QVIews

As Ben McConnell correctly notes below, there are two kinds of thinking among marketing communicators. We have "campaign thinking" and we have … something better. Ben calls it "evangelism thinking" because his book is Creating Customer Evangelists. I prefer to think of it as "systems thinking." Drew Neisser calls it "marketing as service." Whatever you…

Once you’ve committed to a brand community, you accept some leadership from them. You DO get to set boundaries, but within those boundaries, you have to let the brand change. Not just evolve into something more successful, but to follow where its market wants to take it. That’s very, very hard to do. Adweek: These…

In developing a marketing system, you have to put spaces and slack into the system that allow for positive human interaction and reaction. The story below reminds me of the old saw: ‘people don’t care what you know until they know that you care.’ We are simply unable to capture everything we know about human…

Many companies become slaves to their "top 20%"–the customers who provide 80% of the revenues. But we should always inspect or biggest customers to make sure they have the profits and the future we want, as Ian Brodie points out. Lighthouse on Sales Excellence: Challenging the 80:20 Rule. 2008-Mar-5, by Ian Brodie In all three…

I recently discovered an excellent feature on the Staples web site that lets me review my past orders and re-order something quickly and conveniently. Steve Yastrow wisely points out that when you have a conversation with a friend, you pick up where you left off. Some business-to-business marketers are good at this, but consumer companies,…

The case used to be that companies instituted loyalty programs to reduce competition. Now loyalty programs drive competition. Credit card companies will not only let you configure your terms, they will also let you put any picture your want on the card. Ability to customize = loyalty. Marketing ROI: Is Customization an Unreasonable Loyalty Value?.…

As marketers struggle to take advantage of the hot new trend of social networking sites, they are stumbling on their own short-term thinking. They can’t just run an advertisement or even a campaign. They have to make a commitment to participate in the community, for better or for worse. Adweek: Social Ad Lessons, 2008-May-19, by…

Email newsletters seem so easy, but they are actually the easiest way to abuse your customer relationships. If they aren’t thoughtful, relevant, and consistently packaged, you’ll be exploiting your customers’ time and attention. Good newsletters require a dedicated team of people who know what else is going on around the company, as well as best…

Unless your business is big enough to devote millions of dollars to television advertising every year, or you’re into direct response TV (it’s own unique marketing system), using television to market your business has always been very problematic. Houston’s Gallery Furniture figured how to avoid prohibitive TV production costs by building an image of being…