Posts Tagged marketing
OK, so maybe you have a budget for marketing research. Most of my small to midsize clients don’t, but larger companies do. Fine. Check out Umbria, recently acquired by the customer opinion folks at J.D. Power & Assoc.
Umbria focuses its marketing intelligence technology on social media—blogs, message boards, Usenet, and product review sites. They deliver data plus analysis of the potential effect of online conversations on brands, markets, consumers and trends.
May 12, 2008
A few days ago, I blogged about using Google Alerts to find out if somebody’s talking about you online. Google offers a zero cost, essentially passive way to monitor your online reputation, keep an eye on the competition, and create opportunities to touch customers when their names are mentioned.
Sad note: I got a Google Alert this morning that told me a customer’s mother had just passed away in another state. I’m on my way to pick up a card to send my condolences. Email just won’t work for some messages.
You might reasonably ask, what does this have to do with marketing? Well, if marketing is about relationships, and I believe it is, then driving to the Hallmark Store, writing a sincere note and dropping the card in the mail will help build an important marketing relationship. If not, who cares? It’s the right thing to do.
May 12, 2008
Small to midsize companies struggle to keep their message fresh and their websites up to date. So do marketing coaches and other service providers. Fortunately, there are free tools that make it easy to get the word out. There may be dozens, but I want to talk about FeedBurner.
This morning, I wondered of I could use my blog posts to drive fresh content to the home page of my website. I had used FeedBurner to set up an RSS feed, so readers could subscribe to my blog. I wondered if they might have a way to deliver the feed to my website.
Five minutes of research tops and I found the answer. They call it BuzzBoost. In effect, it turns a portion of a webpage into an RSS reader. You click a few buttons, complete a couple data fields, and SAVE. When the BuzzBoost page refreshes, it gives you a little bit of html code to copy into your webpage. Here’s a link to my home page so you can see the result of my efforts.
Here’s how I did it…
Continue Reading May 8, 2008
I’m 58. I was born near the leading-edge of the baby boom. I am not a “senior citizen.”
I once gave a local barber a dirty look and a piece of my mind when he offered me a senior discount. I should have shut up and kept the $5, but he caught me by surprise. I was only 55. Sheeeesh!
I was appalled when AARP sent me an invitation to join when I turned 50. A couple years later, I joined just to see what it was all about. I let my membership expire after deciding AARP is essentially an organization that exists to license its membership list to insurance companies and other marketers who target the “senior” demographic. Yeah, they do some lobbying, but they never asked me what I’d like them to lobby for so thanks, but no thanks.
Continue Reading May 2, 2008
Spotted a post on the Egghead Marketing blog this morning, “Terse Reply Syndrome = Best Marketing Campaign of 2008.” It made me think of all the times and people who’ve given me cause to wince, grimace, and swear at my email delivery system of choice. It made me relive the pain. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
One guy in particular. I was starting an important new business partnership early last year. He was designated by the corporate partner to act as a “best practice” advisor to new partners. I would correspond with him via laptop… detailed questions with supporting info for context. Not rambling, but occasionally 2-300 words. He would respond via BlackBerry, “Do it.” Or the ever so helpful, “Won’t work.” Or the epic, “You will receive a meeting notice.” Was he trying to be terse? Probably not. Did he come off like a warm, helpful, supportive partner? Definitely not.
Continue Reading May 2, 2008
I have often encouraged CEOs and senior managers of midsize businesses to find someone in their life to be a dedicated surfer, someone who can keep an eye on the social web for good or bad comments about their companies or their competitors.
Comcast (not a client) has apparently adopted this approach in its efforts to climb out of the customer service cellar. Only time will tell if customer service scores will improve, but here’s an example of a single contact that resulted in major publicity for Comcast and a company in Philadelphia called iFractal.
The Philadelphia Inquirer |
PHILADELPHIA — Most afternoons, the Internet in Sarah Chambers’ office at iFractal in Philadelphia crashes and leaves her cyber-stranded without e-mail or online communication with clients. |
When it happened for the zillionth time a few days ago, Chambers tried something new, once her Web connection reappeared. She shot Comcast a curt public online message on the social-networking site Twitter: |
“My Internet goes out every day at 3:30. Why would that be?” |
Frank Eliason, a Comcast manager with the daunting assignment of monitoring the nation’s blogosphere for venomous posts aimed at the company, answered right away: “That should not be. We should have that looked at. Send an e-mail with account info to We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com.” |
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May 1, 2008
Clients and friends have been asking about the ROI from by blogging efforts. I hold them accountable, they hold me accountable… it’s a good thing.
This morning, I was prompted to write the following response to a LinkedIn question by Susan Solomon, VP Marketing at SchoolsFirst Federal Credit Union.
My blog is only two months old, so results are very preliminary. It has generated a few leads, but it’s been more helpful as a credibility builder after the first contact. Back in the day, I used to hand out a brochure after a first meeting with a potential client. It was intended to build credibility, remind the prospect of our discussion if s/he was in shopping mode, and provide something tangible s/he could pass along to a colleague.
Today, the first meeting is likely to be via email. By including a blog address in my signature, and a link to a specific article in the message, I have effectively replaced the brochure of old.
How about you?
April 30, 2008
In my recent post on Tapping the wisdom of customers. I talked about Dell’s IdeaStorm as powered by SalesForce.com. It seemed like a valuable if pricey way to gather ideas and test them out before putting them in the development cue.
At $5/user, I thought the SalesForce solution might be too rich for most midsize companies. But if the idea farming process works, I expected to see competitive options in the near future. Here’s one, currently in beta…
Continue Reading April 25, 2008
Sales people have product to move, quotas to meet. They have less time and larger territories than ever before. And to make matters worse, selling cycles are getting longer as decision makers strain to balance the competing needs for value and quality.
Why then do so many sales reps ignore sales leads generated at great expense by advertising, websites, direct mail, email and other promotional efforts?
Simple. It is more productive, more cost-effective for them to work existing leads, recontact existing customers and develop referral business than it is to call on an unqualified lead.
What do sales reps want? [...]
Continue Reading April 24, 2008
When was the last time you had an impartial, dispassionate assessment of your marketing program? You get a dispassionate assessment every time a potential customer takes a look at one of your ads or visits one of your websites. Every time an editor scans a press release or one of your own sales reps decides to use (or toss) another piece of collateral.
Unfortunately, none of these people is likely to volunteer an honest appraisal of your work—yet their honest appraisal is (should be) monumentally important to you.
As a coach and consultant (ad agency creative director in a past life), I have used a four-step process for extracting useful opinions about marketing programs and materials. Try them, they work…
Continue Reading April 23, 2008
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