Posts Tagged ‘Ben Silverman’
PR Important Dates and Holidays
Courtesy of PR Fuel which is one of my favorite long-time newsletters on public relations issues, best practices and cool thought, comes this calendar of important dates and events in 2009. If you don’t already subscribe to PR Fuel, I suggest you do.
PR pros know that we must plan our client’s calendars around holidays and important 
remembrance events. We also need to take advantage of important anniversaries as hooks for our client’s PR activities. For example, 2009 is the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood. Is you client a baker? If so, plan a special promotion to celebrate using Hawaiian pineapples in your baked goods, or if your client is a travel agent, plan to focus a promotion on travel to Hawaii.
Thanks Ben Silverman for being such a great PR pro.
Holidays and Observances
– New Year’s Day (January 1st)*
– Martin Luther King Jr. Day (January 19st)*
– Chinese New Year (January 26th)
– Groundhog Day (February 2nd)
– Valentine’s Day (February 14th)
– President’s Day (February 16th)*
– Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras (February 24th)
– Ash Wednesday (February 25th)
– St. Patrick’s Day (March 17th)
– Palm Sunday (April 5th)
– Passover (April 9th)
– Good Friday (April 10th)
– Easter (April 12th)
– Earth Day (April 22nd)
– Cinco de Mayo (May 5th)
– Mother’s Day (May 10th)
– Memorial Day (May 25th)*
– Flag Day (June 14th)
– Father’s Day (June 21st)
– Independence Day (July 4th)*
– Ramadan (August 21st to September 19th)
– Labor Day (September 7th)*
– Rosh Hashana (September 18th)
– Yom Kippur (September 28th)
– Columbus Day (October 12th)*
– Halloween (October 31st)
– Veterans Day (November 11th)*
– Thanksgiving (November 26th)*
– Hannukah (December 11th to December 19th)
– Christmas Eve (December 24th)
– Christmas (December 25th)*
– Kwanzaa (December 26th)
– New Year’s Eve (December 31st)
*Federal Holiday
Political Events
– 111th Congress begins (January 3rd)
– Inauguration Day (January 20th, Washington, D.C.)
– General Election (November 3rd, various state and
municipality races, no federal election)
Sporting Events
– Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa Bay, Florida (February 1st)
– Daytona 500 in Daytona Beach, Florida (February 15th)
– Men’s NCAA Basketball Final Four in Detroit, Michigan (April 4th to April 6th)
– First game at new Yankee Stadium in Bronx, New York (April 19th)
Trade Show Calendar
– http://directory.tradeshowweek.com/directory/index.asp
200th Anniversary
– Birth of Abraham Lincoln (February 12th)
– Birth of Charles Darwin (February 12th)
100th Anniversary
– Robert Peary’s team reaches the North Pole (April 6th)
50th Anniversary
– Cuban Revolution
– Alaska statehood (January 3rd)
– Deaths of Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and the Big Bopper (February 3rd)
– Launch of Vanguard II, the world’s first weather satellite, by the United States (Feb. 17th)
– Release of the Barbie doll (March 9th)
– Hawaii statehood (August 21st)
25th Anniversary
– Apple releases the Macintosh computer (January 24th)
– Founding of Dell (November 4th)
– Bhopal disaster (December 3rd)
– Bernhard Goetz “subway vigilante” incident (December 22nd)
10th Anniversary
– NATO begins action against Yugoslavia (March 24th)
– Columbine High School incident (April 20th)
– Napster debuts (June 1st)
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Tags: Ben Silverman, PR, PR events, PR Fuel, promotions, public relations
Hospitality and Public Relations
For the last several years I have been an avid reader of PR Fuel. Recently its author Ben Silverman described his experiences with two parts of the hospitality world, specifically, hotels and restaurants.
Silverman lauded two managers, one from a boutique hotel and one from a fine dining restaurant who understand the short communication channel between online forums, blogs and sites such as TripAdvisor and Chowhound and one’s hotel, inn or restaurant. Specifically, he lauded the hotel manager for responding on TripAdvisor apologizing for customers’ bad experiences and then celebrated the restaurant owner who responded to an e-mail with a personal phone call to set up an evening’s celebration.
If more managers and owners would realize how important monitoring these forums is, the more who would see a dedicated customer group who acts like a loyalty club. I had a client who in the past when asked why he didn’t have a dedicated customer service rep (who followed up on results for tech service visits), “It’s too expensive.” My response is it’s too expensive not to! Why spend more and more dollars to acquire new customers when causing your current ones to delight in your service and recommend you is not only more sound but less costly? This isn’t a new idea, but a very old one. The jeweler I worked with 40 years ago provided free jewelry repairs, even it the piece didn’t come from his store…and guess where the customer went when they needed a new piece of jewelry?
When I was Director of Business Development for Maverick Southern Kitchens, I lead the team that created Maverick Collection, a fine dining loyalty program for the restaurants of the group. Not only is the loyalty program still around, but it’s still gaining members (after 7 years!) and is the best channel the company has to promote their special events and properties. People are loyal to those businesses who care about them and show it.
Everyone wants the best service. The fact that service is provided by humans means that sometimes we make mistakes. Standing up, apologizing, fixing the mistake and making sure the system is not broken or that this was just a one time glitch, will go a long way in keeping transparency and authenticity in your business.
Yes, sometimes you do have really difficult customers for whom nothing will ever go right and when you get one you are justified in firing them. Just make sure that when you do, you have tried everything you can to fix the situation. Don’t jump to a conclusion to fire the customer when your business is the side of the equation that isn’t balanced.
