Making Parking Great Again: How Boring Businesses Can Leverage Social Media
In Episode 9 of the Lion’s Share Marketing Podcast our featured guest, Kristin Ludwick, Director of Marketing at Ace Parking, introduces various techniques on how boring businesses can leverage social media into something more appealing to consumers. Kristin begins by describing her career journey and how she ended up working in marketing for a parking organization. She explains that parking companies are much more complex than they appear and marketing is very important for their growth and success.
The challenge Kristin found is attracting clients and customers since parking is always an afterthought and people are never particularly happy to pay for parking. Ace Parking places great emphasis on communicating to their customers who they are as a company and why they got started. Their personal service approach has proven to be successful as Ace Parking is now in its third generation of family ownership. Kristin attributes their success to her team's belief that Ace Parking is not in the parking industry. Rather, they consider themselves members of the hospitality industry. Ace trains all of its employees as if they were to work at a five-star hotel in order to provide excellent service to their customers. Positive customer experiences increase customer loyalty and this is what Kristin believes differentiates Ace Parking from their competitors.
Kristin clarifies that in the past there wasn't any brand loyalty among parking companies. For Ace Parking, brand loyalty began to increase when they began to use social media to reach out to their customers. People often don’t think about parking ahead of time, so the goal was to promote parking through social media in order to improve customers’ experiences. Recently, Ace Parking launched a new app with upgrades in development to allow customers to pay for parking ahead of time, receive directions to the location, and locate their cars within the parking structures- all a part of Ace Parking's goal of improving the customer experience.
Kristin concludes the conversation by advising recent college graduates to test things out and seek career opportunities that provide different perspectives and fit their lifestyles. She also explains that one way to overcome being seen as a commodity is by telling your company's story while remaining authentic. Kristin encourages marketing leaders in traditionally "boring" industries to position themselves as industry leaders and take advantage of their unique opportunity to lap the competition. Her last piece of advice is to stay up to date with your industry as well as other industries that could affect your company. Join us in this conversation about how to leverage social media while creating better brand loyalty- no matter how exciting your brand's industry is (or isn't).
Time Stamps
00:00 –Joke
00:32 – Episode Welcome
00:40 – Co-hosts Introduction
01:34 – What's in the News Today | Facebook F8 Conference
08:51 – Featured Guest Introduction | Kristin Ludwick
09:11 – Why Parking?
12:45 – How do you take something boring and make it sexy?
14:31 – What Differentiates Ace Parking from Competitors
15:49 – Improving Customer Experience
18:44 – "Every thank you earned"
20:37 – Ace Parking App
22:45 – Advice to College Graduates
25:17 – Brand loyalty and overcoming being seen as a commodity
26:53 – Advice for industries that are not using digital marketing
31:21 – Ace's Brand Voice
34:12 – Episode Key Takeaway
36:30 – Closing Comments
37:20 – Episode Outro
Featured Guest
Kristin Ludwick - Director Marketing at Ace Parking
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/kristingludwick
Twitter: twitter.com/kristinludwick
Ace Parking App
Resources
2017 Facebook F8 Developer Conference
2017 Facebook F8 Developer Conference Videos
The Guardian - "Eight visions of Facebook's future from its F8 conference"
Business Insider - "The future of Facebook's VR push is out now: a new way to hang with friends, virtually"
Lion’s Share Marketing Podcast
Music
Intro Music – Colony House – Buy “2:20” on iTunes
Outro Music – Skillet – Buy “Lions” on iTunes