QVIews

Is this company called Reward Paths saying that U.S. mid-sized companies apply short-term, seat-of-the-pants solutions? I’m shocked, shocked. … For too many medium-sized companies, marketing is about driving sales and cracking those golden eggs this quarter, and not about nurturing a nice flock of golden-egg laying geese. When you establish any marketing program, especially a…

While the Picasso/Cezanne analogy seems to annoy people, Malcolm Gladwell’s new presentation on loyalty building shows great insight. He contrasts a Picasso-like desire for immediate results with a Cezanne-like commitment to testing new ideas and "taking a journey" with your customers. He’s right about one thing: customers don’t expect you to be perfect, they just…

"Social media marketing" is justifiably hot. If your brand can participate, you have an opening to find more evangelists, build awareness, obtain cachet, and maybe even ride a trend to higher revenues, all at lower cost than traditional advertising. However, the unpredictability of social media marketing is daunting to many marketers. Fortunately, the architects of…

Some companies try and recruit evangelists (loyal customers who help market the company), but I think a wiser route is to identify them by their actions, the way Pepsi does. RetailEmail Blog: Takeaways from the Email Evolution Conference. 2008-Feb-14, by Chad White: We identify email forwarders and treat them differently, rewarding them, said Lawrence DiCapua,…

Have you ever tried to start a conversation with someone who just wasn’t interested? Marketers face this problem all the time. They want a dialogue with their audience but find it challenging to connect. The key is to take it lightly and keep trying. I’m not overly impressed with Liberty Mutual’s new site, The Responsibility…

One way to avoid depersonalizing the people who use your product or service is to consider them as members of your tribe, instead of as a target market. You have to live close with members of your tribe, and you can’t afford to disappoint them. Seth’s Blog: Tribe Management. 2008-Jan-30, by Seth Godin Tribe management…

Once you’ve been working for weeks on a newsletter or a campaign, it’s hard to imagine what it’s like to see it for the first time. But that’s only way it’s ever going to perform for you. Your email messages may compelling on your desk but in the stew of nagging assignments, endless negotiations, purchase…

The amazing thing about the Pepsi SuperBowl "Stuff" commercial was not the spectacle of Justin Timberlake (not pictured here) flying through the air, but the way Pepsico has wrung every opportunity to score from this campaign. They did a great job of thinking through how people would act after seeing the commercial and how to…

Here is an excellent checklist to make sure your new subscriber welcome is "best practice." These are from Margaret Farmakis, Return Path’s director of strategic services. You can download an entire white paper on the subject at www.ReturnPath.com. Target Marketing: Eight Steps to More Effective Welcome E-mails, 2008-Mar-1, by Hallie Mummert: Welcome new subscribers within…

Just because someone is your customer doesn’t mean they want to subscribe to your electronic newsletter. Nevertheless, you can dramatically improve your subscription rate if you provide newsletters which are perfect for the device your audience uses to read it. For instance, if your readers are using older displays, then having a narrow format is…