Marketing

Three Companies that Started down the Trust Path with Customers First

BY Valeria Maltoni | 09-27-2009 | 10:04 PM | INNOVATION

They do it by talking about and engaging with topics and content that will make their customers smarter. Or they share tidbits that are fun and engaging, and share the love. These are the secrets of successful corporate blogs - and ...READ MORE›

Five Companies that Fix their Story to Inspire Service

BY Valeria Maltoni | 09-20-2009 | 9:17 PM | INNOVATION

Branding as a strategy means little if the customer experience is not there. If your story doesn’t align with what you do, all of the clever tactics you can come up with to follow your lofty goal will not make the cut.Unless you can ...READ MORE›

Would CPG Brands Compete with their Own Channels for Customers?

BY Valeria Maltoni | 09-13-2009 | 6:52 PM | INNOVATION

AdAge writes an interesting article about going beyond online ads to eCommerce opportunities for CPG brands. Will it pay off? Services are easier to deliver online. A few product dot-bombs in the early 2000s made us keenly aware of ...READ MORE›

Customer Issues and the Bottom Line

BY Valeria Maltoni | 08-30-2009 | 9:52 PM | INNOVATION

Many marketers spend a considerable amount of time calculating the ROI of campaigns by looking at cost per lead (CPL) or Web conversion numbers. You are probably quite smart yourself to the ways of lead nurturing and its importance in ...READ MORE›

Innovation and Failure

BY Valeria Maltoni | 08-23-2009 | 9:32 PM | INNOVATION

There is a good relationship between innovation and failure. As Monica Harrington shares, Microsoft Bob gave plenty of very smart people a run for their money - and lessons to take to their next project. Those are familiar ...READ MORE›

Mad Men and Trust Agents

BY Valeria Maltoni | 08-16-2009 | 7:16 PM | INNOVATION

They’re at the opposite ends of the conversation spectrum. The show context is that of media and advertising, two areas that are undergoing rapid change - some would call it a decline. Mad Men captivated the public’s imagination ...READ MORE›

Fluency in Customer Conversation is a Key Business Driver

BY Valeria Maltoni | 08-09-2009 | 8:15 PM | INNOVATION

There is a reason why this publication is called Fast Company. The US has an even shorter attention span than many places I’ve had the fortune of spending time in. I’ve been writing about customer conversation here for more than ...READ MORE›

How to Give Your Company Service Deadlines

BY Valeria Maltoni | 08-02-2009 | 11:12 PM | INNOVATION

Usually it’s the customers who give you deadlines - and sometimes ultimatums - on service. Needing something done by, support within “x” time, service at “y” time and place. What would happen if you turned that concept on ...READ MORE›

How you can get the Most out of Customer Service

BY Valeria Maltoni | 07-05-2009 | 10:12 PM | INNOVATION

We spend so much time talking about how to improve customer service that I thought one post on how to improve customer attitude would be time well spent. If you think about it, we call a customer support line only when we have a ...READ MORE›

How to Map to the Social Media Engagement Profile of Your Customers

BY Valeria Maltoni | 05-17-2009 | 8:20 PM | INNOVATION

You probably already know that Forrester’s social technographics profile can help you analyze the social profile of your customer base. As authors Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li explain in the book Groundswell, people increasingly use ...READ MORE›

How to Answer the Social Phone

BY Valeria Maltoni | 05-10-2009 | 4:53 PM | INNOVATION

It seems that if there are many ways to listen in the social Web, there are also many reasons with the ways to answer. Tom Asacker puts it well, we define ourselves both according to what we identify with and what we reject, and given ...READ MORE›

Joel Stein, The World's Best Self-Promoter, On How To Be The World's Best Self-Promoter

BY Joel Stein | 05-18-2012 | 7:26 AM | LEADERSHIP

Joel Stein wrote a book, "Man Made: A Stupid Quest For Masculinity," and went to outrageous lengths to promote it. Then he wrote this article so you can steal his ideas (and of course, to promote his book).READ MORE›

How Baby Boomers Are Stifling The Marketing Revolution

BY Clark Kokich | 05-11-2012 | 6:03 AM | LEADERSHIP

The only brands that survive will be the ones that are successful in marketing to Generation Y--too bad the agencies, the media, and the client organizations are all run by baby boomers who don't seem to get it (yet). READ MORE›

Building A "Behavioral 360" Communications Plan

BY John Coleman | 05-08-2012 | 7:16 AM | LEADERSHIP

Remember, it’s always easier to change someone’s behavior through doing than lecturing. Behavioral 360 planning is a way to keep the focus on what individuals are doing and how your brand can play a role in supporting and enriching those experiences. READ MORE›

Personal.com Creates An Online Vault To Manage All Your Data

BY E.B. Boyd | 05-07-2012 | 7:50 AM | INNOVATION

A search for a way to put consumers in control of their information produces a tool that will simplify our lives. Memorizing passwords, alarm codes, birthdays, bank account numbers, allergy information, insurance policy numbers (etc., etc., etc.) may never be the same.READ MORE›

Untangling The Complex Relationship Between Media Spend And Sales

BY Steve Kerho | 05-03-2012 | 6:45 AM | LEADERSHIP

Did sales go up because of the media spend? Did the media spend happen because of high sales? One economic tool can analyze the causation. READ MORE›

How Enemies Power Innovation

BY Martin Lindstrom | 05-01-2012 | 10:20 AM | CAREERS

What we can all learn about the art of business from Pepsi's epic war with Coke and Apple's public dust-ups with Microsoft. READ MORE›

6 Questions All CMOs Need To Ask Themselves

BY Lisa Nirell | 04-30-2012 | 10:09 AM | LEADERSHIP

In this increasingly complex, technology-addicted business world, here are the key questions CMOs need to face about the future of marketing.READ MORE›

3 Rules For Building A Following, One Newsletter At A Time

BY Laura Roeder | 04-30-2012 | 6:30 AM | LEADERSHIP

Reliable, actionable content built "The Dash" newsletter to 30,000 and growing--as well as the author's personal brand. READ MORE›

6 New Maxims For Social Marketing

BY Sam Ford | 04-30-2012 | 6:11 AM | LEADERSHIP

With people circulating content through a greater number of looser ties and across many communities and platforms, companies must shift from using conversations as data to figuring out what will truly delight customers, what might turn them off, and what it truly means to be "social."READ MORE›