Visiting the marketing hillbillies

I haven't posted frequently in July due to vacation trips. Most recently, we visited St. Louis, MO as part of my wife's online community get-together. We took a day-trip to Hannibal, MO, hometown of Mark Twain (I'm a big fan). Everything in this town seemed to be named after Twain or one of his favorite characters. My marketing radar was up as this small town had small-time marketing evident:

• Our lunch was pre-paid at The Jumping Frog Cafe. Good sandwich and Gooseberry pie, but they had other problems. The lemonade was horrible--too much concentrate, I think. And my son got potato salad instead of macaroni salad because they don't label their opaque containers. Marketing lesson: test and plan for quality service (and don't be afraid to copy the big resturants). I also thought it would be neat if they offered a free dessert for anybody who has a frog image with them (my son was wearing a frog shirt that day).
• Amongst the many antique shops there was a very cool glass studio/gallery with very affordable glass bowls and decorative plates. These would make a great gift in the future, but not anything I was going to buy that day. So I asked the artist if she had a website as I took a business card. No was the reply. You'd think that such a cool place, with unique items, amongst the mediocre in Hannibal would be on the web--at least for tourists like me who cannot make an immediate decision. Marketing lesson: consider the customer's buying pattern and make it easy for them.
• And, finally, a more humorous lesson. I bought a T-shirt from the "Mark Twain Cave" that afterwards my wife noted reads "Created 120 million year's ago." Ughh! Marketing lesson: Don't trust the designer to proofread.