Marketing

Three Companies that Started down the Trust Path with Customers First

Valeria Maltoni — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 22:04:50 -0400

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 I’ll share then in less than a thousand words.

Five Companies that Fix their Story to Inspire Service

Valeria Maltoni — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 21:17:31 -0400

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 fix your story by inspiring a culture of service from the inside. You instill a belief as well as make an example of behaviors to follow throughout the organization. You know that this cannot just be a grassroots effort, it needs to come all the way from the top.

Would CPG Brands Compete with their Own Channels for Customers?

Valeria Maltoni — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 18:52:46 -0400

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 that.

One of the companies mentioned in the article is Alice.com. Their model is to connect customers to companies directly. But this is not their main story.

Customer Issues and the Bottom Line

Valeria Maltoni — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 21:52:44 -0400

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 branding and customer acquisition. Those are known costs of doing business these days.

Yet many companies fall apart when it comes to opportunity costs.

Innovation and Failure

Valeria Maltoni — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:32:57 -0400

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 lessons. Building on Harrington’s:

Mad Men and Trust Agents

Valeria Maltoni — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 19:16:12 -0400

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 by its depiction of a long gone era - dare I say with a tinge of nostalgia?

Fluency in Customer Conversation is a Key Business Driver

Valeria Maltoni — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:15:40 -0400

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 18 months and I don’t get tired of saying it - fluency in customer conversation is a key business driver, one that will make or break a company’s tenure at the economic table.

How to Give Your Company Service Deadlines

Valeria Maltoni — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 23:12:02 -0400

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 its head and gave yourself a deadline instead?

How you can get the Most out of Customer Service

Valeria Maltoni — Sun, 05 Jul 2009 22:12:26 -0400

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 problem - rarely if never to proactively say how much we love a product or a service.

Why are we so ready to give feedback when we have a bad experience and yet so harried and thoughtless when we have a great experience? Probably because we’re busy telling all our friends and do not think the company that gave us that experience might care.

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

Valeria Maltoni — Sun, 17 May 2009 20:20:57 -0400

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 technology to get what they need from each other, instead of relying on companies and businesses.

This is a social trend accelerated by technology, not the other way around.

How to Answer the Social Phone

Valeria Maltoni — Sun, 10 May 2009 16:53:15 -0400

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 the abundance of marketplace choice, we now choose interactions which we feel will produce the best story possible.

Brace Yourself: A Brand-Building Reality Check

Corey Blake — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:13:46 -0500

I’ve talked before (and will continue to talk about) my growing impatience with clients and potential clients who think we’re ready to call Oprah because the first draft of their manuscript is written. Not only is this expectation both naïve and grandiose, it’s completely based in fantasy. This childlike look at the book industry would be completely laughable if it weren’t so frustrating. What people need to understand is that, yes, it’s possible to get Oprah’s attention. Yes, it’s possible to get on the bestseller list. But it will not happen overnight.

Good Marketing Starts With Good Story Telling

David Lavenda — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:44:56 -0500

Your product/service vastly improves your customers’ lives. In today’s world of stimulus saturation, how do you get your message across? Let’s look at two approaches. This example is taken from a company whose product helps organizations manage their IT resources.

Corey’s Book: From the Writer’s Perspective

Corey Blake — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:41:03 -0500

Hello! I’m the third member of Corey’s book-writing, storytelling, epiphany-creating team—Katie, the writer. Corey has asked me to contribute one blog per week describing our unique process from my point of view, and I’m happy to do it. The truth is that, to many, the writing part of this equation is quite mysterious. I’d like to shine some light. But, first, a little history.

"We Could've Stopped Global Warming...We Didn't"

Cliff Kuang — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 09:25:03 -0500

Next week, the 15th U.N. Climate Change Congress convenes in Copenhagen--and the world leaders and functionaries passing through the airport might be met with a bracing message: A new series of ads, created by Arc Communications for Greenpeace, which depicts aged world leaders ruing what might have been, if they'd acted more decisively.

Four Ways to Break Through The Holiday Noise

Erica Salamida — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 13:18:44 -0500

Last year, I was working on a sustainability campaign around the holidays, and a TV producer challenged my client and me to come up with some green tips that haven’t been “done before.” You wouldn’t think that was such a tall order, but for a national TV outlet, it turns out nearly everything has been done before. LED Christmas lights? Nope. Unexpected ways to weatherproof your home? Over it. Some of the tips were truly different but too “off the wall” for a mainstream audience.

This Just In: The Boob-Tube, Not YouTube, Is Transforming the World

Kevin Randall — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 18:03:19 -0500

Facebook and Twitter Offer Businesses Opportunities and Challenges

Dan Macsai and Zachary Wilson — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:00:00 -0500

Mr. Social: Ashton Kutcher Plans to Be the Next New-Media Mogul

Ellen McGirt — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:00:00 -0500

I've walked into the middle of a swine flu outbreak.

Tequila Timeline: From Agave to the Worm

Mark Borden and David Lidsky — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:00:00 -0500

1600

Don Pedro Sánches de Tagle, "the father of tequila," starts the first commercial tequila factory, in what was then called Nueva Galicia (now Jalisco).

John Mackey's Whole Foods Vision to Reshape Capitalism

Danielle Sacks — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 13:00:00 -0500

Just to be clear, John Mackey isn't Moses. "It's not like you go up to the mountaintop and God talks to you: Here is your purpose -- execute," he says.

Cyber Monday: Marketing Myth No More?

Kit Eaton — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:05:18 -0500

It's Cyber Monday--Yay! What's that you say? "Nothing but a marketing myth designed to boost pre-Holiday sales?" And Black Friday is, what, a day when we're genetically predisposed to camping out in a 33-degree wintery mix for a midnight sale on Nerf cannons at Toys 'R' Us? It's all marketing. And while Cyber Monday may never be the new Black Friday, 2009's sales figures make it look a little more real.

The Design Thinking Lecture Series.

alfredo muccino — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 20:01:52 -0500

A few weeks ago I attended an event at the Thomson Reuters center in NY featuring Roger Martin,

Google Ads Is Not A Marketing Plan

David Lavenda — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:25:42 -0500

How do you get people to know they need your product or service?

Fierceness

Corey Blake — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:54:19 -0500

My big take away from today was an attribute that I have recently labeled about myself as impatience, but that my story guide Annie Hart redirected this morning as fierceness. As my business is growing and our authors and company are gaining more popularity, more and more people are contacting me to help them with their branding.