Category: Uncategorized
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How to Free your Customers
A truly loyal customer will send you referrals long after they quit being a customer, provided you have made them feel free. Right now Micro Center and Hewlett Packard have spent 60 days implementing an insured repair on my son's laptop computer. I never want to be chained to them again. In our rush to become social, we run…
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How to Become a Publicity System
Having an awareness and respect from the news media (all sizes, all kinds) is a worthy goal for any business. If your business does something newsworthy, it's a very efficient way to reach your audiences. Some people can even get good press by being newsworthy themselves, even if what they do is a little mundane.…
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How to Design Better Solutions
The recent surge in popularity of 'design thinking' really just reflects a elevation of standards in business. Some people are native design thinkers, instinctively seeing issues from the users' angle and anticipating consequences of their design choices. Sadly, most of us have to learn the discipline, and design thinking is a step-up from strategic thinking.…
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How to Expand your Brand
According to Arun Sinha, head of marketing at Zurich Financial, fewer than 15% of consumers trust any insurance brand. Whew! I didn't realize it had gotten that bad. That must be Europe … wonder what percentage it would be in the U.S.? So now Zurich is taking action to strengthen their image as a company…
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How to Make Email a Better Servant
By and large, people don't take email for their entertainment. In fact, most of them view email as a burden. Every message has to earn its way, and many of them are freeloaders and failures. When a customer asks for an order confirmation, it's an opportunity to finish the job with a smile, not a…
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How to Avoid Needless Segments
The segmenting of customers by demographics and psychographics has become an important way to minimize marketing waste. But as Professor David Corkindale points out, you can't segment customers who have no meaningful differences. When I was at Ogilvy & Mather, we assumed customers had a set of 'preferred brands' or a 'repertoire', and that actual…
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How to Stay Fresh
Over time, all contact lists, even those composed of the most pristine opted-in volunteers, will accumulate inactive records. Properly handling these inactive subscribers is one of the most important ways to keep your communications program strong. Stefan Pollard describes the correct maintenance steps to take and avoid below, but I'd also like to emphasize a…
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How to Leverage Social Media for Non-Users
You and your audience may be perfectly happy in your twentieth-century communication web of phones, brochures, and even email, but don't be surprised if you soon lose a prospect who found a great online recommendation to your competitor's product. You just can't depend on your audience to stay in the bowl, no matter how isolated…
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How to Share your Customers
We suspect your customers buy things from other companies. Unless you're Wal-Mart you can't pretend to fill their every need. So why not help them find companies that fill the empty spaces the same way you do? What an excellent way to keep them 'in the family.' Strategic Public Relations: Brands Are Curating Cool.2008-Sep-3, by…
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How to Share an Audience with Less Risk
As interruption-based advertising loses its efficiency, marketing innovation has re-focused onto marketing partnerships. An excellent example is the Bacardi sponsorship of Groove Armada, which has been discussed in the Wall Street Journal (U.K. DJs Aim to Lift Some Spirits, 2008-Jun-27, by Max Colchester) and UK-based Marketing Week (Why bands need brands, 2008-Apr-16, by Camille Alarcon)…
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