When is a complaint letter like a sales letter? When it gets the immediate, affirmative response you’re looking for. Take the letter “professional complaint letter writer” Bruce Silverman wrote to the Ritz-Carlton that ended up getting him a week, totally comped, at the company’s Kapalua in Hawaii.

As today’s Consumerist detailed, Silverman has been amazingly successful in getting companies to give him all sorts of free stuff: First class upgrades, hotel room upgrades (how does a free week in the Presidential Suite sound?), hundreds of dollars in cash — all from his way with words.

Silverman has now written a book filled with advice for complaining. The basic technique isn’t too far off from the way to write an effective sales letter. Basically his advice is:

1. Make the opening of your complaint letter personable and personal. Hook their interest.
2. Praise first before you explain why you’re dissatisfied.
3. Keep it brief. The reader is busy and easily distracted.
4. Be reasonable — don’t ask for the moon.
5. Make it clear you haven’t written them off, that you pl;an to be customers again in the future, and that you would welcome some sort of compensation.

As the Consumerist put it, “It’s really just an artful way of demonstrating the basic principle of “it will cost more to ignore me than to take care of my problem.”

Check it out. It’s a fun read. And it may get you what you want next time you’re wronged.

Yes, an Australian newspaper is giving away at an all-expenses-paid divorce.

The lucky ex-couple also gets a TV and a Playstation — which I suppose could result in a custody battle.

Only one guy in the world has the gall to dish out $50 million for PR and publicity: yep, Uncle Sam.

It turns out a $50 million public relations contract — to promote the Thunderbirds, the Air Force aerial stunt team — was tainted by improper influence and preferential treatment. Nothing blatantly criminal enough for anyone to go to jail, apparently. Just semi-corrupt business as usual. Details here.

But what really galls me is the idea that our military is shelling out that kind of money just to promote the T-birds. Typical government waste. Now just imagine how many more of your tax dollars are squandered on the team’s jet fuel, aircraft maintenance, pilots’ and mechanics’ salaries, etc. (Did you know that an Air Force pilot earns $75,000+ ?)

The total budget for this foolishness must be in the hundreds of millions of dollars — double if the Navy’s Blue Angels are still flying. All for something that adds zilch to our national security, and does nothing to help win the two wars this nation is fighting.

Finally, as a 20-year media veteran, I have to question how difficult it is to publicize the Thunderbirds’ appearances? A diamond-shaped squadron of jet fighters screaming overhead is pretty hard to ignore, folks. The media will be there anyway, $50 million or no $50 million.

Promoting the squadron’s appearances is a public relations slam-dunk. I’m sure other PR specialists — like me — could do the job for, say, a measly $25 million. Whatever happened to awarding the job to the low bidder?

Part of me wonders why my firm never wins fat contracts like that. Then I remember — oh yeah, it’s because I have a conscience.

What do you think? Am I all wet? Should our military be spending hundreds of millions to promote unnecessary fluff like the Thunderbirds? Or should Uncle Sam use that money for more important things — like bailing out the poor millionaires at Bear Sterns? Or do the Thunderbirds serve some useful purpose?

Andy Sernovitz at MarketingProfs offers six WOM tips, gleaned from his experiences with Holly Suttmann, a former schoolteacher who has effectively been promoting her Black & Light Candle company.

“Holly really understands word of mouth,” Andy says. “She’s proof that every business can master these inexpensive techniques. There are a lot of global companies that should study what she’s doing.”

I’m going to extract and paraphrase a few of Andy’s gems:

1. Cultivate key talkers. But use personal notes and e-mails, NOT not press releases, to build a personal relationship with the writer or blogger. As Sernowitz aptly put it, “Not sales calls, just friendliness.” [Note: there is a time and place where press releases are appropriate, but not with bloggers! More on that in a future post.]
2. Give away free samples. People can’t talk about a product they haven’t seen.
3. Make it easy to spread the word. Think coupons, discount codes and other pass-alongs.

Question: What is missing from this list? It’s an essential ingredient for any kind of effective marketing, conventional or viral. It’s mentioned in the MP article, but it’s not on my list. Can you spot what it is — without looking at the original article?

Tell me in the comments.

Southern California isn’t the only place that’s burning. A big chunk of Hollywood box office is in ashes, too. Sunday’s New York Times examines the cause of several of this fall’s big-name box office disasters.

“Gone Baby Gone” tanked, despite star Ben Affleck appearing on virtually every talk show except “Wall Street Week.” The heavily-promoted “Rendition” also went into the crapper, despite its cheerful theme of torture. “Things We Lost in the Fire” starring Benicio Del Toro and Halle Berry also sank with barely a bubble.

The culprit in all these big name failures: lack of focus. They’re not targeted at any particular audience. As the Times put it:

“That doesn’t mean they’re bad pictures. It means they have no obvious appeal to any of the four big demographic groups at which Hollywood has typically aimed its wares: males 17 to 24 years old, males 25 to 49, females 17 to 24 and females 25 to 49.

What has this Hollywood stuff got to do with small business marketing and attracting more customers? Everything. Your small business needs to do exactly what these movies didn’t do. You need to focus on entertaining — uh, I mean serving – a narrow niche audience.

The headline of the Times piece says it all. It’s “How to Find an Audience? Try a Zoom Lens.” link

The quickest way to failure is to try to be all things to all people. If you stand for everything, you’re remembered for nothing. If you don’t create your marketing message for a tightly-designed market, you’re doomed to fail — whether you’re a CPA or a Hollywood producer.

“… if the movie business is to keep making these smart little dramas in which ambitious actors and prize-hungry filmmakers take their annual shot at the (Oscars), it will have to start doing what car makers and packaged-goods companies have always done: sharpen the message and narrow the targets.

Give something away! Something big, something that appeals to your target market. Something that vividly shows prospects (that’s what they are, right?) how great your service or products are.

That’s the time-honored marketing strategy, and it’s exactly what IKEA is doing to promote its new website aimed at small businesses (rather than home furnishings). An online video contest, “Small Business, Big Dreams,” will award a design makeover to not one but a group of small businesses from the same neighborhood (a nice touch). To enter, entrepreneurs submit a short video showcasing unique aspects of their business and its role within the community.

Not surprisingly, the Ikea business site also includes a forum to share tips and techniques for creating the ideal business space, including visitor-submitted photos and videos of their workspaces.

The only gripe I have is the use of Flash animation to open every section. Even with my (fairly peppy) broadband connection, I find animations slow-loading and annoying. But hey, maybe that’s just me.

Have you ever given away a sample of your work (website design, for example) as a way of attracting a new set of prospects? Thinking about it for the future? Post a comment and let’s talk about it.

For the second year in a row, Continental Airlines has the most satisfied customers among domestic carriers, according to the latest J.D. Power and Associates 2007 North America Airline Satisfaction Study.

It finished 24 points ahead of Delta, its nearest rival, for customer satisfaction among traditional network carriers in North America. It is the second consecutive year that Continental has won the award. link

Among low-cost carriers, JetBlue won top honors, as it did in 2006 and 2005. link

Business and leisure flyers evaluated the airlines in seven areas: Reservations, check-in, boarding/ deplaning/ baggage, aircraft, flight crew, in-flight services, and costs/ fees.

Agree? Disagree? Who is your top choice among domestic airlines? Why?