearly my tea wasn’t coming.

I walked back around to the cashier section and spoke to the barista who took my order. He immediately realized that he had forgotten about the tea and in two seconds flat, made my tea and then blurted out something about a free tea and handed me a piece of cardboard that looked like this -

In case you can’t read the print, here’s the bit that matters…

Besides the funky design of this free beverage voucher, there’s nothing too groundbreaking about offering something for free when you don’t get good service, but let’s look at this a little deeper.

I waited about an extra minute longer for my tea than I should have. That is definitely not long enough for me to get angry and I was served very quickly once I notified them that my tea was missing.

Yet, despite this, the Starbucks policy is to offer a complimentary beverage even if their system is slightly out of whack. I walked away impressed that I scored a free beverage voucher, but not really because of the beverage itself, I was impressed with the customer service policy I just witnessed (hence I’m writing a blog post about it!).

Starbucks did not diminish in my eyes as a result of this incident. In fact they impressed me, so much so that I’m now writing a blog post that will be read by thousands of people proclaiming good things about Starbucks service (that’s some good word of mouth). Of course not every Starbucks customer has a blog they can rave to when something happens, but every person has friends and people they talk to, and this one policy of Starbucks will encourage word of mouth through normal social interaction too.

Standing Out In A Crowded Marketplace

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Butterfly Marketing Software by Mike Filsaime

Name: Butterfly Marketing Software
Creator: Mike Filsaime
URL: www.butterflymarketing.com
Purpose: A complete membership, affiliate and viral marketing software solution

I’ve already completed a review of the Butterfly Marketing Manuscript, which is the book from Mike Filsaime that details the strategies behind Butterfly Marketing. I think it’s a great book and frankly, Mike’s ideas are genius, I really think he came up with online marketing 2.0, taking some of the best strategies that have worked offline and making them work even better online.

In this review I do not intend to cover the strategies behind Butterfly Marketing. This is a review of the Butterfly Marketing software, the program you can use to implement Butterfly Marketing strategies and the system I use to manage Blog Mastermind.

Since I have now properly implemented Butterfly Marketing on a live site, I can offer you my feedback on the complete package.

What Is Butterfly Marketing?

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Download the MP3 [ 63 Minutes - 15 MB]

I sat down with Mike about a month ago and recorded this interview. I wanted to focus more on Mike’s history and how he went from car salesman working 70 hours a week to an Internet marketer in charge of a 7 million dollar business. Mike has some great stories from his years working at car dealerships and we learn a lot about how he managed to transition from working as an employee to being in charge of an Internet business.

Mike also spends some time in the interview talking about one of his core skills - building buzz using viral marketing - and you will learn about what it takes to create a viral marketing event online.

I hope you enjoy the interview and as always, if you haven’t already done so, please check out my podcast archives for more interviews like this, all free.

Show Notes

1. Mike background growing up in Long Island NY
2. Mike’s time in the car sales business
3. How a SPAM email led Mike to the Internet Marketing world
4. How Mike was “caught” running an Internet business which led to him being forced to quit the car sales business
5. Mike discusses viral marketing with some examples
6. How to build buzz online
7. Tips for starting your own Internet business and a discussion of the three key ingredients for success
8. Wrap-up

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Another Brisbane (sort of) guy making a splash online with a unique idea. Kudos to STRIDEGum for picking it up and turning it into a viral marketing campaign.

What does this make you feel?

More info: WhereTheHellIsMatt.com.

Found via copyblogger.

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Brian Clark, the CopyBlogger, has produced a 10 page PDF report on Building Traffic with Article Marketing.

The first part of the report you will be familiar with because it’s my article Is Article Marketing Worth Your Time?, but the second part is all new content from Brian that will really help your article marketing campaigns if you decide to implement this marketing method.

Download free 10-page PDF article marketing report [PDF]

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