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Fanminder | 5 Questions for Paul Rosenfeld & Tracy Grover

February 10, 2011 by admin · 2 Comments 

paul rosenfeldI met Paul Rosenfeld last year when he came to pitch Savvy Cellar Wine Bar & Wine Shop before it opened in Mountain View, CA on the merits of his new mobile marketing service called Fanminder.  Always being one to extend and try new things and wanting to dip our toe into the mobile world, I said yes (plus Paul is very passionate and convincing).  He is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fanminder.  He spent about 15 years working for two of the best companies catering to small businesses — American Express and Intuit. At American Express Paul helped lead its first gift card program for merchants and worked in the Small Business Services division. At Intuit, he was General Manager QuickBooks Merchant Account Service; QuickBooks Online Edition; and led development of the FinanceWorks online banking suite.

tracy groverTracy Grover is Co-Founder and COO of Fanminder.  Most recently, Tracy was Vice President of Product Management for AccountNow. Previously she served as Director of Marketing for LoopNet, which automates online marketing tools for small real estate businesses to help them compete with the big guys.  Before that Tracy built, launched, and marketed online banking solutions for small businesses (for Bank of America & Silicon Valley Bank), a secure mobile application used by doctors & public officials (Certicom) and the first mass market online credit card, NextCard.

I recently sat down with Paul and Tracy and fired off 5 questions for them . . . .

1) What was the genesis of Fanminder?

Paul:  Tracy and I started Fanminder literally in the teeth of the recession, in October 2008. We had very good paying jobs – I was the Chief Marketing Officer and Tracy was the VP Product Management for a local start-up. We saw how all the larger, Fortune-sized retailers were rushing into mobile and social marketing but when we “walked down main street” we didn’t see any local businesses doing anything.

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Have Mobile Payments (Finally) Arrived?

December 6, 2010 by admin · Leave a Comment 

Bling TagBased on the sheer volume of investments, predictions and hype about the potential of mobile payments, the above headline could have been written years ago.  But one tangible recent development indicates that mobile payments may finally be about to take off.

Really!

In the past, there have been many hurdles holding the mobile payment market back.  These included:

  • Handsets.  They lacked the appropriate SIM or RFID technology.
  • Networks.  Banks and credit card companies are notoriously slow, lack innovation and are conservative by nature.
  • Security.  Communicating over unsecure mobile networks is already an issue, and when it comes to financial transactions, security becomes paramount.
  • Merchant Acceptance.  Establishing a large enough footprint of national and independent merchants is very difficult.  In technology, we call this a problem of “scale”.
  • Consumer Behavior.  Consumers don’t change their behavior unless there is a good reason to do so. For any number of reasons, most consumers have not yet embraced mobile payments.

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Five Ways to Grow Your Fanbase

November 24, 2010 by admin · 2 Comments 

Five Ways to Grow Your Fanbase
Interesting post at American Express Open Forum titled “The Secret to Repeat Business:  Grow Your Fanbase.”
After noting that small merchants are “soured by $500 rate cards and the 50 percent cut that flash sales sites take from merchants,” Paul Rosenfeld, CEO of Fanminder’s, lays out two alternative, more successful strategies: 1) Engage your customers through fan lists that inform and provide deals; and 2) Grow your fanbase.
He then outlines five specific steps for growing your fanbase, which I’ve modified slightly for our purposes here.)
• Ask your customers to join in person.  There still is nothing like the personal touch.
• Post signs where people look. Savvy Cellar has posted signs above the bar, on the back of the menu.  We are thinking about adding signs in or outside the restroom (seriously people do text in there) and on our customer receipts.  The latter idea has helped grow Savvy Cellar’s email list.
• Claim your listing. Facebook Places, Google Places, Bing Listing, Yahoo Local, Yelp, Foursquare, Gowalla all provide you a place to reach new customers.  Most have apps that take advantage of geo-location technology on smart phones, so that customers can learn of your business or be reminded of it when they are nearby.
• Understand how customers move from casual to fanatical. Give customers a path to move from casual involvement to experiences that are more meaningful.  For Savvy Cellar that means that a first-time customer should be presented with high-quality wines, food and service (if all goes well).  During the course of that experience, they might be introduced to the idea of taking a wine class or participating in an upcoming tasting.  Give ‘em excuses to come back for something different and new.  The second date shouldn’t be the same as the first date.
• Make ‘em feel special. Let your fans on mobile lists, Facebook, or Twitter feel special by letting them in on inside info.  Savvy Cellar posts about the cricket that inhabits the bar at night, new wines our staff is tasting for next month’s menu and last minute deals or sales.
How have you grown and engaged your fanbase?

fansInteresting post at American Express Open Forum titled “The Secret to Repeat Business:  Grow Your Fanbase.”

After noting that small merchants are “soured by $500 rate cards and the 50 percent cut that flash sales sites take from merchants,” Paul Rosenfeld, CEO of Fanminder, lays out two alternative, more successful strategies:

1) Engage your customers through fan lists that inform and provide deals; and

2) Grow your fanbase.

He then outlines five (5) specific steps for growing your fanbase, (which I’ve modified slightly for our purposes here):

1) Ask your customers to join in person. There still is nothing like the personal touch.

2) Post signs where people look. Savvy Cellar has posted signs above the bar, on the back of the menu.  We are thinking about adding signs in or outside the restroom (seriously people do text in there) and on our customer receipts.  The latter idea has helped grow Savvy Cellar’s email list.

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Mobile . . The Next Big Thing (Just Not The Only One)

November 22, 2010 by admin · 2 Comments 

fanminder_button I was pleased to meet Paul Rosenfeld during the spring of this year.  We had just launched a new Savvy Cellar Wine Bar & Wine Shop at the foot of Castro Street in Mountain View, CA.  As a tech product guy and part-time wine marketing sloth, I am always on the lookout for ways to connect with new customers.  Mobile marketing always sounded simple.  But when I’d kick the tires on potential solutions, they usually fell down in one or more dimensions:

  • complexity to configure
  • administrative time required to manage
  • lack of fit with other marketing activities
  • cost
  • inability to actually reach target consumers.

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