RCB Awards, started in 1990 by Cindi Denevan, provides creative recognition and motivation products and solutions for organizations wishing to honor and inspire great things in their employees, donors, and colleagues. They help their customers “light the torch” in those around them.
RCB Sales Manager, Curt Denevan, shares some of his marketing wisdom.
How do you distinguish your company in the marketplace?
- We have the largest supply of awards in the area.
- We have websites that service niche markets, like www.rcbdonorrecognition.com, or www.milwaukeecrystal.com.
- We service an independent group of 60,000 distributors nationwide.
- We offer service that far exceeds what others are willing to do.
What makes this the right business for you?
It’s a people pleasing business. Ultimately, we make people feel good about their accomplishments.
What are some of the most effective marketing tools you use?
Referrals are the biggest.
What is something particularly creative or innovative you've done to market your company?
We belong to a trade association and through them serve as a supplier of awards to the promotional products industry. As this industry has over 60,000 distributors who call on corporations, this is an ideal group for us to focus on. We have a distributor website, Exquisite Images LLC, that just serves this industry. These products are specially designed and priced to meet the needs of our distributors.
Thinking about brand new, cutting-edge, or social media marketing ideas, what are some of your favorite business tips?
We send out a daily tweet regarding some idea in recognition that can help people in their business or with their customers. This tweet links to an article in our blog. As our followers grow and these articles become read, we emerge as a leading expert in the field of recognition, which is good for SEO, and this drives traffic to our website and our phones. [Does your business need to learn search engine optimization (SEO) techniques? Read more here.]
Thinking about classic, traditional, old-school marketing ideas, what are some of your favorite business tips?
Join local associations that pertain to your industry, and get involved with that association. Join a committee. Be active. Be involved. Provide service to others. It will come back to you.
Are there any business or marketing books, publications, websites, or blogs that your turn to again and again for advice or inspiration?
I have a link on my blog of famous quotations that I read every day.
What is a recent business or marketing book, article, or website you've read and what is something you learned from it?
We recently discussed an article about Apple Computers that was a great example of out of the box customer service attitude. A guy returned an iPad with a note: “Wife says no.” Apple customer service passed the package up to the VP who wrote a new note: “Apple says yes,” and shipped the iPad back to the guy [for free]. It got a ton of media play, naturally, but the moral of the story isn’t that they got a ton of free advertising, it was that the customer was made whole and told the world what he thought about it. That’s customer service.
Has there been any marketing tool or advice that didn't work for your particular business? What was it and why didn't it work for you?
We try ideas all the time that don’t work. It’s how we find out what does work.
Any final advice you can add?
Keep trying new things, keep talking to people about what you do, keep involved in your community.
RCB Awards website and social media links:
Website: www.rcbawards.com
Blog: recognitionreward.blogspot.com
Twitter: @rcbawards
Facebook: facebook.com/rcbawards.com
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